Residents Approve Maintenance Tax

Special property taxes that help pay for public maintenance, such as lighting and landscaping, won overwhelming approval from voters Tuesday.

Results from a mail-in ballot show that property owners are willing to continue paying for an assessment district that partially funds the services.

The vote was 78% in favor to 22% opposed. About 15,000 of the 35,000 ballots were returned, officials said.

“That’s very interesting,” said Mayor Christina Shea upon hearing the vote. “It seems to me that our residents want to maintain good landscaping and lighting.”

The tax districts were started in 1983 but were to be discontinued under Proposition 218, which requires cities to secure a majority vote from property owners to reinstate taxes or create new ones.

Property owners will pay anywhere from a few cents to $41.05 a year each to maintain the assessment districts, said Jeffrey F. Niven, fiscal services manager. The money accounts for about $1.5 million of the $15-million public works budget.

The council will decide how to bill residents at a meeting later this month. Most likely, said City Manager Paul Brady, property owners will be charged in their water or refuse bills.

Since Proposition 218 took effect, voters in Tustin, Garden Grove and Yorba Linda have approved assessments in their cities, but property owners in San Clemente and Stanton have defeated them.