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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Amador County – The Amador County Transportation Commission will give an in-depth look at its developing “U-Plan” planning model, and will share the results of its “preliminary model runs” in a workshop next week.

ACTC will discuss the development of its “long-range planning tool” called the “U-Plan,” in a community workshop. Executive Director Charles Field said ACTC, with support from the California Department of Transportation, and U.C. Davis, “is developing a tool called U-Plan to show likely growth scenarios based on existing city and county policies.”

Field said the “public is encouraged to learn more about the tool and contribute to the discussion on the future of transportation and other potential concerns in Amador County” by attending the community workshop.

He said it is planned to have two parts, and runs from 5-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 30 in the supervisors’ chambers at the Amador County Administration Building, at 810 Court Street in Jackson.

“There will be two opportunities to learn about the tool including a more detailed and technical presentation starting at 5 p.m. that will focus on how the model was built,” Field said. “The U-Plan tool models potential growth scenarios using inputs such as land use, environmental constraints, population, housing and employment estimates.”

The second presentation starts at 7 p.m., and “will review the inputs and focus on the results of the preliminary model runs. The process, funded through a Caltrans grant, is designed to inform future decision making by prioritizing limited transportation dollar resources.”

Field said the U-Plan is also intended to help with “understanding development patterns” and “all the influences that factor into market trends and decisions.” The U-Plan also is intended to be used for “verifying and supporting the cities and County General Plans,” and “helping ACTC to identify regional planning opportunities and concerns so they may better prioritize limited transportation funds.”

For more information about the meetings, contact Charles Field, ACTC Executive Director, (209) 267-2282.

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

Amador County – The Amador Regional Sanitation Authority met this week and heard from staff that a closure of Preston Youth Authority would not impact the authority’s sewer system operations there.

City Manager Sean Rabe, manager of ARSA, said in a report to the board that ARSA’s contract with Preston would keep the facilities open to the sewer management authority. He said the agreement could only end after a five-year notification period, and then only after the prison and ARSA agreed on how the wastewater flow would be disposed of, due to its being a municipal sanitary service.

Rabe in the report said “the agreement states that the five years’ notice can only come after Ione and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ‘have resolved how to provide adequate reclaimed water for both Castle Oaks Golf Course and Preston Youth Correctional Facility.’ ”

The ARSA board appointed an ad hoc committee of Sutter Creek Mayor Tim Murphy and District 2 Supervisor Richard Forster. The committee will work with Rabe “on issues surrounding the ARSA agreement with Ione,” Rabe said. “There was some discussion about the Preston closure but no action was taken or needed.”

Rabe said: “Another issue we talked about was the impact of all of the rain on the system. With all of the rain the reservoir levels are rising. I don’t think we are in any danger yet, but if the rain continues and the levels continue to rise we could be. The engineer and I are looking into contingencies if that happens.”

Rabe in the report said two agreements “define the role of the facility in terms of ARSA,” an operations lease and a ground lease, both of which expire in 2037.

He said analysis made it clear to staff that the agreements “provide ARSA with more than ample protection to continue to use Preston Reservoir, regardless of whether or not CDCR closes the Preston facility.” He said the “clauses of the operations lease have not been met,” and “there has been no five-year notification and there is no resolution on how Castle Oaks would receive reclaimed wastewater if Preston Reservoir were closed.”

He said “terms of the ground lease require CDCR to allow ARSA staff access to the reservoir at any and all times. The ground lease also notes that termination of the lease is not feasible, and that the terms of the lease apply to the successors of the parties of the lease,” such as any subsequent user of the facility.

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

Amador County – Amador County Transportation Commission on Tuesday gave an update on its “U-Plan” traffic mapping tool to the Amador County Board of Supervisors.

ACTC Executive Director Charles Field said the brief presentation precedes a more in-depth workshop planned for next week, which will tell how U-Plan is put together and how it works, and in which attendees “will see some of the initial model runs,” or scenarios.

Supervisor Ted Novelli asked what population numbers were used in the scenarios. He said county population and school district enrollment numbers both have declined over the last three or four years, and he wondered if that would be reflected in the scenarios.

Field said population numbers came from the California Department of Finance, and they can look at that for relative effects. He said: “We can change the numbers. We need to make it reflect how we think Amador County looks, and we will.” Novelli said he hit on the right idea, that they “can change it.”

Field said when U.C. Davis developed the U-Plan tool, they meant for the U in the name to mean that “you plan it,” and to signify the personalizing of the model scenarios to the communities.

The U-Plan workshop scenarios may include “Draft Land Use Diagrams” for 2030 and 2050, and different land-use designations. Field said it would narrow down some of the 97 different land-use designations used in Amador County to 12 different use designations in the U-Plan tool.

Field said the scenarios did not look at planning areas inside cities, but did look at the affects of having two more casinos in 2030 and 2050, those being sought in Buena Vista and Plymouth. Supervisor Brian Oneto said that would be a “worst-case scenario” because the casinos “may never be built like that.”

Field said U-Plan’s real value is in five to 10 years, when the scenario models “can be adjusted for things that we learn about.”

Oneto asked about U-Plan’s cost, and Field said it was funded by federal and Caltrans grants totaling more than $100,000, for maintenance and monitoring over a two-year period. He said they can calculate the cost to monitor it in the years after that, and he said “it shouldn’t take that much time to update it.”

Supervisor Louis Biotano said the model is “only as good as the information that goes into it.” Novelli agreed, and said the population number changes would have some affect on it too.

The workshop is set for 5-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 30 in Supervisors’ chambers.

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