Fee will keep the city safe

Nov 28, 2023
Nov 28, 2023 Updated Apr 13, 2025
4

Editor,

As the story “Stormwater fee up for vote in San Mateo” (Nov. 27 Daily Journal) notes, the city’s stormwater infrastructure has “been neglected for more than 50 years.”

(4) comments

Terence Y Nov 28, 2023 11:09am

Ms. Briand – subsidizing those who rolled the dice and decided against flood insurance should not be a burden on everyone else. As for creating dedicated, sustained funding, how will you ensure this? And if the city doesn’t dedicate the funding, then what? You have no recourse. Just vote no.

DCG001 Nov 28, 2023 11:31am

This money will go into an enterprise fund - this is a new fund, the city has not done before to ensure monies are not reallocated. When we have "taxes" monies are reallocated by oversight committees.. When we have "fees" - which this is, it goes into a red lined, dedicated enterprise fund. Residents will be able to monitor monies, similar to how Flood Free San Mateo is monitoring expenses from the 3 million allocated this year to DPW. Please vote yes! Thank you Isabelle for your support!

Terence Y Nov 28, 2023 3:01pm

DCG001 – we’ve done this dance before… This fund sounds reasonable on the surface, DCG001, until one realizes that for this enterprise fund to account for everything, the measure will need to pass and once passed, if the money doesn’t go towards these capital improvements, what recourse do homeowners have? The city has already taken the money and run. No thanks. And remember, we’ve plowed plenty of money into the infrastructure fund in the past and it hasn’t been used responsibly. If there’s no history of accountability, what difference would an enterprise account make?

I’d prefer to see the city first show we can trust them to be fiscally responsible. I’m sure contributors can cite more ways the city has not done that than they have. Maybe the DJ can do a poll and list a number of Funded Projects readers can choose to “borrow” $4 million from. The poll “winner” will lose $4 million and be transferred to your enterprise fund. Then we can see what difference an enterprise fund will make and whether they’re fiscally responsible.

Not So Common Nov 28, 2023 11:07pm

Thank you Isabelle, for the rest of the informed, please vote NO to our wasteful, do nothing, pot hole infested city roads, our overspending, over compensating SM county and SM city

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