In this section we present the specific lies contained in the survey that were told to the respondents and the what the actual truth is. When we asked for supporting documentation for these lies we were told by Betty Hughes, wife of Joe Hughes, that these statements were never intended to be truthful, but they were just "Hypothetical Arguments." What is she talking about? Here is her statement:
Again what is she talking about? This is suppose to be a survey to determine if there is support for a tax increase and not to determine how the respondents would react to various untrue statements. Here is the actual email sent by Betty Hughes: BettyHughesEmail. Note the questions asked below and her email in response. Remember, the tax payer paid $29K for the survey.
So lets start with the lies. These are not the order they were presented in the survey and see a copy of the survey in Part 1.
LIE #1 - The city has had NO money to obtain any additional officers over the last six years.
See Part 1 where this lie was completely refuted. The city had $20.5 surplus over the last six years and wasted many millions on top of that. The state-of-the-art technology is license plate readers. The officers go around town with these readers taking snap of citizens license plates. Many departments have these readers and the jury is still out of their effectiveness and there challenges that they violate privacy. We found no articles or any other documentation purporting there were situations where there were no officers available to respond to calls. The statement is just "scare tactics."
LIE #2 - The respondents were NOT told that the city's violent crime rate has plunged 40% since 2010. Instead the respondents were told this:
Ok. Remember we asked for support and got none, and we could not find any support online for this statement. And what is an "epidemic level" anyway?
But here is some interesting information obtained from the San Bernardino Sheriff's annual reports for 2015 and 2010 (see the information page for these reports)
2010
2015
For 2010 there were 6,699 crimes in the City of Highland and for 2015 there were 3,996 crimes. Here is the definition of part I and part II crimes. Part I crimes are violent crimes and Part II crimes are non violent crimes (DefinitionOfPartIandPartII). This means there was a 40% decrease in crime in the City of Highland between 2010 and 2015.
It is obvious telling the respondents that crime has decreased by 40% will NOT help sell a tax increase purported to be needed to pay for additional law enforcement. But the city wants the citizen's money by "hook or crook."
LIE #3 - Calls for Service are going through the roof! The respondents were told this crazy statement:
This is easy to debunk. See Lie #2 and the Sheriff's annual reports. For 2010 there were 38,145 calls for service and for 2015 there were 36,082. There is no where close to 50,000 calls for service and there was not a 25% increase.
In fact there was a 5.4% decrease. More lies.
LIE #4 - The state is taking the city's money! Here is the statement:
That would be terrible if true, but it is doubtful the city could stop it with a local initiative. The problem it is not true. When asked for support the state was taking the city's money, and we were actually provided support. The problem is the support showed that the money returned to the state was not the city's money! The Successor RDA had to return money that was NOT its money. The money was returned as a result of an audit and state demanded the money be returned. Here is Chuck "the cheese" Dantuono's email describing these amounts: DantuonoEmailReturnMoneyToState.
Here are the checks he refers to in his email:
Check_54956
Check_64825
Check_65727
Here is the page from the 2013 Comprehensive Financial Report (This is far, far into the "weeds"):
Here are the checks he refers to in his email:
Check_54956
Check_64825
Check_65727
Here is the page from the 2013 Comprehensive Financial Report (This is far, far into the "weeds"):
See the bottom. Two of the amounts agree to the checks. It was not the city's money that was return. End of Story. It's just another lie.
