Amador County – The Amador Water Agency Board of Directors last week deferred action on a proposed Community Facilities District ordinance, pending more definition of benefits to members.

AWA General Manager Gene Mancebo said the ordinance would establish a voluntary Community Facilities District for future Amador Water System customers.

Mancebo said the ordinance would set forth some assurances for those who wish to participate in the CFD “that as long as they were making payments, water would be there for them.”

Directors did not initiate the ordinance, and the first reading was not done, Mancebo said. Instead it was deferred to March 22. He said the AWS Community Facilities District would have voluntary membership, and include only those who want to be included. Current customers would not be affected. It would just be for future customers, and would help pay the debt service of the Amador Transmission Pipeline.

Agency critics asked when the CFDs were started by the Board. Agency Counsel Stephen Kronick said AWA’s board last fall directed consultants to look at two separate Community Facilities Districts. One is for properties that have not connected to AWS. Mancebo said another CFD would be to fund the Gravity Supply Pipeline project, in the Central Amador Water Project service area. It would be based only in the Upcountry, and apply to both properties that are now taking water and to future customers.

He said for the GSL rate mechanism, they still must try to identify the area of involvement and parcels that would benefit, and try to establish a boundary map.

The GSL would replace the pumps and pipeline that carry water from the PG&E after-bay on Tiger Creek to the Buckhorn Treatment Plant. Two recent reports have said the existing pipeline and pumps are nearing the end of their useful lives. ¶ In a staff report Thursday, Operations Manager Chris McKeage said in the last month he assisted the Grand Jury recently on trips to visit the Tiger Creek and Silver pump stations in the CAWP system.

During public comment for matters not on the agenda, David Evitt gave his assessment of AWA, saying: “I call this board a sham and a complicit board.” He said the “Board acts like special interest pawns.”

Bill Condrashoff accused the AWA board of letting the CAWP system fall into disrepair and then replacing it with a bigger pipeline to “please special interests.” He said the AWA is “cheating the public” and “it’s all being done to benefit special interests.”

Mancebo said the agency has spent $80,000 in the last two years “just in routine maintenance on the Upcountry system.”

Kronick said CSI Consulting “has significant experience in creating CFDs,” and when AWA forms a CFD, “the agency will be following any legal requirements involved.”

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