The retirement of $13.2 million in revenue bonds for the Marin City U.S.A. project will provide a financial infusion to the Marin City Community Services District.<\/p>\n
However, some current and former members of the district board question whether the district is going to get all it\u2019s entitled to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not right the way things went down,\u201d board member Terrie Harris-Green said at the county supervisors\u2019 meeting on July 14. \u201cMore dollars should have gone to the CSD.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Board of Supervisors created the district in 1958 to provide recreation services to the unincorporated neighborhood. The district also oversees garbage services and street lights.<\/p>\n
The Marin City U.S.A. project was a major mixed-use development built at the site of a former flea market. The project created the Gateway Shopping Center, which contains 180,000 square feet of retail space, as well as new housing and other amenities.<\/p>\n
A joint powers agreement between the county and the Marin County Redevelopment Agency issued bonds to help finance the Marin City U.S.A. project. It issued about $10.2 million in bonds in 1995 and refinanced with an issuance of $13.3 million in revenue bonds in 1998.<\/p>\n
The Marin City Community Services District is one of 14 taxing districts within the redevelopment agency area. Others include the Sausalito Marin City School District, the Tamalpais Union High School District, the Marin Community College District and the county library, fire department and general fund.<\/p>\n
In 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill X1-26, which dissolved all of the state\u2019s redevelopment agencies and established successor agencies to wind down financial obligations. Even though the Marin County Redevelopment Agency no longer exists, the taxing districts are responsible for helping to pay off the bonds and other obligations.<\/p>\n
As a result, the Marin City Community Services District and other taxing districts have been receiving a smaller share of county property tax revenue than before the bonds were issued. However, revenue shares will increase significantly because the bonds were fully repaid as of last September.<\/p>\n
For example, in fiscal year 2024-25, the 14 taxing districts shared $1.2 million in residual tax revenue, with the Marin City district receiving $206,797. The same year, the Marin County Redevelopment Agency\u2019s successor agency had to use property tax revenue to pay off more than $1 million in revenue bonds.<\/p>\n
The financial windfall for the taxing districts doesn\u2019t stop there. After the bonds were retired, there was approximately $1 million remaining in the Gateway Refinancing Authority bond reserve fund. The taxing districts will also share this pot of money.<\/p>\n
The Marin City Community Services District was due just $178,000 of the leftover bond reserves, but at the urging of Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters, the supervisors agreed on July 14 to turn over an additional $260,000 that was owed to the county general fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I need to make a special request to go ahead and dedicate the county funds to the CSD?\u201d asked Moulton-Peters, whose district includes Marin City.<\/p>\n
Leelee Thomas, deputy director of the Marin County Community Development Agency, said that while that wasn\u2019t proposed in the staff report, \u201cThat\u2019s an option your board could consider.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I\u2019d like to suggest that we do that,\u201d Moulton-Peters said.<\/p>\n
However, not all of the former redevelopment agency\u2019s obligations have been paid off. Those remaining include a promise to provide $1.86 million to the Marin Housing Authority to manage, monitor and insure the long-term affordability of some 84 low- and moderate-income homeownership dwellings in the former redevelopment agency area.<\/p>\n
In addition, before dissolving, the redevelopment agency pledged to contribute $1.25 million to cover some design and construction costs for the Marin City Community Center. Thomas said the Marin City Community Services District had access to that money prior to the bond payoffs and has already received more than $334,000 of it.<\/p>\n
In December, the state extended a $3 million grant to the Marin City district to restore the community center. Under the original grant, the renovations were to have been completed by Dec. 31, 2025.<\/p>\n
Despite the increased funding for the Marin City district, Green and other former board members expressed dissatisfaction at the Board of Supervisors meeting on July 14.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that the Marin City Community Services District was actually going to wind up getting about $600,000,\u201d Green said. \u201cWe have to do more investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Damian Morgan, a former district board member and chair, said, \u201cI was part of conversations regarding the $600,000 coming back to the CSD. The numbers have changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Royce McLemore, another former board member, said, \u201cAs it relates to Marin City U.S.A. and the shopping center, we were sold out by the Marin City Community Development Corp. We were promised businesses. There is not one Black business down there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forty percent of the 255\u00a0Marin City U.S.A. apartments rented for below-market rates, and 22 of the project\u2019s 85 new townhouses went to low-income buyers. According to TMG Partners, the developer, the project won an American Planning Association award for exceptional coordination and benefits to the local community.<\/p>\n
Mina Martinovich, the county\u2019s finance director, said, \u201cI\u2019m not privy to any promises that were made to the CSD. However, we\u2019ve had these conversations with them many times. As I\u2019ve explained to them, we can only provide estimates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martinovich briefed the Marin City district in January on how the distribution of property tax revenues work. She told them the district could expect a residual property tax allocation of $206,797 for fiscal year 2024-25.<\/p>\n
Last year, a Marin County Civil Grand Jury report criticized the Marin City district and two other special districts for failing to submit state-mandated financial audits to the county finance department.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still waiting for them to finish their fiscal year 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 financial statement audits,\u201d Martinovich said.<\/p>\n
Neither Green nor Sarah Canson, the chair of the Marin City district, could be reached for comment.<\/p>\n
At the July 14 meeting, Canson told supervisors, \u201cWe can\u2019t change the past. All we can do is move forward. I ask for your help and assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The retirement of $13.2 million in revenue bonds for the Marin City U.S.A. project will provide a financial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,181,23,164163,8529,992,100,180,993,266,101,103,102,104,106,105,1694],"class_list":["post-409633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-california","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-marin-catholic-football","tag-marin-city","tag-marin-county","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-north-bay","tag-northern-california","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}