A proposed stormwater fee in the City of Monterey, intended to cover the majority of operation and maintenance costs of the municipal stormwater management system, failed to pass, with roughly 60 percent of city property owners voting against the fee.
As required by Proposition 218, which regulates local governments' ability to impose property-related fees, ballots were mailed to about 9,270 property owners in the city who would be affected by the potential fee in May, with a deadline to return the completed ballots by July 6, 2026. A majority of property owners would have needed to vote in favor of the fee for it to move forward.
Monterey Environmental Regulations Analyst Rebecca Baggot announced the election results on July 7 at a Monterey City Council meeting. Of the 4,119 valid ballots returned to the city, a return rate of roughly 46 percent, 1,648 ballots were cast in favor of the stormwater fee, or about 40 percent, while 2,471 ballots were cast against the proposed fee.
“The proposed fee was not approved by a majority of the votes cast,” said Baggot. “Under Prop. 218, the fee therefore cannot be imposed.”
The proposed monthly stormwater fee would have varied based on a property’s impervious surface area, such as driveways and other paved areas, with properties with more impervious areas charged more. The city estimated that the average single-family household would have a monthly charge of about $4.80, or roughly $58 annually.
Because the fee didn’t pass, the city’s stormwater program activities will continue to be paid for by the general fund, which includes system maintenance, inspections, monitoring and regulatory compliance. If property owners had approved the stormwater fee, it would have covered about two-thirds of the cost of operations and maintenance, with the remainder coming from the general fund.
Monterey City Manager Dante Hall said that the election results leave city staff scratching their heads and in need of developing strategies to reduce operations and maintenance of the city's stormwater system to the bare bones while still maintaining permit and regulatory compliance.
“We have to figure out what’s the responsible minimum that we can live with,” added Public Works Director Andrea Renny.