Showing posts with label FEMA flood tax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FEMA flood tax. Show all posts

March 8, 2013

Last Chance to Protest the Los Angeles County Clean Water, Clean Beaches hearing March 12, 2013

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will hear comments on the proposed Clean Water, Clean Beaches Measure on Tuesday, March 12, at 9:30am. The hearing will take place during the Board's regular meeting in the Board Hearing Room at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, 500 West Temple St. Los Angeles, 90012. The Board meeting will be webcast live via the LA County website at www.LACounty.info. Requests to address the Board on this item must be submitted in person to the Executive Officer of the Board prior to the item being called.

 If you live in Knabe's district just email their office before the hearing and they will likely make sure you end up on the speakers list; or better yet just email your written protest to their office (AskDon@lacbos.org) and WQFI.Info@dpw.lacounty.gov as well as the scanned form available here. Actually all you need to do is send in that scanned form to effectively register your protest vote. To be counted, protest forms must be received by the end of the public hearing period on March 12 and include the parcel's site address, Assessor's Parcel Number, the name of the parcel owner, as well as the signature of the parcel owner or an authorized representative. Only scanned or photographed email protests with a handwritten signature will be accepted.

This is likely your last chance. The Board is likely going to "punt" at this hearing and make a decision on what to do with this mess that LA County Dept of Public Works dumped in their lap. The "no" votes are still no where near the 50% of all parcels needed to stop this under the very poorly drafted Proposition 218 (Its quite frankly amazing that the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn drafted 218 with such horrible anti taxpayer provisions) Really the only way this can be stopped at this point is for the Board to do away with the attempt to use the Prop. 218 method of "voting" and put this to a general election. Otherwise the taxpayers have no chance. Very sad day for LA County Taxpayers. We are about to get fleeced so get your wallets ready. This is actually worse than the FEMA imposed flood insurance mandates (that heavily hit residents in Lakewood and Long Beach) in the early 1990's. That flood insurance mandate only affected 1/10th of the residents this new measure will affect. And the FEMA insurance deal was temporary. This new tax will last forever.

For more on Prop 218 and the rest of this saga read our prior post

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

November 9, 2012

Get ready for more property taxes related to storm water runoff


Now that Lakewood homeowners have dodged a bullet on the "flood tax" (FEMA imposed flood insurance in Lakewood where it is not needed) we have a new "parcel tax" to worry about. The County has secretly been working on this for some time. The new water "run off" regulations are out now per the story below and it is going to be very interesting how the County assess each parcel owner with this new property tax. This "election" will be next year and will be very low key. The county will not want you property owners to pay much attention to it but you should. We will pass along more information as we learn it as to when this so called "election" will take place in 2013. We have previously asked the County for information about this election but were rebuffed.

We believe the only persons entitled to vote will be property owners so again it will not be a "typical" election of all registered voters like we just had. Voting could take place in a 45-day mail-in ballot election between March and May 2013, according to county documents. Depending on the size of your lot you could be looking at a $50.00 to $100.00 per year (or more) additional fee on your property tax bill forever. This will highly depend on the size and configuration of your lot and likely how it is zoned.Of course the issue will be whether the County should pay for this out of its General Fund or asses a new "tax" for it. About 40 percent of the money would be distributed to 85 cities in the county, 50 percent would go to watershed groups made up of cities and unincorporated county communities, and 10 percent would go to the Los Angeles County Flood Control District for administrative costs, according to county documents. Recall of course you just rejected Measure J in LA County on November 6, 2012. (that was to extend the "temporary 1/2 cent sales tax hike in LA County to 2069) Take a look at all the current assessments on your property tax bill. There are many hundreds of dollars of "fees" and "assessments"on there and for some people may even be higher than the property tax bill itself.

So once again what have you seen from the city of Lakewood on this? Nothing. Dont bother looking at the website. Nothing there. What are they going to do about it? Apparently nothing. It does not appear that any representatives from Lakewood even spoke at the Nov 8, 2012 meeting (unlike other local cities) As usual, the City Council is keeping you in the dark. Now that we have posted something perhaps they will bring it up as they love to do that just like they did with the FEMA problem.

latimes.com/news/local/la-me-storm-water-20121109,0,4497794.story latimes.com

New storm water runoff rules could cost cities billions The regional water board regulations place restrictions on 33 pollutants. 

 By Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times
 November 9, 2012

Cities in Los Angeles County face spending billions of dollars to clean up the dirty urban runoff that washes pollution into drains and coastal waters under storm water regulations approved Thursday night by the regional water board. Despite more than two decades of regulation, runoff remains the leading cause of water pollution in Southern California, prompting beach closures and bans on eating fish caught in Santa Monica Bay. The runoff — whether from heavy winter rains or sprinkler water spilling down the gutter — is tainted by a host of contaminants from thousands of different places: bacteria from pet waste, copper from auto brake pads, toxics from industrial areas, pesticides and fertilizer from lawns. "Municipal wastewater treatment has made incredible strides over the past 20 or 30 years, and other sources of pollution have been well controlled," said John Kemmerer, regional associate water director for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the Clean Water Act. "It really comes down now to urban runoff."

The regulations, which the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted after a daylong hearing, place limits on 33 pollutants ranging from coliform bacteria to hydrocarbons and lead. "This is the only way to move forward," said board member Madelyn Glickfeld. Environmental groups countered that the regulations contain provisions that weaken enforcement. "We're extremely disappointed with this decision," said Kirsten James, water quality director for Heal the Bay. "At the end of the day [the cities] don't have that stick waiting for them. That's very disconcerting." The requirements, in the form of a pollution permit, are an overdue renewal of storm water regulations adopted in 2001 that failed to reap hoped-for improvements in water quality. The permit applies to most cities in the county as well as the county flood control district and unincorporated areas. Over the last few years, other regions in the state have adopted similar storm water regulations. But none address as many pollutants as the Los Angeles rules, which cover 3,000 square miles containing about 500 miles of open drainage channels and 3,500 miles of subterranean drains.

The Los Angeles provision seeks to reduce storm water flows to the ocean in ways that would replenish aquifers, thus boosting local water supplies.

Municipal officials say they will pursue a variety of tactics to meet the regulations, ranging from better street sweeping to collaborating on the construction of large infiltration basins that will capture storm water and let it seep into the ground to recharge groundwater. They also plan to adopt low-impact development ordinances similar to one approved in the city of Los Angeles that require new, larger construction projects to use parking lot and landscape designs that would retain a certain amount of runoff on site. Building "green infrastructure" to capture the runoff is more cost-efficient than trying to treat it at thousands of small sources, Kemmerer said. Parking lots at public buildings such as schools could be converted to permeable paving. Street curbs could be altered to send road runoff to plant beds rather than storm drains. Small pocket parks could be created with plantings to hold and filter rainwater. "This takes a different approach" that gives cities flexibility to meet the pollution standards "in the most economical way possible," said Charles Stringer, the board's vice chairman.

The cost of complying with regulations has been a top concern for cities — although environmentalists say municipalities are exaggerating the expense. Shahram Kharaghani, watershed protection division manager for Los Angeles, estimated it will cost $5 billion to $8 billion to meet the storm water standards for the city over the next two decades. But the projects won't just improve water quality, he said, they will recharge groundwater supplies, create wildlife habitat and create green jobs. "This is no longer put the water in the pipe and get it out to the ocean," he said. The county flood control district is preparing a ballot proposal for next year that would impose a parcel fee to pay for the runoff controls. At $54 for an average residential parcel, the fee would raise about $275 million a year, Kharaghani said. But what the cities view as needed flexibility, environmental groups describe as offramps that will let municipalities off the compliance hook. "It is going to be the public that suffers, the water quality that suffers," warned Noah Garrison, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Environmentalists objected in particular to a provision they interpret as saying that if municipalities adopt a watershed plan approved by the board and implement it, they will be considered in compliance, even if the pollution limits are exceeded. The water board staff, which has worked for several years on the new regulations, rebutted that contention, saying the requirements were much more stringent than earlier permits.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

June 25, 2012

Update on FEMA's flood "tax"

this is the latest update from LBReport.com:

UPDATE: June 25, 2012, 2:15 p.m., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid began making a series of motions re amendments and procedures related to the flood insurance bill. Sen. Jon Tester (D., MT) then spoke urging swift approval of the bill. The federal flood insurance bill which includes a section that could require homeowners and commercial property owners (whose properties carry federally backed loans) to purchase flood insurance if they're now protected by levees and dams. A vote on another bill is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Tomorrow, the Senate may take up the flood insurance bill again. If the "residual flood risk" verbiage isn't removed from the Senate version of the bill (as it was last year in the House version), it could require tens of thousands of homeowners and commercial property owners in shaded areas on maps below to buy federally-run "flood insurance" each year. On passage, the Senate bill will go to a House-Senate conference committee (a handful of House and Senate members). If the Committee doesn't remove the "residual risk" language [Congress has a fiscal incentive to leave it in the final bill], the resulting legislation could require LB and southeast LA County homeowners with federally backed loans in the shaded areas below to pay federal flood insurance premiums each year [precise amount unspecified in bill and left to FEMA, we speculate several hundred dollars annually]. See coverage on LBReport.com for up to the minute details....

Update from LAAG on June 25:

We checked the text of Councilman Van Nostran's 2012 'State of the City" address given on January 5, 2012 and guess what. Not one mention of this "tax" or FEMA or flooding or anything else giving Lakewood homeowners a heads up about this and other really important things that will affect your family budget drastically. So either Lakewood is asleep at the helm or they decided to hide it from you. This bill has been in the works since December 2011 (when S. 1940 was introduced in the US Senate)

Lakewood city council should have alerted residents to this months ago and urged residents to write to the elected officials in Washington to seek a legislative "fix" to this problem before it hit this current crisis mode. Now there is very little time for a realistic legislative solution and the issue will likely we left to the bureaucrats at FEMA to decide our fate. Not very comforting as the FEMA folks are NOT ELECTED.

LAAG's Prior FEMA flood tax Post here

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

June 23, 2012

FEMA is once again getting ready to fleece homeowners in Lakewood with the help of Congress


June 25th Update here

Once again FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) via the NFIP (National Flood Insurance Plan) and of course your pals in Congress are trying to stick it to you again. Homeowners in Lakewood may once again be stuck with hundreds of dollars a year in flood insurance premiums as they once were in the 1990's up thru 2001 or thereabouts. In a nutshell what congress is doing is acknowledging that we (Thanks to then Congressman Steve Horn) fixed the levees on the LA River to be certified to protect against a "100 year flood". What congress is doing now is upping that to 500 year storm protection which basically means you will never be free from being forced to buy flood insurance (by NFIP) for your federally insured mortgage. And yes this little scheme is being pushed by both Democrats and Republicans (Likely to pay for all the hurricane and disaster relief that FEMA did in other states these past few years) Oh but wait its not a "tax" its just a mandatory insurance requirement for something that is less likely to occur than a direct asteroid strike in Lakewood. And the best part it does not increase the deficit (because YOU are going to pay for 100% of the costs of the program.... until you pay off your mortgage) There is a vote on this bill in the senate on Monday (June 25, 2012) at about 10 am PST. Unfortunately due to some maneuverings in congress were were caught short on this notice (Congress likes to do things that way so you pesky voters don't have time to call them or email them and tell them how angry your are).

If you are wondering what our "gold plated" city management team (with paid lobbyists) was doing on this bill for the last year that is a good question for them come next election cycle. We have seen nothing on this from Lakewood city council. Thanks guys. LAAG had to bring it to the attention of Lakewood voters first once again. All the city has on its website is the old 2008 FEMA info (see this link) and on the home page this weekend (June 23) some info about the July 4 block party (see this link) There will be no reason to celebrate if this bill passes. So once again while the city council parties you get hit with a big insurance bill.

Please take a look at this article and this one done by our good friends over at LBReport.com. Again thanks to them for helping out on this. We will keep this story updated as we learn more information.

But we suggest you contact Sen Boxer here and Sen. Feinstein here and tell them what you think about this little back door "tax" increase. Mention Senate Bill 1940.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email