Salinas council approves annual levies for six landscape and lighting districts

The Salinas City Council on July 1 voted unanimously to adopt the annual levy of assessments for the city’s six landscape and lighting maintenance districts for fiscal year 2025–26.

Donna Segura, the assessment engineer with Harris & Associates working for the city, told the council the assessments fund ongoing maintenance for landscaping, parks and open space within each district and are required under state law and the city code. Three districts — Airport Business Center, Vista Nueva and Hardin Ranch — retain flat-per-parcel rates that were set when those districts were formed (Airport Business Center at $217.49 since 1987; Vista Nueva $600 since 2011; Hardin Ranch $66.72 since 1991). Those flat rates do not contain automatic inflators and would require a property-owner vote to change.

For the other three districts staff proposed modest adjustments tied to established inflators. Miramonte would rise by 0.87% to $615.39 per parcel, Northeast Area would see a small adjustment in certain density classes (low-density to $217.62; medium-density to $134.19; high-density to $92.78), and Montebello would stay at the prior year’s level within its authorized maximum.

Christina Gonzales, public works administrative supervisor, and additional public-works staff answered council questions about how residents can track expenditures. Gonzales noted the city maintains pages on its website that publish quarterly and annual expenditures for each district and urged residents to use the city's service request system (CityConnect) to report maintenance concerns.

Council members raised concerns echoed in public comment from residents in several districts who said lighting and tree-trimming had lagged and that some districts — specifically Hardin Ranch and Airport Business Center — lacked mechanisms to raise assessments to match rising maintenance costs. City staff said certain districts were capped at historic flat rates and that lack of a means to increase revenues has produced reduced maintenance levels in some places.

The formal motion to approve the engineer's reports and related levy resolutions carried on a unanimous roll call. The council also directed staff to continue outreach and to post district-level information online to help residents understand the services covered by each assessment.

Because the assessment diagrams and levy amounts are set in engineer's reports, the council noted that any future changes to a district's rate methodology (for example, switching a flat historic rate to an inflator) would require property-owner approval where the underlying formation documents require a vote.

Council action: resolution approving the assessment engineer's reports and levying assessments for fiscal year 2025–26. Vote: unanimous.