The steamroller of secrecy and deception rolls on at La Canada
Flintridge City Hall.
At 5:30 p.m. Monday, the City Council and staff held a stealthy
"study session'' to reveal their preordained but unpublicized
decision to spend our tax dollars (no one seemed to know how many) to
send pro-sewer propaganda to 1,508 property owners above Foothill
Boulevard in proposed Sewer Districts 3B (west of La Canada Boulevard
to just past Palm) and 3A (westward to but not including Ocean View
Avenue), under the guise of a survey to determine their views, but
meant to keep vital information from them before the city spends
another $600,000 plus for a "final'' (but changeable) design after
spending at least $89,000 for a "preliminary'' design.
This does not include construction costs of at least $21 million
to $23.6 million plus many millions of dollars (probably an
additional $21 million or so) for hookup, maintenance, annual fees,
back valves, grinders (residential pumps needed in certain homes
below street level), and filling existing septic and cesspools with
dirt and rocks, all payable by the individual homeowner at the cost
of tens of thousands of dollars each.
The city estimates the assessment per parcel for only the
in-street construction at $12,086 to about $27,750 upfront, the
latter being almost identical to the city's July 2000 per-parcel
estimate submitted to the state of California.
That is, if you pay upfront. If you amortize, the total added to
your property tax bill is probably two-thirds more -- like $40,000 in
nontax-deductible assessments over 20 years, for something most local
residents with septic tanks don't need.
If you want information, contact me at 790-2379 or visit our Web
site http://no_on_sewers.home.att.net, which focuses on District 2.
The issues are pretty much the same, but District 3 is
considerably more expensive.
And [the Web site] is being updated to include specifics on
District 3; including the city's Monday preliminary engineering study
session and reports and map of the area. (District 3 documents the
city repeatedly denied having until they started referring to them
during the study session.)
The city regularly violates the laws requiring it give the public
timely access to what are by law, public records.
At the 5:30 p.m. Monday study session (due to lack of publicity,
only 12 ordinary La Canada Flintridge residents attended), the
Council precipitously announced that on Tuesday it would mail a flier
