Politics & Government

PBID Petition Drive for The Village Edges Closer, Gains Financial Focus

Parcel owners with weighted votes totaling $187,500 (and a penny) would need to sign supportive petitions to gain an election on the property-based business improvement district.

Members of a group hoping to create a property-based business improvement district in The Village now know what it will take to make it happen: $187,500.01.

That’s not a price tag, however.

In this case, every dollar is worth a vote, and owners of 215 parcels downtown will decide with their weighted votes whether to support a ballot on the so-called PBID when a petition drive begins as soon as Oct. 27.

Since parcel owners would pay a total of $375,000, at least half of that figure needs to be represented on favoring petitions to be circulated by the PBID Formation Committee.

The petition drive is a critical step toward a vote of property owners on whether they want to tax themselves twice a year for a variety of downtown activities and improvements.

Wednesday night, the 12-member committee voted 10-0, with two abstentions, to approve the nearly final draft of a document that would be used to promote this effort.

Richard Felix and Deena While of the La Mesa Village Merchants Association abstained in the vote, which came at the end of a 90-minute meeting at the La Mesa Police Station.

The document, called a draft management district plan (attached), gives details on who would pay what—and toward what end—in the three “benefit zones” of the PBID.

The draft OK’d Wednesday night has sections missing—including an engineer’s report, a legal description of the district’s boundaries and a parcel-by-parcel assessment list—but those are expected to be in place when the committee takes a final vote Oct. 26, said Chris Gonzales, the city’s community development program coordinator, who acts as a resource for the PBID committee.

Ed Henning, the PBID expert hired by the City Council to guide the committee, presented the draft management plan and answered questions from committee members under a three-panel photo showing downtown La Mesa in 1912, the year of incorporation.

Henning said the draft says “renewed” in several places, rather than “proposed” (as intended), because he used language from a “template” of PBIDs in other cities. He said the mistakes would be cleaned up in the final draft.

The draft said the PBID would raise $375,000 in its first year, if adopted—well above the $225,000 a year Henning cited in a mid-January presentation.  The PBID committee boosted the figure during a series of meetings since then.

Under the draft approved Wednesday, the maximum annual increase in property tax assessments would be 5%.

A board of directors—subject to Brown Act requirements to hold meetings open to the public—would be created to oversee the PBID.  It would be a nonprofit organization working with City Hall as it rolls out its $5 million “streetscape” plan for The Village.

Gonzales assured the group that the city would continue to honor its service agreements—upkeep obligations in The Village—if a PBID were formed, with parking meter funds a part of the mix.

With the length of a petition drive being unknown, officials can’t say when a vote would be held.

But Henning said he wouldn’t expect actual Village improvements to begin until 2013—after December 2012 property tax collections.

That assumes that property owners authorize a vote, and then win a PBID election.

In public comments after the draft vote, two residents just outside the boundaries of the proposed PBID asked how many residential units would be in the PBID zones—and subject to property tax hikes.

Christine Murphy and Michelle Metter, the residents, were told 260 residential units lie within the PBID boundaries, mostly in several condominium complexes.

“Everyone will be notified and receive a ballot,” Gonzales said.

But Henning said some single-family dwellings will be added to the list of parcels subject to the vote.

Henning also promised that residential property owners will see a presentation on the PBID.

What happens if too few parcels support a petition to hold a vote?

Henning, a longtime PBID consultant in California, said the local committee can change the boundaries of the district to exclude those property owners who oppose the district.

Find out what's happening in La Mesa-Mount Helixwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“You have to have sufficient petitions that represent more than half of this $375,000,” Henning said. “By law, there is not a ‘negative’ petition. It’s a support petition, so if you fail to collect sufficient ... petitions valued [at $187,500.01],” the petition drive could be stuck.

For a PBID to be in place by 2013, petitions favoring a vote would need to be in by May 2012, he said.

Find out what's happening in La Mesa-Mount Helixwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“If you don’t, our choices are: You can modify boundaries ... to change this [$375,000]—by reducing, not increasing, the [size of the district]. ... You’d have to start your petition process over. ... If you get to the 11th hour, and we’re just $15,000 short, you could take out one side of a street that’s on the perimeter—because absolutely no one on that side of the block supported [the PBID].”

That would lower the dollar amount of votes needed to approve the PBID, as well as cut the overall budget for downtown improvements.

If PBID petition numbers fall drastically short, the lobbying effort could continue another year, Henning said. Or the whole process could simply cease.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here