Friendly Fortuna at it's finest...

early days of General Plan update

Another wonderful example.  

River Lodge filled again to make sure a tank didn't go in Rohner Park...

Last year was a different story...

(thanks Doug for trying)

The project they decided not to discuss?  
A new tank down the street from Vancil reservoir, where twice the storage of the proposed tank is sitting unused. 


However, rules are rules, 

so here's two years of information gathering whittled down to three minutes: 

 Why are we building a new tank?

Planning for the future is great, but first there's an obligation to spend the money as promised.  

I think Mr. Glaser has forgotten about Resolution 2006-25 passed and adopted by the City Council in 2006 to justify the rate increases.  It says the money's for

"projects that are required to fulfill the City's current operational responsibilities and are not driven by future development." 
  
Vancil reservoir was built in 1963.  We've spent more than $1/2 million to reline and upgrade it, but a new pipeline and larger pumps are still needed.

Isn't it time we use it?
Ironically Vancil has twice the storage we need today. 
So this reservoir can also provide for future city needs. 


The Council needs to know we are concerned that money raised for current needs is being spent on a project we may not need for 20 years or more. 

The Council needs to hear from you.

More on the tank issue...

Jan 18 meeting

If you saw Doug Strehl at the Dec 7th Council meeting suggest to the Council a public meeting on the tank issue, give him a call and thank him. Even if you didn't see it, call and thank him anyway. The difference between a hearing and a workshop is that the rules for public participation are more relaxed. It appears to me to have been a valiant attempt to provide a time to actually look at the tank issue, to hear what people think about it.

The Mayor agreed with the idea, even suggesting extensions of time could be allowed. He then asked the City Manager his opinion, and it looked like a go. They didn't ask the other three council members. But that isn't necessary because the City Manager, consulting with the Mayor, sets the meeting schedule. That task is delegated to him. Somehow, somewhere the idea got dropped. At the early January meeting, it was back to making both decisions at one meeting (to certify the negative declaration and approve the next step in the process). When the final agenda came out it is now just one agenda item. That means only one public hearing. What a wonderful time saving idea. I called and checked. There will be no extensions of time for speakers, no electronic images, and no expressing the opinion that the new tank isn't necessary. Anyway, that's the rules for the public. Except the last one, that one violates the Brown Act.

In any case, Doug Strehl deserves our thanks for trying to open the process up. Please call him, serving on the council shouldn't be a thankless job. He's in the phone book. I would save you the time, but I fear those little webby information gathering devices would pick up the number and put him on some call list.

If you have a bit more time call another member of the council and ask what their views are on public participation. Ken Zanzi, Mel Berti, Pat Whitchurch and Dean Glaser are all in the phone book.

Monday is the meeting. I know that one voice carries no weight, especially when that voice is saying something they don't want to hear. But I'll be there, a martyr to free speech and public participation. Please don't pity me, I hate pity. Understand that I believe in it. It actually can be fun. Come on down Monday, I could use some company. Oh, yes. It is at 6pm at the Courthouse.

Here is the link to my visual presentation I won't be showing. I checked the box for no sign-in required, hope it works. If you would like a hard copy leave that in a comment. I'll try to have one for you at the meeting. Also, I'll be giving a hard copy to the Council members, so it should be available at City Hall after the meeting. This is about the project, because that is what is on the agenda. The city reservoir at Vancil is not on the agenda.

Can we save millions?

Perhaps we can...Here is the link to a comparison of costs of new 2MG and using Vancil.
Please note that this has been given to the city, but was not prepared by the city. This statement is not meant to imply anything negative about staff. As has been pointed out in a poll comment here, the staff has many projects they are working on. I would add that staff was never asked to prepare information on Vancil, as far as I know. Of course there are some remaining unknowns and you need to know that the person who prepared this is neither an accountant nor an engineer. The important thing is that there is now a draft comparison and hopefully soon a definitive cost comparison.

What now?

Hopefully, the attorneys are wrapping up Egger v City of Fortuna. I went into this with an understanding with myself: I believe that the city is trying to provide information and be more open, but we had a serious disagreement over the interpretation of two parts of the California Public Records Act.

We disagreed about whether all preliminary records can be withheld from the public and if the City can reject a request without an attempt to help identify records. I have received the preliminary information used to prepare the Vancil portion of the staff report and the City was able to provide it without a specific list from me (how could I know what information they used to prepare their report?). I feel receiving the information shows that the City has rethought its interpretation. Having been told that I can make further requests related to this, if needed, I have confirmed my wish to end the lawsuit.

My attorney, Paul Boylan, asked what I would do next? I've thought about that a bit and decided to take another friend's advise and do a poll. Look to the right and you will see it under "What Now?" It is part tongue-in-cheek fun, part real curiosity. Check as many boxes as you wish.

But first, if you have a chance, please check out fortunacitizen, where I ask, "Why don't we use Vancil?" The lawsuit, remember, was to aid my work looking into the possibility of using Vancil reservoir instead of building a new one nearby(possible savings: 2.5 to 3 million dollars). Much of what I've found is there, organized roughly by the questions I asked as I went along. Take a look, and don't forget to come back and let me know what you think.
thanks.

PS here is a preview of the questions at fortunacitizen:

1. Where does Fortuna store it's water? Not counting the 2 failing, there are 4 reservoir/tanks.
   
2. Does Fortuna need more water storage? Possibly in the south, not in the north.
   
3. Is there enough emergency storage? Yes, even without the 2 failing tanks. A remaining question: what is the weak-link in an emergency?
   
4. Are there alternatives to spending more than $4 million on a new water tank? yes
   
5. Didn't City staff conclude that using Vancil was "not prudent at any cost savings? Yes, now they need to support their conclusion.
   
6. What information did staff use to come to their conclusion? There is not a lot of documented information collection.
   
7. Wouldn't using Vancil risk relying on PRV valves? The city uses PRV valves.
   
8. Do the Water Revenue Bonds require building a new reservoir to replace those at Stewart Street? No.
   

Go to fortunacitizen for more information.

Not so public, after all

My apologies if you tried to view the released records yesterday and found you needed a google account to view. When I tested it, the link worked like a charm, but of course I was logged on to my google account at the time. Sigh...

I tried scribd.com, no luck. So, at this time the options are: create a google account (easy); send an email to fortuna.sunshine@yahoo.com, subject: released records (easy for you, I'm happy to send); or go ask for them at City Hall (great if you are out for a walk, you can look at or pay for a copy thanks to City Staff)

Let the sun shine in

Now available to the public, the records that took a lawsuit to get released.

Awhile back Anonymous at SoHum Parlance wrote "Please explain in a bit more detail exactly what was withheld from you; I'd really like to know." It was quite frustrating, but I had to write, "my counsel instructs me not to say anything about the case for now." Seemed like an odd response from someone asking the City to be more open. But that is what happens when you enter lawsuit land.

I so wanted to avoid uttering those words that I spent hours researching and then writing a letter to explain to the City that the California Public Records Act, State Constitution and the courts all agree that they should share with me the information they were gathering on using the underutilized Vancil reservoir instead of building a new tank 1/4mile away at Sewart Street . The final response: "we do not know of any reports or items held or retained by the City as requested."

Despite my derisive "lawsuit land" comment above, I'm proud to live in a country that has a court system that allows for challenges to questionable practices by government officials. Perhaps one sticking point was that the City didn't understand what I meant by "consultant or staff reports regarding the investigation of using the existing Vancil Street reservoir for zone1 water storage." All I can say to that is I'm glad I have a sense of humor and a belief in the ability of people to change.

Now, back to those public records. All this was so that hopefully I would be the last to hit a brick wall at City Hall. The writer mentioned above is right not all city records are public, but most of them are.
And I was so happy about making whatever was in that envelope I picked up last Friday available to the public I immediately went over and had them scanned into a pdf file. Joke was on me, I discovered I couldn't post a pdf file directly on FortunaCitizen, or at least if it is possible I couldn't figure out how. Luckily, after much trial and error, I talked to my son. He pointed me in the right direction and after more trial and error the records are there, where ever 'there' is. And you can see them, too because they are public records.
The link requires a google account. Don't have one? It is easy and free, or fortuna.sunshine@yahoo.com will be happy to email pdf file to you; please use "released records" for email subject.

Anticipated litigation

Happy to see some new faces at last night's special meeting on the 5-year CIP. Trying to stay in my 3 minute time slot, I delivered a quick thank you for the release of the preliminary records that are the subject of my lawsuit. Also gave the Council (and Planning Commission since it was a Joint Session) the happy news: No need to worry about litigation if they decided not to build a new 2MG tank. I cautioned them, of course, that they should check with their attorney to make certain. Seems a stretch that someone would sue because the city decided to spend $2million to use theVancil reservoir, instead of $4million to build another down the street, but there were some litigation concerns expressed.

Back at the January 12th Special meeting we heard the sobering news. It came toward the end of the meeting, after the public comments, just before comments from Council members, as I remember. The news that because of wording in the bond papers the City risked a lawsuit if they dared to do anything besides build a new 2MG tank .

I thought it odd at the time, usually such news is delivered in Closed Session. But no, the news came at the well attended Jan 12th Special meeting in the River Lodge. I think I remember some caveat, that because the City doesn't often do the bonding thing (borrow money) there could be some unremembered protection. Well, the good news is it looks like a case of faulty memory, that the City Council has the ability to decide the best way to spend the bond money. That is as long as it is specified in a Certificate of the City (someone must know what that is). I've posted some of the bond wording and a link to the whole 144 pages on FortunaCitizen.

I may need help, though. The Cover contains this dire warning:

Official Statement is submitted in connection with the sale of the 2006 Bonds referred to herein and may not be reproduced or used, in whole or in part, for any other purpose.

I hope an acceptable purpose is informing those who are going to pay the interest and redemption (principal) payments.

p.s. a bit of city financing info from the Jan 9, '09 agenda packet, pages 35-37:

New 2 million gallon water tank?

Gathering signatures on the No to Tank in Park petition I noticed three types of people: 1- those with questions/comments who then signed the petition, 2- those who said, "put it in the park, we need the water" and 3- those who signed without a word and then in response to my "thanks, they can find another place for it" said, "we don't need it."

After looking into this a bit more, I'm pretty convinced that a 2 million gallon tank is not needed at Stewart Street and that there are more pressing needs. Some of what I've found is now at FortunaCitizen.

Anyone interested in using money wisely? How about investing in solar and fixing the weak links in the water system?