Amador County – Amador County Board of Supervisors and other entities recently approved the renewal of the $1 Abandoned Vehicle Abatement fee for countywide removal of junk cars.

Jackson City Council also approved the abatement program which keeps in place a $1 fee on vehicle licenses, with the money paying for removal of vehicles. Daly said “3,500 cars have been removed over the past 20 years in the county and it is a good program to eliminate that blight.”

Jackson City Manager Mike Daly said the program needed all cities to adopt resolutions to continue that program. Plymouth City Council also approved the program in its late September meeting, as did the Supervisors.

Amador County Code Enforcement Officer Linda Van Vleck said the Abandoned Vehicle Abatement Service has been a successful program and “provides an opportunity to financially support the abatement, removal and disposal of abandoned, wrecked, dismantled or inoperative vehicles or parts thereof from private or public property in the county.”

Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said he sits on the AVA board, and to save time, he requested a workshop on the program, with the County Counsel Martha Shaver, Planner Susan Grijalva and Van Vleck, to discuss liability and see that the “Joint Power Agreement” of the AVA does not have the ability to hire employees. He said the power to hire did not exist.

Van Vleck said Supervisors’ approval would be the third of the JPA. A former AVA board member, Supervisor Louis Boitano said the program has probably abated thousands of vehicles, and “scraped by” with fees, when vehicles had less value. Now they have more salvage value.

Van Vleck said “anyone who can abate a vehicle can do it for free.” She said fees for the abatement in the past ranged from $30 to $100. She said the $1 per vehicle fee of the program has brought in $44,000 over the 20-year life of the program in Amador County. In a report to the board, she said the program was established statewide and approved by a county resolution in 1991. The same year, all cities in the county approved resolutions to participate.

Supervisor Ted Novelli, also an AVA board member, said it was a good program, and the last number he saw was that the state program had generated $39.7 million with the fees.

Supervisors voted 5-0 to extend the Abandoned Vehicle Abatement fee and program for another 10 years, to April 30, 2022.

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