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| The DiamondXX.info website is here to keep you informed about the work of the Road Committee and issues that affect property owners in the Diamond XX community. Be sure to sign up to be included in our email list here. We'll send email to announce meetings and alert you to important news on the website.
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Diamond XX Road Assessment Increase
Posted by: admin on Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 04:42 PM
General
| By now you should have received a ballot from Calaveras County Public Works Department. This ballot is a proposal to increase our road assessments. The Road Committee and many of your neighbors urge you to vote YES.
Some homeowners report being confused about the assessment increase. We hope that some of these questions & answers will help to explain the ballot proposal.
Q. How much will my assessment amount increase?
A. If you currently pay $300, your new assessment will be $600. If you pay $325, your new assessment will be $650. And if you now pay $350, your new assessment will be $700. That’s a yearly amount…which would be about $50 to $58 a month to maintain our 18.2 miles of roads.
Q. I heard my assessments will go up 3% each year. Is that true?
A. NO! 3% is actually the maximum amount that it could be increased by. Did you know the proposed new assessment could actually go down! Because this new assessment is tied to the Construction Cost Index, if the index reports a negative growth as it did in 1991 and 2001, our new assessments could actually be decreased! Our present assessment does not allow for that to happen!
Q. What’s the matter with leaving the assessment amount as it is?
A. Our current revenue from road assessments is $62,525 and is not enough to maintain our 18.2 miles of roads in a healthy condition. Our asbestos encapsulated roads will need to be covered periodically to ensure the health of the community and without an increase in assessments, we will not be able to do this maintenance.
Q. If I vote YES for the increase, where does the money go? Can it be used for other county projects?
A. Absolutely not! Unlike other county taxes we pay, we know exactly where this money is going. Our road assessments are for Diamond XX roads only and the county can not “borrow” it for other uses!
Q. What are we getting for the money we spend?"
A. The road committee shares your concern regarding how our Diamond XX money is spent. We wrote Russ Thomas, our County Supervisor and through his intercession, we received a very detailed accounting. The Road Committee has been able to obtain other accounting documents, periodically, that show where our money is being spent, and generally, the administrative cost is about 3% and the county's charge for collecting our assessment is 1%. The remaining 96% does go to pothole patching, ditching, weed spraying and major road repairs or improvements. To see what is proposed for spending over the next 10 years, please see the Engineer's Report.
Q. The price of everything is going up! Now’s not a good time to increase our assessments.
A. That’s precisely why we MUST increase our assessments. The cost of labor and materials has steadily gone up and our assessments have remained the same for 15 years! Without increasing the money in our road fund, we will no longer be able to encapsulate our asbestos roads or repair washouts when they occur.
Hopefully this has answered many of your concerns. If you have other questions, please submit them to the Road Committee.
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