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Vote Yes on Q, Save our Emergency Services
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UPDATE June 13, 2020 Vote YES on Measure Q -JUNE 23rd Save Local Enhanced Fire, Sheriff and Emergency Services This enhanced service covers, San Mateo Highlands, Baywood Park, Baywood Plaza, San Mateo Oaks, Polhemus Heights, Hillside Garden Apartments. Mail in ballots for Measure Q are due JUNE 23rd and should have arrived at your house by now, contact SM County elections office if you have not received one. Save Local Enhanced Fire, Sheriff and Emergency Services If you receive this flyer and the ballot by mail to vote, then you live in CSA1, and it is your local emergency services that are at risk. The communities of San Mateo Highlands, Baywood Park, Baywood Plaza, San Mateo Oaks, Polhemus Heights, and Hillside Garden Apartments, including areas east and west of Polhemus Rd. receive enhanced emergency services through this parcel tax, to maintain the quickest response time for this area. It is in our communities best interest to continue our CSA1 Special Parcel tax to fund Enhanced Fire and Sheriff services to maintain short response times and services specific to the area. This is not a new tax, but a simple tax renewal initiated and continued by local taxpayers. Unfortunately, County staff omitted this measure from the March 2020 ballot, so now there is a special election mail in ballot due June 23rd. Residents insist on no further government disruption to the established CSA1 level of services, neighborhood oversight, and emergency response time. This Special Parcel Tax provides CSA1 neighborhood oversight, which has saved specific CSA1 services that would have been lost and are vulnerable without this measure. This tax gives the neighborhoods a voice in operations and future planning to maintain the excellent response time for fire, EMT and police at the Paul Scannell Dr fire station along with community engagement. Without the tax the county can and previously tried to make decisions counter to the best interests of the neighborhoods. As wildfires and other costly disasters become more frequent, residents want to continue the quantity and quality of emergency services in CSA1 through this tax renewal. Current services provide: a 24/7 fire engine and nearby fire station #17 in our neighborhood on Paul Scannell Dr., staffed by 3 CalFire firefighters, including a paramedic, and Sheriff Deputy patrol 18hrs a day/7days a week. CSA1 purchases a fire engine and staffing to assure the quickest response times possible for CSA1 neighborhoods. Since 1982, this longstanding tax has been repeatedly renewed at $65 per year, per parcel to fund CSA1 area specific Enhanced Fire, Sheriff and emergency medical response services first established in 1955. If we let this tax and service level agreement expire, we may never receive the enhanced level of services we currently enjoy. Please mail in your ballot by June 23rd. Keep our neighborhood voice on local emergency services! Vote YES on Measure Q today. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Background information on the continuation of the CSA1 Parcel Tax: In 1957, County Service Area 1 (CSA1) was established to provide Enhanced fire service for the neighborhoods in the unincorporated area, including Highlands, Baywood Park, Baywood Plaza, San Mateo Oaks, Polhemus Heights and Hillside Gardens. When the district was created, a share of the CSA1 resident’s property taxes was dedicated to paying for Enhanced fire service which was provided by CalFire. In 1966, extra patrols by the County Sheriff were requested by the community and paid through the CSA1 property tax allocation.CSA1 neighborhoods have fought long and hard to maintain our service levels. The reason we still have fire station #17 and engine is because neighbors have fought to keep it. We taxed ourselves to provide added high level services that our unique high fire risk area requires. The current assessment of $65 a year, per house, for these enhanced services has been consistently renewed by the voters every four years. To continue this important agreement of enhanced services for our area, 2/3 of voters must vote yes to continue the assessment. CalFire and Sheriff are supportive of our enhanced services. CSA1 leaders unanimously support this assessment. Liesje Nicolas, Highlands Community Association, President Dylan Ashbrook, Highlands Community Association, Vice President Rick Priola, Highlands Community Association Jerry Ozanne, Baywood Park, President Laurel Nagle, Baywood Park, President Alan Palter, Baywood Plaza Chip Hennen, Baywood Plaza Clem Esmail, San Mateo Oaks Kim Ricket, San Mateo Oaks Suzanne Kennedy, San Mateo Oaks Thomas Frankel, Hillside Garden Gary Trott, Parrott Drive Baywood Park Committee Shlomit Holtzman, Parrott Drive Baywood Park Committee Raphael Holzman, Parrott Drive Baywood Park Committee Tania Leung, Parrott Drive Baywood Park Committee Christian Sarmiento, Parrott Drive Baywood Park Committee Questions? 650-773-7805 or HighlandsCAPresident@gmail.com DOCUMENTS: Here is link to March 24th Board of Supervisors agenda and meeting docs, meeting MEMO: 2016 was our last renewal of our tax. Here are those documents for your reference: CSA1 parcel tax renewal 2016 Ballot booklet (7).pdf 2016 CSA1 Extended Service Resolution (1) (1) (4).pdf Resolutions 074361_074362_Service Area 1 - Tax for Police and Fire (2).pdf Here's what the 2020 should look like- with edits: FINAL Board Memo -20-138 - with amendment.pdf FINAL 20200324_r_CSA Parcel Tax - Adopting the Special Tax.pdf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ UPDATE March 24th 2020 The Supervisors unanimously voted to continue our tax renewal onto a ballot as the community requested.The Vote will be on June 23, 2020. Please vote YES. Thank you for all your emails. The supervisors mentioned they received over 100 emails each. Thank you neighbors for writing in! UPDATE 3/23 2nd letter needed!!! Save our community’s Enhanced Fire and Sheriff emergency services!
Sample letter: boardfeedback@smcgov.org wslocum@smcgov.org, dpine@smcgov.org,cgroom@smcgov.org,dcanepa@smcgov.org,dhorsley@smcgov.org, cc HighlandsCAPresident@gmail.com Subject: Item#8, Return CSA1 tax wording, Maintain Present Service Levels Dear Supervisors, Please change the "Whereas" statement on the CSA1 tax ballot measure back to the same wording used in 2016 and 2012. It is very important that the tax will "maintain present levels of extended police and structural fire services." We do not want to risk losing our current level of services, which is why we want the tax measure on the ballot. Thank you, ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We need emails to go our County Supervisors! It is in our community’s best interest to continue our CSA1 Special Parcel Tax for Enhanced Fire and Sheriff services. At $65/yr, per parcel, it's a bargain, to guarantee in writing, that we maintain our emergency service levels. If we let this tax and service level agreement expire, we may never receive the enhanced level of services we currently enjoy. This is regular renewal of a tax that usually is automatically continued each cycle, though, this year was omitted from the ballot due to staff changes at the County. Our CSA1 leaders have been working to get this to ballot, for the neighbors to vote, so we don't lose our services. CSA1 Special Parcel tax included enhanced services are: 24/7 engine located at Fire Station 17, located on Paul Scannell Road. Engine staffed with 3 firefighters, one must be paramedic. Deputy Sheriff patrol 18/hr day, 7days a week. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Please send an email NOW to all the Supervisors expressing your desire to continue our CSA1 Special Parcel Tax for Enhanced Fire and Sheriff services. Ask ALL of our San Mateo County Supervisors to please VOTE YES to put our tax on a ballot for our community to continue services. Emails must be in by Monday, March 23rd. The sooner the better. Email to: wslocum@smcgov.org, dpine@smcgov.org,cgroom@smcgov.org,dcanepa@smcgov.org,dhorsley@smcgov.org, cc HighlandsCAPresident@gmail.com Here is an example: Dear Supervisors, Please Vote Yes on a resolution to put the CSA1 parcel tax onto a ballot for our community to be able to vote. Please continue our $65 parcel tax for Enhanced Fire and Sheriff services for another 4 years. Thank you, |