40 people have so far applied for their Measure J refunds – don’t forget, time is limited on these refunds

12 Feb

I wrote to Frank Fields over in the city Finance office and asked him how many people have applied for refunds so far – he says,  40 people.

I want to be happy about that, but when I figure, how many people get AT&T, which is the most popular carrier, and when I think about how many people voted against Measure J, I just figure there ought to be more people applying for this refund.

But, it’s a real pain in the ass to get all your bills together – or, as Jim pointed out – PRINT THEM ONTO PAPER, if you get electronic billing – then, either carry them in during business hours (yes, your work hours), OR, stuff all that tree pulp into an envelope and mail them in, yadda, yadda, yadda. 

So, I wrote back to Frank, and I cc’d Brian Nakamura and Mary Goloff, asking for that electronic application that Jim and Rick came up with at our last meeting:

well great, we must be getting to people. I’ll do everything I can to get the information out there and we’ll see if we can get 100, maybe more. Thousands of people voted against Measure J, and I’m guessing thousands in town get AT&T, which we know to have collected the tax. According to my research, AT&T is the most popular carrier.  There’s been a lot of money collected improperly here over the years, so, I hope the city will go further in noticing this refund and returning as much of this money as possible, it’s really the right thing to do. 

I think we need to allow electronic applications. I have friends who get all their bills electronically, that’s the new fad,  – save the planet, right?  I think a lot of people do it. My friend Jim keeps his billing in a folder on his desktop – he could send this in with an e-mail application, paper-free, no trees harmed in the processing of the application. It does seem silly for people who have used electronic billing to have to print out all those bills to get the refund, or their UT rebate, for that matter. 
 
I think this is how we should do all Utility Tax refund/rebate applications in future, so I’m forwarding this message along to Brian Nakamura and council members. 
 

thanks for your work in this matter Frank, Juanita Sumner

I neglected to ask Frank, what was the average refund amount, but I’ll get back to him later and also ask again how many refund applications. I don’t mean to be a nuisance, but judging from the number of searches I get regarding this refund, I think plenty of other people are interested too.  Here’s that application link again:

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