Possible Miscount In Shore Property Owners Election

By Carla M. Collado
Staff Writer

A special election of Second Street commercial property owners has raised concerns about the accuracy of the results and their impact on pending alley and parking lot improvements in the area.

The property owners voted — ballots were due March 3 — on whether to approve changes to the Mello-Roos community facilities district. The changes would amend the CFD to specifically help finance the purchase of a 27-space private parking lot on Park Avenue (just south of Second Street), to refinance 1993 bonds (also used for parking improvements) and to fund future parking improvements in the area.

It’s part of a larger plan by the Belmont Shore Parking and Business Improvement Area Advisory Commission to acquire $5.8 million in bonds from the city to fund alley and parking lot improvements and bring additional parking to the area.The commission plans to repay the bonds using $200,000 in annual parking meter revenues and its Mello-Roos fund.

The election was necessary because the Mello-Roos fund is fed by a special tax that commercial property owners on Second Street pay twice a year. It’s a maximum of 66 cents per square foot, although only 12 cents currently are levied.

This month’s vote required a two-thirds majority for the measure to pass.

However, out of 30 returned ballots (of 62 mailed out), 16 votes were in favor of the measure, 10 were against it, three were disqualified and one was blank, according to City Treasurer David Nakamoto. The results mean the measure failed and the city now will ask the commission to pay $50,000 (to pay the firm that conducted the election), he said.

Commission Chair Bill Lorbeer questioned those results and said he suspected the votes were miscounted, since some property owners have multiple parcels and therefore get multiple votes.

“The votes are not being proportionately counted,” Lorbeer said.

Lorbeer said the city attorney’s and city clerk’s offices now are reviewing the election results to determine whether the votes were counted correctly.

If the results are correct, the commission must pay the $50,000 and will have to wait at least six months before bringing forward the same measure to commercial property owners. If the results are incorrect, the commission might file a legal challenge and ask to redo the election.

Lorbeer said he thinks some of the commercial property owners might not have completely understood the terms of the CFD changes, since the commission did not prepare an argument in favor of the measure to appear on the ballot.

“I wish there’d been more time so there could be more discussion about it with commercial property owners,” he said.

He added that if the commission has to wait six months for a new election, it will make sure to educate all of the commercial property owners on the details of the CFD and its plans for parking and alley improvements beforehand.