By Kevin Clerici
Ventura County Star (California)
VENTURA, Calif. — Faced with the prospect of costly legal expenses and growing citizen unease, the Ventura City Council on Monday agreed to do what many of their constituents have voiced for months: They pulled the plug on the city’s 911 fee.
“I think it’s time we cut our losses,” said Councilman Neal Andrews, who called the fee ill-advised and politely urged his colleagues to join him in dumping it.
A formal vote still has to occur for the fee to expire Feb. 1. A plan to offer refunds also needs to be ironed out.
But the council’s unanimous decision Monday ceremoniously slammed the door on the controversial $1.49 monthly charge, adopted in February as a way to pay for the city’s 911 call center and free up money to add police officers and firefighters.
“I think we all realized it was time to take another look at this,” Mayor Christy Weir said. “But the need (for safety personnel) still remains. We haven’t solved anything here.”
Ventura in February became the first city in Southern California to adopt a $1.49 monthly fee on all local telephone lines to pay for the city’s $3.3 million 911 call center and free up money to hire up to six new police officers and three firefighters.
It also was the first city to allow telephone users to avoid the monthly charge by agreeing to pay $17.88 per 911 call, despite concerns it would discourage people from using 911.
No officers or firefighters were ever hired. Instead, billing issues piled up, along with complaints. A class-action lawsuit surfaced in November, calling the fee a tax in disguise that should have gone to voters and demanding refunds.
Andrews, who provided the lone no vote in February, said it was time to move on. He offered a proposal to repeal it and urged his colleagues to join him. He needed three members to put it to a formal vote. He got the entire group.
Councilman Bill Fulton said the fee has created far more legal trouble than expected. He said the need for adequate public safety funding remains. But sometimes even the best intentions go awry.
“I think there is a political consensus in our community that paying for the 911 fee should be a shared cost, just not in this way,” he said. “We are going to have to figure out what we should do.”
An appellate court decision in late April allowed for the first time class-action suits against allegedly illegal taxes. That put the city at risk of greater defense costs and greater exposure to paying attorney fees if the city were to lose.
That was enough to sway Councilman Ed Summers. He said he favored the fee initially because he felt it best to act proactively to add safety personnel, even if it meant “taking a little heat in the kitchen.” Now, he said, all the uncertainties were too great.
None of the roughly $400,000 collected in fees has been spent. Andrews suggested refunds be made to anyone who submits a request with appropriate paperwork. Details of how exactly that could work likely will be part of the formal repeal vote, expected in January.
Ventura could choose to put a fee before voters. That’s what the cities of San Jose and San Francisco did in November after repealing their respective 911 fees - and both measures passed.
Councilman Jim Monahan said the 911 call center costs $3 million. After saying he would support the repeal effort, he suggested that “maybe we should have a fundraiser for the 911 center.”
Ventura resident Alison Carlson waited more than four hours to address the council. She was the only speaker.
“I have thought since the beginning that it would be an administrative nightmare and something that would get you all bad press,” she said.
She suggested an alternative. “Please consider putting a Wal-Mart in.”
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