Amador County – The gravity of the Rollingwood Estates public hearing last week was noted by several attendees in different ways. First was the stepping down of two Jackson Planning Commissioners, due to conflict of interest.

Kathryn Devlin, Vice Chair, stepped down because she owns a residence and business interest within 500 feet of the mobile home park. And Commissioner Darek Selman stepped down because a relative of his lives there. City Manager Mike Daly has called it a kind of “common law” conflict.

The three remaining Commissioners, Chairman Walt Hoeser and Commissioners Joe Assereto and Dave Butow voted 3-0 to deny an application to subdivide Rollingwood into 219 mobile home lots and seven common area lots. ¶ Earlier, Mike Kirkley, a Sutter Creek resident spoke for his mother, who could not be there because she was on oxygen, after taking a fall and breaking her pelvis, which he called a typical situation at Rollingwood.

Kirkley said as Chairman of the Sutter Creek Planning Commission, he knew what the Commission was going through. Kirkley said “I never had to go into closed session with an attorney as a Planning Commissioner, so I know where you’re at here.”

The Commission started the meeting with a closed session conference with its attorney about “anticipated litigation” related to Rollingwood.

Kirkely said as a Commissioner, he likes to leave with people knowing they worked hard. He said they must follow government code, because “somehow this process got hijacked by the park owners.”

Kirkley said lot prices – $85,000 to $100,000 – assumed by the owners were arbitrary, and trailer court lots at Sutter Terrace were currently listed at $32,000, without a house. Kirkley said use of surveys in mobile home park subdivision decisions has won in superior court, and the Commission should deny the application “based on the survey alone.”

He asked if the “equity rights” of 260 people count, and said the results of an approval would be “in your face for the next 10 years,” as Rollingwood people become “destitute,” with the “stealing of the money in this community.”

Butow said the City Attorney Andy Morris gave the Commission “very narrow things” on which to base a decision, and he “sifted through the paper from the attorneys and individuals and came back constantly to the code.”

Commissioner Joe Assereto said he had been on the board 6 or 7 months and never seen a Supervisor at their meetings. On cue, District 1 Supervisor John Plasse waved from a chair in the back of the room, in the third hour of the meeting.

About 110 people attended the meeting, though about a third of them were gone when the Commission made its decision.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – The California Inspector General last week released a report saying Mule Creek State Prison must improve how it oversees some of its employees’ work hours and timekeeping.

Inspector General Bruce A. Monfross delivered the report April 6, with a letter to Matthew L. Cate, secretary of the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation.

Monfross in the letter said the “report concludes that many of the prison’s mental health and educational employees were fully paid, but did not average working full days inside the prison over a three-month period, ending August 2010.” He said “for example, according to the prison’s electronic security system data, 46 of 51 mental health clinicians – consisting of psychiatrists, psychologists, and licensed clinical social workers – averages working 8.4 hours of their scheduled 10-hour days, the equivalent of 33.6 hours per week. The employee with the lowest average spent only 6.4 hours per day, or the equivalent of 25.6 hours per week, inside the prison.”

Monfross said the prison’s educators – “12 academic teachers, five vocational instructors, and three educational supervisors – also averaged working less than full days, ranging between 33 to 39 hours per week.”

He said “in total, these employees’ unaccounted-for hours – time for which they were paid but which they did not spend inside the prison, in training, or in time off – amounted to $272,900 over the three-month period, or, at this rate, nearly $1.1 million in a year.”

Monfross in the letter said his report “concludes that timekeeping mistakes made by employees and the prison’s personnel office on a sample of timesheets over a four-month period resulted in some employees being overcharged more than $6,500 and other employees being undercharged nearly $102,000 in leave hours.”

The report said “many of Mule Creek State Prison’s mental health employees received full-time pay, but appeared to work only part time.” It also found that “academic teachers” and supervisors “appeared to work less than full days.” The report said ineffective supervisory oversight of timesheets and personnel practices at Mule Creek “have resulted in costly mistakes.”

The report recommended changes “to the extent permissible” under “employees’ labor agreements.” One would switch mental health shifts to eight-hour days. It also recommended developing “a method to hold supervisors and managers” in mental health and education divisions accountable.

The report said “timekeeping mistakes made by the prison’s personnel office resulted in dozens of employees receiving extra time-off hours,” combined to cost the prison a total of $92,000. Most mistakes “were caused by illegible writing or by common arithmetic errors.” About $2,000 of it was from “inconsistent application of the state’s rules for using or accruing holiday time-off and excess hours.”

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Amador County – Rollingwood Estates last week principal owner Joseph Chirco defended his plan to individually subdivide his Jackson mobile home park, saying it would benefit residents, even though earlier in the week, the Jackson Planning Commission denied his application.

Chirco said Wednesday: “I looked at people there, and they were all scared.” His attorney, William Dahlin at the hearing Monday said his offer to sign long-term rental leases has been “turned on its head” by the opposition, leading to the fears of people being forced to buy or losing their homes due to raised rent.

Chirco said people in the park would not have to purchase the property if they did not want to. He said 5-year and 10-year leases would be renewable, and selling a home would not mean that the buyer would have to purchase the lot.

Somebody coming in could be able to buy their lot, and it does open up the market to a lot of other people. If they did not want buy the lot, if they just want to sell their home, Chirco said they could do that. And if they stayed, and were on fixed rates due to low income, the rent would go up only based on the Consumer Price Index.

Chirco said: “We’ve been trying to keep the park stable and comfortable. When you’re under rent control, you can’t raise the rate over the CPI.”

“If they did not want to do anything, they would not have to, because there would be no change to their lifestyle,” Chirco said, and “they would have been way ahead” if it were approved.

He said he is “kind of debating” whether to appeal the denial to the Jackson City Council, and said he feels he has the “legal right to subdivide.” He said the Commission interpreted state law to mean that it could consider results of a survey of residents as requiring 51% support of a conversion to a subdivision. Chirco said rulings have come after an appeal saying the jurisdiction cannot make a determination of subdivisions based on the survey. The City Council has supported legislation to clarify the issue.

Chirco said he believed if they asked $80,000 for a lot, and $20,000 for a home, people will purchase it. He said low values of the mobile homes were due to the economy, and “just a few years ago, those homes were selling for over $100,000 without the lot.”

He said buying the lot was just an additional option, and what Rollingwood residents pay in rent now would be roughly equivalent to what they would be paying for an $80,000 to $100,000 mortgage.

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Amador County – The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management on Monday announced plans to burn piles of wood at its Pine Hill Preserve.

David Christy of BLM’s Mother Lode Field Office said the Bureau plans to start burning piles on Monday, April 11 at the Pine Hill Preserve in western El Dorado County, if conditions allow.

Brian Mulhollen, BLM fuels management specialist, said the “management of fuel loading at strategic areas of the Pine Hill Preserve allows us to reduce high levels of fuel near residences and will help us to protect the unique biological diversity that exists within the preserve lands.”

Pile burning will start on the fuel break behind residences near Este Vista and Sudbury drives, working toward Meder Road through the spring as conditions allow.

BLM has set up an information line at (916) 941-3155 and will have staff at an information booth at Sudbury and Este Vista drives. The pile burning is being coordinated with the California Department of Fire Protection, the El Dorado County Air Quality Management District and the Cameron Park Community Services District.

As part of ongoing fuel management efforts at the Pine Hill Preserve, the BLM will burn vegetation cut and piled at strategic areas within fuel breaks along the boundaries of a 360-acre parcel at the Cameron Park unit and a 10-acre parcel of the Pine Hill unit. Christy said the “fuel breaks were created during the last two years to enhance public and firefighter safety and protect valuable natural resources at the Pine Hill Preserve in the event of a wildland fire.”

He said “BLM’s management goal is to restore and/or mimic in a responsible manner the natural habitat dynamics at the Pine Hill Preserve.” The BLM has implemented successful alternatives to manage vegetation using different methods to suit the Cameron Park and Pine Hill communities and the Preserve needs. Pile burning previously cut vegetation will help to reduce the amount of fuels.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.