By Walter Ruehlig
President, Antioch Mello-Roos Advisory Board

Tracing back to 1989, Mello-Roos has been a long and winding road. So where are we at?

The Antioch Mello-Roos Board recently had a second public meeting soliciting citizen input on what to do with a remaining two million dollars left in the kitty after the last construction. Additionally, some 250 people answered the Antioch Herald’s online survey. And others responded to a daily newspaper’s weekly e-view question.

The Mello-Roos Board is now passing on these collected suggestions to the City Council, which has the ultimate authority for disbursement. Remember, the citizen board comprised of two City Council members, two School Board trustees and three at-large citizens is merely an oversight agency. It facilitates a citizen voice and oversees, but doesn’t dictate, expenditures.

So what, pray tell, did we learn from engaging the public sounding board? Not surprisingly, a healthy 38% asked for the return of the money, which would equate to, on rough average, $115 a household. That shortens the bond payoff, now projected to end in 2016, about a month.

62%, though, wanted the money spent. Turf athletic fields led the nearest other choices (a tie between building a golf disc course and a library extension) by 3-1. Tallying only a few votes were a dog park, BMX track, and lazy river feature on the existing pool. An eleventh hour suggestion was for solar panels.

One other suggestion was for enrichment classes, but by law the bond must be spent on capital construction, not operating expenses. Legally, any expenditure must also be used within the confines of the eight designated schools or for Prewett, not for street landscaping as someone mentioned.

The turf proponents, incidentally, argued that Antioch is the only town far and wide without turf and that thousands of kids suffer unsafe conditions or get denied playing time during the rainy season. They also argue that turf would not only, pardon the pun, level the playing field but would buff our city image and generate tens of thousands of dollars in tournament fees and restaurant business.

So it’s now up to our City Fathers to weigh the options and either refund or build something. If they do in fact build, the citizens’ board encouraged them to attempt leveraging through perhaps naming rights, matching grants or corporate donors.

Of course, in addition to the recent public suggestions the Council, if they opt not to refund, can also consider any of the remaining items on the original wish list sketched out in 1989. That vision includes a meadow, lagoon, central plaza, Olympic pool, enhanced walking trails, cafe, and outdoor basketball or volleyball courts.

The estimated cost for that short list is 9 million dollars; obviously money not at hand. Not in play, too, is the originally dreamed-for full 40,000 square-foot library, now a distant reality with a formidable 30 million dollar price tag.

Before we run off with checkbook in hand, then, it must be noted that intertwined in any building consideration is cost of maintenance and staffing. As well, the remaining grounds have the worst of the never construction-friendly Prewett area slope and soil. To further muddy the mix, parking and lighting may be issues, as well as mitigation to the burrowing owls. Though a turf field generally costs 1.2 to 1.5 million dollars the remaining two million might not, in fact, accomplish that.

The heartening news is that, due to favorable state hardship deals on the schools, we benefited from better than expected matching funds. We’re, in fact, some nine years ahead of our once estimated bond payoff. We also saved several million on the community center due to the competitive bidding climate caused by the building slowdown.

Thanks, then, to the 11,400 sacrificing Mello-Roos taxpaying families, we can boast 8 gorgeous schools, a splendid water park, a state-of-the-art community center, gymnasium, police sub-station, amphitheatre, library annex, technology center, kid’s learning area and kitchen. Prewett is, unarguably, a well appointed place and it is hopping with activity, far exceeding projected attendance at banquets, conferences and library and gym use.

We now have some new certified jewels to go along with our other causes of city pride: Black Diamond Mines, the Delta, Contra Loma Park, Lone Tree Golf Course and Event Center, the El Campanil, the Antioch Historical Museum, the police headquarters, 27 city parks, our vibrantly diverse population, places of worship and career-based academies.

We’ve entered the last major bend on this now 22-year journey, with all its ups and downs. The Mello-Roos Board has facilitated and passed on public input. Now public attention needs go to the City Council to encourage Solomon wisdom as they navigate last curves.

Be heard. Democracy works, but only if we, the citizenry, work at it.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2011 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.