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HomeMy WebLinkAbout091719 - Minutes - Study Session CITY OF DIAMOND BAR CITY COUNCIL STUDY SESSION SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 STUDY SESSION: M/Herrera called the Study Session to order at 5:55 p.m. in Room CC-8 of the South Coast Air Quality Management District/Government Center, 21865 Copley Drive, Diamond Bar, CA 91765. ROLL CALL: Council Members Chou, Low, Lyons, MPT/Tye, M/Herrera Staff Present: Dan Fox, City Manager; Ryan McLean, Assistant City Manager; Dave DeBerry, City Attorney; David Liu, Public Works Director; Ryan Wright, Parks and Recreation Director; Greg Gubman, Community Development Director; Ken Desforges, IS Manager; Dianna Honeywell, Finance Director; Marsha Roa, Public Information Director; Amy Haug, Human Resources and Risk Management, and Anthony Santos, Assistant to the City Manager. ► LIGHTING AND LANDSCAPING ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS 39 &41 OPTIONS. CM/Fox acknowledged general disappointment with the outcome of the Prop 218 elections for Districts 39 and 41. As a result, this matter is being revisited while it is fresh in everyone's minds on the City's remaining options to get direction from the City Council to move forward. In discussing this matter with the City's Assessment Engineer, it is not uncommon for these propositions to not pass the first time around, particularly when dealing with a short timeframe. However, with the resounding 78 and 74 percent opposed, it is probably something the City will not be able to overcome with community outreach alone. Tonight's study session will focus on options covering both districts generically and a discussion about District No. 41 options, after which C/Low will recuse herself and the remainder of the Council will engage in District 39 discussions. CM/Fox stated that each district is heavily subsidized by the City's General Fund. Based on this year's budget it accounts for a budget deficit of about $175,000 for District No. 39 and about $150,000 budget deficit for District No. 41. Options that staff has been able to identify include the following. Option 1) Reduction of service. Staff would need to explore a variety of ways for reducing the maintenance levels for such things as watering, areas of slopes, etc. The goal would be to stay within available resources for each district and rely less on the General Fund. Option 2) Return the maintenance responsibilities to the individual property owners. The idea of the assessment district is for those assessments to E � i _ SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 PAGE 2 CC STUDY SESSION ' pay for maintenance of private property from which neighborhood residents receive benefit. MPT/Tye asked if maintenance responsibilities would be returned to individual property owners and CM/Fox responded that in some cases, yes. MPT/Tye said that in case it is not, are there Homeowner's Associations and CM/Fox responded that there are Homeowner's Associations on the books. However, staff does not know whether these associations are "active" or not, but these responsibilities would go back to somebody according to the Tax Assessor. As part of that, whether it be service reductions or looking at dissolving the district, there would need to be outreach to the community to tell them that this is what the City is doing next. This is the plan and the City wants to hear from the affected residents. C/Lyons asked why the City would want to hear from residents who already spoke loudly about what they thought. CM/Fox felt it would be helpful to at least understand their thoughts about priorities ' and if there were areas in these districts where they felt service could be reduced � which would offer an opportunity to build some consensus within those i, neighborhoods so that when those changes occurred, the Council Chamber would not be full of angry people. MPT/Tye said he likes the aspect of trying to "nip it in the bud", but it concerns him that the plan is to ask people for their input on how to do this because he feels that what the City might end up with is a horse that looks like a camel that was put together by committee. CM/Fox agreed this process would have to be managed and the City would need to be careful about how it was messaged to the residents. It would be easier if the City were dissolving the district because residents could be told that the district was going back to them and there might be some things the City would have to do with utilities or meters and so forth to align it to the affected parties to give them time to consider how they would manage the district. MPT/Tye asked if staff knows what $175,000 in District No. 39 would accomplish and CM/Fox responded that this would be the next step if the Council wanted to look getting into that level of detail on what the City could do and what it would potentially look like. Some of that is obviously water and utilities and if things are not watered they will die, whether native or otherwise. There are weed abatement and safety requirements and in the case of District No. 39, it contains some City- owned property and continued maintenance and usability of City assets would have to be prioritized accordingly. MPT/Tye wanted to know if maintenance of the pocket parks would fall to the Homeowner's Association if the district was returned to them. CM/Fox responded that the City would own the pocket parks and would be responsible for maintaining the public property. District No. 39 is unique in this � � I - � SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 PAGE 3 CC STUDY SESSION respect in that the City actually has public property that it has to maintain that is partially covered by assessment district revenue. PWD/Liu responded to CM/Fox that total pocket park maintenance is about $100,000 a year of the $329,000 collected. MPT/Tye said that it would be helpful to know how far$250,000 would go in District No. 39. However, he is not in favor of asking everybody what they want to see handled or prioritized and again, he does not believe the City should spend another nickel out of the General Fund. CM/Fox said that with the other option (3) identified, the City could try another Prop 218 ballot following community outreach. He felt that if staff began hearing where there was support for either Option 1 or 2 or, if they didn't really mean it, the City would benefit from outreach and understanding whether there was buyer's remorse. And of course, another option is maintaining the status quo which is not something the City can afford to do long term because it would continue to rely on the General Fund to address any operating deficit and at some point it begins to turn into a gift of public funds where the City is maintaining other people's properties. CM/Fox said that staff is recommending that for District No. 39 the Council consider looking at service reductions with a priority focused on City-owned properties and weed abatement requirements and, pursue dissolving District No. 41 which is 100 percent privately owned property with Homeowner Associations. CM/Fox asked Council to focus on District No. 41. C/Low asked for the map that shows which parcels in both districts are adjacent to slope and maintenance properties. She said it would seem to her that if one is a landowner with properties that abut land that require service, it would be to their benefit to vote for the assessment because it would cost less in the long run over the landowner having to do it with his own money. On the other hand, if the property were not abutting public land, that person would vote against the proposition because it would reduce their assessment to zero. So, if the City got rid of the district, more people would have an assessment of zero and there would be a disproportionate amount of people that would have a very high assessment. If the districts were kept as is and the engineer looked at just the homes and properties that need service, could the City legally create a sub-district within the LLD to be District No. 41A for example, rather than No. 41, or nothing which would put some folks in both 41 and 41A and use the subsidy/deficit information to move that into the affected homeowner properties in 41A, for example, to see what that comes up. C/Lyons said the argument is that everyone in the neighborhood gets to enjoy the beauty of the landscaping even if it does not abut their property. C/Low agreed SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 PAGE 4 CC STUDY SESSION that this is the rationale for keeping the district as it is which means that some people in the district would pay more, but not as much if there was no district at all. CM/Fox said that staff would have to check with the City's Assessment Engineer to see if something like that is possible or has ever been done. What he is hearing is that everyone maintains their $220 assessment and for the people that actually have some of those properties that the City maintains, the subsidy would be spread across those properties which is a smaller subset of assessments. This means that people would be asked to potentially vote for a higher assessment and C/Low said "correct" because they would end up with an even higher assessment if the district were to be dissolved and it would essentially be to their benefit to vote for that. � CM/Fox said if the district is dissolved, there is no more assessment or if it is HOA maintained, dues may be increased to an even greater degree. C/Low said "exactly"—that is the selling point. And by forming a sub district, everyone outside of that sub district helps those in the sub district by keeping them in the district. CA/Berry said that part of the Engineer's Report is to assign benefit to each property and the assessment is to relate to that benefit. So, if an engineer was willing to issue a report along those lines, it could be done. It would not necessarily mean creating a sub-district, the assessments for the interior properties would stay the same and the assessments for the properties abutting areas that were actually maintained would go up. The down side is that the higher the assessments go for the other property owners, the ballots are weighted and if they are thinking that if they don't vote for this the district gets dissolved and now the property owner has to maintain it themselves, so they may vote for it. In essence what will happen is the voting on the perimeter properties will count heavier than the voting on the interior. And, if the assessment is not going up on your property, would you vote? So in C/Low's hypothetical if it stays the same or goes down would people vote at all or would it be just the people affected by an increase who would vote? This is something that would have to be considered. C/Chou asked could the City potentially limit its service to the money collected and spend more money off site where it is maintaining the assessment, essentially spending more time on areas that are more visible and spending less time on the homeowner's areas. He is concerned that if this went to a vote it would not pass. C/Low said that what C/Chou is proposing is a reduction of service with a reallocation, which is why she is suggesting that voting would be limited to those who actually get the benefit because they would understand what they are voting for. She believes that most residents have not thought it through to that point of understanding the options. And if they did understood and they were an affected homeowner, they would probably vote in favor. ' � � I - 1 SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 PAGE 5 CC STUDY SESSION C/Lyons said that language would have to be put in the ballot and the last time it was presented, the City was not able to put into the ballot the dire consequences that would befall the residents were they not to vote yes. CA/DeBerry said that cities could provide ballot information in a "fact sheet" but could not advocate one way or the other. MPT/Tye believed that when people saw the figure there was nothing beyond that to convince them to vote in favor. C/Chou said that his concern is that once the district is dissolved the City cannot collect the parcel tax and a year or two from now the City would be back to asking for an increase in the parcel tax. CA/DeBerry said that once the district is gone it cannot be recreated unless property owners voted for it. C/Lyons asked if the service was reduced to whatever was being collected would the homeowners come back in two years and say yes, we want you to do more and we will pay for it? CA/DeBerry said he could not say because the opposition was so high. If there were a single HOA that offered universal conversation it might work. C/Chou felt that if District No. 41 were dissolved it would be a steep learning curve for the homeowners to get their act together and it might end up costing the City more to maintain the area. His suggestion would be to keep the district, maintain the assessment and lower the service level and allocate more assessment resources only to the areas that are visible with no subsidy from the General Fund. M/Herrera said she liked C/Chou's suggestion. MPT/Tye asked if it would be feasible to adopt a program similar to the street rehab program by focusing on one area each year. CM/Fox said if there is consensus for District 41, staff will need to come up with a plan to figure out what the slopes are and what the costs are and how it can be balanced out to spend only the assessment resource. As an example, trees do not get trimmed every year, but every other year. MPT/Tye asked if either District No. 39 or 41 were using recycled water and if not, could they? PWD/Liu responded they are not currently using recycled water and CM/Fox said staff would have to look at the utility costs, etc. C/Lyons asked what percentage of District 41 is covered by an active HOA and CM/Fox said only the multi-family condominium project which has a very small interior slope. � SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 PAGE 6 CC STUDY SESSION C/Lyons and MPT/Tye agreed that they did not see a better solution than preserving the district and staying within the assessment (reallocation of services). District No. 39. C/Low excused herself and left the meeting. C/Lyons said that money needs to be set aside for the five pocket parks as a first 'I priority and the rest can be considered under the same "reduction of services" plan within available resources. Council Members concurred. Public Comments: None ADJOURNMENT: With no further business to come before the City Council, M/Herrera recessed the Study Session at 6:25 p.m. to the Re Meeting. RYAN MCL N ACTING CITY CLERK The foregoing minutes are hereby approved this 1 st day of October, 2019. 1 a ,c/�.rY�c/ �� .� � CAROL HERRERA, Mayor � i , i i