Just over half of the 250 business property owners with commercial assets in the 10-acre Fair Oaks Boulevard Public and Business Improvement District (PBID) corridor have paid all or a portion of two tax installments earmarked for planned improvements for Carmichael, which include battling blight and crime on the roughly 437 properties in the assessment area.

In addition, stakeholders have created a nonprofit, the Carmichael Improvement District (CID) to manage the PBID budget and project oversight. Eight board members are in place and a search for as many as three more representing a cross-section of the corridor’s property owners is underway, according to CID President Gary Hursh, a property owner and attorney with a business on Fair Oaks Boulevard, the PBIDs core thoroughfare. Among the board’s immediate tasks is to ensure assessments are paid to the county in full by the April 10 deadline and, upon processing and release of all funds by the county board of supervisors, begin long-awaited improvements.

 “We’ve formed the non-profit, have a board in place and will be looking for a few more members as we begin to move toward finally seeing the funds for the year come in,” said Hursh, adding that $125,000 of the expected $301,838 assessment total for 2017 had been paid as of March 1. The CID has tentatively allocated more than half of its 2017 budget, $156,956, toward “Clean and Safe Enhancements,” such as security, litter and graffiti removal, illegal dumping and abandoned shopping carts and cars. Other budgeted items include funds for streetscape enhancements, administrative fees and a prudent reserve. Also, according to Hursh, some funds will be earmarked for the hiring of an administrator who will oversee all day-to-day operations of the nonprofit and expenditures.

Crime, security and blight are at the top of the list for obvious reasons, said Linda Melody, executive director of the Carmichael Chamber of Commerce and also a CID board member. Many business owners, she said, believe problems have been mounting since the passage Proposition 47 in 2014. Echoing recent remarks to the community by Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Shubert, Melody said crime, the release of inmates under Prop. 47, and the growing numbers of homeless individuals living in doorways and parking lots along the CID’s path are connected and of critical concern.

“Homelessness, Prop. 47, and crime are considered related by many of the area’s business owners,” Melody said. However, even she admits, neglect in the businesses district, currently experiencing a near 18 percent vacancy rate, has been coming for decades. “Carmichael is going to be 107 years old in the fall and many issues of concern about worn out buildings and neglect have been ongoing for years.”

The PBID for Fair Oaks Boulevard, which includes 350 assessed parcels, was approved by just under 70 percent of local property owners in the fall of 2016. The renewable, five-year agreement with the county, according to Hursh, may be expanded to include a wider tax base and coverage area over the next five years. For now, however, the board is hoping for full approval of its bylaws, budget and contract by the board of supervisors, all expected to take place later this month.