The Mountain Lion Foundation is recruiting 4H and FFA Clubs throughout the Central Sierra as Rural Partners to explore and implement simple and cost effective methods of preventing the loss of pets and livestock to mountain lions. As more and more people live and recreate in this area, interaction with wildlife has been on the rise.    As a result, almost one-third of the mountain lions killed in California for livestock depredation are killed in the Central Sierra.

Last Tuesday the BOS decided to move forward with revising a portion of the County Code pertaining to Sea-Land Storage Containers. On May 16, 2006 Title 19 of Amador County Code was amended to include regulations pertaining to sea-land storage containers in order to encourage appropriate locations and uses for such containers and to protect visual quality in the County. The Board went through a series of public hearings and received very little input. Within the last year however, existing and proposed situations have surfaced; these situations demonstrating that a review and or possible amendment of the sea-land storage container ordinance may be needed.

A new schedule has been announced for the opening of the Hwy 49 Bypass of Sutter Creek and Amador City. According to Project Manager Scott Maas, the Sutter Creek Bridge false work is still being removed, slowly, and it is now estimated to be mid-February before the Bypass will be ready to open. Maas states that The removal of the current section of false work will be completed this week. The removal of the last section, Span #1, will begin this week and will take approximately 4 weeks to accomplish. Maas indicates that this delay is not being caused by lack of equipment or personnel; instead he states “it is just time consuming to remove the false work carefully and safe! The bridge railing is expected to be completed in the next 2 to 3 weeks.

According to the application for trust status submitted by the Ione Band of Miwok  to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to gain trust status on nearly 230 acres in the town of Plymouth the Tribe is proposing to develop a gaming facility and related structures, including parking, a hotel and other facilities that are necessary to support the casino on the Proposed Acquisition site.

Last night a special Jackson Planning Commission workshop was held to review the Jackson Hills Residential and Golf Course Community and the impact it will have on traffic in and around Jackson. ACTC Director Charles Field requested that the workshop be held before the Planning Commission made a recommendation to the City Council. At last night’s meeting Field discussed existing traffic conditions and how those would change with the development of the Jackson Hills Project. Karly will have more on the meeting at noon.

Abercrombie the city of Sutter Creek is actively pursuing replacing or expanding the Sutter Creek waste water treatment plant to not only benefit current ARSA areas, Sutter Creek, Martell, and Amador City but that plan also now includes Jackson.  Further development of the Hwy 49 corridor partners’ sewer solutions will also have residual benefits in Ione, as ARSA can cut their waste water demands with their other important partner, Ione. ARSA and Ione are currently working with the State and Mule Creek State Prison and the Preston Youth Facility to further solve the western part of the county’s waste water woes.

On Monday’s Agenda for the Sutter Creek City Council meeting was an item that drew quite a crowd. The Goals and Policies Document regarding the Community Facilities District and Powder House Estates was discussed as well as the concerns expressed regarding  a Mello Roos Bond, specifically the problems that Ione experienced with the program. Mark Northcross spoke to Ione’s problem and explained that the Bond money went in before the developer began the project and money promised by the developer never materialized. The difference with Sutter Creek would be that the Bonds would not be sold until the Public Improvements were under construction, and largely completed. The cost of public improvements includes approximately $4 million, and would be financed up to 75%, the developer of Powder House Estates would be paying $1 million out of pocket.

The Jackson Planning Commission will meet tonight to review Notices of Intent to Develop. In February of 2007 the Planning Commission recommended to the City Council that they adopt 68 HEUs for the upcoming year, which was the number of HEU’s needed for Jackson Hills to complete phase 1 of their project. The City Council after some deliberation chose to set the allocation at 106, based on the same formula used in 2005 of spreading the remaining sewer capacity over three years. Staff then advertised for request for Notices of Intent to Develop and four different developers responded by the March 31st deadline.

Representatives of Jackson, Sutter Creek, Ione, ARSA, the AWA, as well as HDR all joined together yesterday to discuss short term improvements to meet the needs of local wastewater demands. In the audience representatives of the Foothill Conservancy, Present in the audience were Nolte Engineering of the Jackson Hills project, Castle Oaks Golf course, JTS Communities, and the Gold Rush and Wicklow Way subdivisions. County Administrative Officer Patrick Blacklock facilitated the meeting while representatives from HDR Engineering Inc. summarized the results of the last few meetings and went over some of the steps that can be taken in the future to ensure capacity for the development that is already on the books.

In case you have been wondering what is happening with Buena Vista Rancheria’s request to the Federal Government to build and operate a sewer plant- the answer, according to John Tinger with the EPA is that the permit, and the project, are on hold. According to Tinger “As the Tribe has agreed to do additional work on the Tribal Environmental Impact Report, the NPDES permit application is on hold until the TEIR has been completed.” Tinger states that his department anticipates that there will be another public notice on the NPDES permit to allow for comment on any additional information collected during the TEIR process, as that information relates to the NPDES permit.