LAKEPORT, Calif. – Last week the Lakeport City Council heard a presentation on what's ahead for groundwater management, honored a local Boy Scout troop, and considered changes to a parks grant and city code.
The meeting took place on Tuesday, Sept. 15, at Lakeport City Hall.
Councilwoman Mireya Turner was absent from the meeting, as she was busy working in the county's Emergency Operations Center, which is activated due to the Valley fire.
The meeting began with honors for Boy Scout Troop No. 42, founded in November 1953, which has taken on the responsibility of placing flags throughout the city during important holidays.
Mayor Martin Scheel presented the troop – which in its history has produced 54 Eagle Scouts – with a certificate of achievement to thank members.
Scheel said troop members place the flags on federal holidays – President's Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Labor Day and Veterans Day – on Main Street.
Brent Hinchcliff, the troop's senior patrol leader and one of its Eagle Scouts, came forward to receive the proclamation along with the rest of the troop.
“Our Boy Scout troop, as you can see, has had a wonderful time in Lake County, and it's all thanks to all of the adults that make it possible,” Hinchcliff said, adding that the adults donate their time to take them on outings, and help them with finances.
He also thanked his fellow Scouts “for their dedication to the community and each other.”
The meeting featured a presentation from Lake County Department of Public Works Director Scott De Leon on the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires the creation of a groundwater sustainability plan.
The act requires local management of groundwater to sustainable levels without causing “undesirable results,” De Leon said. He said the county is prepared to be the lead agency on the effort.
Lake County has 13 recognized groundwater basins, De Leon said, two of which are considered “medium priority” based on population and projected growth; water use; degree of groundwater reliance as the primary source of water; and any documented impacts.
He showed well monitoring information from the Big Valley basin, where the county Department of Water Resources monitors 46 of the wells on a monthly basis, and the rest of them twice annually.
De Leon shows a hydrograph of water elevations in Big Valley going back to 1966. The graphs showed that the highs and lows in the basin have become less pronounced over the last several decades.
“We have trended using less water out of this particular well,” he said.
Though the data he showed was from just one well, he said it reflected the basin's trends. “We're seeing less water being used in the basin,” he said, which largely is due to changes in agriculture. In particular, that region has lost most of its pears, which were flood irrigated.
The basin tends to recharge; it even did so after the severe drought in the late 1970s. “The basin is recharging and it's sustainable. It's not declining,” De Leon said.
In the Scotts Valley basin, De Leon said there are fewer wells and more pronounced highs and lows. “They use a lot more water in that basin.”
Important dates for fulfilling the state law include adopting regulations for basin boundary adjustments by Jan. 31, 2016; adopting regulations for evaluating the adequacy of groundwater sustainability agencies and plans by June 1, 2016; formation by a local agency of a groundwater sustainability agency by June 30, 2017; development of a groundwater sustainability plan for basins in critical overdraft by Jan. 31, 2020; and development of such a plan for basins not in critical overdraft by Jan. 31, 2022.
He said Lakeport is in the Scotts Valley basin designation, and so the city will have a seat at the table in that groundwater sustainability agency, the structure and governance of which has yet to be determined.
De Leon said the state will provide assistance through consultation to facilitate the formation of the groundwater sustainability agencies, with funding available for creating the plans.
The county is participating in a working group through the California State Association of Counties and Rural County Representatives of California to create draft guidelines and regulations, he said.
“That's where we are. We've got a little bit of time. We're waiting to see what the rules and regulations are,” De Leon said, adding they're waiting to see the first agency throw out a plan to find out how many people sue them.
Councilman Kenny Parlet said it seemed like tackling the groundwater issue was long overdue. He said it was brought on by several continuous years of drought, and asked if De Leon thought it was something that everyone should have been thinking of years ago.
“For as progressive as California is in many other realms, we're one of the last states in the nation that actually has a program like this,” De Leon said. “We're way behind the eight ball on this.”
Due to the new rules and requirements for dealing with water rights, he raised the issue again of litigation. “It's probably going to get messy.”
Solid waste rates to rise 1 percent, city code updated
In other business, the council held a public hearing for a 1-percent rate increase in solid waste costs to cover the city taking over the commercial billing services in its universal garbage collection contract with Lakeport Disposal. The city received only three written protests and would have needed 1,215 to stop the increase.
The council also approved City Manager Margaret Silveira's proposal to change a housing-related parks grant from an irrigation pipeline project for Westside Community Park to a new bathroom at the Fifth Street boat ramp.
Silveira said Lakeport was awarded the $80,820 by the California Department of Housing and Community Development based on the city's amount of affordable house.
In studying the pipeline project, she said city staff discovered “substantial issues” with the existing pipeline they had hoped to use. “There's quite a bit of pipeline that is missing.”
The city's water plant also would have to be turned off when using the irrigation line. “It's just much more complicated than we anticipated,” Silveira said.
She said the state is willing to let the city change the project, thus the move to the new bathroom. She said the city has received numerous complaints from the public over the current bathroom facility there.
Community Development Director Kevin Ingram received the council's unanimous approval on some “general cleanup” matters in the Lakeport Municipal Code relating to expedited permitting procedures for small residential rooftop solar systems, imposing additional licensing fees on fortunetellers, and allowing for the issuance of special parking permits for residential units in the central business district that don't have access to on-site parking.
The matter regarding additional license fees for fortunetellers came up, Ingram said, because the city was approached by a man who wanted to open a fortunetelling business.
The city code from 1959 put a punitive restriction on fortunetelling, which Ingram said constitutes protected speech and therefore can't incur extra costs. His proposed changes were a “quick fix” to the code, he said.
Regarding the special parking permits in the business district, Ingram said the city wants to encourage a mixed use of residential and commercial to promote a healthier downtown. He said the permits are mostly sought in the 100 block of Main Street.
He said he, Silveira and Police Chief Brad Rasmussen reviewed the request, and concluded that less than five permits likely were to be offered in that area. The code changes would allow Rasmussen to give qualifying residents such permits on an annual basis. They would be prevented from parking in front of commercial buildings or establishments.
Of the fortuneteller code change, Scheel quipped, “I wonder if they saw this coming in 1959.”
Each of the code changes were approved unanimously.
In other news, as part of meeting the technical requirements for US Department of Agriculture funding for the city's new police station on Main Street, Finance Director Dan Buffalo took to the council the first reading of a proposed ordinance to create a Lakeport industrial authority. A public hearing on the item will be held on Oct. 6.
Buffalo also received the council's approval on a resolution authorizing him and Silveira to work with a financing team to pursue an option to collateralize certain city assets – including Lakeport City Hall – in order to seek a loan to restructure the city's unfunded pension liabilities through CalPERS.
He said they are seeking a $3.1 million bond issue to pay down half of the liabilities, which came from CalPERS' losses in the market over the last several years.
“The numbers we see are encouraging,” he said, noting they are still negotiating options.
In addition to City Hall, Buffalo said administrative staffers are looking at the remaining asset pool to see what other properties would be appropriate to use for the plan.
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Lakeport City Council hears about groundwater rules, honors Boy Scout troop
- Elizabeth Larson
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