Diamond Bar homeowners will be keeping their original assessment fees, possibly to the expense of the city.
The Diamond Bar City Council met for its regularly scheduled meeting on August 6, where they viewed ballots from assessment district 39′s households concerning the formation of a landscaping assessment.
Council member Ruth Low recused herself during this part of the meeting due to the Fair Political Practices Act, which does not allow elected city council members in California to vote on concerns that will give them possible financial gain.
A total of 378 “no” votes were counted while 103 votes were in favor of the assessment, so the resolution did not pass.
The resolution on August 6 would have raised the assessment fees for household owners and divided the areas into three different zones, each of which would have had individual rates. The specific zones and rates from the resolution can be found here.
Jerry Bradshaw, assessment district engineer, gave a presentation for the resolution before ballots were counted. According to Bradshaw, the total amount collected from current assessment fees is about $295,000 a year. With the city’s expenses being about $504,000, Diamond Bar has a “shortfall” of around $209,000 a year. He also added that the raise in fees would be about $10 to $12.50 more per month for each household.
“This measure is about putting the district back on a self-sustaining, self-supporting basis, which is how it was intended when it was created 34 years ago,” he said. He also said that the costs would have gone towards jobs such as “mowing, trimming and pruning, vegetation, water for irrigation, maintenance and upkeep of the five parks, clearing the v-ditches for drainage and other miscellaneous tasks.”
The council will instead stay with the assessments in a resolution that was adopted earlier this summer on June 18 due to public input.
Update: August 10, 5:14 p.m.:
“The Diamond Bar City Council met for its regularly scheduled meeting on August 6, where they viewed ballots from assessment district 39′s households concerning the formation of a landscaping assessment.”
This was edited to reflect that this was a vote from district 39 for accuracy.
