Downtown Vallejo property owners decline improvement tax, jeopardizing restoration group

VALLEJO — An organization funded by downtown property owners to improve and maintain downtown Vallejo is facing an uncertain future after it failed to secure enough property owner responses to continue collecting a special tax. 

Since 1998, the Central Core Restoration Corporation (CCRC) has been funded through a separate line item on downtown Vallejo property owners’ annual property tax bills, but its Property Based Improvement District must be re-approved by property owners periodically. 

To re-approve the tax last year, a portion of downtown property owners needed to support moving forward with a vote, but too few responded and the district expired at the end of December. 

The CCRC helped facilitate security and sanitation for the Saturday Farmers’ Market, maintained the downtown planter boxes and other streetscaping, cleaned up graffiti, installed new park benches and decorative lighting, and launched a project to clean up and beautify the downtown’s alleyways. The CCRC also contracted SVT Gruppe, Inc. to hire two security guards to patrol downtown 40 hours per week.

“CCRC will still exist, just not as a PBID district,” CCRC interim executive director Andrea Portillo-Knowles  said. “Whether that means volunteering, or maybe seeking out some grant funding, CCRC will still maintain its status. It will just not be a PBID district.”

But the recently resurrected group Vallejo Main Street, where Portillo-Knowles also serves as executive director, may be filling some of that gap.

CCRC treasurer Tom Pezzuto, who is also treasurer of Vallejo Main Street, said that the Farmer’s Market has signed a sponsorship agreement with Vallejo Main Street. 

While there is some sentiment that CCRC should try to hang together, Pezzuto said that the organizations may be redundant, while noting that his opinions are not representative of CCRC. 

“I think the stronger sentiment is that, with no funding, what's the purpose?” he said. “Particularly with there being another organization, that being the Vallejo Main Street organization that has sort of re-surged, and it's like two different organizations fighting for dollars and for hearts and minds.”

Vallejo Main Street – a member of Main Street America, an organization that aims to revitalize old historic commercial districts – was itself on the verge of shutting down before renewed interest brought the group back to life in 2022 and it organized the popular August Summer Nights event.

There’s a strong connection between the two organizations. Three of board members of CCRC are also on the Vallejo Main Street board of directors and Portillo-Knowles was hired by CCRC to fill in as CCRC’s interim executive director after the former executive director, Rita Irivani, retired in September.

But just last year, CCRC was seeking to expand. Pezzuto said that CCRC paid New City America, Inc. $100,000 to help redesign the district and their revenue streams. 

The proposed district plan would have expanded the district’s original footprint two blocks to the north to include properties at the corner of Florida and Marin Streets, to the southwest to include the condos on Mare Island Way and Marin Streets, and to the southeast to include the building supply business on Curtola Parkway at Napa Street. It would have also restructured the nonprofit to expand its fundraising options.

The first step of the approval process required gathering the necessary support of the property owners, but too few responded to move forward. 

“We were hoping to get a little bit bigger so that we could expand our services,” Pezzuto said. “Although it would have been beneficial to be able to have more security, to be able to have more funds, so that we could accomplish more. It seems like we scared people.”

Pezzuto said that CCRC wanted to increase their revenue because costs, such as security guard rates, had jumped astronomically in the last four or five years. 

“We just weren't able to deliver tangible things that people could see,” Pezzuto said. “I think what will happen, in my opinion, is that eventually people will see, nobody is picking up trash around the downtown. We funded that. Nobody is painting over graffiti. We funded that. All of a sudden they're going to say, ‘Why does it look like such a trash heap downtown?’ Then maybe some of these landlords will slap their forehead and say, ‘CCRC really was doing something good.”’

CCRC vice president and Vallejo Main Street past president Tom Bartee, who said he was part of the original team that launched CCRC, attributed the failure of CCRC’s petition support to sticker shock. Many of the property owners would have been assessed for between $2,000 to $3,000 per year, based on the height of the building, the square footage and the street frontage. 

“There was just no interest in redoing the PBID and keeping that assessment on their tax rolls,” Bartee said. “I mean, there was some interest, but not enough to get us across financially.”

Bartee said that downtown Vallejo has improved a lot over the years. “The economy has helped too, but we turned the downtown around. In 2000, 90% of the buildings were vacant,” Bartee said, “and today it might be 10 to 15%.” He said that many of those empty buildings are undergoing a complete renovation. “Even though people see some empty storefronts, there's still stuff going on behind the scenes to make those viable commercial operations.

“You can credit the Farmers’ Market to CCRC,” Bartee said. “It's one of the best farmers’ markets in Northern California.”

Vallejo Main Street board member Elizabeth Pidegon, an officer of the Odd Fellows lodge at the corner of Marin and Georgia Streets, told the Vallejo Sun that the lodge didn’t respond to the CCRC petition because it was confusing.

“I couldn't even tell from reading it, whether the amount was the new assessment amount, or in addition to our existing assessment,” she said. Pidgeon said the meeting “went off the rails” when people asked questions she couldn’t answer. The petition was tabled and never came back to the lodge for a vote.

The CCRC’s decision to spend $100,000 on the consulting firm without first consulting the property owners struck Pidgeon as incomplete organizational thinking. “I think before you commit to spending a lot of money – I mean, it was like half of their annual budget – you should get a show of support,” she said. 

Pidgeon suggested that another reason the CCRC failed to receive positive response from district landlords is a lack of trust of longtime CCRC board president Buck Kamphausen. Kamphausen controls numerous vacant buildings downtown and has long been a controversial figure in Vallejo. The state Department of Justice has accused Kamphausen of mismanaging cemeteries and is seeking to seize over $50 million in assets from companies he controls. 

To continue, CCRC will still need to restructure its nonprofit status. The board will likely discuss that at its next meeting, the date of which has not been announced.

Editor’s note: Reporter Gretchen Zimmermann is a member of the Odd Fellows board of trustees, but did not participate in the meeting when the CCRC petition was discussed.