The future of a Stockton business group that pays for extra security and maintenance downtown is uncertain, despite a vote by group members to keep the coalition alive.
Three-quarters of property owners who voted on the “Downtown Stockton Community Improvement District” said they wanted to keep paying a special tax that goes toward the nonprofit Downtown Stockton Alliance’s work to beautify and promote central Stockton, according to election results announced at the Oct. 14 City Council meeting.
But despite the vote, the City Council struck down a proposal to keep the tax and extend its boundaries after several Fremont Street property owners turned out to protest their inclusion in it.
The move leaves the future of the DSA, whose name has become synonymous with attempts to revive downtown, in limbo — unless the alliance and the city redo the election, or the City Council finds another way to reconsider its decision.
“Expanding the scope of it is what really, I think, ultimately doomed this tonight,” District 3 Councilmember Michael Blower said at the October meeting.
“What will you do?” Blower asked of the alliance. “Will you go back to the drawing board? Can you?”
That remains to be seen. On Tuesday, Stockton’s city attorney said lawyers with the city’s economic department are researching possibilities for returning the issue to council.
The DSA’s executive director, Michael Huber, declined to comment for this story.
What is the Downtown Stockton Alliance?
The DSA includes about 1,000 owners of commercial and residential properties, stretching roughly from Oak Street and Sonora Street in the north and south, and the Union Pacific Railroad and Mormon Slough to the east and west.
The group works to bolster business, housing, entertainment and the arts in the neighborhood through maintenance, marketing and drawing new enterprise to the area.
The DSA dates back to 1996 — when Joan Darrah was mayor, and Stockton’s city center was already having a rough time.
Over the decades, the neighborhood has experienced vacant and neglected buildings, squatting, fires and other challenges. The city, community groups and developers have made multiple attempts to beautify it.
Just a few of those attempts included the construction of the Adventist Health Arena in 2005; the Open Windows Project, cut short following the unsolved killing in 2015 of one of its leaders; the approval of a huge commercial and apartment project on the waterfront last year; and the ongoing overhaul of the Waterfront Towers to serve as Stockton’s new City Hall.
For its part, the DSA provides a downtown maintenance squad and a “community ambassador” team, according to its website. The maintenance squad power-washes sidewalks, pulls weeds, collects trash, covers graffiti and cleans up human waste. Meanwhile, the ambassadors are a security guard-like presence that also provides car escorts, jumpstarts and other help.
The DSA also helps business owners by covering some of the costs of professional workshops, chamber of commerce memberships, and broken window repair, as well as loans.
Much of the alliance’s work is funded by the special tax whose extension the City Council considered on Oct. 14.
Once established, special tax areas like the one downtown aren’t permanent, and end after a set number of years. To renew them, property owners must petition the city, and the city must then hold a vote among the property owners. The downtown tax district is scheduled to expire in December 2026.
But the current renewal campaign is different from previous ones that kept the tax – and the DSA – going for nearly three decades.
What’s the hangup?
This time, the DSA and the city’s Economic Development department proposed expanding the taxed neighborhood to include a stretch of Weber Avenue south of the waterfront, and a section of Fremont Street to its north. In July, the City Council voted 7-0 to hold the property owners’ vote based on the new proposed boundaries.
Under the plan, the largely industrial strip of Fremont Street “(would) become more entertainment and more development, and looking into the future, it’s also a gateway for visitors,” Economic Development Department Tina McCarty, said at the Oct. 14 meeting.
Some property owners previously not covered by the tax were indignant. A handful took to the podium during the meeting’s public comment period to say they couldn’t afford an additional tax.
“I walked down Fremont Street. And I walked from this City Hall all the way down to I-5,” property owner Michael Sousa said. “I talked to many property owners … and they were vehemently opposed to another assessment that amounts to an additional tax and a new bureaucracy.”
The owners of government, commercial and multi-unit residential buildings would pay about eight cents per square foot each year, according to a report included in the council meeting agenda. Nonprofits and residences with fewer units would pay about five cents.
Landlord Alphonso Ron, whose apartments fall in the new boundaries, summed up the dissenters’ position: “If you guys want to keep it downtown? Great. Keep it downtown.”
Some also criticized how the city ran the property owners’ vote, which is weighted according to the square footage of each owners’ buildings and land. The larger the footprint, the higher the owner’s tax bill would be.
But some of the area’s largest properties belong to the city itself, property owners pointed out.
“I think what we all feel is there’s a massive conflict of interest, to give the city itself, who is a major property owner here — the county, school board, these are major property owners within this district — to give them a representative vote,” property owner Tony Fasso said.
One person spoke in favor of keeping the tax. “In urban centers … anything involving government ultimately only works with long-term planning and with proper, sufficient funding,” Nate Knodt, facilitator of the Downtown Comeback Club of Stockton, said.
Ultimately, the property owners’ vote trumped the Fremont Street opposition. Then, the City Council vote overrode the property owners.
One vote overrides another
With 61.5% participation, the vote was 76% in favor of continuing the tax with the new boundaries, the city clerk announced after the Fremont Street owners spoke. The vote was 24% against it.
Every councilmember present criticized the new plan, and the council ultimately voted it down 6-0. District 2 Councilmember Mariela Ponce was absent.
Mayor Christina Fugazi questioned the DSA’s success in keeping downtown tidy. “What really is getting cleaned?” she asked.
“I’ve had people come to my office and say, ‘I’m somehow in this, and they say they clean, and I’ve got to pay for it, but I’ve never seen them clean the front (of the property)” she said.
The mayor also took criticism of the city’s participation in the property owner vote a step further than public commenters had. “For the small mom-and-pops, their vote basically weighed nothing,” she said.
“I really like the idea of … looking at the votes that the city, county and SUSD had, because I can tell you, they all voted yes, and they had the lion’s share,” Fugazi said.
The city clerk’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question about whether public property owners actually carried the vote.
Vice Mayor Jason Lee raised a question about how to track the DSA’s work. “Opposing this fee, or whatever this is, to the downtown area, specifically without the city being in control of those resources, being able to measure the success of it … I mean to me, it just doesn’t make sense.”
It’s unclear if the city tracks the alliance’s progress toward its goals. McCarty, the economic director, did not return a call seeking comment. The DSA publishes quarterly and yearly reports on its work online.
The Oct. 14 meeting ended with no discussion of the alliance’s outlook. When Blower called on McCarty to provide direction, she redirected the question to the city attorney, who simply confirmed that councilmembers could vote counter to the property owners’ vote.
Stocktonia contacted all seven councilmembers about whether they’d support reconsidering the issue.
An emailed response Thursday from Fugazi’s office said, “The Mayor supports DSA, and she wants the item to come back along with the rest of the council, once the proposal addresses the concerns brought up by each of the council members and those potentially affected by it.”
Blower too said he wants to keep the alliance. “I still want to see us save it, it’s just they expanded the boundaries … I think in retrospect, I wish we would’ve just continued (the vote), he said by phone Friday.
The other five councilmembers sent no response.
If another property owner vote is needed, it’s unclear how much another outreach campaign ahead of the election would cost the DSA. The alliance received support from county government American Rescue Plan Act money for the most recent campaign, McCarty said at the mid-October.
Huber, the DSA’s director, wouldn’t say exactly how much county money went toward the outreach.
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