Budget/Fiscal

The staff report to next week’s WAC meeting and attached letters of correspondence suggest that the West Sacramento water alternative is dead.  While Mayor Joe Krovoza believes this is the end of the line for the West Sacramento option, his colleague Brett Lee thinks it is too soon to close the door completely.

In an email to the Vanguard, Mayor Joe Krovoza expressed gratitude to council and staff for carrying forward the recommendations of the WAC in exploring further options with West Sacramento and Woodland.

COMMENTARY – When the WAC passed a compromise motion in mid-August they were clear that Woodland was their preferred alternative.  Indeed, several of the members of the WAC actually would have preferred recommending the Woodland option and moving on.

However, a sizable minority of the membership preferred keeping the West Sacramento alternative on the table for a variety of reasons.

COMMENTARY – The WAC did on Thursday what it had previously managed to avoid – a heavily-divided vote.  It may not be the most core issue, but DBO, and the question of public versus private is perhaps one of the top three secondary issues in the question on water.

The 5-3 contested vote went down along expected lines with Alf Brandt, Jerry Adler, Elaine Roberts Musser, Jim West and David Purkey voting in the motion to recommend DBO.  Mark Siegler, Bill Kopper and Michael Bartolic were in dissent.

By Kim Floyd –

Millions in federal funding are headed to Yolo County, thanks in large part to the efforts of local water suppliers seeking to minimize cost of service increases for their users. Reclamation District 2035 (RD 2035) and the Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency (WDCWA) announced today that the United States Bureau of Reclamation has authorized 16.7 million dollars toward the construction of a 39 million dollar joint water intake facility on the Sacramento River.

Of that amount, $8.3 million has been appropriated in the current fiscal year to allow construction in 2013. The balance of funding will be delivered as construction progresses.

Yesterday’s column on the decision of May 12, 2010, to push forward with a small one-year rate hike, and leave the heavy lifting for future councils, got me wondering what the best and the worst decisions of the council in the last six years (since the Vanguard started on July 30, 2006) were.

That eliminates two of the worst decisions – one that actually led to the formation of the Vanguard in July of 2006 and the other being Covell Village.  Two quick points on the rules for inclusion.  First, these are council decisions, which eliminates worst moments such as the Sue Greenwald-Ruth Asmundson fight or Stephen Souza shouting that they are the deciders.

West Sacramento Option is Not Realistic and Electoral Defeat Self-Defeating –

Davis residents will get to vote on water this March, but what their true options are at that point is not clear.  The good news for Davis residents appears to be that the project has been scaled down to a more reasonable size.  The further good news is that it appears that the city will fix the rate structure that is and has been problematic.

The bad news is that once voters finally step inside of a voting booth next March, their choice will largely have been made for them.

Last week at the Water Advisory Committee (WAC) hearings, the committee heard presentations on the Design-Build-Operate (DBO) process which Herb Niederberger, Davis’ General Manager of Utilities, Development and Operations, argued could save the city as much as five to ten million dollars over the course of the contract.

Much of the research backing that appears to be industry-oriented.

The Vanguard sees the pension reform legislation as one of the most significant pieces of state legislation impacting the finances of the city of Davis.

Ed Mendel of CalPension argues, “Pension reform approved by the Legislature last week gives many cities new cost-cutting power that some have been unable to win from public employee unions at the bargaining table.”