Building a better Beaumont: Innovative program creates $157 million in quality of life improvements

Many Beaumont residents may not realize that a lot of the good things going on in their community right now result from an innovative program that has brought in tens of millions of dollars in public improvements.

Miles of smooth roadways, a spacious sports park with lights and a steady supply of fresh water are just a few of the many benefits of having a Community Facilities Districts program.

“We keep ahead of the curve in Beaumont, where growth and small-town living thrive ” said Mayor Jeff Fox. “These improvements enrich the lives of every resident and visitor.”

Making life Better

Here are some of the improvements under the Community Facilities Districts program:

• An $11 million widening of Oak Valley Parkway, including a new bridge over Noble Creek (now underway)
• The $7.4 million City of Beaumont Albert A. Chatigny, Sr. Community Recreation Center
• $45 million in new roads constructed or now being built. (Each lane mile costs about $1 million to buy right-of-way and do blacktop.)
• Construction of the $1.3 million Beaumont Sports Park
• Construction of the 4.5 million gallon Taylor Reservoir at a cost of $2.7 million
• Ongoing expansion of the city's wastewater treatment plant

Beaumont’s forward-looking program creates a very livable community— a place where residents and visitors alike can shop, dine and enjoy recreation in a small-town atmosphere.

“I think it’s unique,” said consultant Gary Thornhill, president of Tierra Verde, Inc. in Temecula, which created a plan for revitalizing Beaumont’s downtown area. “Much needed improvements and infrastructures are in place quickly. And everybody benefits from Beaumont’s community-wide approach.”

Swelling with pride

Many locals already feel they couldn’t live in a better place. Even so, Tracy Salinas, 40, owner of Custom Trophies & U-Neek Awards, spins her head around in wonder every time she drives by the Beaumont Sports Park and spots youngsters and adults in pickup basketball games—often under the lights. She grew up in town when there was only one flashing yellow signal.

“My heart swells with pride,” Salinas said. “Twenty years ago, you never would have even thought about such a wonderful facility.”

Beaumont has worked closely with builders to construct about $157 million in public improvements in every corner of the city. Roads, water and sewer lines, parks and other improvements were built before homes and shopping centers went up. It’s been a pioneering approach to planning for the last 15 years that keeps housing affordable.

Here’s how the program works:

• Projects are studied for their overall impact on the city
• City staff recommends needed public improvements
• The City Council decides which improvements should be built first and authorizes the sale of bonds to pay for the work
• Homeowners pay for public improvements and maintenance through a special tax on property tax bills.
  

A quick glance at a map shows two dozen Community Facilities Districts spread across the city. It’s a comprehensive way of planning, financing and building public improvements with the future in mind. Builders pay their fair share of public improvements based on how their projects impact the city as a whole.

“People don’t just drive in and out of their neighborhoods,” said Dave Dillon, the city’s economic development director. “They drive all around the community.”

Pioneering approach

Beaumont finances these projects differently than most cities, which rely on developer fees to pay for public improvements. When that happens, builders that have often borrowed money at high interest rates tack their cost on to the price of new homes.

Beaumont has a better approach, making public improvements possible by selling bonds at low interest rates. Developers get a “credit” for making the public improvements. And homeowners repay the bonds sold for improvements on their property tax bill.

The beginning

The Community Facilities Districts program got its start in the mid-1990s. A venerable sewer plant that had served the community since 1929 needed replacing. Growth was coming, so a dozen trail-blazing developers stepped up to construct a new sewer plant to replace the old one. Builders were guaranteed future capacity for their housing projects in the new $6.2 million sewer plant.

Beaumont’s inspired way of doing public improvements showed how builders and local government — working cooperatively— could improve everyday life. Today, the same approach continues for building roads, parks, hiking and biking trails and recycled water facilities that help conserve precious groundwater. Some projects serve several purposes. The Taylor Reservoir stores water for residents and also fire-fighting purposes.

“We compliment the city of Beaumont for its leadership role and efforts in providing a comprehensive program that allows for the earlier development of necessary public infrastructure,” said Stan Brown, regional president of SunCal Companies, which developed the master-planned community known as Fairway Canyon, which now has about 1,000 homeowners. “It has fostered a more livable community with affordable housing prices.”

The future

Beaumont, with its well-known charm, affordable homes and growing array of shopping, plans many new improvements in the future that will bring jobs, keep traffic flowing smoothly and meet the needs of a growing city. Residents, business owners, visitors and commuters will see a host of new projects— ranging from interchange work to street widening to synchronizing traffic signals along major thoroughfares. It’s part of a constantly expanding initiative on behalf of Beaumont residents.

“We’re very innovative about planning for our future,” Fox said.

Pay it Forward by Shopping Local

Shopping locally can help your family, your neighbors and your community.

Purchasing goods and services from hometown merchants boosts Beaumont’s economy, lifts spirits and helps pay for needed public services like police protection and paramedics. Beaumont collects about $3.1 million in sales tax annually—enough to pay for half of the city’s police budget, officials say.

Believing that buying locally will ease the recession in town, the Beaumont Chamber of Commerce will embark on two “shop local” campaigns. The first will spread the word by passing out 5,000 “door-hangers” advertising local chamber businesses. The second could place vinyl “bull’s eye” decals on chamber members’ storefront windows to promote shopping in Beaumont.

Spending locally

Businessman Victor Dominguez, whose family traces its roots back six generations in the Pass, recently lobbied the chamber about “shop local.” As a result, the door-hangers will be distributed this month in Beaumont. Sponsoring companies, like Dominguez’s, will have their names listed.

“My heart is into shopping local,” says Dominquez, chief executive officer/landscaping contractor for Just Like Synthetic Turf. “This community has been good to me, my family and my business.”

Chamber president Sean Balingit came up with the second idea—the “bull’s eye decal”—for the shop local effort. The drive builds on the “shop local” campaign that the Beaumont Chamber of Commerce started in 2007. Today’s “shop local” effort promotes purchasing first in Beaumont and then elsewhere in the Pass if something can’t be found in town.

Keeping sales tax dollars in town helps prosper the community in many other ways too.

“You do get the best value from `shopping local,’” Balingit said. “It’s a commitment to your community and local businesses, along with a good price.”
Hometown prosperity

Many are already die-hards about shopping in Beaumont.

Jonathan Derrick Mathe owns Cafe Agapé, a drive-thru gourmet coffee bar run from a concession trailer in the middle of a parking lot. Word-of-mouth praise has created a fiercely loyal customer following at the coffee bar, where a sign in the front window proudly reads, “It’s good to be a S.L.O.B. (Support Locally owned Businesses).”

Mathe knows his customers, their drinks and how they like it. “I have their `usual’ ready for about 90 percent of them by the time they pull up to the window,” he says.

He serves coffee, bagels and smoothies, but won’t sell donuts because family-owned Manna Donuts operates about a block away.

“I coached their son in football at Beaumont High School,” Mathe says as cars pull up and people place their orders. “I’m not going to do anything that will hurt that family.”

One of Mathe’s loyal customers, Carl Ryan, an electrician who has started his own handyman business, sits idling in his work truck waiting for his morning coffee.
“I like supporting local businesses,” Ryan said.

Pass it on

If regular customers forget their wallets or are a little short on cash that day, Mathe passes a coffee, smoothie or bagel out the drive-up window and puts a yellow sticky “I.O.U” note on a nearby shelf. Mathe and his wife Jessica, pastors at the Pure Rock Community Church in town, go even further in promoting community goodwill. Their business takes its name from the Greek word in the Bible meaning God’s unconditional, committed love.

They’ve created their own version of “Pay it Forward” just like the 2000 movie starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. In the film, people believed in the goodness of human nature and changing the world. They did good deeds for three people, who then went out and did the same for three more people. At Café Agapé, as many as 20 people in line have had their coffee paid for by strangers—people who left money behind to “Pay it Forward.”

“It’s a way of blessing other people,” Mathe says.

Cherry Festival “multiplies” fun and dollars

Beaumont’s 91st annual Cherry Festival is small-town fun and camaraderie at its best.

In 1918, crowds pulled up to the first celebration in horse-drawn buggies and wagons. Ice cream came in one flavor—vanilla—and crowds clapped for soft-shoe dance routines.

On Thursday, June 4th, the latest hometown incarnation will bring back the good times with a festival lineup that will include something for everyone.

Music lovers will relive the hits of America (“A Horse With No Name”) and The Grass Roots (“Let’s Live For Today”). Thrill seekers will twirl and spin in carnival rides. An old-fashioned parade with floats and a jet flyover will delight crowds lined up along the street. And booths inside the fairgrounds will overflow with sweet, delicious cherries that gave the festival its name.

Helping the economy

With the tough times, there’s one more big attraction: the boost to Beaumont’s economy. Each year, the Cherry Festival pumps hundreds of thousands of dollars into local businesses as 50,000 people join in Beaumont’s festivities. Visitors come from throughout the Pass, across Southern California and beyond.

“It has a big impact on our local economy and generates a lot of money for people in town,” said Buzz Dopf, president of the Cherry Festival Association.

It’s all about the “multiplier effect” where an infusion of money triggers new rounds of buying and selling among people in town. In his article, “Economic Impacts of Tourism,” Daniel J. Stynes says the “multiplier effect” can increase that initial infusion by up to one and half times.

In Beaumont, gate receipts, ride tickets, concession and beer sales, booth rentals, parking fees and payments to local businesses for everything from big light towers to award trophies helps generate about $170,000 during the Cherry Festival, Dopf said. Along the way, corner gas stations see more people filling up, restaurants attract more customers, and hotels and motels are packed from Banning to Calimesa.

Cherries have a long history in the Pass and were first planted during World War I. Every season, orchards of tree-ripened fruit must be pruned, weeded, watered and fertilized before locals and visitors alike can savor a delicacy with an unsurpassed reputation that has stood the test of time.

When it comes to staging the Cherry Festival, a handful of devoted board members work quietly and diligently behind the scenes. They're planning the next year's celebration long after the crowds have left Stewart Park. Board members book entertainment, line up carnival rides, put on a parade, round up sponsors, sign up food venders, hire security and carry out many other duties in a show of community spirit.

Feeling the good times

Many years of celebrating the Cherry Festival tell locals that the event is a big boon. Emilio Marville, owner of All-Purpose Rentals in Beaumont, supplies the festival with four big light towers and dozens of tables and chairs. “I look forward to the festival every year,” he says.

The Kiwanis Club gets paid for taking tickets at the gate and uses the proceeds for college scholarships and local projects. Sue Pensak, vendor coordinator for the Cherry Festival Association, keeps track of more than 250 vendors offering everything from tasty food to arts and crafts. “It keeps the money in town,” she says.

Bruce Murrill, a Cherry Festival board member for 16 years, moved from Rowland Heights to the Pass in the early 1980s after visiting relatives and attending the festival. Murrill and others say the Cherry Festival creates a magic that can’t be easily reduced to numbers.

“You can’t help but drive around, see the mountains on both sides of you, the cherries, taste the clean air and say, `Why can’t I live here, too?’”

Dave Dillon, the city’s director of economic development, sees an intangible quality about the festival that ends Sunday, June 7th. “It has to do with creating a sense of place and history, things that are reinforced and reborn with each year’s new celebration. It’s an event that binds generations and attracts new people to the area. The Cherry Festival is an enduring part of the city’s economic foundation and one that will continue to grow.”