A late evening post on NextDoor (below), following last night's council meeting, disclosed that the Town did not need to conduct the contentious storm drain fee ballot and spend a budgeted $169,000 to do so.
SB231, signed by the Governor last October, exempts stormwater from the balloting requirement the town is now conducting.
The town could have placed (and still could) place the appropriate fee on property tax bills without a vote of the residents.
More to come.
[reprinted with permission]
It turns out that under California law signed into law by the Governor last year that they failed to tell us about, specifically SB231, municipalities are allowed to impose storm drain fees WITHOUT A BALLOT MEASURE AND WITHOUT AN ELECTION. The storm drain ballot process we are in the middle of is LEGALLY UNNECESSARY AND COSTING US OVER $100,000++. THIS WAS NOT DISCLOSED TO RESIDENTS.
All this ND discussion and No on Storm Drains and Save our Storm Drains signs has not been necessary. The Town Council, led by Dave Trotter has massively wasted our money and time conducting an election when NO ELECTION IS NEEDED. Really!
Under SB231, the Town Council can impose a storm drain fee in the normal legislative process just like they impose any other user fee. They draft an ordinance and pass an ordinance. Two Town Council meetings and it's done. So they've blown through another $170,000 on an erroneous ballot measure and election.
A BIG JOKE has been played on us and if it's not incompetence, then it's intentional. Besides the apparent Negative Fraud committed by the Town Council members, In my opinion the town's attorneys and the ballot consultants may have made professional mistakes and should be asked to disgorge their fees and reimburse the Town for its expenses or get sued for malpractice.
We deserve an explanation.
NextDoor thread is here