Saving a City Stables

[clanter]

@RMJacobs

I thought Proposition 13 only affected property tax, not sales tax.

Rebecca

and without property tax increases the city has slowly spiraled down as over 90% of the city is residential development with little change over of ownership

Maybe a start would be to encourage the citizens of the city to buy from local stores…then the sales tax would remain in the city

Also the state needs to be encouraged to use the destination zip code or delivery addresses to allocate sales tax revenues rather an ratio of brick and mortar stores per city But that takes action by Sacramento which is not going to happen

[HungarianHippo]

Agree with @clanter – get your facts scrupulously straight, and drop the emotional level down multiple notches. Then present the case for the business value that this center brings to the city. For example, the stable may offer more distributed economic benefit to the city than the RV storage would. (think about spending with local contractors, restaurants, grocery, gas station, etc). Survey the stable users on their spending habits when they’re at the stable-- how often do they buy their lunches in town,etc. Survey realtors to get their input on property value impact of the stable vs RV storage.

For those of you saying “it’s just people from outside of town”: it’s a prime goal of every local government to approve development that brings outside money in. So that’s a benefit of the stable, not a flaw-- as long as they’re spending money.

These planning boards, town councils, etc are flooded with emotional people who have no appreciation for the difficulty of planning future land use-- they just come in stomping their feet and saying NO CHANGE! DONT CHANGE ANYTHING! It’s so incredibly frustrating. So don’t be those people. Come with facts, show your stable’s current benefit, and understand what the RV park benefits are and see if you can incorporate some of them into the stable’s future plans.

Don’t do all of this only at public meetings-- schedule individual meetings with board members to politely make your case, listen to their concerns, work out solutions together.

Also remember that you can try to negotiate a ‘stay’-- give us one year to make xyz changes and then re-evaluate the alternate land use.

[Miss_Motivation]

Read this: https://www.thecapistranodispatch.com/equestrian-study-claims-more-than-50-million-in-economic-impact/

An equine community near you commissioned an equine economic impact study and found that their stables brought $50 million dollars into the city!

Think about it… instead of dropping an RV off and taking it in and out of the yard a few times a year, a stable brings in many people: owners, trainers, students, vets, farriers, feed suppliers, etc. every day. Those people spend a lot of time at the barn, and it becomes their end-destination point and therefore they often do errands and shop near the barn.

Meals, fuel, groceries… all these little trips cluster around visits to the barn and bring in money to the city… but the city fathers will never know this unless you prove it, in a business-like manner. Kids riding is a feel-good thing that’s important, but $50,000,000 really speaks loudly to city folk.

Even if you’re OK for now… keep this idea handy and perhaps work on a study now (you could do an informal one with SurveyMonkey or similar) to have handy next time they want to nix the stables.

I believe the city of Yorba Linda may have had a similar survey done, but I can’t find it now.

Good luck to you-

[Promise_s_Mom]

Thanks everyone for your input. Regarding San Juan Capistrano that is a much more affluent community but still point well taken. Whoever talked about boarders buying footing, that is correct unfortunately. Neither the city nor management have invested in the property which is unfortunate. It’s really taken this difficult situation to wake everyone up and realize participation in advocacy and pushing for improvements is important. It’s a great idea to assess economic impact of those that come to the area from surrounding communities specifically to spend time at Lakewood Equestrian Center. I appreciate the insights.

[clanter]

I did see that the city pays board members $50 per meeting, it appears that is for any board and all meetings… around here all those positions are volunteer with no payments (if there is a real expense then it is repaid)

First off to me IF The value of the meeting was great enough to have pay members to attend then $50 is pretty much worthless and all these positions are appointed not elected which could easily become reward positions for doing such a good job getting me elected or appointed to the $300,000 city manager’s position (base salary plus benefits)

I could not find a line item cost reflecting the total cost of this $50 payment per meeting in the budget

Does Rita Crundwell work there as an adviser ?

[Promise_s_Mom]

Post from Clanter: “Does Rita Crundwell work there as an adviser ?” Hi Clanter - I do not know if a Rita Crundwell works for the City of Lakewood. The equestrian consultant that the city used is a male. I don’t know his name.

[aregard]

@Promise's Mom

Thank you all. The pony ride/petting zoo is a great community activity - family fun that’s affordable and accessible. LEC also offers pony camp in the summer teaching kids horsemanship and riding - great ways to teach kids compassion and responsibility. Sad to try to replace white fences with chain link. Kids should have the opportunity to get dirty too! :winkgrin:

One barn in our area has two tiered pricing. City residents pay a little less for services than non-city residents. That differential could go directly to the city coffers.

We fought off a zoning change (many years back) in N San Diego county by showing up with 30 pony clubbers and their parents, and the kids spoke about how important the sports, right in town, were to them. After the 3rd or 4th kid, the city council members looking out over a sea of blue T-shirts, got a feeling of how big a deal retaining the stables might be.

Good luck to you. I know Fightertown Stables in Mira Mar (also San Diego county) was converted to RV storage. It is hugely full and since there aren’t any animals on the grounds, I am guessing very little maintenance is required. This will be a bit of a battle for you.

One argument is that people don’t visit their parked RV on a regular basis. People DO visit their horses on a regular basis. If you have plot A and plot B, the one closest to the people should be used for the horses, and the one furthest from the people used for the RVs.

[Gesaffelstein]

How much is board at Lakewood stables?

[SonnysMom]

@Promise's Mom

Post from Clanter: “Does Rita Crundwell work there as an adviser ?” Hi Clanter - I do not know if a Rita Crundwell works for the City of Lakewood. The equestrian consultant that the city used is a male. I don’t know his name.

Last I saw Rita Crundwell was in jail. She worked for a city and embezzled millions of dollars to support her QHs. Government seized her homes, breeding horses, trailers, show horses and auctioned it all off to repay the city. There is a limited release film made about her. If you google her it is quite the story. She made up invoices for projects that didn’t exist, didn’t itemize things, created a whole bank account that only she had access to. So no she doesn’t/didn’t work for Lakewood. I think he is just making a comment on the lack of transparency on the budget.