San Mateo County Exposed: Follow the Money
The Rigged Game, The Shocking Spending, and the Future for Working Families
Independent • Volunteer-Led • Numbers-Based • For Working Families
The Big Picture – What We Are Paying San Mateo County total spending (2025–2026): $4.9 billion
= $6,447 per household every year Property taxes collected: $4.1 billion
= $14,643 per household on average We also receive billions more in state and federal funding every year. Daily Family Costs (2025–2026)
- Average rent: $3,591 per month ($43,092 per year)
- Median home price: $1.53 million
- Utilities (PG&E + water + trash): $3,000 – $4,500 per year
- Health insurance + out-of-pocket: $8,000 – $15,000 per year
- Gas tax: 61.2 cents per gallon (highest in the United States)
Working families are paying tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxes and rising costs — yet many core problems keep getting worse.
The Rigged Real Estate Game – Only Selected Can Play. This is not a free market. It is a controlled game where only insiders win big.
- Hillsdale Mall redevelopment: Most of the indoor mall is being demolished for 1,392+ new housing units + millions of sq ft of life-science labs and offices.
- California Forever: San Mateo billionaires quietly bought 60,000+ acres in nearby Solano for a new “walkable city.” Early deals were at ~$15k per acre.
- Suspicious bidding tactics: Properties selling for $6 or $10 million above the next highest offer in secluded high-end areas. Some owners control multiple properties in the same block and appear to coordinate value inflation. After the sales, assessed values jump dramatically, creating instant paper wealth for the insiders.
Median home price: $1.53 million
Median household income: ~$156,000 Most working families cannot afford the “average” home here. The luxury boom benefits the top 5–10% (tech/biotech investors and connected developers), while everyone else gets priced out or forced into dependency.
Shocking Spending vs Real Results Mental Health & Youth Programs
- Board of Supervisors approves $50+ million per year = $179 per household
- 454 missing children reports in San Mateo County in 2025 (many tied to mental health crises)
- Autism diagnosis rate now 1 in 31 children nationally — local parents report rising behavioral and learning issues
Homelessness
- California spent $24 billion (2019–2024) on homelessness programs.
- San Mateo County share: hundreds of millions.
- Unsheltered population in the county still rose from ~1,250 (2017) to ~2,130 (2024).
Government Compensation
- County salaries: $797 million
- Benefits & pensions: $270+ million
- Total compensation: Over $1.067 billion annually = $1,423 per resident per year just for government payroll
Despite these massive numbers, families are leaving, kids are struggling, and the middle class is being squeezed.
Shocking Activities & Suspicious Patterns
- Government partnering with gangs: A 2026 Long Beach mayoral candidate openly called on “all 55 gang leaders” to meet at City Hall and help make the city “ICE-free.”
- Massive fraud: $7 billion confirmed in California fraud. One man stole $23 million from homeless programs for luxury cars and mansions. One LA doctor billed $120 million in a single year.
- Empty centers & ghost programs: Funding going to empty “education centers” and questionable contracts while real problems grow.
- Open borders enabling chaos: Sanctuary policies + massive Medi-Cal fraud tied to immigration networks.
The pattern is the same: chaos is created or tolerated, then billions more taxpayer money is poured in with little accountability — while insiders and connected players benefit.
The Future This Path Creates for Our Children & GrandchildrenIf nothing changes:
- Most average working families will be priced out of owning a home in the county where they grew up.
- More children will grow up in a high-cost, medicalized environment with lifelong dependency on drugs and systems.
- The middle class will continue shrinking while the top 5–10% thrive on the rigged game.
- Your kids may have to leave the Bay Area entirely to afford a normal life.
This is not progress. This is a system that extracts maximum money from working families while delivering worse daily life and a bleaker future for the next generation.
Rights We Are Losing
- State mandates (RHNA) force thousands of new dense housing units on cities — overriding local voter decisions.
- Schools and county programs expand certain youth services with limited parental notification in some cases.
- Billions in spending decided by the Board of Supervisors with complex budgets that most residents never see.
- Election and voting rules that reduce local accountability.
Your local voice is being steadily replaced by state mandates, big developer influence, and distant bureaucracy.
What We Are Doing – San Mateo County DOGE by We The People
- Track county and city spending
- File California Public Records Act (CPRA) requests
- Compare budgets vs real results
- Publish plain-language summaries for residents
- Focus only on numbers and accountability — no politics, no ideology
Freedom Open Mic is our weekly space for regular people to speak honestly about what’s hitting their families. Join Us
No pay. No party. No ideology.
Just citizens demanding transparency and accountability. Next Freedom Open Mic
Title: “DOGE” email to KingdomOnEarthBuilders@gmail.com We the People of San Mateo County
Transparency • Accountability • Real Results for Working Families