OK if they offer incentives that can reduce the tax, like being open 7 days a week and at least 10 hours per day. Tax property owners for empty storefronts.
The current cap for a business license is $3,000 while the minimum cost is $15. City Manager Ben Harvey said that both figures should be a lot higher.
“Both need to be reviewed and raised,” said Harvey. “We will bring back different scenarios to the council and what each one would potentially yield to the city.”
Build more hotels, attract more visitors. Do you really like waking up to weekend neighbors that arrived late Friday and packing up early? How about the slow moving traffic from hospitality workers that cannot afford to live here?
“My wife and I still wake up each morning and think how wonderful it is to live in this amazing community,” Kampe said. “It continues to be this special place because so many work so hard to make it this way.”
“Taken together, current deferred spending plus looming cost increases tell us we need increased revenue,” said Kampe. “We now need to ask if we, as a community, are prepared to support essential and desired services that make our city such a privileged place to live.”
Kampe referred to Carmel, which has three times the revenue per capita, and Monterey, with double the revenue per capita, as references to just how well the city has managed with its limited finances.
Not enough input from opposition.
New rates will help cover the cost of fixing old pipelines that date back to the early 1900s. Pacific Grove residents will now see a 5 percent rate increase on their monthly sewer bill, totaling about $42 a month, and some residents in the area aren’t too happy.
The city said the sewage rate increase will bring in more than $800,000 over the next couple of years. City officials said the sewer fund is separate from the general fund and can only be used for sewer maintenance.
Never mind the lack of maintenance and failing MRWPCA pump station. Pay Per Flush and Smart Sewer Meters can’t be far behind.
A discovery that the city had been overcharging customers for several years angered many and led to a grassroots effort to overturn a 10-year rate hike proposal, with 1,421 residents penning letters against the idea. But it wasn’t enough to stop the move — 3,051 responses were needed — and the City Council unanimously adopted the increases.
“We’re going to be able to move ahead,” said Pacific Grove Mayor Bill Kampe just after the responses were tallied.
The figure was not what the opposition had hoped for. The controversy arose after the city collected $600,000 in sewer fees over the last few years without issuing a required notice to ratepayers. During that time, the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency also raised its rates, which were linked to the city’s rate and added to homeowners’ bills.
In his budget message, City Manager Thomas Frutchey said Pacific Grove is in better shape than “numerous other cities” spending down their general funds to pay for basic services. The city will have $4.5 million in reserves as of June 30, up from $800,000 five years ago, he said.
A proposal to add $50,000 to the budget to improve the intersection at Central and Eardley avenues brought pleas from two Monterey Bay Aquarium employees to make the intersection safer for pedestrians.
I offer an affordable solution – make the pedestrians cross at David instead of Eardley. If the ever expanding Fish Jail management team that is converting retail buildings across Central into offices wants a controlled intersection they should foot the bill.
The city will go into the coming year offering longer library service hours and a school resource officer will again be assigned to Pacific Grove Unified School District, she said.
The city’s fiscal 2011-12 budget provides an additional $100,000 for the library. The money allows it to stay open 34 hours per week, Garcia said, compared to the current 24 hours.
The programs were made possible by budget improvements.
The 100 acres of prime land that make up the municipal golf course occupy 5 percent of the city’s area and costs around $3 million per year to operate, yet nets well under $100,000 in profits.
There are already over two dozen other golf courses in Monterey County. Pacific Grove should bulldoze the city course and put in housing, permanently owned by the city..
Housing eh? What about something more revenue generating?
With the housing market in the tank, I don’t think that housing is such a good idea. I have a much better idea. Why not remove the golf course and put in a Las Vegas-style casino with neon lighting, 24/7 nightclubs, a 12-story hotel and all the latest games and slots. Just think about the kinds of folks who would drive, fly, bus or thumb their way to P.G. to gamble and to party.
I had that idea a few years back, along with Six Flags Over Asilomar and the John Denver Ocean View RV Park.
Keep the priorities sensible. No $100,000 solar power studies or street closing consultants, ok?
Assistant City Manager Jim Becklenberg said the city will end the fiscal year on June 30 in the black, with money left over to bring its reserve fund to $2.7 million.
But, he said, Pacific Grove has accumulated a $10 million backlog in deferred maintenance and equipment replacement. Residents at recent workshops have identified a number of priorities they would like to see funded, including street maintenance, storm drain repair and sidewalk construction, and more library hours.
Assuming no new taxes, he said, additional money-saving measures and aggressively pursuing service fees to recover costs, possibly contracting with private companies for some city functions and sharing services with other communities and agencies, might reduce that deficit to about $632,000 in fiscal 2015-16.
Tourist business is down, voters rejected a sales tax boost, and lawsuits have cost the city precious funds. What city? Oh, it’s Half Moon Bay.
Half Moon Bay is disbanding its 12-member police force and the city will contract its services to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office. City officials chose the sheriff’s office over the Pacifica police department on Saturday, Mayor Naomi Patridge said in an email.
The city is following the lead of nearby San Carlos, which eliminated its police department six months ago and is using the San Mateo County sheriff.
Hasn’t made a mortgage payment since March ’09?
According to bankruptcy documents filed Dec. 15, Lighthouse Lodge LLC, employed 35 workers and in the last fiscal year had $3.2 million in gross revenues. It owed about $8.7 million on a to Orix Capital Markets, had $291,000 in “priority” unsecured debt and $5.7 million in other debt, owed to more than 175 suppliers and other vendors. Court records show the property was valued at $18.5 million and the company had $213,000 in cash.
The owners apparently stopped making payments on the mortgage sometime before March 2009, when Orix declared the loan in default. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stephen Johnson ruled Dec. 28 the inn should be sold to pay off creditors.