The City Council voted 4-3 to delay a decision on a revenue sharing agreement — one critical for the annexation plan to succeed, according to the city’s consultant — until the March 21 meeting.
When the decision comes back at then, two of the council members in the majority on August’s 4-3 vote could change — enough to reverse the plan to hand over firefighting responsibility to the county and add a parcel tax ($148 per parcel in Fiscal Year 2016-17, and increasing by up to 3 percent per year).
But if the agreement is approved then, it likely won’t delay the plan to transfer the department by July 1, said Kathleen Rollings-McDonald, executive director of the Local Agency Formation Commission.
Councilman Rikke Van Johnson, a strong advocate of the annexation plan, will pass his seat to Councilwoman-elect Bessine Littlefield Richard March 7. Littlefield Richard, who watched Monday’s meeting from council chambers, has avoided taking an explicit public stance on the issue.
And Councilman Jim Mulvihill, who voted for the annexation plan earlier — and in his successful campaign for re-election Feb. 2 pointed to that vote as critical to the city’s exit from bankruptcy — said numbers presented in preparation for Monday’s vote could change his mind.
“This is the first time we’re seeing these specific numbers — it’s a whole new ballgame,” Mulvihill said, in requesting a delay to allow more study. “We’re being sold a bill of goods. ... From the public’s point of view, they save no money.”
That’s because, Mulvihill said, the projected savings of $7 million to $8 million in the first year of the annexation are essentially equal to the $7.4 million tax parcel owners in the city would have to start paying.
Mulvihill also said he was troubled that documents were given to the City Council so late — Thursday — on an agreement with terms that last “in perpetuity.”
Annexation by its nature is “in perpetuity,” although a vote could be taken to un-annex, replied the city’s consultant, Andrew Belknap of Management Partners.
Belknap said the numbers were the same ones the Local Agency Formation Commission used when it unanimously approved the plan in January. Parcel owners will have to pay a new tax, he said, but the city’s general fund will save at least $7 million per year while improving fire and emergency medical services.
City Attorney Gary Saenz put a finer point on it, saying that failure to pass the revenue sharing plan — the details of which were complicated, he acknowledged — would jeopardize the city’s Plan of Adjustment and therefore its exit from bankruptcy.
The plan, which the City Council approved 6-1 in May, calls for outsourcing the Fire Department and for implementing new taxes, but officials said they didn’t know the outsourcing would be done by annexation until shortly before that plan was presented in August.
“First, if this plan passes, the everyday constituent will be safer,” Saenz said, because of a saved step in the dispatch process, new money for equipment maintenance and use of a county fire station in addition to the city-run stations. “Second, this will be cheaper... (and) we’ll apply the savings to other types of services, including police, so they will have improved police and fire services.”
Councilman John Valdivia asserted the annexation plan would have the opposite effect.
“Politics will be removed and annihilated, which is really what the mayor and some here want,” Valdivia said. “Response times will be longer, taxes will be higher, and fire stations in minority communities are still shuttered and closed.”
Saenz responded that neither the city attorney nor council members were fire protection experts, but those who were — including San Bernardino’s fire chief — favored the plan.
County officials said they will keep the city’s firefighters and provide improved service through economies of scale.
Councilman Fred Shorett, who has pushed for years to outsource the Fire Department, said the plan was important. Residents would vote down the new tax if they had the chance, he said, but they also want service the city can’t afford.
“They can’t have a free lunch,” he said.
Most new taxes in California require a vote by the public, but not this parcel tax, because the city would be joining a county fire protection district that already approved a tax.
That process will be stopped if more than 50 percent of registered voters return a letter saying they are protesting the decision. An election will be called if protest is received from at least 25 percent but less than 50 percent of the registered voters, or if 25 percent to 100 percent of the number of landowners — who own at least 25 percent of the total land value — submit written protest.
Shorett, Johnson and Councilwoman Virginia Marquez were the three members opposed to delaying a decision on the revenue sharing plan until March 21.
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