Artist Josie Grant’s ‘Jungle’ piano features a rainforest lush with plants and vibrantly populated by colorful animals. This and other pieces of public art were sponsored by Benicia’s Arts and Culture Commission, which faces a reduction in financial support from the City. | Photo by Will Stockton.
As Chair of the Benicia Arts and Culture Commission, I invite residents to get involved and help us find a more efficient and effective structure to support Arts and Culture in Benicia.
As you may know, the City is facing major budget challenges and there are calls to develop a more efficient structure for the City’s boards and commissions (the Arts and Culture commission being one of them). However what is also true is that Arts and Culture is not only vital and integral to Benicia’s identity (and why people love Benicia), it has also proven to generate significant ROI for the City.
As we reported in the 2024 Annual Report to City Council last month, there was over 730% ROI for Benicia businesses generated from grants provided to arts and culture. Meaning for every $1 invested, over $7 came back to the City in DIRECT revenue (indirect revenue streams are incremental).
Thus, Arts and Culture is not just something that makes us feel good, it provides tangible benefits for our community that are must haves for our future.
To say it simply, a thriving Arts and Culture means a thriving Benicia.
If you cannot attend this meeting but want to express your idea/opinion/thoughts, please submit a public comment in writing by emailing it to Helaine Bowles at hbowles@ci.benicia.ca.us.
If you want your comment to be considered during the session, please submit your comment by noon PST on July 8.
Benicia resident and author Stephen Golub, A Promised Land
By Stephen Golub, June 18, 2024
On June 11, the City Council took the first step in a multi-stage process to put on the November ballot a vote on whether Benicia should adopt a Real Property Transfer Tax (RPTT) for the sale of real estate, be it residential, commercial or industrial.
Kudos to the Council for both biting the bullet on this significant step to close the City’s budget gap and conducting its discussion and initial community input in a collegial way. Thanks too to City Manager Mario Giuliani and the City staff for undertaking the grunt work to date (as summarized by a “Policy Direction” memo from Mr. Giuliani to the Council in preparation for the June 11 meeting, and for further figuring out over the next several weeks optimal options for the Council to consider regarding this potential tax.
If adopted, the transfer tax will levy a fee on the sale of real estate. Among the many matters the City staff and Council need to address are how high the fee should be. One figure being considered is one percent (i.e., $10 for every $1,000 in sales price, or $8,000 on an $800,000 house). As per the Policy Direction memo I mentioned, that $10 rate – which is actually lower than the $12 mean for many other Bay Area cities – would generate an additional $2.1million for the City annually at this point. Presumably, that figure would rise over the years as housing prices escalate.
Some initial thoughts on the matter:
Pardon the cliché, but there’s still no such thing as a free lunch. As Mayor Steve Young, City Manager Giuliani and others have consistently pointed out, the City is taking multiple cost-saving and revenue enhancing steps toward putting our finances on stable footing going forward. But there’s still much to do if we want to keep Benicia the pretty, pleasant, enjoyable, safe, special place we love. With the building of new housing mandated by state law, a potential generational turnover in housing ownership due to our aging population and other conceivable developments coming down the pike, the transfer tax makes sense as big way of closing our budget gap.
This need not affect most or any current Benicia residents at all in the near or medium terms or even permanently. For one thing, most of us won’t be selling our homes in the foreseeable future. Even more importantly, the City could mandate or at least strongly push for the tax to be paid by property buyers – rather than by sellers or by the two splitting the cost. (Admittedly, whether it could mandate who’d pay the tax was not clear from Tuesday’s discussion, but some sort of “Sense of the Council” suggestion might at least nudge realtors’ arrangements in the right direction.)
This approach would ensure that buyers enjoying the pleasure of moving into our wonderful town would pay the additional price for doing so, rather than sellers – who may need to maximize their finances on the way out – bearing that burden. Plus, it’s an investment of sorts by the buyers: In paying that price, they would help ensure a balanced Benicia budget that enables it to provide services that in turn increase their property values over the years.
The additional cost is relatively manageable. While I don’t want to dismiss the significance of a buyer taking on, say, an additional $8,000 of debt due to the RPTT, that works out to less than $50 per month for a 30-year, six percent loan. It’s not a deal-breaker, in other words, particularly given the overbidding that has come to characterize parts of Benicia’s housing market.
I’m also plugging for the Council and realtors alike to push for the buyers to pay the tax because, frankly, it’s more politically palatable (as well as substantively sustainable) to point out to current residents that they won’t bear the burden of the RPTT.
The Council discussed, and the staff will explore varying the transfer tax rates according to the size or nature of the transaction. Thus, hypothetically, the tax might be only $5 per $10,000 sale for lower-priced homes and $15 or more for more expensive houses, commercial properties and/or industrial concerns. This approach seems fairest in that it burdens lower priced transactions less. I want to emphasize the “hypothetical” here, however – this all remains to be sorted out in the process that will unfold.
So what is that process? As I mentioned, in the next several weeks the staff will get back to the Council (and public) with further reporting on options for moving forward. On July 16, there will be another Council meeting on the transfer tax and on the crucial related matter of the City amending its Charter so as to allow the tax. On August 6, the Council may vote on whether to put the two related measures – the Charter change and the RPTT – on the November ballot; the deadline for ballot submissions is August 9.
I’m seeking to summarize a lot here; I’m unavoidably leaving out even more. For instance, there may well be all sorts of exceptions to the potential RPPT rule, including intra-family transfers, division of property in case of divorce, etc. For more on this matter, keep track of future messages from Mayor Young and City Manager Giuliani, as well as postings at the City site.
And spice up your summer by circling the July 16 and August 6 Council meetings on your calendar!
[Steve Golub also blogs about U.S. politics, international developments and lessons America can learn from other countries at his site, A Promised Land, apromisedland.org]
MORE POSTS ABOUT BENICIA FROM AUTHOR STEPHEN GOLUB:
By Elizabeth Patterson, first published in the Benicia Herald on May 17, 2024
What is sustainable development?
Sustainable development has become a popular planning expression used abundantly but often not understood. “Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Benicia General Plan, 1999).
Most of us get that we need to reduce greenhouse gases that drive climate change and increase climate instability; in short, stop adding carbon to the atmosphere. The state has attempted to achieve this by adopting law to reduce vehicle miles traveled. This makes sense because 40% of carbon is from transportation, and so far there are not enough electric vehicles to drive down the amount of carbon from transportation.
If you support sustainable development, it is helpful to ask questions about the City of Benicia’s projects and processes. To what extent are the City’s decisions reducing greenhouse gases, or at least not increasing greenhouse gases? Everything is connected – economics, public works, land use, recreation, culture – like bones in a skeleton – it all has to work together by connecting the dots.
The first dot is, fortunately, defined in the Benicia General Plan. General Plans are the constitution of land-use planning. Like the U.S. Constitution, one cannot just have an idea and expect to implement it without an assessment of its consistency with the General Plan and thus its “sustainability.”
It is not advice, it is the law. Community development and sustainability are at the heart of the goals developed in the Benicia General Plan. I have heard from time to time that the General Plan is old – it is – and out of date – not really. Would a new, updated General Plan delete sustainable development? Anything could happen I suppose – one needs to stay alert.
The second dot is that the Benicia General Plan is the principal policy document for guiding future conservation and development in the city. It reflects the community’s shared values and determination of what Benicia is and should continue to be – an uncommonly special place. Just a quick read of the city-adopted Downtown Conservation Plan reveals how “uncommon” it is:
“The failure of the various attempts in the 19th century to transform Benicia into a major city has resulted in the retention of the scale and character of the historic downtown, which presents a rare view of the evolution of architecture from the mid-19th century to the 20th century in California.”
This means that one should not destroy the “evolution of architecture.” Goals expressed by city officials at public meetings to be like American Canyon’s “hotel row” is not protecting the gem of the uncommon qualities of Benicia attracting residents, visitors, and businesses.
The third dot to connect is the public process. You really ought to read about the public process involved developing the General Plan: start at page two here. People were engaged, met together, received mailed surveys, and we even had help from University of California at Davis for outreach, especially to young people.
Want to know what young people wanted? Check it out at the link. The General Plan is the outcome of a process which began with the General Plan Oversight Committee (GPOC) and the Work Program (1994–1997). It is a process in which the GPOC held more than one hundred meetings and, with public participation, identified the Goals, Policies, and Programs (GPPs) which are the heart of the General Plan.
The GPOC survey identified the following 10 issues receiving the highest level of support (69% or greater) as being important to the community:
Feeling safe in residential areas at night
Feeling safe Downtown at night [ed: this is before tree lights and mixed-use development in the early 2000s]
Good public schools
Balance growth to ensure maintaining Benicia’s quality of life
Small town atmosphere
Growth should maintain small-town character
Citizens need a voice in growth decisions
Attract businesses that sustain environmental quality
Pedestrian-friendly streets in the Downtown and other commercial areas
Library facilities
The fourth connecting dot is that while the City may decide to amend this plan, the primary position of the City will be to implement it as adopted. This will honor both the principle of stability and the extraordinary degree of community participation that went into the formation of the plan. In short, is the General Plan still in step with community values and conditions, to wit: sustainable development, reducing our carbon footprint for future generations’ quality of life?
The last dot to connect is the so-called Seeno project at Lake Herman Road and East Second. If we are going to reduce vehicle-miles traveled, do we build the stuff that has been built over decades for car-centric development? Or do we avoid business as usual and design and build projects that are walkable, clearly reducing the need for increasing vehicle miles travelled?
It is a simple question. Think of roads as bones. The bones tell us how we move.
Remember Lucy, Australopithecus, discovery by Donald Johanson? Lucy represents the transition from walking on four feet to walking on two feet by standing up. Bones tell it all.
Well, the roads of development are exactly the same: are we going to drive or walk? The transportation road design of any project will make that clear. Business as usual or taking the path for future generations to have a livable community and planet?
Here are three planning principles for walkability:
Don’t cluster commercial development in one blob,
Do integrated commercial in workplaces and near residential areas within walking distance, and
Don’t build suburban sprawl.
Watch the decisions about projects and you will learn if we are meeting the vision of sustainable development. God help us if we are not.
Elizabeth Patterson, MA Urban and Regional Planning
Mayor (2007-2020)
[Note from BenIndy: There are many paths to a balanced budget in a small town like ours. Paths that emphasize local economic development by enhancing active transportation safety and accessibility, minimizing fossil fuel reliance, and boosting both outdoor and indoor air quality set a course for a San Luis Obispo that is cleaner, healthier, and safer…and yet still financially stable and self-sustaining. San Luis Obispo and Benicia have a lot of common: SLO is another full-service town like Benicia, with a larger population but many of the same values.]
San Luis Obispo has set big goals to reduce pollution and adapt to the climate crisis, and we’re making big progress. To highlight this work, the City is adding a new Sustainable SLO mark and illustrated graphic on a variety of public facilities and equipment in San Luis Obispo.
“The City of San Luis Obispo is leading on climate action, and we’re excited to tell our story over the next few months,” said Chris Read, the City’s sustainability manager. “Now through Earth Day 2024, we will highlight everything from our new electric buses to our recycling bins and will share resources for how community members can make changes to save money, reduce pollution in their own homes and businesses and help reach communitywide carbon neutrality by 2035.”
Community members may have already seen the new Sustainable SLO mark and illustrated graphic throughout San Luis Obispo and will likely be seeing it more often. Climate action is a major City goal for the City of San Luis Obispo and the City has been working for years from its Climate Action Plan to reduce pollution and make San Luis Obispo more resilient to the effects of climate change.
Sustainable SLO demonstrates how the City is leading by example by phasing out fossil fuels from public facilities and fleet vehicles, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from organic waste and restoring the beautiful natural ecosystems that make San Luis Obispo such a wonderful place to live. These efforts include but are not limited to:
Installing new bike lanes and using all-electric buses that make it safer and easier to get around,
Conserving open space properties throughout the greenbelt to protect natural resources,
Transitioning the City’s fleet to electric vehicles to save money and use less fossil fuels,
Installing new trash and recycling bins downtown to reduce litter and landfilled waste,
Adding more public-facing electric vehicle chargers in SLO so it’s easy to charge on the go,
Planting 10,000 new trees in streets, parks and open space areas by 2035,
Switching to energy-efficient lighting at City facilities to save money and use less energy, and
Installing a large battery at the Water Treatment Plant to save money and create a more resilient facility.
With generous federal, state and regional funding resources, incentives and technical assistance available to support climate action, it’s becoming easier for organizations and individuals to make sustainable choices in SLO. Over the next few months, the City will share more about Sustainable SLO and suggest ways organizations and individuals can take local action on the climate crisis.
“We’ll be telling this story on social media, local news channels and at in-person events,” said Lucia Pohlman, the City’s sustainability and natural resources analyst. “Everyone can find Sustainable SLO‘in the wild’ to see tangible ways we’re making a difference. Hopefully, this will inspire community members to cut climate pollution and prepare for increasingly hazardous floods and fires. It’s no easy task, but with the community’s help, we can reach our goals and ensure our community thrives into the future.”
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