I have lived in the Clearlake Riviera for 28 years and as I read the letters in the Record Bee, I can”t help but wonder if these people were actually listening to the same presentation that the rest of us attended. Remembering the speakers at the April 8 meeting, Mr. Shaul spoke of the County”s fiscal inability to pave every “county maintained” road in Lake County.
I have 20 years experience in local government, primarily in tax assessment, levy, collection and apportionment. Based upon my experience, I feel qualified to say that the information our recently retired Public Works Director, Jerry Shaul, and our local Supervisor, Rob Brown presented, is factual.
The County acknowledges that tax allocations from the State are inadequate and disproportionate to small, rural counties. The revenue available from these allocations to the County is barely enough to maintain the main thoroughfares. In the Riviera, these are Fairway Dr. and Point Lakeview Rd. Our Board of Supervisors has chosen to assume the role of a responsible local government by creating a trust to provide low cost funding for communities like ours to develop or maintain residential roads as a benefit zone.
I was surprised to learn that the cost of resurfacing the roads that we use every day is about half of what I had anticipated. If the only resource available was a bond measure, be assured that the cost for a contractor, materials and the interest rate would indeed be higher. The county is sharing in the cost by utilizing its existing workforce for much of the labor.
This alone is a savings of approximately one third. The cost for goods and materials is at the County”s cost and not in the hands of a contractor. The interest is charged at the County”s pooled rate, roughly three percent. This is fair to the County and the property owners.
No one wants to pay more tax. The value of this type of assessment is that 100 percent comes back to us as property owners. It isn”t spent in any other community or county. To those who say the roads are good enough at roughly 40 percent, I have to ask if the same reasoning would be true if their roofs were at 40 percent? Do you wait until the roof is completely ineffective, the interior of the house is compromised and the cost is now very high?
Our roads are not only a question of property value. We live on the side of a mountain and many of our streets are steep. It”s hard to imagine driving some of them after a week of rain or snow if the pavement fails. Failed roads could limit passage for heavy vehicles such as school busses and vehicles delivering goods and services on secondary streets.
I also found it very offensive that the Record Bee chose to interview one, very negative resident with an apparent personal agenda for its front page article. I”m sure his view is shared by some but I assure you that it is not shared by the majority.
There are plenty of places in the county we could have chosen to live if we wanted dirt roads, unsightly neighborhoods and possible hazardous conditions for our families. The majority of us chose to live here because it has continuity. These are our homes, our investment, and this is our “community”.
Coleen Blakey
Kelseyville
