Sutter Creek – The Sutter Creek City Council approved a tentative budget for 2009-2010, with direction to the finance committee to look into changes in operations of the police department and sewer plant. The council voted 4-1, with Councilwoman Sandy Anderson against the moves. The council committee on finance will look at and report back on contracting work to save the city money. That includes the possibility of a merger or collaboration for the Sutter Creek Police Department, or otherwise contracting services with the Amador County Sheriff’s Office. Ed Arata urged the city to look at a sheriff agreement, saying the city has a $924,000 police department budget, or 57 percent of the total $1.6 million city budget. The committee will also look at contracting operations for the sewer plant, and will report back to the council with findings. Councilman Pat Crosby said police departments cost “a horrible amount of money.” He said his opinion is that “it is very difficult to effectively operate a police department with the budget a really small city has.” Crosby said he thought the police department would have to be a portion of a larger force to be effective. The council also voted 4-1 with Anderson to not issue bonds in the amount of $750,000, in the city’s efforts to pay itself back for the amount spent on the city sewer plant. Ed Arata said he gathered “354 signatures from people asking the city not to take out this loan.” Mayor Gary Wooten asked Arata: “Did anyone come up with a way to boost reserves without taking a loan?” The bonds would be used to restore reserves depleted on sewer maintenance. Arata said: “I guess I don’t worry about the reserves as much as the city manager,” and the city needs “to stop relying on sewer reserves.” Anderson said they can’t wait for Gold Rush, and she thought “it’s a luxury for non-staff and non-council members to not have to worry about reserves.” Wooten agreed, and said the public won’t worry until a problem arises, then they will be knocking on the door of city hall, wondering why they cannot flush their toilet. Planning Commissioner Frank Cunha said the city has the highest paid sewer employees around, and a lot of cities “farm out” the work. He said the city needs “a serious accounting of the sewer department.” Duke said the plant has 4 full-time employees and it must be worked on 7 days a week. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.