Fortuna Exchange: Change in Fortuna

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Change in Fortuna

Good news this afternoon. Got a phone call from Paul Boylan, the attorney handling the Public Records Act case. He called to let me know that the city may be ready to give me copies as early as Friday. This is wonderful news.

I am a bit apprehensive, as the word is they are copying the whole Stewart Street Reservoir Replacement Project file. It goes way beyond what I asked for and could take a lot of time to sort through. But I agreed to that as a compromise assuming that otherwise staff time would have to be used to sort through it, and it might need to be someone with some familiarity with the project to distinguish which records were pertinent to my request.

A week ago the city released the first record, which was part of the first request I made back in September. Having finally figured out how to make it more readable than the earlier pages I posted on FortunaCitizen today.

For a little background on this read comments at Sohum Parlance

1 comment:

AnonymousFebruary 25, 2009 at 9:54 PM
congratulations and thank you, janelle. hooray for empowerment. it's truly appalling that things are the way they are, but the only way it's going to change is with efforts like yours.

these days, though; they remind me of that great Leonard Cohen song: Democracy is coming ... to the U...S...A...
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New tank or use Vancil Reservoir?

--The 5 million gallon Vancil reservoir has 4 million gallons of unused storage. It is up the street from the proposed tank. In Fortuna’s southeast there is an identified need for storage, but no proposed projects.

--The proposed 2 million gallon tank was sized only to meet current demand. With 4 million gallons of unused storage, Vancil will easily meet current and future growth needs in the north part of town.

--Built before the 1964 Christmas flood, Vancil was part of a water development program for a growing city with 5 wood products manufacturing plants. There is no evidence that it was ever intended as emergency storage.

--The City requested and was told there are no regulatory obstacles to using Vancil.

--The Water Bonds are not a legal obstacle to using Vancil, Fortuna is not required to build the proposed tank. The City Council can and has changed the 2006 bond funded projects

--We were told the water rate increase was to borrow money (sell bonds) that would fund "urgent projects" required to fulfill the City's "current operational responsibilities."

--A pipeline between Vancil and downtown will make 4 million gallons available, providing the 1 million gallons of fire reserve storage recommended for down town. The proposed tank has only 1/2 million gallons for fire reserve storage.

--Using Vancil will make bond funds available for other necessary projects, allowing us to avoid an unnecessary rate increase.

--We can safely and reliably use Vancil for 50 years and spend less than the cost of the proposed tank, plus interest.

--The 50-year estimate was based on the January 2009 Staff Report’s estimate of $10,000/year energy cost. Three months earlier, in September 2008, the City requested and received information that the actual cost would be half that, $5,000/year. Based on this, we could expect using Vancil would be significantly less than the proposed tank.

I still do not know the motivation for the tank, but I suspect and hope that this is a simple case of good intentions and faulty assumptions resulting in a misguided project.

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Fortuna Exchange

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Change in Fortuna

1 comment:

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Estimated cost: $4,500,000

New tank or use Vancil Reservoir?

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