Amador County – Sutter Creek City Council unanimously approved a settlement Monday with Amador Water Agency, which will pay $594,000 in wastewater bills and capacity sale over seven years.
City Attorney Derek Cole said “this is a negotiated agreement that meets my approval” and City Manager Sean Rabe’s approval. Cole said “my feeling is, any time you can reach an agreement” with a public agency, it is better for the city. He said Sutter Creek and AWA both were giving up things in the agreement.
The agreement included quarterly bills not sent to AWA between 2008 and 2010, for Martell area disposal of wastewater.
Mimi Arata asked what both sides were giving up in the agreement. Cole said the city probably could ask the Agency for quicker payment. Arata said it seemed the Agency was not giving up anything.
Rabe said upgrade of the plant was beneficial to Sutter Creek and the AWA, and it would still need to be assessed by the city wastewater engineer to divide benefits of the $1.5 million upgrade, and determine what would be considered “improvements.”
Councilman Jim Swift said a capacity purchase agreement with the AWA in 2006 was not paid by the Agency and it was not discovered until the first part of 2010. He said there was some disagreement as to whether or not it was billed, and no official billing was found, though they did find a memo from former City Manager Rob Duke to former AWA General Manager Jim Abercrombie.
Swift said they could have gotten into a pretty contentious disagreement over the long-unpaid bill. He said the bill wasn’t intentionally disregarded because they did not get a bill, and all parties agreed to move forward from when it was discovered.
City Finance Director Joe Aguilar said the funds will be deposited into the sewer fund, and restore a negative “construction fund” to replace the plant.
Rabe in a report to the council said the settlement was also negotiated by a subcommittee of the council, Swift and Councilman Tim Murphy, and the “settlement sets forth the provisions that the council has discussed with staff during closed sessions held over the past few months.”
It agreed that $594,000 was owed to the city from missed quarterly payments dating to 2008-2009, along with the 2006 capacity sales. It set quarterly payments of $21,000 over seven years. Rabe noted that the “AWA agrees to pay the debt down sooner than the seven years if sufficient funds are available.” He said the payments are separate from AWA quarterly payments for Martell wastewater service.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
