Occidental Community Services District

Regular Board Meeting

September 21, 2010

The meeting was called to order at 7:05 without Director Gerner (she announced last month that she was planning on leaving the Board and suggested Jeff Twedell as a suitable replacement). Directors present were Chris Martin and Johnny Gonnella, along with President Ron Lunardi and Secretary Missy Freeman. Also present were a simply unprecedented number of members of the general public. They got right into it as the meeting opened with their comments.

Public Comments

Bill Wadsworth spoke first. He shared that the Press Democrat had recently run an article about the Occidental Water System that quoted the system operator, Hal Woods of Russian River Utility, as saying that Occidental water was not diverted from the Sonoma County Water Agency. Bill felt that this was an inaccurate statement and the Board should step in to correct the information. The Board did not agree.

Ron pointed out that the Board was not involved, that the issue, if issue there was, was between Hal and the Press Democrat. He added that Hal’s wife had just suffered a serious heart attack, so he wouldn’t be talking to Hal soon in any case. Johnny agreed that the Board did not need to get involved.

Former Board President Steve McNeal gave a report on the state of the sewer system. He and Jeff met with the Mike Thompson at the SC Water Agency. The current strategy is to develop a new 12 million gallon holding pond on the same property as the existing pond. The current pond would be turned over to the property owner for his own use. A capital improvement bond is not an option, so the entire cost would have to be borne by the ratepayers, though the Water Agency would continue to subsidize it to a large extent. But so long as they hold the permit, they want to be in control, which minimizes local input while maximizing overhead.

Getting hot under the collar

As is common when discussing money, things began to get a bit heated as we entered the budget hearing. Bill, in particular, heated things up with repeated queries, confusion between proposed and actual budgets and a faintly antagonistic air. He would frequently express dissatisfaction with the way things were handled. Apparently, he sat on the budget committee with Missy and Johnny last March, but didn’t seem to remember much of what had been discussed there. One began to get the impression that a dead horse was not safe around this man. 

In the end, the discussion wound up not being terribly interesting. We did learn that Bill had written several letters of complaint to a bevy of state agencies, in one case necessitating a $40,000 expense to prove his allegations wrong. There didn’t seem to be much love lost between Mr. Bill and the Board. He seemed unfazed by their arguments, if a little bewildered, and they equally unmoved by his. Well, unmoved is not exactly the right word, because I did notice a little heat coming out from under their collars. Let’s just say they were unconvinced.

The rest of the budget held few surprises. The largest single expense, out of the Water budget, went to Hal Woods and Russian River Utility. The exact amount paid is spread over different categories, but seems to be between $30K and $50K per year. The only other people making money are the bookkeepers, who take home a total of $18,000 each year from the combined agency, and town Mayor Unelect Ranger Rick, who is paid a whopping $200/month to maintain the entire downtown. That amount includes landscaping and garbage disposal, and the service comes replete with that priceless Ranger je ne sais quois. But he is lucky to get even that paltry amount, apparently; there had been talk of dropping it to $100/month until it was discovered he was covering the dumping costs out of his own pocket.

The red and the black

As it turned out, the Water budget did have a little surprise. The Board had been under the impression that the District was losing money on water, but according to the budget, they are in the black—well in the black, spending just under $75,000 rather than the projected $90,700, on revenues of $86,000. It looks like the Board may not have to discuss raising rates quite as soon as they thought they would. 

But then again, there is that sewer pond to build, so rates may be rising, after all. An astute woman in the back of the room did point out that the $150,000 surplus from the 2007/2008 did not appear in either the 09/10 or 10/11 budgets. She wondered where that money went. Missy assured here it was in the account, just not in the budget. The three budgets, after repeated reassurances from Missy that they were merely works in progress and could be altered as needed, were accepted by the Board. The appropriations limit for the Fire Department was set at $216,402.

There was no Fire correspondence and Chief Ron Lunardi had nothing to report, so we moved to Water. The Water District received a public records request from Bill Wadsworth (he had one last month, too), there was a diversion report from Hal and a letter from the Department of Public Health. Two people were inquiring about connections, but their previous payment history had to be determined before an answer about cost could be given. Bill wanted to know who they were, but Ron said the information was not public yet. Bill insisted that it was.

“We’re just talking about it right now,” explained Ron. “They haven’t made a formal request.” Bill appeared mollified by this explanation and let the matter drop.

There was no report from Hal, and my thoughts go out to his wife. The Ad Hoc rates committee, represented by Johnny Gonnella and Steve McNeal (who had managed to get a letter written in the interim), said they had met and gotten a lot of work done and were planning on meeting again. They were held up slightly because their compatriot Jeff, who is in possession of the cool tech tool designed to help small agencies determine appropriate rate structures, was out of town. They will report back next month.

Adjournment

There being no correspondence regarding Community Services (total budget: $20,000),the meeting was adjourned.

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