This is the continuation of my blog entry "What if there was no Charles Village Community Benefits District (CVCBD)?  And, what is it anyway?" - by Pamela Wilson

Part I. What is the Charles Village Community Benefits (CVDBD) and where did the CVCBD come from?" was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2012

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Part II. How the CVCBD is run?"

Confusion about the CVCBD was rampant when my husband and I moved into Charles Village in 1999.  A lot of people were asking "How does it work?" and "When do we get to vote again on the CVCBD as we were promised?" For these questions we need to continue my explanation of the State and City laws that set up this Community Benefits District but the quick answer is: by a Board of Directors, the long answer is below:

To recap from the first blog post, since the power to tax its citizens lies within the powers of the State of Maryland it was necessary to first enact a State law to begin the process of setting up a "Special Benefits District" which was to be funded by an additional real estate tax called a "surtax".  This original legislation enabled the City of Baltimore to establish six Community Benefits Districts, the first of which was a "pilot program", the Charles Village Community Benefits District.  The second was the Midtown Community Benefits District.  Over the years several other attempts by the City at starting similar Community Benefits Districts (CBDs) failed to get the needed referendum support.

The State law, enshrined in the City Charter, Chapter 63 "Community Benefit District (CBD) Authorities"(1), not only gave the City the power to create CBDs but also instructed the City to provide legislation further detailing the composition and operation of the Management Authority to run the Charles Village Community Benefits District, the CVCBDMA.  It also required that the City's legislation to be passed based the results of a referendum of the "affected owners" [property owners subject to the tax] and "registered voters within the area".  You can read the full text relating to the CVCBD's enabling State and City legislation on the City's website www.baltimorecitygov .

                                         The City's Charter will be found on https://www.baltimorecity.gov/Portals/0/Charter%20and%20Codes/ChrtrPLL/01%20-%20Charter.pdf . On the left side go to Article II "General Powers" and then scroll down to pages Sec. 63, pages 71-75 "Community Benefits Districts.  
                                         The City's Code will be found on
https://www.baltimorecity.gov/Government/CityCharterCodes.aspx 
Go down to "Master Table of Contents", on left side of screen press "Code" then press Article 14 Special Taxing Districts, and on the left side of the screen press "Charles Village" which will bring you to Subtitle 6 on pages 23 - 38.

Both the State's and the City's laws outlined the boundaries for the Charles Village Community Benefits District.  The reason for the oddly shaped area was to address the concerns that areas to be served would cater to a more affluent district as might be expected in a Special Taxing District but these boundaries would instead encompass a diverse socio-economic mix of businesses and residents.(2)

As required, the City then proposed its own bill following the State's outlines for the establishment of the CVCVD and MA.  The City deemed it to be "a special taxing district, and therefore a governmental body, both politic and corporate, exercising only such powers as are provided for in this subtitle".  Therefore, it is neither an "association" nor a "quasi-governmental entity" as it has often been portrayed.  The bill fleshed out those areas needing further direction such as the actual running of the CVCBDMA, its powers and its limitations.  The City directed this MA to be a Board of Directors with a minimum (14) and maximum (27) members of the Board. The City then specified from where these members should come:

            1 voting member to be appointed by the Mayor;

            2 members of the City Council;

            8 from constituent organizations within the District, 2 each from four named community associations (Abell Improvement Assn; Charles Village Civic Assn.(3); Old Goucher Community Assn.; Harwood Community Assn.);

            2 each from three business associations (Waverly Main Street (new organization added to the law in May of 2012 to retroactively replace an older organization), Old Goucher Business Alliance and the N. Charles Village Business Assn.). 

            The Board was also allowed to have 4 "at-large" voting seats [Quad Reps].

            An additional 6 non-voting seats are allowed, 4 from neighborhood associations bordering the District and 2 from non-profits.  The law states, "A voting member of the Board must be eligible to vote in the election under Sec. 6-15 of this subtitle" and the eligibility criteria in Sec. 6-15 are: "(1) owners of property within the District which is subject to the tax and (2) voters registered to vote within the District."(4)

The bill gave the Board the power to create its own bylaws, subject to the approval of the Board of Estimates and with the proviso that these and any future amendments to the bylaws not conflict with the State's and City's enabling legislation.  It allowed the Board to hire an "Administrator" to handle specific jobs, among which were, preparation of the annual Financial [Budget] Plan, responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the Board and its employees and contractors, hiring of employees and contractors, but retaining for the Board the final "discretion and power with regard to all substantive agreements, contractors and other arrangements binding on the Authority".

The City specified the requirements of how the Supplemental Tax would be determined, and that the management Authority would have to enter into the annual Baseline services agreement with the City before imposing and collecting the Surtax.  This was to ensure that the surtax payers would not have their City services reduced by duplicate services being provided by the Charles Village Community Benefits District.  This agreement was to commit the City to the maintenance of the existing levels of service so that the same services provided by the City to all other areas in Baltimore would also be provided to the CVCBD area even though that area was paying for 'supplemental' services.  Without the Baseline agreement listing those promised City services, the CVCBD cannot know whether the services it provides are duplicating or assuming City services and thereby putting a double taxation on a CBD area for the same services.(5)

Regarding "Collection and disbursement" of surtax monies, Sec. 6-15 of the City's Code covers the penalties and interest applied to non-payment of the property surtax supporting the CVCBD and imposes a lien on property for any outstanding assessment and accrued interest and other charges.  Therefore non-payment of the surtax results in the listing of that property on the City's tax sale list.

The Board meets monthly (with the exception of a possible summer month) and the meetings are open to the public. (Note that it was only through prolonged prodding by community activists the CVCBD finally agreed to allow public comment at the Board meetings but the public comment time was placed at the end of the meetings rather than during or just following pertinent discussions.)  The Board has quorum responsibilities regarding votes taken, must adhere to the State's Open Meetings Act (again this required prodding by community activists), is required by City law to hold a general Fall meeting where Quad Representatives are elected and a Spring Budget Hearing, must follow Robert's Rules during meetings, and, in January each year elects from its members of the Board those to serve on the executive committee.

This is only a part of the City's enabling legislation and again I strongly suggest that anyone interested in how the CVCBD works look at the Baltimore City Code, Article 14, Chapter 6-1 through 6-17 (links provided near the beginning of this blog post).

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Regarding the second question my husband and I often heard, "When do we get to vote again on the CVCBD?"  The answer is simply never again unless the legislation is amended to be more democratic.  The only community vote or referendum on the CVCBD took place in 1994 and it allowed the passage of the City's enabling legislation.  There is nothing in either the State or the City legislation which provides for any other type of community vote to continue or end this Special Taxing District known as the CVCBD.(6)

  

At the beginning, only the State had the power to address the "sun-setting" provision of this 3-year "pilot program" and to consider the same in additional 3-year increments.  In 2000 supporters of the CVCBD requested the State cede its control over the sun-set clause to the City and to expand the life term of the program in 4-year increments.  This is why the CVCBD's "reauthorization" is now determined by the City Council and approved by the Mayor every 4 years.  (Enacted 1994, the State's 3-year period for renewal was in 1997 and then, in 2000, the City took over for a 4-year period.  When the City attempted to reauthorize the CVCBD in 2001 community activists found that an error occurred in the City's lack of proper preparation as required by law to begin the process of reauthorization.  So the City and supporters of the CVCBD went to Annapolis to have an amendment passed to be applied retroactively to correct their error.  Because of this it took an extra year to reauthorize which occurred in 2002, then the CVCB was reauthorized in 2006, 2010 and is scheduled for reauthorization in 2014.)

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(1)Since the legislation was passed by the one and only community vote on it there have been 5 amendments to Chapter 63 of the Charter, changing it, first in 1995, then in 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2007.

(2)While this was accomplished through the inclusion of less affluent areas covered in this CBD it also put an additional burden on the poorer property owners by way of its surtax.  During reauthorization a few years ago complaints about lack of service by residential property owners at the very northeastern part of the area persuaded their City Council Representative to have the law amended and those properties were removed from the CVCBD.  Petitions from other area property owners asking for removal were not granted the right to remove their properties from the CVCBD despite the fact that 12,000 petitions were hand-delivered at that time to the City Council.

(3) Actually, since the Charles Village Civic Association (CVCA) has both community residents and businesses as members it is difficult to know whether the CVCA will vote for the benefit of residents or of businesses when considering issues on the Board of Directors of the Charles Village Community Benefits District.  So the CVCA may actually provide an additional seat for those given to business associations.

(4) It is important to note that the City law also states "At least a majority of the Board shall be composed of owners or representatives of property owners subject to the tax imposed by this subtitle" but "A voting member of the Board must be eligible to vote in the election…".  This item (Section 6-6,(e), (7)) does not mean that all "representatives of property owners subject to the tax may fill voting seats but it specifically points to the requirements needed to fill a voting seat and a "representative of property owners subject to the tax" may or may not be eligible to fill a voting seat depending on whether they own property in the District or are registered voter within the District.  There is no getting away from the strict stipulation of the law that states ""The following persons are eligible to vote subject to the limitations that no person may have more than one vote: (1) owners of property within the District which is subject to tax under Sec. 6-8; and (2) voters registered to vote within the District".  So, therefore, if a corporation owns a business the corporation itself (not being a human being despite what our Supreme Court thinks) cannot sit on a Board seat.  The corporation would then have a President or CEO fill that seat as a representative of the property owner (the Corporation) only if that President or CEO is either him/herself a property owner subject to the surtax or a registered voter in the area.  A restaurateur who personally owns the property housing his/her restaurant may be allowed under this provision to fill his seat by way of a son/daughter, tenant, worker but only if that representative is either a property owner subject to the tax or a registered voter in the district.  There is no legal way around the two requirements for filling voting seats.

(5) Please note that at the last Annual Budget Hearing (March 2012) Christian Wilson asked the CVCBDMA if they had such a Baseline agreement with the City and the answer was that they tried to get one but haven't been able to for years.  Christian asked the Board to then stop the hearing and, until such agreement had been accomplished, to not plan the expenditures of surtax monies because the CVBD would not know if they were duplicating services.   Members of the community later found out that in 2007 the Administrator had a copy of such agreement in working form but apparently the CVCBDMA did not follow through on having it finalized.

A final word here on this subject:  the corner trash cans previously provided by the City and emptied by the City were replaced by $600. Charles Village Community Benefits District cans and are now emptied by the CVCBD.  This alone means that the City is no longer providing us with the same services neighborhood who don't have a CBD get.  What could have been done was to leave the City service in tact and if the City's schedule of empting the cans isn't sufficient a 'supplemental' service would be to give an additional round of emptying the cans, not to take over the entire service we are paying for in our City taxes.

(6) Except, note however the wording regarding first the original referendum and then its "renewal", page 36 of the City Code, Sec. 6-15, "Election approval process (a) List of eligible voters. The Board of Estimates, with the assistance of the interim Board, the Department of Finance, and the Supervisor of the Board of Elections, shall be responsible for compiling a list of those persons eligible to vote on the establishment of the District and on any question relating to it renewal" (bold added for emphasis on the wording).

                                   

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My next blog on this subject will continue with "Part III What does the CVCBD do?".  It will include the many problems the community has encountered with the Charles Village Community Benefits District since it began in 1994.