Adoption of Resolution Requesting and Authorizing the County of Alameda to Levy a Tax on All Real and Personal Property in the City of Alameda as a Voter Approved Levy for the General Obligation Bonds Issued Pursuant to a General Election Held November 7, 2000 for the Alameda Library. (Finance 421.1)
Okay. Adoption resolution requesting and authorizing this county needed to levy a tax on all real and personal property in the city of Alameda as voter approved levy for the general obligation bonds issued pursuant to the general election held on November seven, 2000, for the Army Library. So did staff want to give a brief discussion of what this is? I ask where Finance Director Elena dare to come in. Describe what this is. Thank you. Good evening, Madam. Mayors. Members of council laying out their finance director. So in 2000. Year 2000, the city decided to build a library. Free library, which is really close to the city hall here. And for that purpose, the city issued general obligation bonds in 2013, with the better interest rates, the city was able to refinance the bonds , but the repayment of those bonds is still under the same resolution that was set in year 2000. So based on the calculation which we do every year, which supposed to support the interest and principal payments on the bonds, we assess all the properties within the city, a certain dollar amount. And as I mentioned, it changes every year. And the reason it changes every year because we have different number of properties, we have different assessed values and it fluctuates and we do the calculation and it has to be approved by the City Council before we send it off to the county for an actual final assessment. Member Ashcraft. This is more of a comment. I'm really familiar with this bond because Councilmember Materazzi and I have. Speaker Oh, okay. I will save that for afterwards. Yeah. Let's hear the speaker. Thank you. So I'm going to go ahead and call up our speaker, Jim Strelow. He gets 3 minutes. Thank you, Mayor. Council staff. Citizens. About 16 years ago, there was a problem that occurred with Park Street trees where the city council had authorized tree removals and stuff. And there was like two or three years later after that, that public works finally got around to doing it. But the citizens weren't aware of what had been authorized three years before, and citizens got a little bit miffed saying, Well, why don't you remind us about what's going on? Tell us that you're doing this sort of action. Well, what I now dislike here is, is that in the year 2000, had this bond issue passed by the citizens. And then all of a sudden, you make this an automatic pass, a tax on the citizens. Now, without the the discussion, without the releasing the financial information, which is why I asked this item, Leopold, how much is owed on the library, how much to its debt obligation? Is it to whom? Is it to Wells Fargo and contractor No, it's probably to the state of California. So that, you know, how much is there, what are the amounts? What do we when do we expect to retire this tax? Because you're going to be taxing ulcers, all properties in the city of Alameda. I would think that people would anybody here aware that this new tax was. Being passed on them? Probably not. That's why I want. The, you know, making it above board. Please present some of the information so that we know what is this total amount due. And, you know, what's the what's a typical I think it's for $54.50 per 100,000 being assessed. So that's $45 a year extra or something on people's taxes, you know, for an average house, but then other other properties. And, you know, please tell the citizens so that they know what this actual new obligation is that you're passing on to the citizens. Thank you. Thank you. Amber Matter. SC And first of all, this is not a new obligation. The voters voted in 2000 for a 30 year bond. The maximum assessed value was $15.98 per 100,000. It's never been that high. First of all, it's gone down every time because our valuations have gone up. It was at nine, something like eight years ago, six years ago, and now it's at 450. It was lit in 2000 and. To. So when this 30 years up so if you can answer that question actually but this is but this is not a new tax. I wanted to finish my comment. This is not a new tax. This is a reduction because valuations have gone up and we've got more properties. And if you could just answer when it's over, because there's 30 years is a long time and it's going to be reduced as we go for that. And we have the library. And could you answer the questions of the speaker? Thank you. Of course. So if anybody really would like to learn more about Citi's debt, they're very welcome to go in and look at Citi's annual financial statements that are actually presented on the city's website. It's called Capper Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. And there's a whole section on the bonds and general obligation bond. This particular one is one of them. It presents what is the outstanding balance on the debt. And as of June 30th, 2017, that was a little over $7.9 million. The payments principal payments are made in August. Interest payments are semiannual. The bond is going to be repaid in six years. So we have about 16 years left on this particular bond. And our assessment is really to make a payment on the principal and interest that is required for a year. That's coming up. We have accumulated a little bit of extra cash and we take into account, in consultation with the Bond Council, what needs to be done and we reduce the payments. That's one of the reasons why assessment is a little lower than it would have been otherwise to make sure that we do not over collect. But the reason for over collection that happened was because the assessed values have gone up. And if I could finish. Let me just circle back to remember matters you first. Did you? Yes. I just want to make sure people know that this is not a new tax and it's been going down and we have the building and 7.9 million left is nothing to the cost of replacing that building today. Member. And I'll just pick up where I left off. Frank and I. Councilmember matter. As you know, I co-chaired that campaign. And by the way, when we passed that bond measure and Mr. Steele, I think you were one of my supporters, but we had 78.8% of the electorate. And it was a high turnout was a presidential election year, 78.8% voted yes. And I remember phone banking for that measure and people would ask, well, how much is it going to cost me? And at the time, we what we believed was $15 per $100,000 of your assessed, not your appraised, but your assessed property value. And for the most part, the folks we were talking to on the phone would go, Oh, that's nothing. And so now the way you property owners can look at it is you got a little raise because as Ms.. Adair explained, as property values go up and our property values have all gone up since 2002, whenever this was initiated, that means that the you know, the percentage amount is less. And we have added more properties, both commercial and and residential. So it's a good thing. And as councilmember matter, as he pointed out and we have a library, we can't keep saying it's new because now it's ten years old. But and we were very fortunate that this community also voted to to do the bond because that was a matching fund we needed to apply for the state money . So the state put in $2 for every $1 of local match the state put into, and you just can't get a better deal than that. And that, by the way, was the last library construction bond the state of California has passed. They've tried to get others through the legislature, and it's just never gotten all the way up to the governor's signature. So it's not a new tax. Remember 80? Actually, I think this is our only bond indebtedness we have. Right as a general obligation on. Yes. I'm of approval of the item. Could be vice mayor. I don't know if you had any comments. Questions. No, I second the motion. Okay. So we have a motion in the second. Any other questions? Comments. Mark? Oh, yeah, I think i. I i. I know you're Spencer. I. It's been five days. Thank you. So now we're on five H. Adoption resolution approving a workforce change at medium to some power to add one position advanced metering infrastructure system administrator and amending the related salary schedule.