The petate of the dead

On Tuesday, Brawley voters will face the challenge of continuing to pay the (updated) tax on public services such as water, sewer, garbage collection, cable television, internet and several more. For this election, voters will decide if the 4 percent charge will be again expanded in scope and extended. Brawley is the only city in the Valley that collects this tax from its residents.

As on previous occasions when the measure has been presented to voters, the authorities (including city staff ) have pushed a yes vote through fear with Halloween-inspired tales. According to official arguments, a series of services, including public safety, entertainment and cultural services would be in danger if citizens decide to vote against the measure. As they say in Mexico, they scare with the dead man’s petate (the petate is a mat made with woven palm parts that were used by the indigenous Mexicans to lie down or sleep, or even to place dead people).

The problem for the city and its authorities is that the funds raised through the tax represent about one in every five dollars that the local government receives every year. To date, it has become the fourth largest source of revenue for Brawley. By comparison, 22 percent of city funds come from property tax.

If Measure U is approved, the funds raised will increase to $2.5 million annually, which is equivalent to an increase of 31.5 percent, thanks to the fact telecommunications services would become eligible for the tax.

According to promoters of the measure, this tax has allowed the city to maintain the local bureaucracy, as well as several of the services it provides.

For instance, it helps the city pay 14 of its top officials salaries that exceed $100,000 annually and another nine at least $ 90,000 a year.

The authorities affirm that, if the proposal is rejected at the polls, chaos and anarchy would practically come (including zombies perhaps), since response times of first responders would increase, while recreational and cultural services, among others, would be affected, as well as the infrastructure.

However, despite the contribution of citizens, the city has continued to have homicides and robberies, while services such as the library were interrupted by the pandemic.

For now, at least the Brawley Public Safety Employees Association has supported the proposal, as has Councilman George Nava, who on social media affirms that he is against the charging of taxes – with the exception of this.

However, this time, unlike the other seven times the measure has been supported by popular vote, things are very different. The pandemic has caused millions of households across the country to suffer real anguish at the closure of businesses, causing a high level of unemployment that, to date, has not fully recovered. This, in turn, has caused American households to see their income shrink. All this should be added to the inflation caused by the shortage and the demand for various items given the problems in the international supply chain of goods and the closure of companies due to SARSCoV-2.

According to supporters of Measure U, the tax represents only about 20 dollars per household. If the math doesn’t fail me, that’s about $240 a year, which in turn represents dozens of gallons of milk, loaves of bread, pounds of meat or packages of eggs. Perhaps for many the figure does not represent a major problem when it comes to paying the tax, especially for the satisfactions that the provision of services covers, but for people who have low wages and who live in precarious conditions who can hardly meet their needs, that amount represents a significant drain on family finances.

In addition, there is the result of November 2020, when the tax (which is due to end in May), was rejected by 70 percent of the 8,000 voters who turned out for the presidential elections.

I think the best thing that city authorities could do is learn how their neighbors manage to maintain threatened services without charging their residents a utility tax, and wait maybe a couple of years for the economic situation to improve before (maybe) resuming this tax. They could also create a colorful altar of the dead in honor of the 30-year-old tax, since the elections will be held on Nov. 2.