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.
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