This letter is in response to the Amigos del Cerro artículo by Jay Wilson, published in the December 2024–January 2025 edition of the Mensajero de Mission Times.

In the fourth paragraph of that article, it states:

“The Enhanced Del Cerro Committee continues to gather signatures for a petition directing the city to hold an election for property owners in Del Cerro to vote yes or no for the establishment of an enhanced Del Cerro Maintenance Assessment District,” followed by, “signing the petition does not indicate your support of the efforts to establish the maintenance assessment district.”

This raises an important question: Why would anyone sign a petition that could support a program the majority of the community does not want?

I suspect there is an ulterior motive behind this push to gather signatures. If the Maintenance Assessment District (MAD) is established, all Del Cerro property owners will face an additional property tax increase that they would be obligated to pay.

For context, let’s revisit the history of MADs. In 1978, then-Governor Jerry Brown and state legislators amended the Highways and Lighting Act, creating Maintenance Assessment Districts under what is now commonly known as the “1972 Act.”

A critical component of this legislation is that it allows passage of such measures with a simple majority of those who vote—a threshold notably easy to achieve for any initiative.

J.G. Ney, CWO4
USMC, Retired

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