Amador County – A member of the Amador Community College Foundation said last week that she wanted to clarify information she has heard regarding in-state tuition and membership to community college districts.

Karen Dickerson, a board member of the Amador Community College Foundation last Friday by e-mail said she had checked fee policy information with the Los Rios District, of which Cosumnes River College is a part. Dickerson said fees are currently $26 per unit for all California residents. International students and non-residents of California pay higher tuition. She said: “There is no distinction in fee structure if you are a resident of any particular annexed or non-annexed district in California.”

Dickerson also checked with several other community college districts and received the same answer. She said: “In other words this is not a reason to not annex to a community college district.”

Frederick E. Harris, Assistant Vice Chancellor, at the California Community College Chancellor’s Office in response to a query by Dickerson said “all California residents pay the same fee at all California Community Colleges.” He wanted “to correct that misconception” that membership in one district and attending a community college in another does not affect fee amounts.

Harris said due to “free flow” requirements “between districts, there is no specific preference for admission provided in statutes or regulations to California residents who live within or outside of a district.” He said: “Only non-residents of California pay a higher fee for tuition,” and “all residents of California pay the same fee, unless they are eligible for the Board of Governor’s waiver of fees due to financial necessity.”

Dickerson said in an interview on TSPN last week, the questions arose of whether “non-residents of the California college district but documented residents of California pay a higher fee to attend the college district in which they are not a resident.”

Dickerson said: “I hear this all the time for the reason Amador should not annex to a community college district.

Dickerson said: “In the last 2 days I have heard people say that the reason we should not annex to a community college district is because our students would then have to pay out-of-district fees to attend any community college other than to the district with which we would be annexed.”

She said “please tell anyone who gives this as a reason not to annex to a community college that it is not true.”

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Amador County – Amador County Board of Supervisors last week allocated $43,000 for fire safety planning in the county, with about $5,000 possibly going to education about a new Fire Wise Communities program.

County natural resources consultant John Hofmann recommended the Fire Wise Community Program, which puts the onus of labor and cost on the homeowner. A discussion by Supervisors ensued, and Supervisor Richard Forster asked if the county is required to follow the Fire Wise recommendation. Forster said he saw it as creating an extra layer of government, with the requirement to create a “Fire Wise” executive board.

Forster said he would rather see the funds put into community work, and asked if it was “too late to back out of the Fire Wise.” It was later suggested to use the Amador Fire Safe Council board as the Fire Wise board.

Hofmann said they could present the Fire Wise program, and find that no community wants to pursue it. He said the question was “how much do you want to spend to convince the community.”

Kathy Coos Breazeal of the Amador Fire Safe Council said she had eight community presentations planned for Fire Wise, but had not spent any money because she did not have any money. The board suggested consolidating the meetings to save money. Supervisor Brian Oneto said some people will not take the advice in the Fire Wise program. He said he told his father-in-law that he should clear some trees for safety. Oneto even offered to do it for free, but his father-in-law declined, because that is his “screen.”

Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said there is often a fire risk difference of “night and day” depending on location, such as comparing Running Gold to Sherwood Forest.

The board re-allocated $23,000 to front the cost for a Pine Grove Community Wildfire Protection Plan, to be paid with a $50,000 Sierra Nevada Conservancy grant. As it is reimbursed or if it is not needed for up front expenses, Fire Safe Council will develop the next priority Wildfire Plan, in the Fiddletown area.

The board also allocated $20,000 in 2009 funds to develop an Upcountry Wildfire Protection Plan, in the area of Dew Drop and eastward. Its cost was estimated at $15,000, and any left-over funding was allocated to be used for public outreach in connection with the Fire Wise Community program development.

Forster said they should help the communities develop their wildfire protection plans, and then try to get grants to do the work. Supervisor Louis Boitano suggested rolling the plan into a water analysis, and Plasse said a hydrant study is already included in the template.

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Amador County – The Foothill Conservancy announced last week that local winemaker Bill Easton is selling a zinfandel to support the group’s effort to enact a National Wild & Scenic designation for the Mokelumne River.

Terre Rouge and Easton Wines and the Foothill Conservancy in a joint release announced the “first Easton 2009 Wild and Scenic Mokelumne River Zinfandel,” which will be featured at a wine release party on Saturday, April 9, at the Shenandoah Valley winery on Dickson Road. Winemaker Bill Easton will be on hand to discuss the wine and sign bottles.

Foothill Conservancy Executive Director Chris Wright said: “All profits from the sale of the wine will support the Conservancy’s efforts to secure National Wild and Scenic River designation for the Mokelumne River.”

The 2009 Easton Wild and Scenic Zinfandel is made from organically farmed grapes cultivated in an estate vineyard patrolled by barn owls and bottled in Eco-glass bottles.

Wright said the project pairs “two of Amador County’s most famous cultural and historic features: fine zinfandel and the beautiful Mokelumne River,” and the organization was “very grateful to Bill and Jane for their generosity and support.”

Wright said the “Mokelumne River has been found eligible for National Wild and Scenic River designation from Salt Springs Dam to just above Pardee Reservoir.” He said “Wild and Scenic designation would stop the proposed expansion of Pardee Reservoir and save more than 37 miles of river for people, fish and wildlife.

The river divides the counties, whose supervisor boards are also divided over support for Wild & Scenic designation. The Amador County Board of Supervisors is unanimously opposed to Wild & Scenic, while the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors supported it on a 3-2 vote.

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Amador County – The Amador Community College Foundation board of directors got two new members recently, and invited the public to its next meeting in April.

Board member Karen Dickerson said the “good news is we have a full board” for Amador Community College Foundation, “in accordance with representation requirements of our operating guidelines.”

Guidelines call for two representatives from the administration of Amador County, two from the Amador County Unified School District, one ACUSD Trustee, one representative of Cosumnes River College, and five members of the public.

Renee Chapman serves as Board Facilitator and is a non-voting member. Public board members include Dickerson of The Grant Tree Group; Paul Molinelli Jr., general manager of ACES Waste Service; Ron Mittelbrunn, executive director of the Amador Economic Development Corporation; Frank Leschinsky, business services executive of Volcano Communications Group; and ACCF Board Vice Chairman Richard Vinson, retired District 3 Supervisor.

Amador County Chief Administrative Officer Chuck Iley, who assumed Terri Daly’s place on the Board as the second Amador County representative. He joins ACCF Board Chairman, District 1 Supervisor John Plasse. Amador Unified is represented by Trustee Pat Miller, school counselor Janice Davis, and Superintendent Dick Glock. Dickerson said Whitney Yamamura, vice president at Cosumnes River College, who has a scheduling conflict on Board Meeting dates, designated Dr. Judy Beachler, Dean of Instruction, as the representative for Los Rios. Beachler will attend meetings by phone conference.

The Amador Community College Foundation board plans a “meet and greet” immediately before its next meeting. The meet and greet starts at 2 p.m. Thursday, April 21, and the board meeting starts at 2:30 p.m. Dickerson said the Board wants to hear the public’s thoughts about the community college effort in Amador County.

The foundation has helped to get six evening classes offered through Cosumnes River College, in two classrooms at the Amador Learning Center, at Independence High School. The Center’s two classrooms are equipped with networked computers.

Spring 2011 class schedules and enrollment are available on the Amador County and Cosumnes River College websites. The program currently serves 300-400 students per semester.

Dickerson said a Facilities Committee is looking for expansion sites where they can offer day and night classes, and ACCF is exploring the Health & Human Services Building. It is looking for a space to have five or more classrooms, with “networked computers capable of offering classes over broadband in real time and completely interactive with hub locations at universities and community colleges.”

Future goals include a “satellite center,” which would require 500 students. The Foundation is also researching annexation or formation to align or establish the county’s own community college district.

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Amador County – Ione staff recently assisted in drafting an “uncontested Cease & Desist Order” which would keep the city from getting a connection ban to its sewer system, if the Regional Water Quality Control Board approves the draft order in early April.

City Manager Kim Kerr said staff “worked with the Prosecution Team at the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board on an uncontested draft Cease and Desist Order,” revising a draft Order received in January that included a connection ban, to stop connections to the city wastewater system.

Through negotiations with the Prosecution Team, Kerr said “there is a revised draft Cease and Desist Order and no connection ban,” which would go to the Regional Board for review and possible approval.

The city will not contest the Cease and Desist Order, and worked with the Prosecution Team, which “modified the language to meet our needs as much as they were willing to.” Kerr said “it was their order,” and it was mutually written.

The Prosecution Team “recommend no connection ban,” she said, although “we will have to report our connections, and make sure we don’t exceed the flows that are established for us.”

She said one change that helped was because the Regional Board was not considering Amador Regional Sanitation Authority’s change in flow, which it reduced from 900 acre feet to 650 acre feet. The ARSA secondary effluent is drawn off the Preston reservoir and put into ponds at Caslte Oaks. She said the majority of it runs through the Castle Oaks tertiary treatment and the water irrigates the golf course.

The Regional Water Quality Control Board holds a series of meetings April 6-8, and the city will not contest the Cease and Desist Order. Kerr and city attorney Kristen Castanos will attend the meeting and answer questions.

Kerr said the changes have “basically adopted our time frames for getting the project completed,” for the wastewater treatment plant. The city must create a “seepage prevention plan,” which it must report in January 2012. Then the city will submit a Report of Waste Discharge. Kerr said basically, the city “cannot be degrading the groundwater after October 2013.” She said they “reduced significantly what was there.”

The Ione City Council gave staff direction in negotiations, and Kerr said if there had been issues they did not feel comfortable with, staff would have taken the issue back to the council.

Kerr said: “We all appreciated the fact that the Regional Board was willing to work with us. We’re very happy.”

The Council will have more discussion on the draft Cease and Desist Order at its April 5 meeting, and will also look at budgets, including the current year, last year and next year.

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Amador County – Jackson City Council tonight will consider a request by a Rollingwood Estates resident to support California Senate and Assembly bills related mobile home parks subdividing and ordinances.

Shirley Dajnowski, president of Chapter 1605 of the Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League, at the March 14 council meeting said there were two bills introduced to help stop attacks on rent stabilization ordinances. She requested that the city council write a letter of support for Senate Bill 444, and Assembly Bill 579. Dajnowski said she would be contacting Assemblywoman Alyson Huber about the issue, and Vice Mayor Keith Sweet said he could assist in that.

City Manager Mike Daly in a memo to the council for today’s meeting listed text from the SB 444, quoted from the Legislative Counsel’s Digest. It said the “Subdivision Map Act requires a subdivider, at the time of filing a tentative or parcel map for a subdivision to be created from the conversion of a rental mobilehome park to resident owner ship, to avoid the economic displacement of all nonpurchasing residents by following specified requirements relating to the conversion, including the requirement that the subdivider obtain a survey of support of residents of the mobilehome park.”

It also would require that the “results of the survey be submitted to the local agency for consideration.” SB 444 “would clarify that the local agency is required to consider the results of the survey in making its decision to approve, conditionally approve, or disapprove the map.” It would also authorize a city “to disapprove the map if it finds that the results of the survey have not demonstrated adequate resident support.”

Daly in the memo said that “particular section of the Subdivision Map Act has come to light in Jackson over the past few months during the processing of the Rollingwood Estates subdivision application currently pending and scheduled for hearing with the Planning Commission on Monday, April 4.”

Daly said the “open ended nature of the language pertaining to the importance of the resident survey as it exists today has left this important part of the subdivision processing up in the air.” He said “court decisions have both emphasized and de-emphasized the importance of this survey.”

He said “this bill would clarify that the local agency is required to consider the results of the survey.”

Daly in the memo said AB 579 “is proposed to provide cost recovery abilities to public entities when defending actions brought by a mobile home park owner to challenge a local ordinance that regulates space rent or is intended to benefit or protect residents of a mobile home park, if the public entity prevails.”

The city council meets at 7 p.m. today.

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Amador County – Sutter Amador Hospital plans a Shenandoah Valley Health Festival at the Amador Flower Farm at the end of April.

Sutter Amador Hospital public relations, marketing and foundation Coordinator Jody Boetzer said a community volunteer group and U.C. Davis Rural PRIME students were coordinating the Shenandoah Valley Health Festival to be held on Friday, April 29, from 5-7 p.m. at the Amador Flower Farm.

Boetzer said the Shenandoah Valley Health Festival was a “valuable community event.” She said it is a free event organized by local agencies, non-profit organizations, community volunteers and U.C. Davis Rural PRIME Medical Students.

“There will be booths that provide diabetes education and screening, blood pressure checks, vision screening, vaccinations and more,” Boetzer said. “Information about community resources and health issue will also be available.”

Martha Perez of Jose’s Mexican Restaurant in Jackson will be offering dinner at a nominal charge. The health festival is open to the general public.

The Shenandoah Health Fair will be held 5-7 p.m. Friday, April 29 at the Amador Flower Farm, 22001 Shenandoah School Road in Plymouth, in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley wine country.

For more information, please call Laurie Webb at the Amador Senior Center at (209) 223-0442.

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