Supervisors OK Tax Assessment to Fight Mosquitoes

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed that property owners should be taxed $1.12 annually for mosquito abatement, despite objections from a taxpayers group.

The supervisors voted 5 to 0 to allow environmental health department officials to move forward with plans to levy a tax on 213,222 parcels throughout the county--with the exception of Moorpark, which already has a similar mosquito abatement program.

County officials must obtain approval from the other nine of the county’s cities before the tax can be implemented later this year.

If more than 50% of the property owners who would receive the services petition against the tax, the county must gain approval from voters.

Officials said that without the tax, they will be forced to eliminate the $303,000 mosquito abatement program, which will lose a majority of its funding from the state this year.

“There just isn’t any other funding,” Supervisor Maggie Kildee said.

However, H. Jere Robings, director of the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers, blasted the supervisors’ decision, saying special district taxes circumvent the intent of Proposition 13.

“It is just one more added tax that they are putting onto the homeowners,” Robings said. “Programs that were once funded out of the General Fund are now being funded through benefit assessment districts. They are just proliferating.”

The tax is just one of several under consideration by county officials. Last week the supervisors gave the Fire Department the go-ahead to study the possibility of charging property owners between $50 and $100 annually for services.

In addition, officials for the county’s library system and several county park districts are exploring the possibility of raising money by taxing property owners.

Currently there are more than 100 special taxes in place in the county. They represent an amount equivalent to 9% of total property taxes collected, officials said.

Although Supervisor Vicky Howard has expressed concern about the proliferation of special assessments, she decided to go along with the tax because of the risk of increased health dangers associated with mosquitoes.

Since 1984, an outbreak of mosquito-borne St. Louis encephalitis, a disease that causes inflammation of the brain, has resulted in two deaths in Southern California, officials said.

“I think we are all concerned” about the assessments, Howard said. “It’s really building. . . . But I think you get faced with difficult choices, and encephalitis is not something we can just ignore. With the increased rain, we are clearly going to have a big problem with mosquitoes this year.”

Supervisor Maria E. VanderKolk added: “(Encephalitis) is so frightening. It’s not an alternative that we can face.”