State - Rural schools and road funding received a big boost earlier this week following the announcement by Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer that the US Forest Service is distributing more than $477 million to 41 states and Puerto Rico for local improvements. The funding is part of the newly amended and reauthorized Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act. “Payments under the Act help fund schools and roads and create employment opportunities through projects that maintain current infrastructure and improve the health of watersheds and ecosystems on national forests,” announced the Forest Service. Since 1908, 25 percent of Forest Service revenues, such as those from timber sales, mineral resources and grazing fees, have been returned to states in which national forest lands are located. In recent decades those revenues have declined significantly. The original Secure Rural Schools Act aimed at stabilizing the funding and transitioning to lower payments by providing assistance to affected rural counties. That Act expired in September of 2007. The reauthorized Act extends the program four more years. The first of the reauthorized payments are shown in the Summary of 2008 Forest Service payments. Oregon will receive the highest payment of more than $133 million; California will receive more than $57 million; and Idaho and Washington will receive more than $37 million. The Act also provides for an additional $52 million this year to be used by local resource advisory committees to fund projects to maintain infrastructure, improve the health of watersheds and ecosystems, protect communities, and strengthen local economies. In past years , 55 committees in western states have been active in this program. The Forest Service anticipates the formation of nearly 60 more committees under the newly reauthorized Act, many of them in the Lake States, eastern states and southeastern states where national forests are located. Staff Report (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Amador County – A coin flip made the final decision for the remaining Amador County Transportation Commission seat as the City Select Committee met Wednesday and chose two new ACTC members, but deferred selections to the Local Agency Formation Commission for a clarification on term limits. After three members decided one of two open seats should belong to Sutter Creek, Ione Mayor Lee Ard flipped the coin, Jackson Mayor Connie Gonsalves called “tails” and it landed on “heads,” giving Ione one of three city council seats on ACTC. Sutter Creek Mayor Gary Wooten suggested his co-Councilman Pat Crosby as a regular ACTC member, as Jackson former Councilman Al Nunes and Ione former Councilman Jerry Sherman both did not win re-election, but both served terms that expired in February. Amador City Mayor Aaron Brusatori and Plymouth Mayor Jon Colburn both agreed that Sutter Creek needed representation on ACTC. Gonsalves said either Jackson or Ione had to step down, or they could flip a coin, leading to the flip. Ard said new Ione Councilman David Plank was the city’s selection for the ACTC regular seat, and the Select Committee made the appointment, making it a 3-year term to stagger membership and possibly avoid future multiple vacancies. Plank joins regular member, Plymouth Councilman Greg Baldwin and Crosby. Alternates selected were Ione Councilman Jim Ulm, Jackson Councilman Keith Sweet and Amador City Councilman Mike Vasquez. The committee deferred appointment to the Amador County LAFCO until its Executive Director Roseanne Chamberlain can clarify term limits. Ard had sought that a new member be assigned to Sherman’s position after he lost in November, but his term expired in February. Ard sought to place Plank into the seat. Gonsalves said Jackson City Council had already chosen Pat Crew to take a seat on LAFCO, because of his experience with GPAC. Selections on LAFCO will be made at the next meeting, on a date to be determined. Story by Jim Reece (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Amador County – Joining the list of state entities with years-long projects frozen by the state, the Plymouth Lodge Hill Committee has seen its $240,000 grant slide into the status of frozen funding. Committee members met with a city engineer Wednesday morning to try to iron out some details for the project, hoping to take the information they gather to the Plymouth City Council in February with a plea to send the project out for bids, regardless of those frozen funds. Committee Member Maria Nunez Simon said the Lodge Hill Committee’s $240,000 Proposition 40 recreation grant was frozen for 6 months by the state Legislature. The committee already spent $10,000 on engineering with city engineer Weber, Ghio & Associates, and Weber Ghio’s Project manager Norm Hulett was gleaning bid and project information from the committee Wednesday and telling about parts of the project’s designs, inside and out. The committee said the galvanized steel siding on the outside of the Lodge should stay in place, while inside, the main level of the building will lose a wall between the kitchen area and the great room. There will be a deck wrapping around the outside of the building, outside of the kitchen, and along the long side of the building, on the side overlooking the city pool. There will be a handicapped-accessible unisex restroom beside the kitchen. On the long deck side of the building, there will be double doors with a window on each side, to bring in the natural light. Hulett said a state Title 24-required energy analysis will audit energy use and ensure adequate and efficient heating, cooling, windows, insulation and water heating. The upper floor will be left alone for this project and be remodeled in a later phase. The Lodge Hill Committee will ask the city council in February to push the remodel toward opening it for bids. The committee includes Elanor Faddis, Nunez Simon, Lee Simon, Barbara Nicholson, Joanne Kerner, Raymond Estey, Patricia Fordyce and Gloria Stoddard. Story by Jim Reece (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.). 

Amador County – Amador County is OK in light of the state highway funding freeze, Amador County Transportation Commission Executive Director Charles Field said Tuesday. ACTC is working this week with local municipalities to identify projects for expected federal funding. “Fortunately, the Highway 49 Bypass is done, fortunately the Defender Grade intersection is done,” Field said. On the periphery lies expected federal infrastructure spending. “We’re not greatly affected by the state crisis on streets and roads because we’re between projects.” ACTC has avoided economic impacts that have hurt Prospect Motors and other companies. Field said “somehow, we’re not hurt too bad and maybe we’ll be able to bring some more money into the county.” But flux in Washington, D.C., means what California and Amador County get from the federal stimulus package “is changing every day.” He said President Obama will be in office next week and plans to “hit the ground running,” so the county will see how he handles it. In a report to the ACTC board prepared for today’s meeting, Field said there is expected to be $30 billion in the federal stimulus packet, with $3 billion for California. Of that, half should be for “shovel ready” projects, which generally means a “project has got its federal environmental clearance, community acceptance, right of way and design work accomplished (and ready to bid).” For highway work at the state level, he said that means the project must also be in the Regional Transportation Plan. Field said federal projects are different than state projects and have “more federal strings attached, so 90 days is not a lot of time.” Last week, guidelines changed from 90 days to 120 days on “shovel ready” projects. He said ACTC is working with the cities in a staff meeting Thursday to gather a list of road and transit projects that can be prepared for the anticipated stimulus spending. ACTC has also invited 1 or 2 members each from the Upcountry Community Council and the Pine Grove Community Council to attend the staff meeting. Story by Jim Reece (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Amador County - In response to the Governor’s State of the State address last week, Senator and Amador County Representative Dave Cox delivered an address outlining “the many challenges” California faces in the immediate future. In his address Thursday, Governor Schwarzenegger pleaded for bipartisanship as the solution to closing the state’s budget hole. There has been a long running stalemate between Democrats and Republicans over how to shore up a $41.5 billion budget deficit. “Conan's sword could not have cleaved our political system in two as cleanly as our own political parties have done," Schwarzenegger said, referring to an action hero he played in Hollywood. "Over time, ours has become a system where rigid ideology has been rewarded and pragmatic compromise has been punished,” he added. The Governor focused almost entirely on ways to fix the budget and bypassed more sentimental celebrations of the State’s past and future. “There are no easy choices…no sacred cows. We must all put our differences aside to resolve this budget crisis,” said Cox in his response. California’s problems are linked to the collapse of the housing market and a national economy in decline. Cox noted that “as the Governor and lawmakers discuss ways to bring the State’s finances back in order, it is important to note that there will be real affects on residents.” He added that “the people of California deserve a government that works together to find common ground and implement solutions that make sense.” Story by Alex Lane (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Amador County – The Amador Water Agency is looking at whether to raise wastewater fees and staff expects to recommend doing so, after state fee hikes. The AWA board meets Thursday and will receive a staff report on wastewater fee hikes by the state and corresponding impacts on the smaller customer systems under the AWA umbrella. Engineering Manager Gene Mancebo in a report to the board said “staff is currently working on a financial review of the wastewater systems and likely will be recommending a rate increase based on increased operational costs.” He said the recent state Regional Water Quality Control Board rate hike “is one of the items that are included in the financial review and a factor in proposing rate increases.” Wastewater system fees for Lake Camanche and Improvement District Number 1 were raised in July 2006, Mancebo said, and current annual state fees represent about 2 percent of Camanche’s operating budget and about 4 percent of WWID Number 1’s budget. The report asks for no action by the board but tells that the Regional Water Quality Control Board last year increased annual fees. Mancebo said it “can have a significant impact” on AWA customers, especially those with fewer customer bases, such as View Point Estates, with 5 connections; Surrey Junction, which has 8 customers; and Eagles Nest, with 14. Mancebo said the “one-size-fits-all” state annual fees do not consider the “very small systems.” Staff has asked the state board to consider consolidating the smaller wastewater systems under one permit for AWA, “instead of one permit and one annual fee for each.” Mancebo said to day the regional board “has not been able to execute the consolidation” but it is “sympathetic to the agency’s concerns.” To minimize fees, AWA consolidated 7 systems and plans to do more pending revised reports of waste discharge from other systems. Jim Reece (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Amador County - New statistics from the foreclosure tracking organization DataQuick reveal that repossessions were the driving force behind the real estate market in December. Home sales in the region finished strong in December after more than a year of dismal statistics and record lows. However, this latest surge in home sales is still among the lowest in a decade . 3,748 December escrows closed in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties alone. There were 29 sales at a median home price of $270,000 in Amador County, down 18.6 percent from one year ago. Neighboring Placer County saw 546 sales at a median price of $317, 000, down 15 percent and the lowest median since March of 2003. El Dorado County had 160 closings at a median price of $330,000, down 24.5 percent from December 2007. Home sales were far above statistics from one year ago in every county except El Dorado and Nevada, which have the region’s two highest median home prices. Sacramento County’s median home price peaked at just over $387,000. According to DataQuick analysts, the rise in purchases is due to the high amount of bank repos following the wave of foreclosures in 2008. Homes have once again become affordable for thousands of first-time homebuyers through the capitol region. Alex Lane (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Amador County - The Amador Fire Protection District released its latest batch of statistics for the month of December, revealing a consistent trend towards medical aid responses. The month marked one of the highest levels for medical aid responses in 2008. 95 of the 128 incidents responded to were medical aid related, making up approximately 74 percent of the total reports. The incidents included 3 structure fires, 1 cooking fire, 1 chimney fire, 1 vehicle fire and 3 wildland fires. 49 percent of the incidents Story by Alex Lane (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Amador County – Part of the consent agenda of today’s Amador County Transportation Commission meeting includes a commission response to the city of Plymouth Draft Traffic Impact Study. Plymouth requested comment on Draft Environmental Impact Report as part of its city General Plan update and ACTC Executive Director Charles Field responded in a letter to Plymouth City Planner Paula Daneluk. The response said that ACTC was “concerned that in the process of carrying out the mitigation measures identified” in the draft traffic study and EIR, that “the city may find that some of the transportation improvements listed will prove to be infeasible or un-fundable.” Field also worried about the city’s “Level Of Service” self-grading system and recommended using ACTC’s standard of doing so. The letter also pointed out that the California Environmental Quality Act allows for “Statements of Overriding Consideration” in missing required levels of service for road projects, in the event that Plymouth expects that it may approve projects that could create worse than standard levels of service. Field also concurred with Amador County Department of Public Works comments on Plymouth’s Draft Traffic Impact Study and requested “that these comments be addressed through appropriate revisions in the Final TIS.” The letter said ACTC staff worried that “several study intersections will operate at unacceptable level-of-service conditions if the proposed land use element is built out under cumulative conditions.” Field also pointed out that “ACTC staff has questions related to the city’s plan for actual implementation of the mitigations identified” in the draft traffic study and in the “city’s plan for monitoring the application of the General Plan policies.” The comment said that “without enforceable mandates as directed by the city council, the recommended actions identified as mitigation measures in the DEIR are only advisory in nature and do not ensure adequate mitigation of impacts.” Field recommended creating implementation measures and corresponding monitoring programs of the city general plan, to “define a clear path toward reaching its goal of reducing and mitigating the transportation impacts that may result form adoption of its General Plan Update.” Story by Jim Reece (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Amador County - Proposed septic regulations for onsite water systems in California have raised local concern over property rights, added burdens for property owners and additional regulations and fees. Prompted by Bill 885 signed by Governor Gray Davis in 2000, the law would regulate discharge of wastes that threaten surface and groundwater quality. The California Water Resources Control Board has been holding workshops across California to gather public comment on the issue, including a workshop last month in Amador County. The proposal under consideration includes a number of costly requirements to be paid by owners should their tanks not meet updated standards. Owners must have their tanks inspected for solid accumulations every five years at a cost of $325. Owners of tanks within 600 feet of a surface water body that does not meet water quality standards could be required to retrofit their systems at a cost of $45,000. New septic systems must have filters that retain a certain amount of solids, malfunction alarms and maintenance manuals, plus regular site inspections by certified professionals. “The regulations need to allow for an effective, pragmatic variance process, where local government regulators can make site-specific exceptions…for local conditions,” said DeAnn Kerr of the California Association of Realtors, which opposes the law. A number of other organizations, including the California Farm Bureau Federation, or CFB, are opposing the law for similar reasons. "In these times of limited resources, why would the state put these requirements on everyone rather than paying attention to specific areas where there are known concerns with contamination of ground or surface water,” said CFB Resource Director Danny Merkley. Amador County resident Buck Bukrinsky said “people should realize that property rights will be violated at an unjust cost to all the present and future property owners.” For further details about the proposed regulations, visit www.waterboards.ca.gov. Story by Alex Lane (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).