Our View: 'Yes' vote recommended for flood assessment
Endorsing a new tax, levy or fee — particularly in these challenging economic times — would seem to run counter to this newspaper's editorial philosophy. However, we're making an exception in a matter that reminds us of the famous oil filter marketing slogan: "You can pay me now, or pay me later."
Property owners in Sutter and Butte counties must decide by Wednesday on approving a property assessment to help fund a 44-mile levee upgrade along the Feather River. If OK'd by a simple majority of voters, the annual assessments would raise $72.5 million of the project's estimated $250 million cost, with state-issued bonds covering the rest of the tab to get the levee repairs done by 2015.
So what does this mean to your bottom line? According to the Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency, most homeowners would face annual assessments ranging from $50 to $200 over the course of 33 years. The annual assessment would be included on property tax bills, with the first levied in October 2010. (Property owners can look up their proposed assessment online by using the "assessment calculator" on the flood control agency's website www.sutterbutteflood.org).
The individual property assessments are calculated based on several factors, including relative flood risk, depth of flooding, land use type, square footage and parcel size. Thus, large property owners such as Sunsweet Growers Inc. of Yuba City and the Yuba City Unified School District face projected hefty bills to finance the flood protection effort.
Representatives of those entities have endorsed the levee upgrade, as have elected officials and businesses in the two counties, the Yuba-Sutter Chamber of Commerce and the Sutter County Taxpayers Association. They agree with the project's basic intent: Enacting the levee upgrade will preclude the need to purchase expensive, high-risk mandatory flood insurance; head off state building permit restrictions required for property owners in a flood plain; and, most importantly, protect citizens from a deadly catastrophe like the 1955 Yuba City flood.
It's worth noting that no organized opposition to the assessment proposal emerged during SBFCA's informational campaign; naysayers who spoke up at public hearings or wrote letters to the editor cited their fears of additional project costs dumped on them, and proposed the flood-control plan include dredging the Feather River. However, engineers have dismissed dredging as a viable option.
Backers of the assessment say they are cautiously optimistic their efforts will pay off with approval because property owners will recognize that paying an assessment makes far more sense than footing the bill for flood insurance.
Of course, the decision ultimately rests in the voters' hands; as the newspaper reported Saturday, about one-third of the estimated 34,200 ballots have been cast. That still leaves about 20,000 property owners yet to "voice" their opinion on the assessment. Results of the assessment vote will be announced July 14.
A public hearing on the flood protection assessment will be held 6 p.m. Wednesday at Veterans Memorial Hall in Yuba City. Property owners who haven't mailed in their ballot can hand-deliver them at that time. In addition, comments about the levee project and its funding can be submitted. Voters who need a replacement ballot can pick one up at the hearing.
The newspaper recommends a "yes" vote on the property assessment: Paying now is a far more attractive prospect than the potential consequences involved with paying later.
