Evan after Supervisor Mark Medina acknowledged the San Benito County Board of Supervisors had failed in its job to support county service areas (CSA), the board adopted a resolution May 22 to impose Fiscal Year 2018-19 fees and tax assessments for utilities and services on the CSAs. There are 55 CSAs in the county, but only 31 are currently active.
“Looking at our CSAs, it shouldn’t surprise anybody that we failed and we’re not doing our job,” Medina said. “I’m sorry to say that. I know we don’t have a full-time CSA coordinator, but we’re still collecting fees on an annual basis.”
A county service area provides basic services like water, sewer, security, and fire protection via collected fees from residents within CSA borders.
Conflicts have risen over disputes between San Benito County and some home owners associations (HOA) within CSAs over the slow delivery of services due to a lack of county workers or outright denial of services, such as road repairs that the Ridgemark HOA (CSA #9) wanted to make. Some CSAs have also raised doubts that the fees they’ve paid are kept in accounts separate from the county’s general fund.
Medina referenced uncompleted contracts and said that falling back on the argument that the county did not have a coordinator was no excuse.
“We have monies sitting in those funds,” he said. “We have to outsource. We have to do something. I’m expecting since [RMA Director John Guertin’s] arrival to change that. We should have a meeting with all CSA members and explain to them this is our obligation and this is what we will do.”
Resource Management Agency Director John Guertin asked the supervisors to adopt the resolution for the CSAs for next year. He apologized to the board that a report submitted to them prior to the meeting was not as clear as he wanted it to be because he had not seen it beforehand.
“CSAs are understandably a confusing issue for members of the public, they’re confusing for staff, and I just wanted to clarify that we’re establishing the fees because we have to do that so we can assess them and collect the taxes,” Guertin said, adding that fees would not increase during the current fiscal year. “That was not clear in the staff report and it should have been.”
Guertin said budgets are status quo until the next fiscal year and that the county would hire consulting company Precision Engineering next year to assist in conducting new 218 (voter approval required before a tax increase) votes to realign fees with actual costs to the county and to clarify what services residents will receive.
Resident Richard Bettencourt, former planning commissioner, asked how the county could raise CSA fees when there wasn’t a staff CSA coordinator. He said he had heard complaints and was told of one CSA that had been trying to build a roof on a waste treatment plant in their community for three years.
Supervisor Jerry Muenzer responded that fees were not being raised and that the staff had to assess the legality of the fees. He also said the CSA was given permission over a year ago to replace the roof on their own, but had not done so.
Board Chair Anthony Botelho said the county needs to do a better job working with the CSAs. He said the controversy over CSAs had gone on for over nine years and he supported the idea of a comprehensive study of each one. He asked Guertin if this would require a new engineering study. Guertin told him it would.
“Precision [Engineering] will help us establish an engineering estimate of what the costs are for the next few years,” Guertin said. “They’ll help us work on a 10-, 20-, 30-year plan so we’re building up reserves so when major capital costs come due we have the funding set aside.”
He said there are reserves, but the county has not been proactive in telling the public what they’re being used for.
“We can do it in the abstract, but we need to do it on an annual basis so they understand and see the money is being put aside and it’s not just sitting there because we’re not doing our job,” he said. “It’s sitting there because we have a big job coming up.”
Prefacing his next comment with “all due respect,” Guertin explained to the board that getting the report to them on time, for the first time in years, was an incremental step in the progress that the staff was making regarding CSAs.
“CSAs are difficult,” Guertin said. “To say we’re failing, I don’t necessarily agree with that because 90 percent of the time the staff does incredible work and they get stuff done under really daunting [conditions]. We’ve got six guys who keep the roads open in this county. Those six guys also provide most of the services in the CSAs. It’s the 10 percent we’re failing and that’s what we’re working on.”
Botelho asked if Guertin thought a 218-process would be required for each CSA or only the larger ones. Guertin said the county would use a phased approach to work with CSAs whose expenditures are outpacing revenues.
County Administrative Officer Ray Espinosa added that there are deep-rooted problems with some CSAs.
“One of the CSAs [Stonegate, CSA #31] was created with basically no water (blue water valve as primary source),” he said. “That has caused a trickle effect for our employees to address those issues when confronted with the drought. We’re trying to address these issues with a limited staff.”
Read previous BenitoLink stories on CSAs:
https://benitolinkcom.wpengine.com/news/riverview-estates-neighborhood-working-understand-csa-funds
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