R.P.V. Imposes Fee for City Maintenance

The Rancho Palos Verdes City Council moved a step closer to balancing its $7.2-million budget for 1992-93 by creating a special assessment district to raise $868,000 annually.

Brushing aside the protests of a small but vocal group of residents at a special meeting Sunday, the council voted 4 to 0 to form a landscaping and lighting district that will impose an assessment of $51 a year on the average single-family dwelling.

Of the city’s 16,000 property owners, 2.3% had filed formal objections to the district, far fewer than the 50% needed to block the revenue-raising move. Critics contend that the district is being created to circumvent Proposition 13 tax limits, and they have threatened to challenge the city in court.

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However, city officials say revenues raised by the special assessment will go a long way toward offsetting a $1-million shortfall in city revenues, helping pay for maintenance of parks, median strips, street lighting and traffic signals.

Even with the new funds, the city of 42,000 faces financial uncertainty because of budget cuts likely to be made in Sacramento. City officials fear that they may lose as much as $2 million in state funds this year.

Describing the new assessment as a stopgap measure, the council included a sunset clause to limit the life of the landscaping and lighting district to two years. The district will cease to exist in June, 1994, unless voters approve a ballot measure in November, 1993, extending its authority.

The council also included a hardship clause in the district’s charter that will allow senior citizens on fixed incomes to delay paying the assessment until their property is sold, officials said.