Quick Take
Santa Cruz County property owners are being asked to weigh in on a proposed fee increase that would fund expanded mosquito and rodent control services. Officials say the move is aimed at bolstering public health efforts amid rising concerns over invasive species and disease prevention.
This week, some Santa Cruz County property owners were surprised and confused to receive ballots in the mail asking them to approve a fee hike by Nov. 4 to pay for “mosquito, vector and disease control.”
Are they real ballots? Yes.
For about three decades, property owners across the county have paid an annual fee ranging from $18.69 to $24.26, known as a benefit assessment, for a county division that eradicates harmful disease-carrying vectors like mosquitos, ticks and rodents.
The county’s vector control department conducts a broad range of services. They do year-round mosquito testing for diseases like West Nile virus, provide free rodent inspections, offer free mosquito-eating fish for outdoor water sources at homes and rapid response to concerns for wasps, rodents, ticks and mosquitos.
Santa Cruz County Mosquito and Vector Control is solely funded by this assessment fee and the dollars raised from it can’t be used for anything other than the mosquito and vector control services.
Unlike a broader property tax, which funds government operations, a benefit assessment is a charge for services that directly benefit the property owner. As with taxes, voters have to give their stamp of approval to increase the fee for a benefit assessment. In an assessment vote, the ballots are weighted, meaning the votes aren’t equal but instead have varying levels of influence — the more a property is charged for the fee, the more that ballot contributes to the overall vote. If the vote gets a simple 50% majority in favor, the board of supervisors could approve the fee.
Amanda Poulsen, assistant vector control manager, told Lookout on Friday that the last time the county asked voters to increase the fee was in 2005 when West Nile virus hit the West Coast in order for the department to expand its services from just South County to the rest of the county.
“So it’s been quite a bit of time,” she said. “Costs have gone up — materials, equipment, and on top of that, we found an invasive mosquito] in Watsonville back in 2022.”
Because of those challenges, county officials are asking property owners this fall if they agree to raise the fee to adequately fund and expand these services. Property owners have until Nov. 4 to complete and deliver ballots.
This vote isn’t on the regular November ballot because participants in the vote don’t have to be registered voters in the county. The assessment benefit fee only applies to property owners in the county, not to a group or all of registered voters. Poulsen said there are no laws requiring the vote to happen on a specific date or time of the year.
If approved, the amounts each property owner pays will vary based on property size, but the additional fee for single-family homes will be about $11.99 a year on top of the assessments homes are already paying. That new benefit assessment will raise $1,118,297 million annually, in addition to the current assessment, which is $1,714,169 for this fiscal year.
The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors began considering raising the benefit assessment a couple of years ago after the first local detection of yellow fever mosquitos in Watsonville in 2022. The nonnative mosquitos — which can carry diseases like yellow fever, dengue and Zika — were eradicated by the vector control team within two years. However, officials say the nonnative mosquitos have infested neighboring counties like Santa Clara and it’s only a matter of time before they’re detected locally again.
The work to eradicate yellow fever mosquitoes, which arrived in the county on the belongings of someone who moved here, was a two-year effort, with vector control staff inspecting properties every six weeks to lay traps and remove possible breeding ground. “We were dumping every water source, removing trash and garbage that could collect water,” county vector ecologist Emma McDonough told Lookout earlier this summer.
However, the detection of the yellow fever mosquitos and the increasing costs of services led the board to ask staff in 2023 to explore an additional annual benefit assessment for vector control. Last month, supervisors approved a resolution stating its intention to levy assessments and to mail out the ballots on the fee starting Sept. 2.
What exactly is the benefit assessment?
The benefit assessment is used to raise funds for a district or a county service area (CSA) – which are resident-approved services for specific uses. For example, the county has 36 road CSA’s for communities who support paying for maintenance of their roads.
In response to years of public demands that the county address mosquitos, in 1993 the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors established the Santa Cruz County Mosquito Abatement and Vector Control CSA 53. The vector control CSA was formed as a division within the County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office and the Ag commissioner is the director of it.
Local benefit assessments regularly go before voters for increases, as did the assessment for CSA 48 in 2019. CSA 48 helps fund Santa Cruz County Fire Department services in the communities of Bonny Doon, Davenport, Loma Prieta, Corralitos, Las Cumbres and the wider South Skyline area.
Ballots due by Nov. 4
To return the ballots, property owners can send them in the mail with the provided prepaid envelope or they can hand-deliver them at the Nov. 4 public hearing at the Watsonville City Council Chamber before the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. The city council chamber is located at 275 Main St. in Watsonville and the hearing starts at 9 a.m.
Prior to the hearing for the new assessment, the county is hosting two public meetings about the benefit assessment: one on Monday in Watsonville and another on Tuesday in Santa Cruz, both from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. and also on Zoom.
After the ballots are in, the county will tabulate and announce the results at a public hearing on Nov. 18. Poulsen said that even if voters approve the fee, the board could hypothetically reject a successful vote: “I haven’t seen that happen before in my experience, but they do have that power.”
She added that public hearings are held every year and allow community members to share if they’re in favor of an approved assessment or not. The board then decides to accept or deny what’s been proposed.
“So there’s kind of this additional checks and balances built in on an annual basis,” she said. “So even though folks are voting on this now, it is something that gets reviewed, re-reviewed every single year.”
Public meeting details
- Monday, Sept. 8, in Watsonville from 6 to 7 p.m.: The meeting will take place in the community room at the Santa Cruz County Recorder’s Office, located at 500 Westridge Dr., Watsonville.
- Tuesday, Sept. 9, in Santa Cruz from 6 to 7 p.m.: The meeting will take place in the community room at 701 Ocean St. in Santa Cruz.
- Attend the meeting via Zoom: Meeting ID: 770 569 1302; passcode: 875941
–With reporting by Gwyneth Holcomb
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