Amador County – The Plymouth City Council heard from a prospective manager of the Arroyo Ditch water right for the city last week, and set a special, closed session meeting for last weekend to continue discussion.

The council scheduled a special meeting of the city council in a closed session 8 a.m. Saturday (November 20th) at City Hall. They were to have a conference with its real property negotiator City Manager Dixon Flynn to discuss the Arroyo ditch and related water rights, prices and terms of payment.

Mayor Pat Fordyce said Shenandoah Management Company “can’t sit in on a closed session,” and “won’t be involved in it.”

 Fordyce said: “This is really to sort out some things we want, and then an agreement would be created. …Once a contract is put together, then it will be an open item on the agenda.”

They decided to hold the special session on Saturday “because it needs to get done” because at the “next council meeting, the council is going to change.”

Fordyce said they “just decided to have a special meeting and a closed session and deal with it.” She said the council “only had one meeting this month because of holidays.”

The Mayor said: “This is going to take some time and for the new council, it would be hard to pick up on something we’ve been doing for a couple of years.”

The council was expected to spend four hours on the subject Saturday.

The new council member, Peter Amoroso, will be sworn in at the December 9th meeting, and Fordyce will hand over the mayor’s gavel (to whoever the new council selects as the new Mayor). Fordyce and Councilman Mike O’Meara both did not seek reelection.

The council Thursday also discussed options for handling the replacement of Sean McGinness, who was elected to the city council on November 2nd, but resigned November 3rd because he moved out of Plymouth.

City Attorney Laura Hollender said they may make an appointment to fill the position, or call a special election within 30 days. She said they could not take any action at the meeting last week.

Fordyce said the decision “will be left to new council.” She expects to preside over the Dec. 9th meeting, “until we swear in the new members.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.