Voters to consider borrowing $181 million for upgrades

Pompano Beach voters will decide March 13 whether the city should borrow up to $181 million for street improvements, parks and public safety projects.

The ballot questions are broken into three parts:

$79 million for improvements in streets, sidewalks, bridges, streetscaping, and related utilities and drainage, including on Dixie Highway and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

$56 million to renovate, replace and improve parks, recreation and leisure facilities, including replacement of the city’s pier and new athletic fields at the old Elks Club property the city just purchased.

$46 million for public safety projects, including the replacement of two fire stations and the construction of a new one.

If all three questions pass, the bond will cost homeowners 60 cents more per $1,000 of their home’s taxable value, city officials estimate.

The amount each home will pay over the 30-year life of the bonds will not increase along with the taxable value of each home, unless the home’s ownership changes. In that case, the homeowner will be assessed an amount based on the taxable value of the house at the time of sale.

The city estimates the taxes on the city’s average single-family home — with a taxable value of $157,000 — would be about $94 more per year.

The city is spending $100,000 on a special election, instead of waiting for the general election in November, to lock in interest rates that are expected to start climbing soon, the city spokeswoman said.

Waiting until November, said city spokeswoman Sandra King, “we run the risk of having to pay a higher interest rate as we would not sell the bonds until say April of 2019. As an example, if the interest rate goes up by just .1 percent, it would equate to at least an additional $600,000 in interest to be repaid over the life of the bonds.”

The improvements can’t come soon enough for Victoria Dicesare, the mother of two school-age children who have played in citysponsored soccer, tennis, basketball, softball and golf. She said she’s tired of watching her kids play team sports in the outfield of another field because fields are so scarce.

“It will make a stronger, more beautiful community,” said Disceare, 40, who grew up in Pompano Beach. Most of the playing fields haven’t had upgrades since she was a kid, playing city-sponsored sports.

Melissa Paton, the mother of three, said she started writing letters to the city as soon as her kids, now ages 14, 12 and 10, started in city-sponsored leagues.

“When you play travel sports and go to other cities, it breaks your heart what our kids have,” Paton said.

Tom Terwilliger, who has lost bids for a City Commission seat, said the money is for the laundry list of projects that would have been done if the penny sales tax hadn’t failed last year, he said.

The city should be able to fund the necessary projects through the $266 million it collects every year from city taxpayers, he said.

“They are trying to rip us off in so many ways,” he said. Terwilliger is in favor of the pay-as-you-go approach to paying for the necessary projects on the list, such as a second fire station west of Interstate 95.

“We need less debt, not more debt,” he said, also citing shortfalls in the city’s pension obligations.

But Pompano city officials say that a lump sum would give them a chance at making long-delayed improvements that couldn’t be done pay-as-you-go, from the city’s general fund.

The city has taken out another kind of loan to pay for the city’s beachside garage, but Pompano currently has no outstanding general obligation bonds, they say.

“We are so far behind on these improvements, we can’t wait anymore,” said Greg Harrison, Pompano city manager.