Former Jackson City Council Member Marilyn Lewis made it clear that city politics are still a major interest and concern to her at this week’s Jackson City Council meeting. “You know my favorite little thing is the Brown Act,” she commented upon approaching the Board. She proceeded to inform the council that she felt the act had been violated at a Dec. 12th meeting when the council gave direction to staff under the Council reports, regarding the Chinese Cemetery, which was not the agenda.

The Amador County Transportation Commission discussed the recently proposed Caltrans Cost sharing agreement for the Angels Camp Bypass as well as the relinquishing agreement for the “old” Hwy. 49.  The cost sharing approach consists of 3.2 million dollars from the Cal Trans Discretionary STIP, or State Transportation Improvement Program funds, 5.2 million dollars from the Tri-County STIP Augmentation, and finally a 4.4 million dollar funding request from the Corridor Mobility Improvement Account (CMIA) available under recently passed prop 1b.

The discussion over a cell tower located at 1001 South Highway 49 generated quite a bit of discussion at Monday night’s Jackson Planning Commission meeting. Commissioners and the public were happy at the opportunity to get better cell coverage but were put off by the unsightly appearance of the cell tower that is proposed to be located in the City’s Visual Corridor.

According to a recently conducted survey, 400 people in Amador, Calaveras and Tuolumne are homeless and of those 400 people, 93 are children. The results of the homeless survey, conducted at the end of March, were released last week. The survey organized by the Central Sierra Continuum of Care, a coalition of mental health and social service organizations, identified 42 adults and nine children without homes in Amador County, 128 adults and 53 children in Tuolumne County; and 137 adults and 31 children in Calaveras County.

The Municipal Services Agreement between the City of Plymouth and the Ione band of Miwok Indians was originally adopted in February of 2004. Shortly after that adoption, in March of 2004, two complaints were filed with the Amador Superior Court saying the city had wrongly adopted the MSA. One complaint was made by Amador County and the other by the No Casino in Plymouth organization (NCIP).

The El Dorado Irrigation District Board of Directors met yesterday and made the decision to ask the Amador County Board of Supervisors to place a 10 mile per hour speed limit on Silver Lake. Last fall the El Dorado Irrigation District began looking at recommendations for a personal water craft ban for the lake citing concerns about public safety and potential liability. irrigation Board member George Osborne stated in November that liability issues in the event of an accident is a major concern. "We are not the enforcement agency; whatever action is involved will be done by the Amador County Board of Supervisors," he said. "But as a public entity, we are deep pockets."

Recently, Cingular Cell Service in the Upper Jackson and Pine Grove areas has become noticeably erratic. For some users of the cell provider conglomerate’s services local service was improved; but for many there was a sudden and dramatic decrease in service. According to Cingular Wireless officials the company is a victim of pure economics regarding their main tower in the Pine Grove area. In 2006, the California Department of Forestry, which owns the Mt. Zion Tower, raised the rent on Cingular Wireless’ Mt. Zion cell site by 10 times making the cost of maintaining the Mt. Zion cell site untenable for the company.  In order to continue to serve customers in the general area, Cingular relocated the Mt. Zion cell site to another location in Pine Grove.

There were only two underage sales this year in a survey of 35 store sample within Amador County. While a sales rate of 5.7 % sounds low … should we be proud or upset?  A sales rate of any amount is in direct violation of the law that prohibits tobacco sales to minors that has been on the books for over one-hundred years.

The Bureau of Land Management is seeking nominations to fill an unexpired term on the 12-person Central California Resource Advisory Council, a citizen’s panel which advises the BLM on the stewardship of Federal public lands. The term expires September 30, 2007. It became vacant in January when Mariposa County Supervisor Lee Stetson left the Board of Supervisors. The vacant position is reserved for an elected official of general purpose government. Each nomination must include the name of the nominee, work and home addresses and telephone numbers, a biographical sketch including the nominee’s work, applicable outside interests, and public service records.

The California Transportation Commission announced yesterday that it will not fulfill Amador, Calaveras and Alpine Counties funding request from Corridor Mobility Improvement Account to help cover cost overruns on the Angels Camp Bypass, thus leaving the Tri-Counties Alliance on their own in finding a solution to cover the $12.8 million of cost overruns on the project.  Amador County Transportation Commission Executive Director Charles Field said that the alliance had indications last week that that the request would be turned down by the California Transportation Commission. “We saw the writing on wall the week the before CTC meeting…(which was held) Tuesday February 20th,” said Field. The CTC’s recommendations, which were released yesterday, include projects already rejected by voters on a ballot, such as the Willet’s Bypass, Sonora Extension, and Brawley Bypass, all of which apparently were not what the voters requested, and yet they remain in the CTC’s recommendations. Field said the rural projects range in the 1,2,3, and 4 hundred million dollar cost range. For instance the Willets Bypass is a whopping 300 million dollars. Fortunately, Field revealed that the Tri-County’s have had a Plan B all along just in case their CMIA funding request was not granted by the California Transportation Commission. Field said the Tri-County’s have agreed to ask Cal-Trans to help fund the cost overruns.