Two Important Meetings for Fullerton Residents and Business Owners to attend

Below is an email I received from Greg Sebourn urging your help.

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First, the Water Rate Study will be held at the City Yard (1580 W. Commonwealth Ave.) at 6:30PM tonight and at City Hall tomorrow morning (4/13/2011) at 7:30AM at City Hall.

Please attend the meeting, hear what City Hall has to say and be ready to offer up solutions that do not include doubling our water bill.

You can find the City’s budget at: http://www.cityoffullerton.com/depts/admin_serv/budget/budget.asp

You can find the DRAFT Water Rate Study Report at: http://www.cityoffullerton.com/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=7063

Second, the Planning Department needs your help. I will share my personal feelings about this at a later date but until then, please help. If you don’t pitch in and speak up, imagine who will…

Here is the text of the message from City Hall to YOU:

Community Partners:
The City of Fullerton is inviting residents, property owners, business owners and community groups to help select a consultant for the Downtown Core and Corridors Specific Plan and Program Environmental Impact Report. The goal of the Downtown Core and Corridors project is to develop a vision and plan to guide the future development of the City’s downtown and its major entry corridors, or streets. By creating detailed standards that are aligned with the community-based vision, the design and review process for future projects will be improved as there will be more clarity and direction for the parties involved.

Selecting the right consultant for this project is extremely important, and the City has intentionally created a process where members of the community will be involved in the decision.

In January 2011, the City of Fullerton released a Request for Qualifications for the Downtown Core and Corridors Specific Plan and Program Environmental Impact Report. Twenty consultant teams responded and submitted Statements of Qualifications. On March 30, 2011, an Evaluation Committee (consisting of 10 members of the public appointed by the City Council and 7 City staff members) identified the top three consultant teams. These three consultant teams have been invited for interviews before the Evaluation Committee and the Fullerton community.

At the community interviews, members of the Fullerton community will have the opportunity to hear presentations from the three teams. They can also interact with the consultant teams and ask them questions. Community members will also have the opportunity to fill out evaluation score cards for each team. The score cards will be used by the Evaluation Committee to select the best consultant team for the project.

Details related to the Community Interviews are provided below:

Monday, April 25, 2011

4:00pm – 8:00pm

City of Fullerton Maintenance Services Building

1580 W. Commonwealth Avenue

Please participate in this important process and invite your friends, family, neighbors and co-workers do the same by forwarding this email to them. Together we can insure that the downtown and its entry corridors get the best consultant team for this important project.

For more information, please contact:

Heather Allen, Planning Manager: heathera@ci.fullerton.ca.us or 714.738.6884

Jason Jones, Project Manager: Jason@JonesPlanningandDesign.com or 408-310-7881

Al Zelinka, Community Development Director: alz@ci.fullerton.ca.us or 714.738.3347.

91% Increase in Water Rates

(from Fullertontaxfighters.com)

This Tuesday night, March 1st 2011, the Fullerton City Council will direct staff on the implementation of a water rate study.

Based on the proposal from the City's consultant, the new rates will be increased by 10% for 5 years then 3.5% for another 5 years amounting to a 191% increase by 2021.

The reason for the tax hike is clear. The report says, "It should be noted that the planned spending on mainline replacement over the projection period is significantly more than the City has undertaken in the past. At a cost of approximately $190 per linear foot of line the City plans to replace approximately 6 miles of mainline per year at a cost of over 6 million per year.  At this pace it would take the City 400 years to replace the entire system (which consists of approximately 420 miles of pipe)."

SHOW UP AND BE HEARD
at the Fullerton City Council Chambers
6:30 pm on Tuesday, March 1st, 2011.
303 W. Commonwealth
Fullerton, CA 92832

MFSG's proposal spells out how exactly we got into this mess in the first place. Unfortunately, this proposal and the implementation should have been undertaken decades ago. Oddly, the proposal notes that the City could just ignore the problem (like they have been doing for so many years).

"While the capital investments have a pronounced impact on rates the projects are vitally important to ensure the continued operation of the water system.  The City could keep rates low initially by not maintaining the system but would pay a significant price later as system failures spike due to a lack of system maintenance, which would then result in increased costs and ultimately the need for even higher rate increases. Proactively managing of the water system through maintenance and capital investments allows the City to keep rates stable over time."

~Managing through maintenance and capital investment.~

That is a sentence that has been long missing from Fullerton. The City council has pushed tax bonds to provide low-income housing and park facilities while ignoring the streets, sewers, and water lines. And now Fullerton taxpayers must pay the high price of municipal mismanagement. Compounding our financial civic woes is that if the proposed rate hikes were approved, the City would have to borrow heavily through bonds to cover the actual costs of replacing the aging system. 

Join me at City Hall this Tuesday at 6:30PM to tell the Fullerton City Council that higher taxes won't fix decades of mismanagement and waste.  
Thank you,
Greg Sebourn
Husband, Father, Educator, Professional Land Surveyor, and Local Activist for Limited Government.
GregSebourn@yahoo.com 

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Sources:
http://fullertontaxfighters.com/

http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2011/91-water-rate-increase-wtf-is-next/
http://gregsebourn.blogspot.com/2011/02/fullerton-water-rates-to-double.html