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Council backs down special-event police fees, approves retroactive reduction to April 1
Summary
After parade and fair organizers requested relief, the Santa Maria City Council approved an updated user-fee schedule and voted to make police special-event fee changes retroactive to April 1, 2026; the change passed by unanimous roll call.
The Santa Maria City Council on July 7 approved changes to the citywide user-fee schedule and voted to make reductions to police special-event charges retroactive to April 1, 2026.
Rebecca Campbell, the city’s director of finance, told the council the update corrected omitted fees and aligned several user charges to full cost recovery. Campbell said police special-event billing methodology was revised to exclude benefit costs and charge only overtime and directly tied overtime expenses, with implementation originally recommended for July 1.
Parade and fair organizers urged the council to reduce fees and to apply changes retroactively. Jaime Flores, representing Elks Lodge 1538 and the parade organizing committee, said organizers had asked staff for a special exception and asked council to consider backdating the change to May 29 to cover the parade. Todd Ventura, interim CEO of the Santa Maria Fair, asked the council to backdate any approved reductions to April 1 because the strawberry festival occurs in April: "I'm gonna ask that you backdate everything to the April 1 because the strawberry festival is in April," Ventura said.
Council members moved to make the police-event fee changes retroactive to April 1. The motion was seconded and approved by roll call: Mayor Patino, Mayor Pro Tem Flores, Council member Aguilera, Council member Bethea and Council member Soto voted "Aye." The clerk announced the motion carried.
Rebecca Campbell said the fee changes were anticipated in the recently adopted budget and that immediate fiscal impacts would be minimal, but that backdating would require staff to calculate the difference and report on fiscal effects. The council asked staff to prepare a calculation of potential retroactive costs for any events that would qualify.
The fee update includes multiple revisions across utilities, recreation rentals and special-event policing charges; police-related changes were directed to take effect retroactively to April 1 and the remainder of the updated fee schedule was adopted as presented.
