Amador County – The Sutter Creek City Council today considers a resolution supporting Prospect Motors. The draft resolutions says Amador “communities are seeing higher unemployment, lower tax revenue, business closures, home foreclosures and other harmful effects from the current economic downturn.” It notes Prospect Motors and Amador Toyota sustain 80 jobs in Amador, “produce hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual sales tax revenue” and dealership and its employees’ spending recycles “many times in our local economy.” The resolution says the “federal government is spending taxpayer dollars supporting General Motors and GMAC, the large corporations that can keep our auto dealerships in business.” The resolution concludes that “Sutter Creek strongly supports the continued operation of Prospect Motors, Amador Motors and Amador Toyota; urges (GM and GMAC) to take action to restore the dealerships to operation; and urges our state and federal elected officials to ensure that the financial bailouts intended to help the national economy will also benefit our local businesses and communities.”

Also today, the council will discuss two legal documents for city business with developers. City Attorney Dennis Crabb will bring a “Developer Reimbursement Agreement” for application processing. Crabb in a report says “an area of continuing concern has been advancement of city funds for professional services related to development applications,” and noted new council policy requiring written, advance-deposit agreements with applicants. The agreement “may be complex for small projects,” but will insure costs are “paid for in advance and fully shifted to the applicant.” Another Crabb report will introduce an “Agreement for Indemnity” with Gold Rush Ranch & Golf Resort developers. It says as Gold Rush “moves toward council consideration, it is necessary to have an agreement in place to protect the city against the costs of any legal challenge to the project approvals, should such be given.” The report notes that the “agreement covers only the processing of legislatively based entitlements and extends only until the statute of limitations to challenge such decisions has expired.” Story by Jim Reece (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).