FOREfront--Working for the People of
Volume 05,
Issue 3, May 2002
CITY LOSES IN-LIEU FEE APPEAL
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers
Association, Friends of Roseville, and Placer County League of Taxpayers emerged
victors in the appeal brought by the City of
The opinion states, “This appeal
presents us with two principal questions: whether Proposition 218--a descendant
of Proposition 13 that covers local government fees and charges--applies to
Roseville’s in-lieu fee; and, if so whether the in-lieu fee violates
Proposition 218. We answer yes to both questions and affirm the judgment.”
The opinion is certified for
publication, which means it becomes precedent for other cities charging in lieu
franchise fees.
The city at its April 17th closed
session meeting directed the city attorney to petition the Appellate Court to
“de-publish” the ruling; and, with Councilmember Roccucci
opposing, to petition the court to rehear the appeal; and, to file for a
hearing in the California Supreme Court if the rehearing petition is denied.
Continuing the actions may be
profitable for the outside attorneys who have contracted with the city to
present the briefs and arguments that the City’s full-time attorneys could be
presenting, but it is a heavy burden for the city’s taxpayers.
The
city council wants to drag out the in-lieu franchise fee case as long as it can
to continue collecting the 4 percent fee. The City plans never to refund the
collected money. The outside attorneys win while
the ratepayers continue to pay a 4 percent fee that two courts have ruled
invalid.
The Howard Jarvis
Taxpayers Association is congratulated on its expert legal acumen. We encourage
you to become a member of that fine tax-fighting organization. Their telephone
number is (916) 444-9950.
“Taxes are not to be laid on the people but by their
consent.” James Otis, Jr., Boston lawyer, from the Rights of the British
Colonies, 1764.
THOUGHTS ON
The City Council transferred $11 million out of the FY
2001-2002 budget to a “litigation fund” to eventually refund the Utility User’s
Tax. Even with an uncertain economy, they transferred another $3.5 million in February to that fund.
That money is the city’s underestimation of revenue at mid-year. Were services
cut? No! How much more money will show up at the end of the fiscal year?
The Parks and Recreation Director, Mike Shellito,
in addressing the Parks and Recreation Commission, stated that even with the
reduction in revenue in next year’s budget, Roseville would still have nice,
clean, safe parks. They would not be able to keep them as manicured as they do
now. There would be less high quality maintenance. They might even have to
charge more to users of programs. Many people do not feel it is necessary to
provide the services and maintenance that everyone expects of a Country Club.
There is no point of going overboard when it comes to spending public funds.
The city has a 20-year General Plan to build out
But, because the City Council allowed an accelerated rate
of development, the Roseville General Plan was at build out in 10 years. During
that time, the council had the additional revenue from the Utility User’s Tax
that everyone was paying and it was escalating as fast as the population and
businesses. That tax allowed the city to keep up with the developers’ demands
to provide public facilities at an accelerated rate even when there was insufficient developer fees to pay for all the impacts.
The city did this without going to the voters for approval to build the Corporation
Yard, police station, and civic center. The developers would build a street and
the city would reimburse them. We have been told the city used Traffic
Mitigation Fees that were collected to solve the traffic impacts on
The voters have said they do not want to continue paying
the Utility User’s Tax. They have seen the excess funds and how they have been
used. But the council and staff, along with developers aren’t willing to give
up the goose that lays the golden egg. They still have big plans for the
taxpayers’ money regardless of whether the taxpayers want to pay or not. The
council proved it by using taxpayers’ money to fight the taxpayers in court.
Roseville residents have paid the Utility User’s Tax for
years to provide services when there was very little sales and property taxes,
but times have changed. The city has added tremendously to the sales and
property tax base with the auto mall,
Galleria, retail stores, restaurants, industries, and high
priced homes. All the impacts of this development have changed the lives of people
in
Mayor Pro tern Rocky Rockholm asked the
Friends of Roseville, since they are directly responsible for the potential
loss of the Utility User’s Tax and In-Lieu Franchise Fee, to propose cuts to
the budget that would not change the level of service the city is providing. He
obviously has missed the point of the voters. The voters do not want the
council to continue spending their tax money as they have in the past. They
want the fat cut out.
First and foremost, each department budget should NOT have a 10%
reserve built into its budget for unexpected contingencies in addition to the
10% economic reserve account. There should be only one general fund reserve for
all city departments. If it is necessary to fund something not budgeted, it
should come before the council for a vote to pay for it out of the economic
reserve account. Each department should not have a “slush fund”. Departments
should not budget for “a worst case scenario” by padding expenditures just in
case they might need something at a later date. That is the reason for the
economic reserve account.
The council should not be taking on more expenditures
through lease-backs that obligates taxpayers to future costs without taxpayers’
approval. The council should not give city property to private developers to
build parking facilities on the pretense of getting the building free in 20
years. The taxpayer ends up paying millions to lease buildings built on city
property. A sweet deal for the developer. The city
wanted to build a parking garage for city employees costing $12 million without
voter approval. The lease-back arrangement allows the city to circumvent the
taxpayer.
Does anyone wonder how the City Council could so easily find $50,000 for a party to celebrate the
completion of the civic center? Or for that matter $14 million to construct the
civic center if the Utility User’s Tax is so critical to provide essential
services? There was no problem finding another $50,000 for additional funding
to the private Science and
Mayor Gamar keeps saying that, “if you bad to cut 20% from your budget, you know there would
be an impact”. The mayor fails to recognize that most people do not
overestimate their expenditures and underestimate their income as
The city needs to institute ZERO-BASED BUDGETING. Department goals,
activities, and needed resources would be looked at and then the cost
calculated for each department
from the ground up. Each program stands on its own merits. By starting each
year from base zero, costs are calculated afresh to avoid the yearly budgeting
system of looking only at changes from the previous year.
Quality of life: More parks, more development, more traffic. A
MEASURE D AND MONEY
Measure D would have funded a $62 million high school and
improvements to a community park in Antelope. The remaining $17.5 was to
improve live schools in
There were a number of unanswered questions concerning the bond
measure, such as would the current high school tax, passed in 1992, remain on
the property rolls, was there a need for more facilities at Oakmont and
improving a community park in Antelope. Those unanswered questions turned
Money from contributors apparently was not an issue, nor did it raise
questions among the voters since no information was provided by the news media,
letter writers or the registered group against Measure D. Yet signs, banners
and mailers by the Yes on Measure D group spoke loudly that more than enough
money had been contributed to help pass the measure.
It is interesting to note that the group reported raising nearly
$90,000 while spending $58,081 as of February 21. The next financial disclosure
statement is due as of June 30 and one can estimate that more contributions and
expenditures will be noted, especially in light of the last minute mailers sent
out by the Yes on Measure D group for the March 5th election. Contributions of
more than $1,000 came from:
> Stone
Youngberg,
(bond underwriters,
> McCarthy
Building Companies,
(nation wide with
> Beazer Homes,
(national company with
> Angelo K Tsakopoulos Investments, (
> Westpark
Associates,
(
> John Mourier Construction, Inc. (
>
> Konsortium, Inc. (
> Roseville
Telephone Co. (
> Laborers
Local 185 Issues PAC, (
> Centrex
Homes,
(
> Williams
and Padden Architects and Planners, (
> The HLA
Group Landscape Architects & Planners,Inc,
(
> M. Craig Nagler, Real Estate Development, (
There appears to be a common thread among these large
contributors; the thread of a need to develop land for one reason or another.
For example, the livelihood of each contributor is tied to “the more
development, the more business for me”. Another thread: it is a small
investment to get the taxpayer to pay for schools over a 25-year period and
shifts the responsibility from the developer to the taxpayer.
The politically savvy always look to see who is
contributing to an election. The taxpayer will not forget that large
contributors, by the nature of their business, have a selfish rather than an
esoteric reason for contributing. Had the names of large contributors been made
public prior to the election the voters most likely would have rejected Measure
D out of hand. One has to bear in mind that 25,630
ENRON POWER PLANT, AKA:
Most people in
.
ENRON has proved that it is not a trustworthy business and those who
deal with it get burned. Those are now often spoken words from many people.
ENRON wants desperately to obtain the license. It means multimillions of
dollars to the license, ailing and
failing company. That aside, the licensing process moves on, but not
without problems.
Water, pollution emissions reduction credits (ERC),
natural gas pipeline, electric transmission lines, and traffic are some of those problems. Other problems are that the
company is having difficulty meeting response dates to questions posed by the
CEC and has not responded to requests for additional funding to pay for staff
time in Placer County. Water is immensely important as a cooling agent in the
smokestacks. The plan is to use recycled water from the new Pleasant Grove
waste water treatment plant. That plant is to come on line prior to
construction of the power plant. Potable, non-chlorinated water is to augment
the water needs if sufficient waste water is not available. Two
problems surface. In drought years it is a given that there would not be
enough waste water and potable water would be at a premium. Wells are proposed
as a back up, but the Westpark proposed 3,100 acre
development around the plant is also looking at wells for its project.
The city’s scheme is that Westpark
need about 11,000 acre feet of water and that the city restudied its water need
and determined that it has not been using 11,000 acre feet of its allocated
water. Another part of the water scheme is to inject water, in good years, into an underground “bowl” to be taken out
when needed. Water seeks its lowest level. Still, another part of the water
scheme is to pipe water to the projects from the
delusion is the Placer County Water Agency’s water limit. The Agency had
entitlements to 231,000 acre feet of water. When the
ENRON is looking throughout the Pollution Attainment
District for pollution Emission Reduction Credits (ERC). The plant will spew
out 536.35 ton of pollutants a year. A total of 1,511.7 ERCS are required before the Placer County Air Pollution
District will issue a Preliminary Determination of Compliance to the reduction CEC. Of that number, 308.1
ERCS will come from
At its April 11th meeting, the Placer County Air Pollution Control
District, over the strong objections of Board member Supervisor Rex Bloomfield,
was informed that a Preliminary Determination of Compliance (PDOC) document
would be
submitted to the CEC. Before final submission, the board will review the PDOC.
The board will consider the PDOC at its June
meeting. The public is invited and encouraged to attend the meeting in
As proposed, the plant would be fired with natural
gas. A main high capacity natural gas line is said to be located nearby which
can be tapped. The line is not located as near as originally described and many
engineering obstacles have to be overcome.
Electric transmission lines need to be constructed
to tie-in with the existing electric transmission system in order to move the
electricity to users. What was to have been an easy tie-in job has taken on its
own life. The line needs to be over a longer distance and the environmental
studies have not been completed.
Hazardous materials will be transported to the
proposed plant on a regular basis. Concerns are about the potential development
of homes and schools near the truck route.
The
Stakeholders, from ENRON to
We give the APC a 70 percent chance of making it through
the permitting process.
ANNUAL MEETING
Over 130 FORE members enjoyed Al Saraceni’s
superb cuisine, songstress Lucia Whitney’s exceptional singing, and an
outstanding raffle on April 20th. The members elected Betty Jones, Sandra Saracini, and Jim Young to two-year director terms. They
also elected to one-year terms officers Kate Sullivan, Secretary, Ray Ellis,
Treasurer, Alyssa Mulcahy, Vice Chair, and Phil Ozenick, Chairman.
CITY BALLOT MEASURE or INITIATIVE
Do residents want
FIREWORKS STAND
FORE will sell sane and safe fireworks from June 28 through July 4th.
Members are asked to sign up to staff the fireworks stand. An orientation briefing
will be held before we open for business. We need at least two adults in the
stand during business hours. Call 783-9891 or 782-226 for information and to
help. Working in the stand should be fun.
Copyright 2002 FORE,
WORKING FOR THE PEOPLE OF
FORE,
916-783-9891 or 916-783-7632 FAX 916-783-9349
Friends of