San Diego County Taxpayers Association slams Poway USD for bonds that were endorsed by the San Diego County Taxpayers Association

U-T:

The San Diego County Taxpayers Association on Thursday issued its annual awards for bad government — and good.

[...]

The group gave its top award, the Grand Golden Fleece, to the Poway Unified School District for a $105 million bond issue that will cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion to repay. The unfavorable rate structure was exposed by former reporter and blogger Joel Thurtell of Michigan last year.

$105 million that will cost $1 billion? Who would approve of such idiocy? Oh. That's right, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association:

The bond also had considerable cachet, thanks to a coveted endorsement from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association. Indeed, association President Lani Lutar’s name was first on a list of five local dignitaries named on the ballot as supporting the bond.

(Full ballot argument with Lutar's signature here.)

The San Diego County Taxpayers Association represents developers and crony capitalist interests, not taxpayers. It is a pay-to-play organization, and its board and executive committee are a who's who of people doing business with government agencies.  No doubt some of them expected to get lucrative construction contracts from the Poway school bond.  Lutar herself is a government insider with no taxpayer advocacy experience but plenty of experience with unaccountable big-money government bureaucracy SANDAG and the crony capitalist convention center project.

But giving the Golden Fleece Award to Poway for a bond the SDCTA themselves endorsed? I hereby pronounce the SDCTA the winner of the Golden Gonads Award.