Notes #7 – Nov 2, 2009
1 - Monteverde Store Painting Project
A Volunteer group is starting to form, and we are putting
together a Volunteer list for those of you who would like to work on this
project. Pat Doran, Bob Fyock and I
have met on the site and started to look at possible needed repairs, prepping
that will be required and estimating cost for paint and materials. Once the cost estimates are complete, I will be making a presentation to the City
Council, probably this coming Monday night, to form a Volunteer program similar
to that working on the Landscape clean-up at Sutter Hill. We would like to get this project pretty
much completed before WINTER sets in.
One Special Person - We need someone who is artistic and/or
who paints signs to redo the "J. Monteverde - General Merchant" on the front of the building once it has
been painted.
Stay tuned for other potential work parties. See something that needs to fixed, cleaned
or picked-up in Sutter Creek? Let us
know and we'll see if we can do it.
2 - Historical Transcribing (Typing)
We have had three people, now five people!, volunteer to do the typing to convert the
old documents that we have into "text files" so that they can be
reset digitally. Once this is done, we
can get them laid out as they were originally published and printed out and
framed for additions to the Sutter Creek Community Center collection of
Historical prints. The projects are:
a) - A Poem
titled a "Sutter Creek Boy" written in 1920 by Joe H.
Cusanovich. This project has been
completed by Gretchen Kingsbury, thanks to Gretchen!! We can now get it reset and printed out for framing.
b) - The front
page of the Sacramento Union, September 10 1887. This is a full front page article about Sutter Creek with
graphics. We are looking at some different options for reproducing this
newspaper, but may still need to retype this front page.
3 - ARSA (Amador Regional Sanitation Agency). The ARSA Board discussed the proposal to
revisit the idea of a Regional Wastewater Plan for Central Amador County and
Ione. More detailed discussions will be
held at the next ARSA meeting of November 25.
ARSA will invite representatives from the various local agencies and
Cities (AWA, County of Amador, Amador City, Sutter Creek, Jackson and Ione) to
participate in this discussion. In the
mean time ARSA staff has been directed to meet with the City of Ione to
reestablish discussion on this matter and to encourage Ione participate in
future discussions. The Amador County
Board of Supervisors endorsed this idea at their meeting of 27 October and will
be sending a letter to the City of Sutter Creek encouraging the City Council to
take another look at Regional Planning for Wastewater. The Board of Supervisors briefly discussed
the option of forming a regional JPA (Joint Powers Agreement) to govern such a
Regional Wastewater Operation, should it develop in the future.
4 - Sutter Creek City Council Meeting - Monday Night -
November 2nd at 7pm. Items on the
Agenda will include the City Budget and the Gold Rush Ranch project. Please plan to attend, if you have interest
in either of these items.
a) Gold Rush
brought back revised proposals for the the grading requirements for the project
which the full Council will now consider.
This matter is not on the Agenda for Monday night but other items are under
Item #4 - GOLD RUSH RANCH PROJECT -
Discussion/Action - A) Adoption of
General Plan Amendments, B) Adoption of Gold Rush Ranch Specific Plan, C)
Approval of Phased Vesting Large Lot Tentative Subdivision Map and D) Adoption
of Zoning Ordinance Amendments.
b) Hopefully,
the Council will be announcing areas that they have explored for further
reducing the 2009/2010 budget to bring it into balance. On the Council Agenda that came on Friday,
the Consent Agenda contains a Resolution for Approving and Adopting the
Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2009/10.
Please see my note to the City Council below. I would ask that you E-mail and/or contact
the Council Members on this item. And
attend the meeting on Monday night.
Mayor Wooten and Council Members
Please remove from the Consent Agenda the Resolution for
Approving and Adopting the Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2009/10.
At the last meeting where the City Budget was discussed, I
felt that the Council would be exploring and taking further action to reduce
the budget deficit. Has the Council
explored the option of contracting with the Sheriff's Office for Police
services and has there been a response from the Sheriff? It was suggested that the Council would look
at options for contracting out for some other services, rather than continuing
to have City Staff; what options have you looked at and what can you report?
Is the Budget that you are proposing to adopt with this
resolution balanced? If it is not
balanced, how far out of whack is it?
Have the numbers been revised since the last proposed budget was
available to the Public?
I believe that there will be considerable interest to
further discuss this years budget before you adopt this resolution. "When you find yourself in a hole, Stop
Digging!"
Thank you for your time and consideration of this matter.
Ed Arata
267-0717
Please plan to attend, if you are interested in either of these agenda items. Remember - "Democracy is NOT a Spectator Sport."