About District 4

Fourth District, Calaveras County, CA

Altaville | Angels Camp | Douglas Flat | Murphys | Vallecito

Infrastructure Blues

Many issues that come before the City Council are discussed in one or more of the City's committees and commissions. I believe that serving on these committees and other inter-governmental bodies has been part of being prepared to serve on the Board of Supervisors.

Today, I'll share some thoughts on working in committees. These groups work more informally that the City Council. Generally, they are made up of a couple of Council members, City staff and interested members of the public. I currently serve on the Personnel/Finance and Infrastructure committees.

While the committee meetings are informal, they still obey the Brown Act. All proceedings are open to the public -- the Infrastructure committee meets on the third Friday of the month at 8:30am, usually at the Hwy 4 Fire Station.

This week's meeting covered a board range of topics, from a possible skateboard park to gauges used to monitor the diffusion of treated water into Angels Creek. As is usual, some topics were brought to the committee's attention by concerned citizens. Other issues come as a result of new state and federal regulations. Sometimes the two interact -- the proposed user fees at New Melones is a good example. We discussed the impact of the special event fees on local fishing tournaments -- events that generate a lot of revenue for local businesses. It was particularly good to see the committee function as a forum for the private and public parties to come together to share their perspectives. I believe that constructive dialogues are foundation of effective action.

The Infrastructure Committee also addresses the continuing problem of water and sewer rate increases. These increases are primarily driven by state and federal regulations which every treatment plant must conform to. It is clear that the costs of compliance are going to continue to go up. In my personal opinion, having considered many alternatives, there only two left: add a use tax or unite operations. I plan to present a careful consideration of these options. For now, just let me explain the two.

A "use tax" is simply an additional type of sales tax. There are some minor technical difference between them; but for most of us, they're the same. Adding a use tax in Angels Camp would generate additional revenue that would be earmarked not to the General Fund, but exclusively for the water and waste water Enterprise Accounts. The tax money could slow or temporarily halt rate increases. Such a tax must be approved by the City voters. Obviously, this does nothing for the non-City water and sanitary districts.

The second option is to bring independent special districts, including the City, into some form of unified utilities organization. The fundamental objective of this would be to achieve an economy of scale so that the costs of operational compliance is spread across enough ratepayers to lessen the individual impact. For example, the cost of a testing a sample can be $100 regardless of size of the volume of water the sample was taken from. If the test is paid for by 1,000 ratepayers, it costs each one 10 cents. Double the number of ratepayers to halve the per test cost. Creating economies of scale requires both engineering and organizational skills. In addition, it would require approval from the impacted voters and other government agencies. In the most elegant form, unified utility operation would treat water at the top of the Highway 4 corridor, and treat wastewater at the bottom of the corridor, using gravity to move both.

I'll be sharing a more specific proposal in the near future.

As always, please use the "Write Lee" link to share your thoughts.