I am a man of principles and integrity despite the fact my political opponents attempt to put me down for my stands on the issues that are relevant to my two special interest groups, the students and the taxpayers. I have confidence in myself and I stand up for what I believe. For that reason, I will never shy away from an explanation, a civilized public debate and an apology if warranted.
Regarding my property taxes here are the facts. I live in Davis since 1978. In 1980 when the School Board proposed the parcel taxes, I did not question them. I voted for them and I paid them. So having paid the parcel taxes and my property taxes for 36 years, I would think even to my political enemies show a record of compliance.
Why late this last year? I have a disabled daughter (Sara) whose medical bills are over $10,000 a month, I gladly pay huge health insurance premiums, to be able to support her. Last year in July, my brother (Alberto) who is also disabled for whom I am his only support, suffered a fall and originated and unexpected $12,000 additional medical bills. Contrary to the accusations, I managed my personal money very well and gave priority to my family, opening myself to pay much higher property taxes because I paid the County a lot more money as I had to pay interest. This way I covered both of my obligations. I am not complaining nor looking from sympathy from anybody; I am explaining it since the public is interested in my personal finances. Instead of taking the position that this is private, because it is, I am doing it because this is not an issue for the election or has to do with improving Davis schools. It is being used as a personal attack to distract the positive momentum of my campaign.
With a few exceptions, when I explain to people the 3T’s of my campaign, TECHNOLOGY, TAXPAYERS AND TEACHING, I get. “You have my vote”. This issue is a naked attempt to dampen the momentum and support I have in the community because I am the only candidate that is different, has the right qualifications in education, the only one teaching STEM careers, the only one that stands for fiscal responsibility, the only one that can communicate fluently with 18% of parents and students in this district, the only one that stands for change and is not leading looking sideways. You take your pick of any other three and you will get a repeat of the current school board, nothing will change. For that reason I am asking my supporters to vote ONLY for me as this will increase my chances of winning a seat on the School Board.
Here is my property tax record showing I do not owe back taxes, so that everyone is satisfied. You can pay your taxes later than the deadline, but with interest and if necessary you can get into a payment plan and both of these are OK with the county. I happened to be in the County administration building filing the Form 460 at the time and I just went upstairs in the same building to pay them while I was there. Is there anything wrong with this?
There is a positive aspect of this disclosure because it will motivate your readers to look at their tax bills in detail and see that what I am saying about the School Board treating the taxpayers as an ATM machine is actually true. Take a look at my bill and you will see there are eighth assessments between the School Board and the City of Davis. It is time to reflect on this, examine where the money is going and whether it has had an impact on ALL students or has made a miniscule difference.
I want to address other aspects of the personal attack. Mr. Greenwald says he acted on a tip. In my article “Granda Answers the Peterson Question”, I answered a question the Vanguard had posed to me about the issue of Petersen’s conflict of interest, and it wasn’t an “unprovoked attack on fellow candidates Barbara Archer and Madhavi Sunder.” What I said about their conflict of interest has been discussed at length in the Vanguard and I believe many understood my message very clear. Conflict of interest is NOT OK even if that comes from Madhavi Sunder. In my article I criticized Freddie Oakley, the County Clerk for endorsing Madhavi Sunder using her position as an elected public official. As an individual, she has the right to endorse and vote for whoever she wants, but the problem here is that she is the elected official in charge of counting Madhavi Sunders votes and mine. Using the County Clerk’s office, the very official who is supposed to be neutral, to promote one of the candidates is not OK. It questions the integrity of the election results and I am saying it before the election. Now the fact is that Ms. Oakley is in charge of the County records, with full access to the property tax records, raises the question whether she originated this in retaliation for bringing it up her conflict of interest. Whoever it is please have the courage and honesty to come forward.
I noticed this yesterday when I pulled up Granda’s property taxes online, the same ones he shows in this article. Nowhere does it show when Granda paid his defaulted taxes, only that he has a balance of 0.00. I’m curious, so if one calls the county offices is it normal policy that they’re given more info than what is registered online about someone else’s taxes?
You are correct, the date of payment does not show up online. However, they were able to give me the information when I asked over the phone, I assume they have access to more information than the public is given on the web.
David, the open/transparent public access to the computer systems in the County Administration Building provides more information than the web accessible version. From my experience, when a person calls asking for information beyond the amount provided over the internet, the people o the phone helping you are accessing the same information a member of the public has open/transparent access to if that member of the public goes to the County offices.
NOTE: I learned all of the above when, during the Mace 391 debates, I was researching parcel ownership of the lands associated with potential ag land / open space conservation under the provisions of Measure O.
obviously no one wants to state the obvious, granda’s explanation is missing a few parts.
“Why late this last year? ”
this would have been a great explanation on tuesday. but on tuesday his explanation was: “I am surprised that Mr. David Greenwald will go down the same wrong path. For the record, I have filed my campaign Form 460 and contrary to what he says, I do not owe back taxes.”
now he just admitted that david was correct, that he did owe back taxes. so yes, he explains why he owes back taxes and maybe we can empathize with his explanation, but he does not explain why on tuesday, he made a patent denial, calling david on the wrong path and stating that contrary to david’s claims, he does not owe back taxes.
this is a disgrace. and he keeps digging the hole deeper. the saying goes, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. you stop digging here by admitting that you were dishonest, that you screwed up, and that you’re sorry for attempting to mislead the voters.
I understand legally Mr. Granda’s property tax documents are public record, but it still seems that a line was crossed by the Vanguard here, forcing Mr. Granda to divulge his personal life. Lost some respect here…
Makes me wonder how quickly you would act on anonymous “tips” about the personal lives of the candidates you support…
Me too Grant, makes me wonder too……………
Strange comment since I learned about in mid-September, looked it up on October 1, and didn’t report on it until October 27.
Point is you still went down that road. But as Grant wonders, would you have gone down that road for a candidate that you support?
Well here was what I wrote yesterday: “At that time, we decided that, given the relatively small amount of money at issue, there really was not a story here – other than perhaps to illustrate that Mr. Granda’s claim that the school district’s failure to manage its money was a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.
“When Mr. Granda decided to go negative on two of his opponents, that seemed the appropriate time to call him out on this.”
So I was not planning to use this information, but given that Jose Granda felt the need to attack two of his opponents on what he called a conflict of interest, it seemed reasonable to point out his own contradictions. Would I have done it for someone I support? You bet. I try to call stuff out whether I like or dislike the person involved.
“Conflict of Interest” NOT EQUAL TO “Contradictions”. Isn’t that what you dismiss as ‘conflation’, David? Yet you say that you didn’t ‘share’ the Granda contradiction, until he claimed a COI on two of your pet candidates (who also supply you with advertising revenue).
The County Clerk/Recorder and/or Assessor’s Office “connections” to an endorsement are factually correct, but laughable as to being inappropriate by any involved. I believe Ms Oakley’s “office” should not have included in the candidate’s listing of the endorsement, but no biggie. Ms Oakley gave her endorsement as an individual, not as the head of a County department. I say laughable for many reasons… she does not count the ballots herself, she neither sets property tax assessments nor personally decides what public information is shared on any individual. If someone wants to challenge Ms Oakley’s behavior, there’s always asking for a Grand (not ‘Granda’) Jury investigation, but am 99.99999999997% sure that it would be easily shown to be meritless.
I don’t understand why David and many others have treated this as a bone with bloody meat on it, but mature, thinking people would have laughed at most of it, and let it pass. Tells you something…
The other point is that Granda’s response gave this legs that it didn’t have otherwise.
Here was the context it was raised:
And that was the very final sentence. Ryan Kelly raised the issue among the 91 comments focusing on the fact that we reported the tax issue for Granda, a candidate for public office, but not Harrington who was fighting against the water project. The bulk of the 91 comments focused on the homophobic issue.
I have occasionally had fines at the Davis Public Library. I wonder if that would damage my viability were I to consider becoming a candidate and wanted to embrace a platform of fiscal responsibility.
For the record, I’m very sorry about the fines. I will try to do better in the future. 😉
“For the record, I’m very sorry about the fines. I will try to do better in the future.”
imagine if granda had said that rather than implying he did no wrong? this would have died on tuesday.
Actually it would have been stillborn.
Oh, Geez. You just reminded me of that overdue book.
I can see the annoyance caused by the person in charge of counting the votes publicly endorsing one of the candidates. While I believe in the integrity of Freddie Oakley, I think she should refrain from a public endorsement using the title of her Office.
Totally agree with ryankelly.
Why does it matter if the person in charge of counting the votes publicly endorses someone?
It has the appearance of possible bias. Better to avoid even that appearance. We have an abundance of governmental mistrust without volunteering to add to it.
Michelle wrote:
> Why does it matter if the person in charge of counting
> the votes publicly endorses someone?
The same reason that the umpire in the World Series should not wear a Giants hat… because it looks bad…
I do not see this as an issue about Mr. Granda’s taxes or when or why he paid them in the manner that he did.
I consider this a matter of the consequences of negative campaigning. In his explanatory post Mr. Granda states that his was not an “unprovoked attack” but merely a response to a direct question. My view on this is quite different from his.
1. It would have been entirely possible to state his position clearly without specifically naming his opponents as examples.
2. His position as a candidate for public office makes it a totally different matter to bring up these examples regardless of how many times similar issues may have been debated on a blog frequently by people who have no personal stake in the outcome of the election at hand. Mr. Granda would appear not to understand fully that just the fact that he has something at stake personally ( a seat on the school board) means that his negative comments are in effect a form of “conflict of interest”.
3. I personally do not like the fact that Mr. Granda’s personal finances became public. However, I believe that he himself opened the door to this public exposure by his choice of self promotion by stating that he is the only fiscally responsible candidate and his choice to attack other candidates when his point could have been made in other ways.
“Would I have done it for someone I support? You bet. I try to call stuff out whether I like or dislike the person involved.”
So when will you be publishing your investigation into the personal finances of the other candidates?
Grant Acosta
None of the other candidates have made the claim that they are the only fiscally responsible candidate. If any of the other candidates had made the comment that the others were fiscally irresponsible but they were not, then I think that you would have cause for investigation of their finances. Otherwise, why would you ?
What’s important in all the above is that Granda might be the only candidate who would take the needs of disabled students seriously.
In light of Marsh, that would be a huge improvement for the whole community.