Committee forwards draft landscape maintenance district policy with polling threshold and reserve guidance

The Oxford Public Works and Transportation Committee on March 25 voted 3-0 to recommend that City Council consider a draft maintenance and funding policy for landscape maintenance districts (LMDs), with committee-directed preferences on polling thresholds, reserve guidance and the order of remedies for underfunded districts.

Committee members and staff reviewed specific policy tables and reached these principal decisions for the draft policy to be forwarded to council: adopt the left-side option in Table 4 (polling and balloting) including a recommended polling threshold of two-thirds plus one (66%+1) to assess community interest before pursuing a Proposition 218 ballot; adopt the left-side option in Table 5 (prioritization of levy and service changes); adopt the right-side option in Table 6 with edits directing that the upper reserve limit not exceed the Streets and Highways Code ceiling (discussed as about 47.4%) and that underfunded districts “endeavor to ensure” a minimum reserve, and adopt the left-side option in Table 7 with an additional…