LAKE COUNTY ? Losing 20 percent of its revenue is spurring Lake County Vector Control to ask the county”s property owners to vote for an extra assessment designed to bolster the department”s efforts to control nuisance bugs throughout the county.
Property owners will receive a mail ballot next month asking voters to OK a $13.96 annual assessment. Vector Control District Manager and Research Director Jaime Scott told the board her department faced the loss of property taxes to the state Education Revenue Augmentation Fund and to three redevelopment agencies in the county.
“People are unlikely to return someplace where they have been harassed by mosquitoes. I think we have played an important role in the economy of our local community by minimizing the risk,” Scott said.
The proposed assessment would raise approximately $558,000 annually to augment Vector Control”s approximately $1 million budget, after the 20-percent loss. Scott said there was no sunset clause on the assessment, but the department”s board of directors would review it annually to determine whether the amount needed to be reduced.
Scott said it was “very likely” that the assessment would be reduced in future years.
Scott told the board 57.3 percent of property owners surveyed last fall supported the proposal. She said 10,000 landowners were surveyed, almost a fourth of the county”s property owners. Of those, 2,300 responded.
“What this told our board is that the property owners of Lake County clearly would support a measure to control mosquitoes, vectors and the diseases that they carry,” Scott said.
Scott said the money would be used to add new positions, increase response time to service requests, conduct more surveillance and testing for tick-born diseases and replace failing equipment and vehicles.
After the meeting, Scott said an average of 3 to 5 percent of the western black-legged ticks captured and tested in Lake County were infected with Lyme Disease. She said the Pacific Coast tick is the most common carrier of Rickettsia 364D, also identified in Lake County.
Lake County Public Health Officer Karen Tait said it manifests as a black scab that forms over the bitten skin. She said studies are ongoing to determine whether there are other symptoms associated with Rickettsia.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com, or call her directly at 263-5636, ext. 37.
