Landers’ proposed property tax hike for Special Districts road maintenance hits a snag

San Bernardino County Supervisor Dawn Rowe informed the Landers Homestead Valley Association meeting that the Proposition 218 process for the Landers special districts road maintenance Zone R-15 property tax increase will have to be re-initiated, including re-noticing and a new Public Hearing.

Here she explains what happened:

“So through a series of unfortunate events, we are going to do take two on the road district. As the chairman of the board, I am in the position to be able to go up to Sacramento and lobby on behalf of the county for various interests. On that particular day, we had the presiding judge of San Bernardino County and I went to Sacramento to have meetings, and the flight left at 12: 30. And I thought that this was a slam dunk, that there would be no problem with this vote, and so I left it in what I thought was good hands, and I flew away. And then as the plane is pushing back, I’m getting text messages that the vote has gone awry and that it did not pass for your road maintenance district. And one of our supervisors thought that he might have a conflict of interest and own property in Landers. He does not, but he wasn’t sure, so he abstained. And then Supervisor Cook voted against it for reasons that I’m not sure because we haven’t spoken about it. So it did not pass.

“Why do we, the Board of Supervisors, even have to have a say in this process? If it’s you voting to tax yourself on a road district, why would it come to the Board of Supervisors at all? State law makes a distinction between an independent district and a dependent district. In the situation of special districts, like R-15 in Landers, it is a dependent special district where the Board of Supervisors acts as the governing body for such matters. As the governing body, it requires a public hearing to occur prior to the vote of property owners, where if a majority of the affected owners protest, the process ends right there. Now, that didn’t happen. You did not have a majority protest, but it didn’t get beyond the Board of Supervisors because of supervisor Cook’s vote. So, if there is not a majority protest, the Board of Supervisors generally approves the mail ballot election to proceed.

“However, the Board of Supervisors maintains their ability and discretion to make findings not to proceed if they feel it’s warranted, and that’s what happened in this case. What I have done is outlined the timing on what it would look like to bring it back for consideration. And so, you have that in front of you, the next steps.”

Rowe says that this does not affect other Morongo Basin special districts road maintenance zones.

According to Landers Homestead Association Board President Mike Lipsitz, Landers Elementary School may be set for closure by next year. The minimum required number of student registrations per year is 500.

Last year Landers Elementary only had 100 enrollments and this year 91 is the projected number of student registrations. Landers elementary students would most likely be transferred to Yucca Mesa Elementary School. In most cases, bus rides would be shorter for children as more buses will be added to the fleet.