Also discussed at the Planning Committee meeting were a set of guidelines prepared and submitted by Sutter Creek City Council Representative Tim Murphy. The guidelines are intended to open communications between jurisdictions which “go beyond the minimum required by CEQA to share the positive as well as to mitigate the negative impacts of specific projects.” The guidelines would be applied at the discretion of the respective cities or county as deemed appropriate, and would not be enforced by the Regional Planning Committee. The draft, which was also referred to as a working draft, was divided into 6 sections. The first section established the possibility of sharing sales tax between two jurisdictions for a fixed period of time to mitigate the revenue lost if an existing business moved from one jurisdiction to another.

Other sections required a fiscal impact study for any residential or mixed use development which requires an EIR, and considered sharing the sales taxes generated between impacted jurisdictions for all new major projects. Another suggestion was renegotiating the property tax split between the impacted cities and the county in order to make the new project more fiscally sound for the city. Ted Novelli spoke on behalf of the county regarding the sharing of taxes, reminding the committee that the county has “more mouths to feed and would require more of a share.” Jackson Mayor Rosalie Pryor-Escamilla stated that she “assumed that the lion would get the lions share”, referring to the city she represents. The committee felt some additions may be necessary and will discuss the item further at their next meeting on August 20th at 7pm.