Re: CV Cityhood

Your July 19, 2023 story “CV Deserves to Become a City Says Supervisor” noted that “The 2002 report found that cityhood would be possible if Castro Valley initiated a transient occupancy tax (also known as a hotel tax) and an ongoing utility users’ tax.”

Castro Valley’s residents should remember that countywide voters from Livermore to Fremont to Albany voted to create those taxes on us here in Castro Valley, but rather than being controlled by us locally, the revenue went to the County. In other words, the county’s voters increased our taxes over which we had no control. Taxation without representation!

I also find it rich that a former EBMUD Director wrote a letter complaining that City Councilmembers would make “at least $8,400 each annually” while his own annual compensation at EBMUD was well over $16,000.

–Brian Foster, Castro Valley