HUNTINGTON PARK : Business Tax District Plan Losing Support

Get taxed, get results.

The concept seemed so elementary that when several business owners in the city’s downtown area united several years ago with a plan to form a business improvement district--a trend among cities struggling for cash--it seemed like a sure thing.

“We knew we had to promote our businesses, and we knew we had to do something for our customers because they don’t feel safe shopping here anymore,” said Jaime Mendez, owner of Mesa Towing & Auto Repair on Randolph Street. His shop is just off the city’s main shopping strip, Pacific Boulevard.

Tired of the area’s reputation for fake-document trafficking, fraudulent phone card sales and car thefts, business owners drafted a plan recently for a Huntington Park Business Improvement District. The boundaries would be Randolph Street, Florence Avenue, Seville Avenue and Malabar Street and would include about 700 businesses.

Under the proposal, businesses would assess a tax on themselves, determined by the size and location of the business. Tax revenues would pay for increased security, maintenance, marketing and other services that many businesses say they need.

Mesa Towing, for instance, would pay the maximum, $2,500, because it’s on a street corner and is more accessible to customers. J.C. Penney and Woolworth would pay the same because of their size. The minimum a shop could be assessed would be $270.

The city has projected that about $500,000 in taxes would be collected per year. If the district is formed, the city has promised to chip in $150,000 toward the security program, which would include hiring two more police officers who would be assigned to work out of the Police Department’s recently opened substation on the boulevard.

The district would also use the assessment to hire six to 10 security officers to monitor all parking lots in the zone.

To become law, the district must have the support of businesses whose assessments would total at least 51% of the estimated $500,000 in projected revenue. Lately, the mood has changed among some merchants, sparking concerns that the district may never come to fruition.

Opponent Maricarmen Medrano, owner of Medrano Jewelers on Pacific Boulevard, has managed to muster enough support to endanger the program, city officials said.

Medrano said she has collected 370 signatures from business owners on a petition to reject the improvement district and turned it over to the Community Development Department. She said the district would tax cash-strapped merchants during harsh economic times and that the formula to determine levies is unfair.

In a letter to the mayor, opponents claimed that they represent 65% of the projected revenue. That figure was determined by Medrano after she and other business owners went door-to-door, assessed individual levies and polled the owners.

But Henry L. Gray, assistant community development director, said businesses that oppose the district only represent 44% of the assessment total. He said Medrano’s petition would be closely reviewed but a preliminary examination showed some of the signatures were not valid.

The City Council will know the results by June 5.

“We are the final word on this but it’s really a business issue,” said Mayor Thomas E. Jackson. “All council members were in favor of it because it would be a weapon to fight crime and blight on the boulevard as well as another source of revenue to the area.”