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Residents protest large maintenance assessment increases as Merced continues hearings for ballot count
Summary
The council heard staff presentations and public concerns about proposed assessment increases across 12 maintenance districts — some increases were large for long-unupdated districts — and continued the public hearing to Feb. 2 so ballots can be opened and counted.
Merced City staff presented proposed annual assessment increases for 12 underfunded landscape/maintenance districts on Jan. 20 and the council agreed to continue the public hearing to Feb. 2 to allow staff to open and tally mailed ballots.
Stacy Hicks, landscape coordinator, reviewed each district and the proposed per-unit annual increases (examples given in the staff presentation included $56.11 for Quail Creek, $75.23 for Oakmont, $151.39 for Olivewood and a much larger increase for Ferren Park). Hicks told the council outreach included three town halls, social-media posts, mailed materials and one-on-one calls with property owners.
Multiple residents told the council the proposed increases — which in a few districts reflected decades-old baseline rates — are sudden and unaffordable for some. A Ferren Park resident, Bruce Nichols, warned that main thoroughfares are heavily used and asked why adjacent street maintenance is not paid out of city funds: “Why are we going to add taxes to us when you have thousands of cars going up and down our street? Why is that not a city cost on our street?” Other speakers said the jump for some districts amounted to hundreds- or even thousands-percent increases from long-outdated assessments.
Staff explained that many districts were established years ago with city contributions or different funding structures that were not maintained; in several cases the city’s earlier contribution ceased years ago and the district base rates were never updated. Staff said maintenance budgets had been trimmed over time (from weekly to monthly service in some neighborhoods) and that restoring previously promised or expected service would require increasing assessments; they also noted that increases require property-owner approval through the assessment-ballot process that the city is now following.
After public testimony — including requests for phased increases and clearer breakdowns of work to be funded — the council closed public comment and continued the hearing to Feb. 2 so staff can open and count ballots and report the results at the next meeting.
What happens next: staff will open and tabulate the mailed and returned ballots for each maintenance district and report the weighted totals on Feb. 2; if a district’s ballots pass the assessment, staff will adjust the district budget in the regular FY26 budget process.
Why it matters: several districts have not had meaningful increases for decades, yet maintenance needs and labor/contract costs have increased; property owners must approve assessments before the city can raise district charges.
