Vallejo council directs staff to study freezing a Mare Island CFD escalator and seeks state audit after residents’ pleas

Mayor Sors convened the Vallejo City Council meeting and, after more than two hours of resident testimony and consultant briefings, the council voted to direct staff to return during the budget process with options to freeze the annual escalator on the 2005 facilities component of Mare Island’s community facilities districts (CFDs), to explore other infrastructure financing tools and to ask the mayor’s office to send a letter to the state controller’s office following up on a Feb. 2024 inquiry.

The action followed a lengthy presentation by Sherry Anne Grimm, a spokesperson for Misty (Mare Island Special Tax Elimination Alliance), who told the council residents were not seeking to avoid taxes but to be taxed “fairly.” Grimm said the original CFD calculations were based on assumptions that never came to pass and that required offsets under the RMA (rate and method of apportionment) have not been fully applied: “We are not asking to avoid paying taxes… We have faithfully…