The Richmond City Council on Tuesday did not support one councilmember’s idea to poll voters about putting a bond measure on the November ballot to raise money for a number of city infrastructure improvements.
There was no second to a motion to vote on District 2 Councilmember Cesar Zepeda’s proposal to spend $50,000 on a poll that would have gauged whether Richmonders are amenable to a general obligation bond that, if passed, could fund decade-old revitalization projects, upgrade several fire stations, build a public safety building and repair and expand the 75-year-old downtown library branch.
However, city staff will work on a proposal request to hire someone to assess the city’s facilities’ needs.
After a 45-minute discussion and public comment, District 5 Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin questioned the amount of time available to complete a poll before the Aug. 9 deadline to file the bond measure with the Contra Costa County Clerk Recorder.
“We already have three ballot measures that will be on the ballot, and here it is on the last meeting we have scheduled before the break, and you’re asking for a lot to happen,” McLaughlin said. “I don’t think there would be enough time to do a fair poll, and I do think you need a fair poll to get a sense of what voters want.”
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We are asking the public to consider a bond with no idea of what the bond is for. There are concepts, but we need to have more than concepts. We need to have something definite.”
— Mayor Eduardo Martinez
Richmond voters so far will decide on three bond measures: An oil refining tax, the Richmond Election Reform Act — which aims to create a primary municipal election — and the Instant Runoff Voting Election Reform Act, approved on Tuesday night, which, if passed, would establish ranked-choice voting.
Mayor Eduardo Martinez pushed back on Zepeda implying that the council Tuesday would have been voting to just contract the polling company, pointing to wording that instructed City Attorney Dave Aleshire’s staff to simultaneously pursue special meetings required for the bond during the council’s summer break, which started after Tuesday night’s session.
“We are asking the public to consider a bond with no idea of what the bond is for. There are concepts, but we need to have more than concepts,” Martinez said. We need to have something definite. We need figures that will guide the money we are asking the public to support in these bonds. It is too much, too little time and too much vagueness for what the bond would be for.”
Zepeda responded that, although a final decision on the bond amount would be gleaned from the poll, previous plans presented to the council — such as one addressing a $4 million shortfall for the library expansion — would inform that.
“We have had some of this information already. We just have not had the money to put in front of it,” Zepeda said. “I get that it is not all sorted out but it has been (in the past).”
Richmond has for years deferred maintenance on its infrastructure, with the need accumulating to $34 million, according to Zepeda.
If the proposed poll showed residents were favorable toward a bond, the proposal would have likely been a general obligation bond to address a number of Richmond’s fire station repair needs while also expanding library services and building a facility to return the police department to the Civic Center – plans that were part of a shelved, second phase of a mid-2000s Civic Center Revitalization plan.
District 3 Councilmember Doria Robinson agreed that the city needs to address the police department having to lease a building and substandard fire station conditions but said there should be a facilities assessment plan before the council considers how to pay for the projects.
“One of the things that is proposed if we have surplus funds is to do a facility assessment which I feel like we would need before we start talking about what kind of funding mechanisms we may or may not use,” Robinson said. “I feel like it’s possible if we understand exactly what we are doing, moving according to a plan, that this tool of a bond would be a perfectly fine tool to use but I feel like we need to use it sparingly.”
City Manager Shasa Curl told the council that, during the summer recess, she would work with city staff on a facility needs assessment. The City Council returns from its break Sept. 10, according to the City Clerk’s Office.
“We can see what the responses are and how much it costs before bringing it back to the council when that information is available,” Curl said. “Based on that information it should be about that time you should be considering unspent funds, and then we could develop a work plan.”
