Atascadero’s tax oversight committee meets for first time Monday
For the first time since Atascadero’s voters approved increasing the local sales tax by a half-cent for road improvements in the November 2014 election, the citizens’ oversight committee will meet Monday, Aug. 31 at 6 p.m. in City Hall Council Chambers on the fourth floor. The first order of business is to swear in the nine committee members that were appointed by the city council and community groups.
Following that and other standard business, the committee will select its chairperson and vice chairperson, adopt, change or reject the bylaws and rules and procedures and receive and file the 2014 pavement assessment study. The city hired PEI in 2014 to evaluate and update the city’s pavement management software system for the 139 miles of publicly maintained roadways. The report was presented to the city council in March 2015 and the council endorsed the “critical point management” methodology for the management system. PEI was then hired to develop a five-year capital improvement plan for the city’s street system. The committee’s task is to review the expenditures made from the sales tax.
Committee members:
- Grenda Ernst, Friends of the Atascadero Library
- Andrea Greenaway, Atascadero Veterans Memorial Foundation
- Bill Hatch, Atascadero Kiwanis Club
- Kathe Hustace, Atascadero Association of Realtors
- Robert “Grigger” Jones, Atascadero Chamber of Commerce
- Jerry Martin, Moose Lodge #2067
- Michael Shaw, at-large
- Carol Simonin, Quota International
- Chuck Ward, at-large
Ballot measure F-14 and Atascadero city ordinance 581 stipulates that a citizens’ oversight committee be formed to review the city’s annual road report. The committee will then submit its findings and conclusions to the city council and make the report available to the public. According to the city’s staff report for the meeting, the annual road report should detail the prior fiscal year’s activities related to the half-cent sales tax increase. The report will include revenues generated by the transaction and use tax, expenditures, funds carried over from preview years and any remaining funds to be carried over.
Membership on the oversight committee is made up of nine members: two appointed by the city council, one from the Atascadero Chamber of Commerce and six from community groups. According to the staff report, community groups were selected to make appointments to the committee. Once the community groups were selected, then each had to select one person to serve on the group’s behalf. In order to be selected as an eligible community group, it has to be a registered nonprofit, serve the community of Atascadero, be nonpartisan and non-religious. The city advertised the vacancies, seeking community groups to appoint a member to the committee.
All terms expire on Jan. 31 of the year designated. Term lengths are 12 years for the Atascadero, two-year terms for two community groups, three-year terms for two community groups, four-year terms for two community groups and the two city council-appointed seats are for two-year terms. The terms are held by the appointing community groups rather than the individual appointed by the group. If a member appointed by a community group must step down in the middle of his/her term, then the community group may appoint another individual to complete the term.
Members serve without compensation and are expected to attend two regular meetings a year.
