County officials this week sided with opponents of a controversial stormwater pollution measure, sending the proposed $290-million Clean Water, Clean Beaches measure back for major revisions.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors asked proponents of the measure to consider putting it on the June or November 2014 general election voting ballot, as opposed to prior plans which would have put the measure to a mail-in vote this year, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The fee was proposed by the Los Angeles County Flood Control District and would charge all properties an annual fee to fund the cleanup of stormwater runoff.
The measure would apply to residents and property owners in the county’s flood control district, including Malibu and the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, but having the measure on the general election ballot would give all registered county voters a say on the fee. The typical residential fee would be $54 a year, the typical condo fee about $20, and about $11,000 for a big box retailer.
If placed on the general election ballot, the measure would require two-thirds voter approval, whereas a mail-in vote would have required a 51 percent approval.
The idea for the fee, or the “Clean Water, Clean Beaches Measure,” came about when stricter standards for stormwater runoff were imposed on the county by the state and federal governments, in particular those passed by the Los Angeles County Regional Water Quality Control Board in November placing limits on 33 pollutants.
Municipalities and other major property owners, like school districts, have protested the fee, saying that it would put an extra burden on their already-strained budgets at a bad time.
Zev Yaroslavsky, Malibu’s representative on the county Board of Supervisors, supports the fee and has said previously that it is “critically important” for the county to address the stormwater issue on its own terms. “If we don’t do this … we will have this imposed on us by a court, by a regulatory agency or by both.”