By Per Peterson
With so many past, current and future infrastructure improvements in Tracy, many residents have been saddled with assessments — some, in the past, controversial — to help pay for much-needed upgrades. Yet, the City of Tracy continues to operate without an assessment policy.
With more road construction slated for this summer and beyond, the question of whether or not to develop an official assessment policy came up at the most recent city council meeting.
At the April 11 meeting, council member Seth Schmidt said he assumed the $7,500 assessment fee was a “defacto” assessment policy.
“I would classify it as a practice, not a policy,” countered Tracy City Administrator Erik Hansen. “My suggestion (for the council) is that you have an actual written policy, so that we don’t run into issues in the future. If you don’t have a policy, people start to say, ‘Well, it’s arbitrary — you charged me this and you charged this person this amount and that’s not fair.’ If you have an equitable policy, that would insulate you from those concerns.”
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.