MARINA – The Marina City Council will leave it to the electorate of the city to decide on the prospect of whether or not the city gets money to fund the construction of new facilities.
The Council voted 4-1 at its meeting Wednesday, with Mayor Bruce Delgado dissenting, to place the $50 million general obligation bond on the November 2024 ballot to build a fire station, police station and community center in the city of Marina.
Delgado has said he believes that though the need is there, it would be easier to get a bond measure passed if it were a smaller amount to fund one of the three projects, namely the fire station, that the bond is proposing to cover.
The Marina City Council has been studying putting a bond measure before its citizens for a number of years and has held workshops, study sessions and public forums to find a path forward. It recently held a study meeting that included an open house for the public, presentations by city staff and RNT Architects, that covered topics such as facility needs assessment review, cost estimates and potential locations.
At its meeting in late July, the council considered four options for construction and costs, landing on the third option to construct three projects.
Option 1 would be the construction of a new fire station with an approximate cost of $16 million dollars.
Option 2 would be the construction of a new fire and police station with an approximate total cost of $33.5 million (fire $16 million and police $17.5 million).
Option 3 would be the construction of a new fire and police station and a community center, with an approximate total cost of $55 million (fire $16 million, police $17.5 million and community center $21.5 million).
Option 4 would be the construction of a new fire and police station, city offices and renovation of existing public safety building and community center into a recreational campus at Hillcrest with an approximate total cost of $62.5 million (fire $16 million, police $17.5 million, community center $21.5 million and renovation of Hillcrest campus $7.5 million).
“We got direction at our last meeting from the City Council to place on the ballot a $50 million general obligation bond on the November 2024 election ballot to build a fire station, police station and community center,” said Marina City Manager Layne Long.
The cost of the general obligation bond is an average over a 30-year period of time and comes out to $54.74 annually or $4.50 monthly per $100,000 of assessed value of property, explained Long. The median assessed value for a single-family home in Marina is $496,962. The median is the midpoint of home values with 50% being higher and 50% being lower.
The approximate cost for a $50 million bond for a median single-family home in Marina with an assessed value of $497,000 would be $22.70 per month or $272 annually.
The actions taken during Wednesday’s meeting included approving a resolution and ordinance placing the measure on the November 2024 election ballot, approve the ballot measure language and appoint two members from the city council to write arguments supporting the bond measure and potential rebuttal arguments.
The Council needed to take action Wednesday as it had a deadline of Aug. 7 to put a measure on the ballot. Friday was the last day for the city to file the local measure with the Monterey County Registrar of Voters.
At previous meetings, the Council reviewed several potential sites for city facilities including the existing civic center site, Locke Paddon park, a site adjacent to the Marina/Salinas Transit station, Cypress Knolls and Vince DiMaggio Park.
The Council decided not to identify a specific site for the community center buildings, as several potential identified sites will work. A more engaged process with the public identifying the specific sites for the community center facilities will happen later if the bond is approved.
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