SELLING MEASURE W Happy Sunday Marysville~ The Appeal Democrat is doing a fine job trying to sell the tax increase in Marysville. Every few days they run an article from various departments about how Measure W will be a fix all for Marysville. They often refer to the advisory Measure Y and what it discusses. REMEMBER: Measure Y is an advisory vote only. There is no guarantee that the money from any tax increase will go to any city services. If it passes, most of it will go to pay on the B Street mess. It is NOT a Win Win for Marysville. Several of us visited Circle Park yesterday. Wow!! We are thankful to Councilman Pedigo for contacting Cal Water to help with the parks. We want to thank Justin Skarb and Lee Seidel from Cal Water for their part in making this happen. Circle Park is now safe and just waiting for all the kiddos to visit again. Below is another article in the Appeal Democrat. More propaganda. Parks suffering from budget cuts; Sales tax measure calls for more maintenance money Posted: Sunday, August 31, 2014 12:08 am By Eric Vodden/evodden@appealdemocrat Brown grass and yellow tape blocking access to playground equipment are the first things seen when driving past several neighborhood parks in Marysville. They havent become overgrown with weeds yet, thanks largely to volunteers at some parks and an every-other-week mowing schedule the city has been able to maintain. But like most every other budget in the city, parks funding isnt what it used to be. I will be the first to say that as far as parks, we are not doing what we should be doing, said Dave Lamon, Marysvilles city services director. Whether its cutting back on watering or fewer maintenance personnel, city parks have been visible victims of the citys dwindling revenues. Measure W on the November ballot calls for a 1-cent sales tax to boost city services, including the budget for maintaining city parks. The adjoining Measure Y on the ballot calls for spending 25 percent of sales tax revenues, if Measure W passes, on streets, sidewalks and parks. Based on a consultants estimate, the sales tax measure could generate from $1.7 million to $1.9 million a year for the city. If that were the case, it would raise from $425,000 to $475,000 to be divided among streets and parks. Because the city elected to seek a general purpose sales tax, funding would go into the general fund with no requirement it be spent as outlined in Measure Y. We would like to be able to increase the watering and be able to green up the parks a bit more, Lamon said. Some areas are getting little or no water. In 2005, Marysville budgeted $315,000 on its parks compared to its current $235,000. Over the same period, water costs have more than doubled from $60,000 to $124,000 a year, Lamon said. We have cut down watering, but at the same time our costs went up considerably, he said. Regular maintenance becomes an issue when there is so few personnel, Lamon said, especially when furloughs provide only four days a week for actual work. The city has 41⁄3 maintenance positions that share time between parks and streets. Volunteers Marysville Councilman Chris Pedigo noted the parks would look a lot worse if it werent for a small group of volunteers who maintain some parks or conduct regular cleanups. If we didnt have the volunteers, the parks would be overgrown with weeds, Pedigo said. The trees would be going brown because of not being watered. They edge, mow, cut back trees and bushes and water trees in parks, he said. They pick up trash around Ellis Lake and have cleaned up the boat dock area in Beckwourth Riverfront Park. California Water Service Co. is donating $12,000 to purchase new bark to place under playground equipment at four neighborhood parks. That will eliminate the need for the tape blocking access to playground equipment. But volunteers cant be counted on for the long term, Pedigo admitted. We have to have dedicated workers to do park maintenance, he said. We are down to bare bones. Ellis Lake Measure Y specifically discusses hiring additional maintenance workers, including one assigned to Ellis Lake, the citys mid-city showpiece. There is currently nobody assigned to regularly maintain the grounds around the lake. The intent is to spend more maintenance time at Ellis Lake, Lamon said. But that will be tempered by further cutbacks in park staffing. Lamon said his vision would be to spread out the work for such a position. My own vision has somebody spending a half-day at Ellis Lake doing cleanup and the other half going through the downtown area, doing things like pruning trees so people can walk on the sidewalk. CONTACT Eric Vodden at 749-4769. How other sales tax measures have fared Novembers sales tax measure in Marysville isnt the first time in recent years local government entities have attempted to boost revenues by attaching a local tax to local purchases. It was successful when Wheatland voters in 2010 approved a half-cent general purpose sales tax. But Marysville voters in 2008 turned down Measure O, a half-cent sales tax measure to bolster the citys budget. Unlike Marysvilles 1-cent general purpose measure on this Novembers ballot, the Wheatland Council didnt include an adjoining advisory measure outlining proposed uses for the funds. But it still passed by a solid margin without much public opposition. City Manager Steve Wright said it has meant an additional $240,000 a year for the city. We have attempted to spread it around and make sure that all departments have benefited from the passage, Wright said. Really, what it did, especially the first two years, was allow us not to impose further cuts. Wright credited the sales tax with enabling the city to avoid layoffs and furloughs. It also helped provide cost-of-living wage adjustments. However, Marysvilles half-cent sales tax measure in 2008 went down to defeat with 63 percent of voters casting ballots in opposition. City officials at the time were proposing to use the additional tax revenue to replace the oldest police and fire vehicles. It also was to be a way to restore three City Hall employees and one police job lost through budget cuts. Then, as now, Marysville city officials said most of the sales tax would have been paid by nonresidents passing through the city. At the time, 10 of the top 20 sales tax producers were service stations. — Eric Vodden
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 11:22:07 +0000
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