The agenda is posted for the March 21 meeting of the City Council:
1. PUBLIC HEARINGS
A. Consider Approval - Res. 11-___, Establishing new fees for new state mandated inspection services. (Staff: S. White) (Continued from the March 7, 2011 council meeting)
B. Consider Approval - Res. 11-___, Adjusting the Hourly Labor Rate for services in the Building Division. (Staff: S. White) (Continued from the March 7, 2011 council meeting)
C. Consider Approval - Res. 11-___, Adjusting Inspection Services and Encroachment Permit Fees. (Staff: S. White)
This is a story that almost writes itself:
Item 1 A
More new fees!
Item 1 B
Raising the hourly rate for inspections!
A side note cut from the backup documents:
The actual cost was calculated at $105 but they are magnanimously only asking for $95.
Problem:
The other ten dollars per hour, rather than being paid by the users of the services, as it is planned and by the way reasonable, will be passed on to be paid out of the general fund being charged to the many citizens who actually paid full value of the inspections when their homes were built. (In effect double billing) while giving the building industry a break.
Item 1 C:
More fees being raised!
2. ADMINISTRATIVE ITEMS
A. COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
1. Consider Approval – Authorize the City of Clovis to join the Statewide Community Infrastructure Program and Authorize the Statewide Communities Development Authority to Take Actions Necessary to Operate the Program. (Staff: T. Sumner)
The backup on this document is almost the story of why our way of life is being threatened.
Highlights in the backup you need to note:
Clovis fees are higher than others.
Developments are not expanding because of the higher fees.
Rather than addressing why the fees are higher we simply put them on a credit card to be paid down the road.
Only property owners who choose to participate in the program would have
assessments imposed on their property.
NOTE:
Property owners as used here, does not mean what you think!
The property owner is the developer.
The developer puts the fees on credit / bond, so they can reduce the selling price of the home, mention to the buyer that there some bond debts associated with the home and they are home free.
Now all of the development fees are now paid by the new homeowner along with their property tax.
The one or two property owners doing the development, make the decision and place the burden on each and every parcel and future owner.
Because fees amount to many thousands this smoke and mirrors system instantly lowers the selling price, while raising the property tax cost by the same amount, plus interest.
Why not simply add the cost of the land to the program and we can have the cheapest home to sell in the valley right here in Clovis.
Don’t concern yourself with the fact that property tax bills including these bonds will substantially increase the semi annual payments.
Try explaining to these citizens years later as we try to fund our City that most of their tax bill is paying not for services they want but payments on fees their developer chose to defer.
For home buyers, paying for the costs of public infrastructure through a special assessment is superior to having those costs "rolled" into the cost of the home. Although the tax bill is higher, the amount of the mortgage is smaller, making it easier to qualify
Wrong!!!!
When you are trying to qualify property tax payments are figured into the equation, so it becomes a wash.
To push the point just a bit farther:
Can I jump on the wagon and get reimbursed for all of the fees included in my home?
I could list the home for well below anything on the market, and simply advise the buyers “There are some bond liabilities on the tax rolls”
Now for the big one:
This is but one more nail in the coffin of local control dying.
As our City joins organization after organization, program after program to homogenize all development. Council of Governments, Valley Blueprint, the list goes on and on all aspects of our live and Cities future are being put to the vote of these agencies.
If you happen to be the toilet in the area you will inevitably improve, If you were as Clovis is in a position of having a higher standard as has been the recent case we are loosing the very things we move to Clovis to enjoy.
The General Plan Housing element is mandated in several areas because of the humiliation process.
Local control of our money and our destiny is being handed off one by one.
As Council members lament about requirements and loss of control, one only has to look back over the record to see how the local control was simply given away. In this case to help developers by giving them a way to kick the cost of development fees down the road and away from their sale price, in other cases it is chasing the carrots called “GRANTS”
As our council and others stand with their hands out wrapping us in all of the grant strings, they don’t seem to understand the basic concept of where the money comes from.
Every penny in grant money is either, proceeded, or soon followed by the State taking more local funds to pay for the grants they just awarded.
This agenda is the perfect picture of why this City, this State, and Our Country, is in the mess it is.
The answer to every problem is to put it off, kick the can down the road, or hide it behind smoke and mirrors.
Grants now dictate what projects can be done while reason and logic have no bearing.
Solar systems are installed because much of the cost is covered by a grant, grant money that came from our pockets.
Developments subsidized with development funds now asking for fees to be waved as well.
