Property owners prefer increased fees to bond
CITYWIDE It appears there’s majority support among residents to more than double stormwater parcel fees in an effort to prevent further pollution from going into the Santa Monica Bay and meet state environmental standards.
A recent polling of residents throughout the city indicates that most property owners would support the local government increasing their annual stormwater fees from $36 to $100. That’s for a single-family parcel — multi-family and commercial properties could be more or less, depending upon acreage and usage. The fees would be adjusted for inflation.
For a majority of the respondents, increasing their fees was a better option than a $95 million bond, which also was offered as an alternative. The polling, conducted in January by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, a Santa Monica-based opinion research firm, asked more than 400 residents if they would support a bond, an increase to the stormwater fee, or both.
“The capital bond and parcel fee together... they thought it was two times the cost,” said Craig Perkins, director of City Hall’s environmental and public works department. “It sort of makes people nervous because it’s so much.
“Voters don’t like to pay fees because it sounds like a tax, and no one likes taxes, but it’s revenue that would be used to address our needs.”
City Hall hired the polling firm for $25,000 after officials began weighing their options in determining how to pay for the city’s first-ever watershed protection plan — a 15-to 20-year road map on how to prevent bacterial, chemical and solid waste from entering Santa Monica Bay through its stormwater system. The plan is scheduled to be unveiled before the City Council on June 13.
Before increasing the fee — which would cover maintenance and ongoing costs — or asking voters to approve a bond — which would pay for capital improvements — city officials wanted to take residents’ temperature on what they’re willing to pay for.
“From the polling, we think it’s very possible to get two-thirds the support to ensure clean water and clean beaches,” Perkins said, adding respondents were more supportive of the tax increase after the goals of the initiative were fully explained to them.
The watershed plan, which was drafted by Brown and Caldwell, an environmental engineering consulting firm, as well as city staff, has been in works for years. It’s a result of the Regional Water Quality Board’s recently-passed regulations that require cities to reduce pollution in Southern California’s surface waters, including Santa Monica Bay.
The standards require that each community develop a plan that creates measures to eliminate or mitigate stormwater pollutants. The local plan addresses how those measures could be funded.
And while Santa Monica is a leader in sustainable practices and stormwater pollution prevention, the new standards, which began this year, require tens of millions of dollars in capital improvements, as well as ongoing maintenance costs.
What officials found through the polling was that the public was more receptive to a fee increase rather than a bond, which officials late last year predicted could amount to as much as $95 million. They were preparing to put the bond proposal before voters on the November ballot.
But now, it appears that officials believe they can carry out the plan by doubling the stormwater fee, which currently generates $1.25 million a year. Following the increase, officials estimate the fees would generate more than $3 million a year — $40 million over the next 10 years.
A bond could be taken out later against that ongoing revenue stream to pay for capital improvement projects over the next 20 years, Perkins said.
He estimates that between $60 and $80 million worth of improvements need to be made in order to comply with state standards. While the regulations vary for each watershed, all of the standards — which mostly address how much trash and other pollutants can reach the region’s streams, rivers and ocean — must be met by 2015, officials said.
In 2006, Santa Monica and other cities are required to reduce the amount of litter going into the bay by 20 percent. By 2015, 100 percent of litter is supposed to be diverted.
Most of the capital work would be completed in 10 years. That will include many projects, including the installation of screens on thousands of catch basins throughout the city. Santa Monica already has hundreds of screens in place at catch basins, located curbside on many sidewalks, but there are thousands more throughout the city that don’t contain the screens.
More systems like the “continuous deflection separator,” one of which is located in a beach parking lot just south of the pier, would be constructed under the plan. The separator is a larger catch basin that can collect big items, like auto mufflers, Perkins said.
And within a couple of years, all runoff during dry weather months would be diverted to sewer systems — not storm drain outfalls that lead directly to the ocean. Santa Monica has outfalls at the end of Pico Boulevard, Montana Avenue and another one is to be built at Wilshire Boulevard. There also is one just south of Will Rogers State Beach, which is in the city of Los Angeles.
Perkins said he believes that an increase to the stormwater fee will be enough to fully carry out the plan — as long as City Hall can secure money from other sources like grants, and funding from the county, state and federal governments.
“We need $50 million in order to stay in compliance,” Perkins said. “If we slice that out over 10 years, we can revisit it again for the next 10 years.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 22, 2006. Read the original PDF.