It is tricky to get bureaucrats to understand something when their income depends on not understanding it. The Council of Malibu Curmudgeons backed me into a corner last week to converse about Malibu Measure D, which has been placed on the April 2008 City of Malibu Ballot. What the multitude of the curious wanted to know was what all the fuzzy dialogue in paragraph 3 of the City Attorney’s Impartial Analysis of Measure D was about as it stated that there was a “senior exemption” to the City’s Utility tax. Is there an exemption? None of the gathering had ever heard of one.
Yes! Under the City of Malibu’s Utility Users Tax Exemption Program City Code # 3.28.060, a Malibu resident is exempt from the Users Tax: by applying or asking questions to/of the Administrative Services Department of the City of Malibu at 310.456.2489, ext. 223; you are a head of household; you are 62 years of age or older; you are receiving supplemental Social Security benefits; you are a Malibu resident; you have a Malibu utility bill with your name on it; you are a tightfisted Curmudgeon.
If I failed to remember anything about the above, attribute it to my advancing years or censure Publisher Arnold York who got me to investigate this query because Publisher York (for once) did not have an answer. As Mr. York would say, “The best measure of Malibuites’ honesty isn’t their request for a utility tax exemption. It’s the zero adjust on their bathroom scale.
And that is all I have to say.
Thomas Fakehany