Amador County – The Sutter Creek City Council talked about a directional sign to help some downtown businesses Monday, then tabled the issue for more work. City Manager Rob Duke proposed a couple of locations for a sign that would point out the businesses on the Chaos Glassworks side of town. Duke said the corner of Main Street and Gopher Flat Road was an option, but he recommended the corner of Main Street and Hayden Alley. The need was because “businesses on Hanford Street need advertisement on Main Street in order to encourage pedestrians to continue around the corner onto Hanford Street.” They think “nobody knows where they are,” Duke said. He said the sign should be “put high enough so that a person can walk under it without smacking their head.” John Mottoros asked about businesses at the other end of Main Street and why they would not get a sign. He also asked who would be paying for the sign, the pole and the paint, the people or the businesses who want to be on it. Duke said businesses would pay for space on the sign and the funds would reimburse the city for the sign’s cost. Sharyn Brown said the Main and Gopher Flat was barely visible walking down the street, and “the planter is a much better place.” She also suggested locating it near the school crossing sign or on the stop sign. Duke said “those signs are already occupying that post.” Brown said Days Inn, Gray Gables, Chaos and many of the total 16 businesses on the north side of town want to be on the sign. Duke said if you put a sign at Main and Gopher Flat, people want to cross the road there. Mayor Gary Wooten said “you don’t want any visual obstructions and that is still one of our busiest intersections.” Planning Commissioner Frank Cunha said the discussion was evidence the city “sign ordinance needs to be redone.” He suggested a temporary sign until the ordinance is revised. Councilman Pat Crosby said “we can talk about this forever. Let’s just put up a sign where Rob says,” at Main and Hayden Alley, and “very soon we can find out whether it’s a good, bad or indifferent location.” Brown asked what she should tell the owners of Chaos Glassworks. Wooten said “tell them it’s not dead and we’re working on it.” Wooten said he liked the idea of the sign being illuminated and placed near a city parking area, so people can have the time to read it. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – The Amador Air District Board of Directors last week heard an upbeat update from Rene Chapman of Foothill Rideshare, who said due to increased interest, the program needs a van for its Vanpools. The program operates on a $10,000-dollar DMV Fee Grant it received through the Air District last August, to establish the Vanpools, or carpools with vans, to serve Amador County commuters. Chapman said “Foothill Rideshare is going strong, and it had a real jump when gas prices skyrocketed.” She said the program has had 2 or 3 people sign up per month since the beginning of the year. The Rideshare database had 230 people in it this time last year, she said, and it now has 500 individuals signed up. She said Rideshare sign-ups takes names, leaving points and destinations, which go into the database and “cluster people to form van pools.” She said the program is structured to cover 5 vanpools. If the budget warrants it, it can be cut down to 2 vanpools. She said the program does not yet have an operating vanpool, but is nearing the number of sign-ups to have a “cluster” of riders big enough to create a vanpool route. She said the county has a “need to reduce our vehicle miles traveled as a county, as an area,” due to air quality. She said Rideshare does not own a van for its vanpool. Board Chairman, Supervisor Ted Novelli asked what type of van Rideshare sought: a 12-, 15-, or 18- seater. Chapman said it needed to carry at least 6 riders, the number needed to get a vanpool going. She said Rideshare matches usually have 5 or 6 people in a “cluster,” up from 2 or 3 people in the clusters last year. The vanpool groups contain only people interested in riding in a vanpool, and she said there is enough people to get a van for the program. But she said, after talking to Enterprise Rent-a-Car, “it’s not going to be cost-effective to lease a van.” Novelli asked her to come back with some costs on the purchase of a used van, in 2 months. The Air District Board next meets 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 28th, in the supervisor chambers, as its March meeting was canceled. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County - The Amador County Tax Collector will hold a public auction of tax-defaulted property on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 10:00 am, in the Board of Supervisors’ Chambers, located in the Amador County Administration Center, 810 Court Street, Jackson, CA. Parcels become subject to sale by the Tax Collector at the end of 5 years from the date of tax default. The available parcels will be offered for sale on an oral bid basis for at least the established minimum bid. The parcels will be sold to the highest bidder. The primary purposes of the public auction are to collect the unpaid delinquent property taxes that are owed to the County; and to return the property to a tax-paying status. Michael Ryan, Amador County Tax Collector, would like to remind interested parties that these parcels must be withdrawn from the sale in the event that the tax amounts due are paid by the day prior to the auction. Parcels may also be withdrawn in the event certain conditions exist that affect the sale parcels. Information regarding the auction rules, the terms and conditions of the sale, and a list of the parcels being offered for sale, are available on the County’s web-site at www.co.amador.ca.us. Staff Report This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County - A Grizzly Flat woman was arrested in Jackson last Saturday on charges of burglary and the passing of counterfeit money. Officer Collins of the Jackson police Department answered the report of a counterfeiting call Saturday at the Sierra Trading Post gas station located at 306 Sutter Street. When he arrived at the scene, the employee said that a young woman had attempted to make a small value purchase so she could receive as much change as possible. The Sierra Trading Post employee refused to honor the transaction and called police immediately, passing on a description the suspect and her vehicle. Upon further investigation, Collins discovered there were other business victims, including the Jackson Rancheria Hotel and Casino. He immediately issued a bulletin to surrounding law enforcement agencies, including the Jackson Rancheria Tribal Police, who notified Jackson Police that the suspect had been detained in front of the Tribal General Store on Dalton Way. According to a press release by Jackson Police Chief Scott Morrison, “tribal police also reported that the suspect…actually passed a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill to Girl Scouts selling cookies in front of the store.” The suspect, Summer Ann Mascott, 28 of Grizzly Flat, California, was arrested on the scene by Jackson police Sergeant Breedlove. The U.S. Secret Service was notified for further investigative actions. Mascott has since made bail and local businesses are advised to keep a look out for Mascott or any counterfeit currency or checks. Call the Jackson Police Department at 223-1771 if you have any information. Alex Lane, Staff Contributed This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – The Plymouth City Council will get a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Association Thursday notifying them of $176,000 dollars worth of reimbursements the city will receive for storm damages suffered in 2006. The letter is among correspondence the council received in its agenda packet this week, including a February 11th letter from the California Emergency Management Agency’s public assistance officer, Charles Rabamad. City Clerk Gloria Stoddard said the reimbursements came from storm damage and resulting money spent to make repairs. City Engineer Roark Weber said “One of the reasons we got all of the money back was that Gloria did such a good job keeping track of all of the records.” Weber said one city project was repair to a failed earthen ditch around the city’s storage pond that holds the city’s treated secondary effluent as part of the city sewer treatment plant. Ditch failed and rain runoff flowed into the pond. Weber said the “City got it repaired and FEMA reimbursed it 100 percent.” That was listed as a “large project” in a January 15th FEMA letter, which approved the project original estimated amount for the repair at $65,000 dollars. The sewer pond ditch repair totaled $98,900 dollars and was reimbursed in full, along with $77,123 dollars paid by the city for other repairs from damage resulting from the 2006 storm. Weber said the jobs included fixing the intersection of Poplar and Mill Streets at Highway 49, where the road sunk in, leaving a hole 3 feet in diameter, 2 feet deep. The intersection now has a head wall with a steel protective rail on top. Empire Street at Highway 49 also flooded, causing the street to fall apart. It was resurfaced, and given miscellaneous drainage improvements. The city also fixed a damaged headwall on Sutter Street and repaired a dirt access road to the sewer plant spray field area, which washed out when the creek along Old Sacramento Road overflowed its bank. Weber said “Working with Cal-EMA is a treat. People in the governor’s office – the staff was a great help. It was a real pleasure to work with them.” He said “It wasn’t like the bad news that you hear about FEMA.” The repair work has been done for the last 6 or 8 months. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Calaveras County – Authorities reported an apparent suicide Friday afternoon when 2 people fishing along the Mokelumne River discovered a body on the Calaveras County side of the river. The body was that of Dean Watson, a 39-year-old Stockton resident. According to Calaveras County Sheriff's deputies, the male was a victim of an apparent suicide. Calaveras County Coroner Kevin Raggio said Watson died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Watson was found just off of Highway 49, about one-half of a mile from the Highway 49 bridge at the Amador and Calaveras county line near Electra Road. Raggio said Watson was formerly employed by the San Joaquin County Assessor’s Office. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Jennifer Wilson -

The Proposed Wicklow Way Subdivision was again the topic of discussion at Amador County’s Technical Advisory Committee meeting last week. Planner Heather Anderson advised everyone that all changes from the last TAC meeting had been incorporated into the project’s mitigation measures and conditions draft documents. Lemke Construction Director of Planning Susan Larson attended to answer any questions, but most departments involved with the project indicated the need for more time to review the finalized drafts. All agreed that bringing the item back to TAC in two weeks would provide sufficient time for review. If a finalized draft is agreed upon at that time, the committee will recommend approval to the Amador County Planning Commission, which will hold a series of public hearings on the documents. The Wicklow project, which has been in the works for four to five years according to Larson, would be located up above the K-Mart and Wal-Mart stores in the Martell area. And in regards to the project’s Final Environmental Impact Report, that document will be discussed at a public hearing at tomorrow night’s Planning Commission meeting, to be held at 7 PM at 810 Court Street in the Board of Supervisors chambers. A copy of the Final EIR is available on the county’s website at www.co.amador.ca.us/Depts/planning.

By Jim Reece -

Shy of a quorum, the Amador Regional Planning Committee had an informal meeting last week and directed staff to prepare a presentation on profit sharing for the next meeting, Oct. 2. The location of the next meeting is to be determined, said Mike Daly, city manager of Jackson and a staffer for the Committee. Only one of the five members attended, Tim Murphy of the Sutter Creek City Council, while alternate member, Jackson Mayor Rosalie Pryor-Escamilla attended in the place of Vice Mayor Connie Gonsalves. Committee members absent were Supervisor Louis Boitano, Ione Mayor Andrea Bonham and public member Elida Malick of Fiddletown. Ione City Manager Kim Kerr brought a packet of revenue sharing research she had compiled, with attendees including Sutter Creek Planning Commissioner Frank Kuhna and Plymouth Vice Mayor Patricia Fordyce.

In the research, Kerr said was the Twin Cities, Minnesota, Fiscal Disparities Program that began in 1976. She said the 7-county area of Minneapolis and St. Paul had 300 taxing jurisdictions that contributed 40 percent of commercial tax base into an area-wide pool. Part of the report, by BBC Research & Consulting, said an area-wide tax rate is calculated using “weighted average local property tax rates of all participating jurisdictions in the previous year.” Revenue was shared “based on each municipality’s aggregate property value per capita compared to the area-wide average property value per capita.” The formula was criticized for not considering service needs, which some municipalities wanted to be added to disbursement based on “indicators of need, such as poverty rates and age of housing stock.” Kerr said the Twin Cities program shared 406.8 Million Dollars in property tax revenue in 2000. Pryor-Escamilla said revenue sharing would allow industrial projects to locate where appropriate and preserve the small-town ambiance. Kerr said the object of the committee and profit sharing is to attract businesses to Amador County, saying “we can’t do it as individuals, we have to do it together.” Kerr said she was looking for direction and Murphy asked if she would volunteer to put the 83-page report into a presentation for the committee’s Oct. 2nd meeting. The location of the meeting is to be determined.

By Holly Boitano -

Tuesday Sutter Creek city officials and the public got the rundown on two topics that have the potential to make or break the Gold Rush Ranch and Golf Resort: money and wastewater. City Attorney Dennis Crabb outlined the Development Agreement process, saying developers will offer the City some “public benefits” it will provide in exchange for project impacts. The contract may span 5-25 years, and use benchmarks and checkpoints to insure adherence by both parties. Crabb said the disadvantage of a development agreement was inflexibility in the face of unforeseen change. He said the City must carefully sort the issues and terms of the contract before signing it. Throughout the discussion, Councilman Pat Crosby repeatedly said, above all else, the Development Agreement should be the Council’s top consideration, contrasting Mayor Gary Wooten’s stance -- to consider dollars in conjunction with other aspects of the planning process. Members of the public said the Development Agreement should be negotiated in conjunction with the city’s general plan, now being updated. Others said the cost of public benefits would be applied as credit toward developer impact fees.

The topic switched to wastewater, with City Manager Rob Duke and consultant Rob Williams summarizing the project’s wastewater history. They also reviewed the City’s options in the areas of wastewater planning, golf course development, improvements to the current treatment system, and funding. In the end, public officials requested a spreadsheet that outlines the City’s options for wastewater disposal, in comparison with options for Gold Rush’s development. City officials also chose to slightly decrease the pace of the Gold Rush meeting schedule, cancelling a meeting at the end of September. The next meeting, 7-9 p.m. Monday, September 8 in the City Auditorium, will be for the Planning Commission to discuss the Gold Rush Draft Environmental Impact Report.

Amador County – Among the array of topics at the Town Hall meeting hosted last week by Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, the common thread seemed to be finances. Huber fielded questions and told of her approaches to state budgeting, while “not defending” the lately passed budget. Huber said one suggestion from a constituent was to “fire all of the legislators,” which would “only save $133 Million Dollars,” in the face of the $8 Billion Dollar state budget deficit. Amador City olive farmer Susan Bragstad said “how about legalizing marijuana?” Huber said she has “actually gotten a lot of e-mails saying we should” legalize marijuana. But she said that was probably not the solution to generating revenue, and it would conflict with the federal government’s outlawing of marijuana. She suggested that the state could change the penalty for marijuana. Mike Delaney, president of the Amador Teachers Association asked about how the federal stimulus funding could be brought to the county, in a more stable and way. Huber said she did not think California had received the federal stimulus yet, and that the “money was supposed to go straight to the school.” She said for those changes in state funding allocation, “we need to start with a Constitutional Convention.” The Foothill Conservancy’s Katherine Evatt also asked about slow funding streams. Huber said it “takes revenue coming in to get that money out.” She said the California government’s poor credit rating – “triple-A” – due to the $8 Billion Dollar deficit – is “the reason for the cashflow problems.” Retired veterinarian Wendell Peart asked about the impact of immigration. Huber said the state must police its border with Mexico without federal funding assistance. “We are a donor state,” Huber said. “For every dollar we send to Washington D.C., we only get 77 cents back.” Huber said federal law also mandated that the hospitals must give medical aid to anyone who shows up at an emergency room, including illegal immigrants. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.