Also at Tuesday’s special meeting, Ione City Council members, the Ione Planning Commission, and the Park and Recreation Commission met to discuss Rosenberg’s Rules of Order, a set of guidelines meant to standardize meeting procedure. The rules were reviewed in detail at the meeting, for the purpose of opening discussion on the implementation of Rosenberg’s Rules for all city meetings, as opposed to the more widely known Robert’s Rules. Rosenberg’s Rules are a simpler and more modern set of Parliamentary Procedure; however they do retain the basic tenets of order from Robert’s Rules. A PowerPoint presentation was the catalyst for review at the meeting, and was presented by City Manager Kim Kerr.

Information given in the presentation included: The four main principles of Rosenberg’s Rules of Order, which are 1. Rules should establish order, 2. Rules should be clear, 3. Rules should be user friendly, and 4. Rules should enforce the will of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority. A chair should also be named for the governing body, who is charged with applying the rules of conduct. There are three basic motions in Rosenberg’s Rules, including the “Basic Motion,” which puts forth a decision for consideration, the “Motion to Amend,” which is to retain the basic motion that is under determination but modify it in some way, and the “Substitution Motion” which involves doing away with the basic motion and putting a new motion before the governing body for discussion. After the information was disseminated at the meeting, it was requested that all individuals review the presentation and the protocol manual. A request was then made for all members of the various governing bodies present, as well as citizens, to send in any comments regarding Rosenberg’s Rules by May 9th, and all comments on the Protocol Manuel by May 16th.

An update on the Water and Sewer Rate Committee was also given at the Jackson City Council meeting this week. The committee was formed in January of this year after the City of Jackson’s failed attempt to raise water service rates in 2007 in order to compensate for a 22% rate increase last August for services administered by the Amador Water Agency. The purpose of the committee is to review both enterprise funds and make recommendations to the city council. Currently, the City of Jackson is footing the bill for the AWA’s rate increases, and may soon have to dip into the General Fund. One member of the committee, Bill Condershoff, reported that he had authored two letters to the Water Agency questioning the supposed inequities in the Plymouth Pipeline Project, as well as some of the AWA’s recent spending decisions the committee believes to be less than cost effective. Condershoff also suggested that the city council request to be on the agenda at an upcoming AWA meeting, in order to open up a dialogue in a public forum and to have questions answered. Another idea brought up during public comment was to hire an expert to work with the City, in order to provide another solid source of feedback. In the end, the council requested that the committee come up with a recommendation on what to do about rates, and also to explore the issues brought up in the discussion.

According to Dataquick Information Systems, there were a record 47,171 California foreclosures in January, February and March. DataQuick is a national company that provides property information and tracks statistics. It is also triple the previous peak during the 1990s downturn, with a total of 15,418 in the third quarter of 1996. The eight-county capital region - Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties - showed 9,505 defaults during January, February and March. All told, this region has seen about 34,000 home loan defaults since the beginning of 2007 - and we are guessing about 15,000 foreclosures. That foreclosures number is still to come from DataQuick. The number of California homes going into foreclosure jumped in the first quarter to its highest level in more than 16 years, as the market continued to work its way through declining home values and a pool of at-risk mortgages originated in 2005 and 2006.

March brought few storms and little snow to the Sierra, leaving the snowpack below average to date, officials said. Though spring storms could still add to the snow totals, April typically signals an end to the peak snow season. As of Tuesday, the snowpack in the Lake Tahoe basin was 87 percent of average for the date, according to the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service. The numbers are still better than last year, when April arrived with a Sierra snowpack at less than half of what it should be. After a slow start, back-to-back storms in January blanketed the Sierra, boosting the snowpack to well-above-average levels.

As recently as late February, the Tahoe Basin snowpack was at more than 115 percent of average.  But March — typically the fourth largest month for snowfall — produced Sierra snow for only few days. While winter didn’t erase the deficit from a seriously dry 2007, there shouldn’t be any major problems with water supplies, officials said. Lake Tahoe — the river system’s largest reservoir — should rise at least a foot between now and late June, said Bill Hauck, water supply coordinator for the Truckee Meadows Water Authority.

Childhood obesity numbers have tripled since the 1970’s and is now officially the fastest growing disease in the United States. Nine million children across the nation are overweight or obese, according to the California Center for Public Health Advocacy. In California, 28 percent of kids in 5th grade, and 7th through 9th grades struggled with their weight. Experts say if a child is obese and doesn't get a handle on the problem, more than likely he or she will grow up to become an obese adult. The chain can be broken according to psychologists and pediatricians by creating programs that help to change the environments overweight children live in. This means programs that work are the programs that require parents to come with their children to weekly nutrition classes.