The query of 500 likely voters in Costa Mesa ? conducted by Godbe Research ? polled the respondents on a handful of subjects, including the sinking of utilities and their appetite for shouldering a utility tax to pay for it. By the way, past estimates for the work have approached half a billion dollars. That's a lot of jack.
Asked to rank the importance of crime prevention, improving education, moving utilities underground, limiting resident growth, curtailing commercial growth and maintaining public safety services, Costa Mesa residents dispatched the utilities issue to a nearly back-row seat wearing a pointed hat.
Preventing crime is the most important topic on the minds of Costa Mesans, the survey found, followed by improving educational quality, and maintaining public safety. The utilities work placed fourth. Limiting residential and commercial growth limped across the tape behind the rest.
While the survey paints, at best, only a marginal appetite among Costa Mesans for burying utilities, it is largely a false picture that masks just how disinterested residents are in such work. Here's why.
Godbe couched its questions about potential funding sources for moving utilities underground this way: "In order to fund the underground of utility lines throughout Costa Mesa, ensuring more reliable utility service, reducing the threat from earthquakes, of fallen poles and exposed electrical wiring, and improving the appearance of the city..."
Written that way, Costa Mesa residents might have easily seen putting utility lines underground as something akin to receiving the keys to a candy store. And, even better, would be willing to take a hit in the wallet for the privilege.
But even with the sweetened wording, not one of the three funding mechanisms was able to muster the support of two-thirds of the survey respondents. Only an increase in the city's transient occupancy tax (hotel bed tax) came close at 65%. Neither a utility tax nor an increase in the city's sales tax was able to scrounge up any semblance of community support. Worse, the scrawny support that did surface for these options flagged considerably as the survey takers received more information.
It's a good thing the City Council ? at the urging of City Manager Allan Roeder ? expended the effort to scientifically gauge Costa Mesa's pulse on the hugely expensive proposition of underground utilities.
Costa Mesa residents responded. The council should listen and jettison the idea.
