In its Tuesday, Jan. 8 meeting, the Santa Clarita City Council will consider a recommendation from city staff to terminate the landscape and lighting district assessment proceedings and to cancel the public hearing scheduled for Jan. 22, in response to community input and feedback from residents.
On Nov. 13, 2018, the city initiated action proposing to modify assessments for both street lighting and landscaping services among property owners within designated areas of Santa Clarita.
In the time following the mailing of informational letters and ballots, the city has received extensive feedback from residents in terms of how this proposed action will affect property owners.
“The community has made it clear that additional outreach and information is necessary,” Mayor Marsha McLean said.
“The City Council’s consideration to cancel the proceedings and upcoming public hearing reflects the need we have to discover what kind of communication is needed to provide a better understanding of the entire process,” McLean said.
Upon approval, the City Council will terminate the current assessment proceedings and cancel the public hearing currently scheduled for Jan. 22.
The city would take no further action on the current process, and all assessments proposed for modification would remain unchanged.
In the near future, the city will undertake a community outreach and public information process to better communicate to property owners the issues related to the streetlight maintenance assessment.
Upon the City Council’s adoption of a resolution terminating ballot proceedings, the city will mail a letter to all affected parcel owners notifying them of the termination of these proceedings and cancellation of the Jan. 22 public hearing.
For more information, please visit the city’s website.
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8 Comments
The City badly screwed the pooch on this one. A one-time 800% increase in the assessment is too much even for the serfs to endure.
The city council is back pedaling again, the fact that they didn’t do there homework on this one is evident and the waste of time and money is not on there minds.
This is a nice New Year’s gift to the community, but I suspect it had more to do with legal discrepancies in the Prop 218 process then the City actually listening to residents. Whatever, good move on the City’s part. But that was a retty huge waste of time and money to send all those ballots out. Based on costs to do political mailings in the City, someone just dumped 50 grand or so down the drain on this one.
This is a nice New Year’s gift to the community, but I suspect it had more to do with legal discrepancies in the Prop 218 process then the City actually listening to residents. Whatever, good move on the City’s part. But that was a retty huge waste of time and money to send all those ballots out. Based on costs to do political mailings in the City, someone just dumped 50 grand or so down the drain on this one.
Also, this commenting function doesn’t seem to work correctly. It tells me a comment is a duplicate when nothing is posted. Odd.
Actually, the majority of the city would probably see a modest reduction in their assessment. Mine would have been reduced by $75. There were certain parts of the city that had an extremely low assessment and I suspect that the intent would have been to make it even and fair for everybody. The trouble is that some older areas had an extremely low assessment, and my $75 reduction was causing a huge increase for them. It turns out that I and others like me had been subsidizing those areas for years. So this is a nice gift for those who have been subsidized, but maybe not so much for those who are financing that subsidy.
This might be a nice gift to some of the residents of Santa Clarita who may not see a rate increase, but it comes at the expense of others who have been subsidizing those low rates for years. Being one of those, I would have seen a $75 reduction in my bill, which presumably would have evened things out across the city. Unfortunately it would be a huge rate increase for those who have been getting those low bills for years. People smarter than me need to arrive at a fair and equitable way to deal with this. If it is to be evened out maybe it should be a phase in process to lessen the impact.
In the interest of openness it would be of interest to know who dreamed this unique process up? Anyone know?
Well now boys and girls, given the unrest and confusion caused by all this hoo-hah over taking streetlights away from SCE in order to allow the City of Santa Clarita to “improve” our street lighting (including those areas that do NOT have streetlights) we can begin to understand that this process was never something to be read, discovered, and carefully thought-through.
Whether or not it was a “staff” decision to go forward with the incompetent process, or just a false flag to get enough yes votes to go forward with the take-over of SCE streetlight management is a moot point without evidence.
But if it looks like a skunk, and smells like one too; it’s probably not a kitty cat.
I guess we’re lucky that a scritty* job like this is something that even most of us can figure out if we actually look at and through it.
If SClarita really has a good reason to take control over the streetlight district AND it’s income, then they should just go ahead and let us know that. Let us know how much better the service would be, and how much less it would cost us (even over 10 years). Most of us can do simple sums, and if it makes good monetary sense for the citizens we would largely be positive to the idea. After we see the details and calculations, of course. And a list of the named
experts who are going to be participants and potential defendants.
And that includes just how SClarita’s staff are going to manage, support and improve the said street lighting hardware and upgrades. Take ownership and guess what you get? All of the problems that the prior “owner” hasn’t ever corrected or updated.
SCE is not our friend, but it has duties and responsibilities under the State PUC. If SClarita owns those lights and poles, who has the watchdog authority to make sure they don’t completely hose things up and leave us without useful street lighting, and no way to fix things? AKA fixing without increased assessments to pay for unplanned upgrades to the incompetent takeover?
Food for thought, if anyone wants to participate.
*cr=h