Contra Costa Times (California)
DOLLARS AND SENSE — An assemblyman and a Contra Costa supervisor candidate were stung last week with allegations that they mixed public business with campaign cash.
In her debut press release, supervisor candidate Kris Hunt smacked challenger and Concord Mayor Susan Bonilla for accepting contributions from Concord Disposal and then voting yes on a garbage rate hike.
Bonilla told a Times reporter that the contributions had nothing to do with her vote. An independent consultant recommended the fee hike.
In response, Hunt says that Bonilla should have recused herself to avoid the
appearance of impropriety.
But Hunt, on leave as the chief of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association, revealed her politics when she called the garbage rate hike a “tax increase.”
Hunt knows better. A fee is what you pay for a service you use, such as garbage collection. A tax is what you pay for broad public services.
Meanwhile, Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg, ran afoul of a watchdog group when he co-sponsored a bill to delay auto insurance rate reforms. The watchdog group noted Canciamilla has accepted $95,000 in contributions from insurance firms during his political career.
Canciamilla called it a cheap shot and an over-reaction. The bill calls for an independent analysis of proposed rate reforms. Canciamilla says studies show the reforms would result in higher bills for suburban motorists in Contra Costa County.
“It’s a shift of the insurance burden from urban areas into suburban and rural communities, and I think we need to understand the consequences first,” he said. “We didn’t say ‘Don’t do it.’ We just said we want an independent study.”
But Doug Heller with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, says Canciamilla is citing flawed studies and doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
The reforms, he says, would require insurance companies to base rates primarily on motorists’ driving records rather than zip codes. Insurance companies, he says, have fought for years to keep the current method because it allows them to cherry-pick the customers they want through pricing.
“What Canciamilla is not telling you is that under the current system, drivers in Concord and Antioch pay more for their insurance than drivers in Walnut Creek,” he said. “Bad drivers pay less than drivers with perfect records because of where they live.”
What’s really going on, Heller says, is that insurance firms and lawmakers are stalling until Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi leaves office at the end of the year. (Garamendi is running for lieutenant governor.)
