City takes line on going underground

Deirdre Newman

If residents seem willing, the city will ask them to tax themselves

to pay for putting utility lines underground.

The City Council at its last meeting agreed to work toward putting

all the remaining overhead utility lines on the city’s main streets

underground, coordinating the effort with street repairs whenever

possible. They asked staff members to begin polling residents to see

if a $380-million bond is a viable option.

“I very much like the overall goal,” Councilwoman Libby Cowan

said. “It’s something I’ve tried to accomplish on my eight years on

the City Council, and I think there are ways to do this without

everyone fainting at the cost.”

Residents already agreed to tax themselves for two school bonds --

one for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District in 2000 to repair

dilapidated schools and one in 2002 for the Coast Community College

District to fund a laundry list of improvements over 20 years on each

of its three campuses.

Residents were expected to pay $22.35 per $100,000 in assessed

home value for the Newport-Mesa bond and $16.60 per $100,000 in

assessed home value for the community college bond when each passed.

If residents are receptive to putting a bond issue on a ballot for

the utility line project, it could be paid off through property tax

or sales tax, City Manager Allan Roeder said. State law requires a

two-thirds majority vote to approve a bond measure.

The bond would need to be about $380 million, which includes the

engineering and design cost as well as the construction, city

engineer Ernesto Munoz said.

It’s an option worth exploring, said John Moorlach, the county

treasurer and a Costa Mesa resident.

“If you look at our neighboring cities and you look at how nice

they are -- the new developments -- everything is underground,”

Moorlach said. “You drive around Costa Mesa and it kills you to see

all these overhead lines. From a standpoint of beautifying the city,

it’s something that needs to be explored.”

A similar project on 19th Street and Placentia Avenue cost $530

per linear foot to put Southern California Edison’s distribution

lines underground and $190 per linear foot to put SBC’s lines

underground, for a minimum project length of one mile.

The poll will give residents a ball-park figure and ask how they

feel about paying to put the utility lines on the main streets

underground versus paying for other priorities like public safety or

walls separating homes from the street , Munoz said. The last time

the city conducted a general poll on the same topic, residents were

receptive to the idea but not willing to pay for it, Roeder said.

Mayor Gary Monahan is concerned that history will repeat itself.

He supports putting utility lines underground in certain areas, as

the city has been doing, but he thinks there are higher priorities to

ask the voters to pay for.

“If I were to support a bond issue, with the need we have for

parkland -- especially for our kids -- and the need for street

repairs and storm drains, which is in the millions, I would be much

more supportive of making a case for a project like that,” Monahan

said.

Moorlach suggested two ballot initiatives. The first would be

non-binding and ask voters how they feel about a tax to put the

utility lines underground. If that elicits a favorable response, then

put the bond measure on the next ballot, Moorlach said.

Other cities typically pay to put the utility lines on main

streets underground by using money allocated by the California Public

Utilities Commission, Munoz said. Costa Mesa has already spent a

large chunk of those funds just on the 19th Street and Placentia

Avenue project, Munoz added.

Council members also directed staff members to look at creating a

policy similar to Newport Beach’s, which allows residents to pay for

putting utilities underground on the streets in their neighborhoods

if they so desire. Two-thirds of a neighborhood’s residents would

have to approve for a project to go forward.

Staff members will now need to identify funds in the budget to

hire a consultant to conduct the poll and bring that information back

to the council for consideration, Public Services Director Bill

Morris said.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers government. She may be reached at (714)

966-4623 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.