Wal-Mart, school district push Promenade plans into March

[John Lyons RC]

Wal-mart own the land net to the Home Depot in Rancho Cucamonga it is big enough for a super center.

[Mayor Mark]

I have sat back quietly watching the exchange and thought I would chime in with some facts. Walmart was proposing a second Super Walmart next to the Hilton Gardens Inn at Sierra & Slover (even though a Specific Plan already existed that focused on smaller building footprints along Sierra Avenue at Slover).

I couldn't help but notice that most of the Fontana bashing was coming from residents who don't live in the city limits ... they live in the unincorporated pockets of Fontana and complain about the city not providing services like graffiti abatement, road improvements, etc. If you live in the city and see graffiti, call 350-GONE or go online at http://www.fontana.org/police/forms/Graffiti_... and report the location.

[Mayor Mark]

Then there were the comments that the older neighborhoods have been paying taxes and receiving no services. Let me help you better understand local government finance. The city of Fontana receives 3.4% of the property tax paid. For most of those older homes in the older part of town, their prop 13 tax base is probably 100,000 or less ... meaning they pay $1,000 per year or less in property taxes ... and the city gets $34 dollars or less ... guess what -- that doesn't pay for services to the residents. In fact, property taxes is probably our sixth or seventh highest revenue source.#1 revenue source is sales taxes ... and guess where most of the recent growth has come from?? The new commercial along Miracle Mile in the north along the 210. And those dollars go to the General Fund and are invested citywide for services ... not put back into the north end.
I have posted this before and it seems to keep getting ignored, but most of the investment we make from the General Fund is concentrated in the older part of town. Park improvements, library, Pacific Electric Trail improvements, partnership with Chaffey, improvements to middle schools at FoJ, Alder, and other locations, and road improvements throughout.
As for the library, the single largest contribution was from the North Fontana Redevelopment Area ... so the city's "outside-in" investment strategy was put to work with that project ... taking the economic vitality generated in the north and bringing tens of millions of dollars to the core of the community. And before you try bashing the library once again, it's the most successful library in the county system seeing several thousand visitors a day!

Lastly, those wonderful YouTubes that showed "Fontana" ... guess again -- much of the imagery was along the I-10 in areas still unincorporated or areas we just annexed and have not had under our jurisdictional control.

So while you keep bashing North Fontana and trying to discount what it means to the city (you need to include South Fontana as well with the new development there as well), you seem to ignore the fact that 12 years ago when I joined the city council we had nothing in town -- anywhere! We had a utility tax that we lived off of to provide basic services. Since then, our sales tax has grown from $8 million to $29 million per year. And the total valuation of Fontana has grown from $5 billion to over $15 billion.
So keep bashing and I'll watch from the cheap seats and swing in time to time to correct the misinformation... and just so you know I'm not drinking the cool-aid all day long, I know we have areas that need improvement. If you attended this year's state of the City address, you would have seen me highlight the Laurelwoods Apartment project where the city Housing Authority partnered with the private sector to purchase and rehab a 68 unit, drug and crime infested apartment complex. After millions of investment, that complex is now a safe haven in the neighborhood, with after school programming in their new learning center. Its one project ... funded once again from low/mod proceeds from the north Fontana redevelopment project area (and our other redevelopment project areas)... that is making a real difference in the lives of that neighborhood. And we're taking it one neighborhood at a time!

Mark Nuaimi
Mayor City of Fontana
[e-mail]