Update: PBID Petitions Await Work by Consultant, Planning Committee

Updated at 11 a.m. Nov. 28, 2011

Petitions regarding a vote on a PBID in The Village will start going out* after the committee planning the effort gets a finalized version of the district management plan, City Hall says.

The PBID—or property-based business improvement district—would raise $375,000 a year for cleaning, security, land- and streetscaping, marketing and other services for the downtown shopping area, according to a draft management plan on the city’s website.

“As yet, the consultant has not finalized the management plan,” said Chris Gonzales, La Mesa’s community development program coordinator.  “We hope the plan will be finalized by midweek.”

Once the management plan is finalized, Gonzales said Monday, “the PBID consultant will still have to prepare the petitions and, after that, supporters on the PBID Formation Committee will determine how the petitions are circulated and when circulation occurs.”

In mid-November, Gonzales said individual petition forms—not group sign-up sheets—would be mailed to parcel owners in the affected areas, including residents of the three benefit zones involved.

The district management plan is done, Gonzales said, but the assessment roll—telling how much each property owner would pay in the PBID—hasn’t been supplied yet. 

Gonzales also noted that residential properties covered by the PBID would be assessed a flat $25 a year—no matter the size of the home. And “places of worship” would get a 50% discount on any assessment.

PBID consultant Ed Henning, using a spreadsheet and his engineering background, is producing a list of properties and their possible yearly assessments, Gonzales said.

Some 308 parcels would be assessed a fee depending on their square footage, building area and street frontage—with those in Zone 1 paying the highest rate and Zones 2 and 3 paying discounted rates, says the management plan.

All the yearly assessments would add up to the annual budget of $375,000.

Before a vote of downtown property owners can take place, however, parcel owners who’d pay a total of $187,500 and a penny into the budget must call for a ballot via petitions.

The petitions would be counted at a City Council meeting, Gonzales said in an interview Nov. 15.  A public hearing would be held on whether to call for a vote by parcel owners in the PBID area.

If petitions fall short of the $187,500.01 threshold, the PBID formation committee can alter the district’s boundaries or budget in hopes of reaching 50% support, Gonzales said, or even abandon the effort.

The “La Mesa Downtown Village PBID” is bounded by University Avenue on the west, University Avenue/Allison Avenue on the north, just east of Grant Avenue on the east, and Lemon Avenue, Finley Avenue and La Mesa Boulevard on the south. (See attached map.)

If sufficient petitions in favor of a vote are filed, and the City Council approves, a vote would be set for affected parcel owners.  But the vote’s outcome would hinge on half of the ballots—weighted by the dollar value of their assessment—approving the PBID.

In other words, every parcel has a different-sized vote—the bigger the parcel the bigger the say in the outcome. But a PBID would not be approved unless half the weighted votes are in favor of the district.

So if only 100 parcels of the 309 in the district voted in the PBID election, the votes of those 100 parcels would determine its fate. Votes consisting of at least half of the assessed value of those 100 parcels would have to be “yes” for the PBID to start, Gonzales said.

He noted that “symbolic pledges of support” for the PBID have been circulating in The Village, but said they had no official status in the petition process.

If the PBID is formed, says the management plan, “The Property Owners Association … will be the agency responsible for the ongoing day-to-day management and administration of the proposed PBID. The POA will be a new nonprofit corporation formed by business and property owners located within the district.”

When related to PBID matters, monthly meetings of the owners association will be subject to the state’s Brown Act and its open meeting provisions, the plan says.

“Records of this association pertaining to PBID-related matters shall be available for public review as stipulated by state law,” according to the plan, based on the Property and Business Improvement District Law of 1994.

Proponents of the PBID, also called a property and business improvement district, have launched a website at downtownlamesa.org. The website is registered to Lynn McRea, the La Mesa Boulevard accountant who chairs the PBID formation committee.

The PBID site says The Village competes with shopping malls, off-price centers, big-box warehouse retailers and factory outlets, “as well as a myriad of mail order catalogs, Internet sales and home shopping networks.”

“In order to thrive in the face of such competition, traditional business districts cannot rely solely on discretionary governmental funding or typical tax-supported programs and services,” says the website. “There is a need to pool private resources so as to independently fund vital activities, services and improvements.”

But an Oct. 13 Patch poll found more critics than supporters of a Village PBID.

As of 2 p.m. Nov. 15, the question Does the downtown Village need a PBID for improvements? shows 110 no votes, 33 yes and 58 unsure.

*Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorectly said PBID petitions would be mailed out the week of Monday, Nov. 21.