Amador County News, TSPN TV News Video, 6-20-12 - TSPN's Tom Slivick talks with new Amador High School principal Jared Critchfield about his new position as top administrator at Amador High.

Amador County News, TSPN TV News Video, 6-20-12

• Sutter Creek OKs engineer work toward a potential regional wastewater project with Ione and CDCR.

• AFPD approved a preliminary budget for $2.9 million.

• Upcountry Council discussed fire insurance.

• Sutter Creek awards a $1.6M Prospect Drive realignment project

• Upcountry libraries would have reduced hours but stay open in new fiscal year, Supervisors said.  

Amador County News, TSPN TV News Video, 6-20-12

• Sutter Creek OKs engineer work toward a potential regional wastewater project with Ione and CDCR.

• AFPD approved a preliminary budget for $2.9 million.

• Upcountry Council discussed fire insurance.

• Sutter Creek awards a $1.6M Prospect Drive realignment project

• Upcountry libraries would have reduced hours but stay open in new fiscal year, Supervisors said.  

Amador County News, TSPN TV News Video, 6-20-12 - TSPN's Tom Slivick talks with new Amador High School principal Jared Critchfield about his new position as top administrator at Amador High.

Amador County – Sutter Creek City Council on Monday approved an engineer contract extension to work toward a regional wastewater project in potential partnership with Ione and the Department of Corrections.

The Council also approved extension of a contract with Hydroscience Engineers for $36,000 to complete the wastewater master plans for the City and for Amador Regional Sanitation Authority. City Manage Sean Rabe said ARSA must also approve the extension, but if members did not give it the OK, the city would still pay the $4,000 or so extra, which members would pay in their share. He said the City, as an ARSA member would already be paying 85 percent of the contract.

Rabe said the contact increase was needed because of required meetings that were not known. When the contract was made, potential regional meetings with CDCR and the city of Ione were not anticipated. The city started meeting to discuss a regional wastewater plant two years ago and got nowhere. He said the city has been meeting with Ione and “those meetings have gone strikingly well considering where we were a year ago.”

Rabe said “we need somebody at those meetings.”

Councilman Jim Swift wanted people to know that “we’re not chasing rainbows” and are working on realistic endeavors. Rabe said it would be much better for ARSA and the city to be involved in the discussions.

Swift said the city is facing $15 million dollars in improvements at Henderson Reservoir, the sewer system storage pond, and that is just to continue using the city wastewater system as it is. If they partner with Ione, they can eliminate the requirement to repair Henderson Reservoir. Swift said it should be clear that it is beneficial to the city.

In public comment, Mimi Arata said she was excited about the possibilities of a regional plant, and asked what it would cost the city. Rabe said it was too soon to know, but if the agreement did do away with Henderson, it does away with a significant amount of city storage, and they would need to build additional storage.

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Amador County – Amador Fire Protection District board of directors on Tuesday approved a preliminary budget totaling $2.9 million for the coming fiscal year.

The budget included $1.4 million dollars in salaries and benefits and $809,000 in services and supplies. AFPD Chief Jim McCart presented the budget excluding funds for the Amador Plan, saying County Administrative Officer Chuck Iley had no direction yet on the contract with Cal-Fire.

McCart said last year’s amount is known and he plugged in $250,000 into the preliminary budget. He said Iley was not sure of the board’s direction at this time and asked to put in the final number at a final budget hearing, which the board set for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11.

Supervisor Vice Chairman Richard Forster said the reason is the county is waiting on the state budget which has language for basic aid repairs and renewed funding for Amador County. The budget is awaiting the governor’s signature. Supervisor Louis Boitano said legislators haven’t figured out how take care of $250 million.

McCart said the Measure M and Prop 172 fund balance was at $180,000. Measure M revenue totaled $2 million and the AFPD’s share was $879,000. Budget revenue included contract service with Sutter Creek of $200,000 and Plymouth for $32,000, part of $1.3 million dollars in total additional funding revenue.

Plasse said the budget reserves and fund balance are not in sync and the budget consumes a considerable portion of the fund balance. McCart said reserves cancel that out. He said: “We had $1.6 million in reserves last year,” untouched, “so we’ll pull into this year with the same reserves.”

McCart said salaries and benefits were for 15 paid positions, including five fire fighters, nine engineers and one chief. One position was vacated and they don’t plan to fill it. They have five days a week staffing, 45 hours a week in Sutter Creek (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.). Mace Meadow station will have one engineer who will be by himself on one of three undetermined shifts.

Plasse asked about $715,000 for fixed assets, for two engines and a vehicle. McCart said he would surplus a 1984 Freightliner. They purchased three new in 1992 and they are going past the 20-year age, but do not have a lot of miles on them.

McCart said the jurisdiction does not have great flow for structure fires, and it helps AFPD maintain the ISO rating when they can transport water to structure fire locations and maintain 250 gallons a minute flows.

He said newer tankers are quicker but hold less water. Current water tenders pump 100 gallons a minute, but he said they can get new ones that pump 1,000 gallons a minute and act as a fire engine.

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Amador County – The Upcountry Community Council last week discussed fire insurance issues and impacts.

Lynn Morgan, chairwoman of the Upcountry Community Council said about About 20 people attended the regular UCC meeting Monday, June 11, and most of the people came to talk about fire insurance.

Guest speaker, Amador Fire Protection District Battalion 10 Chief Dave Bellerive talked about the Insurance Service Office, or ISO rating system and potential affects on fire insurance rates. He said the independent office was set up to do analyses of fire risk factors.

Morgan said one of the conclusions of the evening was that the ISO is not even used by some insurance companys in determining fire insurance costs. Morgan said State Farm Insurance is one such company. Guest speaker, Anne Lintz, an agent with State Farm Insurance did not say what specific criteria State Farm uses to determine fire insurance costs. She said it is up to individual companies to determine their own criteria.

The last ISO update for the Upcountry area was in 2004, Morgan said. Bellerive said the fire department itself updates the ISO ratings every two years.

The UCC’s fire committee head, Rich Farrington invited insurance agent Robert Manassero to report on the industry. Morgan said he talked about the Amador Water Agency and some debts they have, and said they are still hoping to get moving forward with the Gravity Supply Line.

Morgan said it was discussed frankly that the ratings have to do with how close your home sits to a fire hydrant or a fire station. They also discussed looking at an increase in the number of hydrants, and how it could change insurance. Lintz said it is only one of several factors, and costs are pretty stable right now, but it is not a good time to be shopping for fire insurance.

The Upcountry Community Council last week also talked about a plan to report to the Amador County Supervisors in regard to the proposed Buckhorn Town Center, which is now part of the drafted amended county General Plan. Morgan said the Council invited all 64 property owners within the boundaries of the proposed Buckhorn Town Center to come to a potluck dinner at the July UCC meeting. She said most important thing about community input is getting people involved.

That potluck meeting is 6-8 p.m. Monday, July 9 at the Veteran’s Memorial Hall on Buckhorn Ridge Road in Pioneer.

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Amador County – Sutter Creek City Council on Monday awarded a $1.6 million contract to realign Prospect Drive with Bowers Drive on Sutter Hill.

The Council followed city engineer Gary Ghio’s recommendation to award the Prospect Drive realignment project to George Reed Construction for his winning bid of $1.6 million, edging out Vinciguerra Construction’s $1.7 million and Doug Veerkamp’s bid of $1.9 million. The project will build a new intersection to align Bowers Drive with a newly built extension of Prospect Drive, to make a T-intersection. The project funding through Amador County Transportation Commission’s Regional Traffic Mitigation Fee program will run short of paying for signalization of the intersection.

Councilman Tim Murphy said ACTC and the Regional Traffic Mitigation fee program have approved a loan to the city to complete the signalization, but ACTC Executive Director Charles Field must go to member entities of ACTC to get their approval.

In public comment, former Councilman Pat Crosby said “the realignment project has been in the works for a long time and the drug store has labored under really trying conditions to try to get people in and out.” Walgreens opened at the corner of Ridge Road and Highway 49 in August 2010.

Crosby said Walgreens has been the anchor of the mall, and he did not know where the grocery store was that also planned a franchise there.

The Council voted 4-0 to authorize City Manager Sean Rabe to sign a contract and award the bid to George Reed Construction.

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Amador County – Amador County Supervisors last week said libraries in the Upcountry would stay open, though hours would be reduced in the new fiscal year budget approved by the board.

In public comment, Ann Christine McGee asked about library closures Upcountry. She said library computers helped people find jobs. Supervisor Chairman Louis Boitano said Pioneer and Pine Grove libraries would not be closed, but hours would be reduced. County Administrative Officer Chuck Iley said the Upcountry library operations would drop to 9 hours a week.

McGee asked if they had any discussions about what supervisors could do to increase revenues to the county, and not just make cuts. Iley said: “We constantly look at increased revenues.” He said he told department heads to reach a certain number for their budget, and they could reach that number by either cutting costs or increasing revenues. He said there is only so many fees you can put on users before you eliminate that use.

Supervisor Vice Chairman Richard Forster said “we are in a mode of cutting right now” and none of us on the Board think that the economy will rebound in the next couple of years. Reserves keep diminishing every year, and our revenue is primarily tax dollars.

Boitano said there was a downward trend in 1994, then there was a recovery and the county ratcheted up staff when it was needed. Lynn Morgan, chair of the Upcountry Community Council read a letter from the council asking the board to keep the library open, so people could use the resources, including computers, to find jobs.

Boitano said the community center underneath the Pine Grove Market has a computer lab, with computers he has purchased with his discretionary funds, which he has done for the last 15 years.

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Amador County – Amador Water Agency received a report on an Integrated Regional Groundwater Management Plan last week for the Camanche Water District Number 7, which took one-and-a-half years to compile.

AWA General Manager Gene Mancebo said “due to a long history of failing wells on the Lake Camanche Village water system, state regulators have put limitations on the number of connections allowed there until the Agency could complete a water sustainability study.”

Pat Dunn, president of Dunn Environmental, gave the AWA Board the results of the study that his firm conducted “to establish the quantity and quality of the water in the 12,000-acre Lake Camanche area groundwater basin.”

In 2008, AWA applied for a grant and in 2010, the agency received a $248,000 grant from the California Department of Water Resources to conduct the comprehensive study of the underground water in Camanche Water District Number 7, to develop a plan on how to best manage it.

“Dunn Environmental used monitoring and test wells, some almost 500 feet deep, to map the local geology and hydrogeology in the Camanche area,” Mancebo said. Dunn “studied weather data back to 1970 and looked at 268 local well yields over the course of a full year.”

The California Department of Water Resources has reviewed and accepted Dunn’s study. The full report is available on the AWA’s website, AmadorWater.org. It can also be read at the AWA customer service desk at the main office during normal business hours.

AWA President Gary Thomas called for a special board meeting at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 19, and part of the agenda will be discussion and possible action regarding repair or redevelopment of Well 14 in the Lake Camanche Water Improvement District No. 7.

Thomas called the special budget workshop meeting to review the proposed fiscal year 2012-2013 budget. The agenda also includes a review of proposed 2012-2013 capital improvement projects. Members of the public will have the opportunity to directly address the Agency Board of Directors concerning any item listed on the Special Meeting agenda.

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