PORT HUENEME : City to Weigh Tax Assessment Districts

The Port Hueneme City Council today will consider renewing two tax assessment districts and creating two others in an effort to save city services threatened by budget cuts.

City officials have said the assessment districts are a way to recoup up to $1 million in state budget cuts facing the city.

Residents in Port Hueneme have paid for parkway and median maintenance through a tax assessment district since 1991 and through a lighting maintenance district since 1988. Both are up for an annual renewal. The council is also considering creating two new districts, one to pay for school crossing guards and another for park maintenance.

“What it boils down to is that our General Fund is hurting,” Public Works Director Jack Duffy said. “If we are going to try to maintain our infrastructure in a livable way, there have to be funds” to pay for it.

But Laura Snell, chairwoman of Concerned Hueneme Citizens, a group that last year opposed the city’s beach maintenance assessment district, or “view tax,” said the proposal “adds up to taking money out of our pockets.” Tax hikes particularly hurt those with fixed incomes, she said.

The council will decide whether to ask city staff to begin researching the assessments, including a report assessing the costs of the new districts. The matter is tentatively set for public hearing in May, Duffy said. The council will take a final vote after the hearing.

Last year, the median and parkway district cost property owners a onetime fee of $24.62, Duffy said. Tenants were assessed three-fourths of that amount through their rents, he said.

The lighting assessment district cost $22 per residence for homeowners, with renters paying three-fourths of that amount, Duffy said.