I totally agree with you ocrenter. I’ve found in life that the vast majority of the people out there are financially clueless. As well, they only think about today/tomorrow/next week. They don’t really project and think out into the long-term. Especially here in San Diego where many people kind of have the “live for today” attitude.
PUSD is fortunate that most of the property owners are almost “financially retarded”. (and no offense to the mentally disabled). These PUSD homeowners are also to blame for these ridiculous capital appreciation bonds. They can blame the Board but they also share in the blame for voting for such a horrible thing. Sometimes 1+1 really does = 2.
What the PUSD is simply banking on is homeowners continuing to be clueless as always and just keep paying these CFD’s. After all, most don’t even have ANY clue how long they are for, what the scheduled pay off date is, what the interest rate is on them or really ANY details at all. All they know is they see it on their property tax bill each year and they pay it each year.
Heck, I’d venture to guess that most PUSD homeowners don’t even have any clue what the APR is on their credit cards! LOL.[/quote]
If I recall, I don’t think PUSD residents actually voted for the capital appreciation bonds. I think how it went down was they voted against further tax increases, and the PUSD board had to go out and find creative financing to complete the projects after the vote. How the board members justified it was very passive aggressive: aka, voters wanted the improvements, they refused to pay for it with higher taxes, so we were left with no choice.
What I find outrageous is the cost of these public funded projects. $150 million for Del Norte High? Hey, but that looked like a total bargain for the $1 billion for Palomar Medical Center. and remember, even at $1 billion they still ran out of money to build the maternity ward.
btw, I’m guilty of your last example. I have no idea what the APR is for my credit cards. 🙂 but then again, we are the worse type of customers for the credit card companies as we never keep a balance for them to make money off us.
