VISTA —— It's official: After spending a rain-soaked winter inside City Hall, Vista officials have begun pursuing plans for a new, $39.8 million City Hall, one without the dripping water and termite infestation that city leaders point to as proof that the current facility is a blight on the city's image.

They say the former middle school, which the city has called home since 1977, has become the butt of many jokes, with leaking and crumbling ceilings, structural damage and haywire electrical infrastructure that wreaks havoc on heating and cooling systems.

Worse, city officials say, the deteriorating building is a money pit. Vista spent more than $200,000 last year repairing City Hall, mostly with temporary patches.

For all these reasons, a new City Hall is desperately needed, city officials and other community leaders say.

Now they have to convince voters to pay for it. And they have roughly one year to make their case.

Gathering support

The city is gearing up for a June 2006 bond measure election, which will coincide with the next state primary. A 1979 city law, originally known as Proposition T, requires voter approval for any city construction project that exceeds $300,000 —— now less than half the median price of a home in San Diego County.

In addition to the cost of a new City Hall and civic center, the bond will include $7 million to $8 million for a fifth fire station and $1.25 million to make Fire Station No. 1 accessible to the handicapped, bringing the total to about $50 million.

Business leaders in Vista said last week that the need for a new City Hall is clear.

"Anybody who has any business dealing with the city knows that the current buildings are inadequate, and the time to get money to do this is when it's cheap and the interest rates are low," said Dan Wray, founder of Vista-based BioFilm Inc. and president of the Vista Economic Development Association. "Wouldn't it be a good idea to set up the bond so that there's a reserve for capital projects in the future?"

But Wray said that convincing voters is the key.

"How do we get the general population to recognize that this is good for all of us?" he said. "It has to be an education process about the business sense of the transaction. With a new civic center, we will have new business, and the benefits for everybody are going to increase dramatically."

Bond options

Exactly what can be paid for with a bond issue depends on the type of bond, city officials said.

Should Vista pass a general obligation bond for the civic center and fire station, the money could go toward physical construction of the City Hall and fire station buildings, but not to fund operations or staffing costs.

A new fire station would have a 15-person staff, as well as an ambulance and fire engine, and would cost of about $1.2 million a year to operate, said fire Chief Gary Fisher.

The city would have to find the money to pay those operating costs, said Patrick Johnson, assistant to the city manager.

The city could pay for operating costs by forming a community facilities district, which would have to be approved by voters. Passing a bond under the umbrella of a facilities district would allow the city to use the bond money to pay for staffing for a length of time spelled out in the bond measure.

"Typically, there is a time limit on bonds of 20 to 30 years, so what happens to operations after that? We'd have to find a revenue source for ongoing operations," Johnson said.

For a $50 million bond, homeowners would have to pay from $60 to $100 per year during the life of a bond for a single family residence in Vista.

"There are too many variables at this point to be able to nail down a specific cost (to residents), since it will all depend on the term of the bond and the interest rates at the time a bond is issued," Johnson said. "For every million dollars that we add to the project, there's a certain cost that's associated with that."

Hall pass

Though city officials have not ruled out seeking a new site altogether, current plans call for a 100,000 square-foot City Hall and civic center on the 5.5-acre parcel at the present City Hall site.

About 81,000 square feet would be dedicated to city departments and full-time staff, with another 19,000 square feet for lease in the complex.

The city could reclaim some of the leased space as city departments grow, Johnson said.

Wray said San Marcos has helped offset the costs of its bond by leasing space around its City Hall.

The San Marcos City Hall is surrounded by a library, community center, parking structure and restaurants on 60 acres of city-owned land leased to tenants.

That city issued a $56 million bond in the early 1990s to develop the 60 acres, including the civic center. It now collects enough money through property leases to pay for the liability on the entire bond issue, about $3 million this year, said Paul Malone, assistant city manager.

Getting the green light

To pass a bond, Vista would need two-thirds of voters to vote yes.

This time around, the city will have experience to build on.

In 1984, the city debated new facilities, even producing conceptual drawings for such a venture, but financial constraints prevented that complex from materializing.

In 1996, voters approved a $5 million proposition that would have funded a new City Hall on part of the property where the Vista Village downtown entertainment center now stands, with the old City Hall buildings to be sold for use as low-income senior housing.

Money for the new site would have come from redevelopment tax money and proceeds from the sale of the old City Hall, but confusion over total project costs and opposition to the housing plans led to public outcry, and the council abandoned the plan that same year.

City officials say they will begin polling residents in July and will hold focus groups to determine what kind of bond voters would support. The city has already signed a $25,000 contract with a consultant, Lew Edwards, for some initial legwork on the bond, and says it will spend about $75,000 more on polls over the next year to gauge the support of residents.

Fire Station No. 5

A key selling point of the bond issue will be the new fire station, because the city is trying to improve the times in which firefighters respond to emergencies in the city.

"We have a lower number of firefighters per capita than anywhere else in North County, and we get a lot of calls, so we're really stretched," Johnson said.

The Fire Department's average response time is six minutes and 40 seconds, city officials said, and the Fire Department responds within nine minutes on 90 percent of all calls.

"That's just way too long," Chief Fisher said. "We should be at six or seven minutes 80 percent of the time, because in a heart attack situation, brain death begins after four to 10 minutes, when oxygen to the brain is cut off. We need to be able to save lives."

The department says it is evaluating several ideas for a fifth fire station, but the chief said there are two proposals that seem most plausible.

The first calls for a fifth station to be built in the city center, possibly in the Townsite area.

The city's center accounts for the bulk of emergency services calls to the department, close to 50 percent of the total call volume, Fisher estimated.

"A station in the heart of the city would keep us from pulling resources away from the outlying areas, which can really affect our response time on the city outskirts, given some of the geography we have to contend with," Fisher said. "Unlike some cities, Vista is not based on a grid."

The second scenario calls for the department to close Fire Station No. 3, on Old Taylor Street near East Vista Way, in favor of two new stations: one in the city center, and a fifth station that would be built by the fire protection district, in district territory.

One possible area for a district station could be near Gopher Canyon Road, northeast of the city limits, Fisher said.

"It would take a lot of coordination, but it would certainly redistribute the resources well if we could get it done," Fisher said of the second plan.

The City Council will review plans for a new fire station and the department's coverage standards in August, said City Manager Rita Geldert.

Fisher said the target response time of between six and seven minutes 90 percent of the time would be most easily achieved under a scenario where Station No. 3 closed and two new stations were constructed, but that he would be happy with a fifth station either way.

"Our goal is just to get our response times down," Fisher said. "If we can do that, we'd be doing pretty well."

Unfinished business

City business leaders have a few ideas for projects that they say should also be included in the civic center bond, to make the hefty expenditure more palatable to the community.

Jim Baumann, executive director of Vista Chamber of Commerce, proposed rolling Moonlight Amphitheatre improvements, a large community room in City Hall and completion of the city's Creekwalk project —— a meandering park that cuts through the Vista Village center —— into any public bond measure.

Though the extras would make the total bond issue more expensive —— adding an estimated $4 million for the Moonlight —— Baumann said that including community-use facilities might help citizens embrace the city projects.

City staff members, however, said that the $350,000 to $400,000 Creekwalk project, which will extend the man-made creek and adjacent trail path now running through the Vista Village retail center, will not be included in the bond issue.

"We need to get the Creekwalk done sooner than (the civic center),"

Johnson said the Creekwalk will be included as a capital improvement project in city budgets over the next several years.

Some council members said they were wary of tacking too many projects onto an already expensive bond request.

"We have to be careful with what we ask of the community, and see what they will support," Mayor Morris Vance said last week. "We don't want to risk making the bond issue too large, and watching it fail as a result."

Contact staff writer Anne Riley-Katz at 631-6622 or ariley-katz@nctimes.com.