The San Rafael City Council will hold a public hearing on July 15, 2019 regarding the proposed increase in the Point San Pedro Road Median Landscape District assessment fee for the 2019/20 fiscal year. This proposed increase has been developed between the City and the Pt. San Pedro Coalition’s Roadway Committee and is fully supported by our committee. This hearing will be an opportunity for District residents to share their comments regarding this issue with their elected representatives.
Details on the history of the Median Assessment District, how fees are calculated and what is being done to maintain the medians can be found in the Coalition’s Roadway Committee Library in a May 2019 Roadway Committee report titled “Pt. San Pedro Road Median Landscaping District Report as of May 2019“.
Below is a condensed description of that longer, more complete document.
Last year, the Point San Pedro Road Coalition’s Roadway Committee and City staff developed a plan that was intended to enable the Point San Pedro Road Median Assessment District to be self-sustaining within three years. That plan proposed annual assessment fee increases of $4.50 (in 2018/19), $4.75 (in 2019/20) and $5.00 (in 2020/21). Last year, the $4.50 fee increase was adopted by the San Rafael City Council. The resultant 2018/19 assessment was $52.77 for debt service and $31.21 for annual maintenance. Note that the debt service amount is fixed and essentially unchanged year-to-year and is not assessed to parcels that chose to prepay their debt obligation when the Assessment District was first formed.
This month, the City received new contract bids for maintaining the medians for the coming fiscal year 2019/20. The low bid was $20,000 above what the City is paying its current median maintenance contractor. A provision of this bid allows the City to extend the contract for up to two two-year terms thereby providing cost control over the next five years that is lacking in the current contract.
Accordingly, the Roadway Committee and the City has had to reassess its financial plan for moving forward. In order to cover this additional cost, we are now proposing to reduce the landscaping rehabilitation and repair portion of the budget by 50% ($10,000) and increase the current assessment by $12.90. This entire increase is to be used to fund only maintenance activities. The result would be an assessment of $52.78 for debt service and $44.10 for annual maintenance.
While this is a larger-than-normal increase for a single year, it is allowable under provisions of the Assessment District legislation. This is due to the fact that there was only one increase in the assessment in the past five years. The assessment District legislation allows for the accrued unused increases to be applied to future assessments. In a sense, they allow for the assessment to “catch up” with what could have been assessed in past years. This proposed rate hike of $12.90 will utilize all these accrued, unused increases. In 2020/21, the maximum rate increase can only be 3% of the 2019/20 assessment.
I think we can all agree that the landscaping of the Point San Pedro Road medians has greatly enhanced the appearance of the Point San Pedro Peninsula. I want to acknowledge the work that the Roadway Committee’s Median Maintenance Subcommittee Chair Jim Dickson and his committee members have done during the last four years working closely with City staff with the goal of ensuring that the medians are properly maintained at a reasonable cost.
I welcome any comments or questions you may have regarding the above. Please email me at kevin@sprcoalition.org by Friday, May 31and I will get back to you.
Kevin Hagerty
Chairman, Roadway Committee
Point San Pedro Road Coalition