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 23^rd. 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 23^rd.

Keep our neighborhood voice on local emergency services! Vote YES on Measure Q today.

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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:
 https://sanmateocounty.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4400060&GUID=1C2A0760-1265-4B01-82F4-735177336C6A&Options=&Search=  

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

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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!

 We need your help one more time.  We just received the wording of the proposed tax measure, and it has been changed by the County, at the very last hour, from the language used in 2012 and 2016 in a way that leaves us at risk of losing our services.  In 2012 and 2016, the measure read:

WHEREAS, the Board does hereby determine that in order to maintain present levels of extended police and structural fire protection services in County Service Area No. 1, it is necessary to impose a special tax pursuant to the provisions of California Government Code Section 50075 et seq.    

     The currently proposed measure, to be voted upon TOMORROW, changes "in order to maintain present levels of extended police and structural fire services" to "in order to provide additional funding for extended police and structural fire protection services."  This puts us at risk of losing our current level of fire and sheriff services, even if the ballot measure passes!

     Please write to the Board of Supervisors to ask that they change the "Whereas" statement on the ballot measure to the OLD ONE that was used in 2012 and 2016 (the one I have pasted above).  Let the Supervisors know that we want the special election to MAINTAIN PRESENT LEVELS of our extended fire and sheriff services.  This is not about wanting to pay an extra $65.  This is about us being willing to pay what is needed to maintain our present levels of extended police and structural fire services.  The wording was changed from the previous measures without our knowledge or approval, and we need it to be changed back.

     Thank you!

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,

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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. 

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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,