Thanks Amanda. This looks like pretty interesting reading. I have printed it out and will read it. Having only scanned it and seen your highlights brings up something I have been wondering about. Since CCSD has opted not to access its appropriative right to Santa Rosa Creek water over mtbe concerns, does it risk losing that right? Could a competing user (ie, a new district formed by property owners who CCSD refuses to serve) get an appropriative right to the water that CCSD shuns, put in the treatment systems necessary, and use the water to support new building permits?

What would stop the formation of such a district? Would local efforts to stop such a district stand up to a legal challenge?

This is interesting reading, but it has little application in Cambria. This paper is mainly focused on issues LAFCo’s will face connected with how proposed new tracts will get water service. LAFCo has to sign off before a new tract is approved. County approval of Cambria’s tract map precedes Cortese Knox Hertzberg, SB 221 and SB 610 by a century. From its inception, CCSD assumed responsibility for the tract as we know it today. In addition, all lots were assessed to pay for the sewage treatment plant (the one we are not connected to), and for years up until passage of Prop 218 (the law CFR likes so much lately) all lots were charged a “water availability charge”. Only when Prop 218 told CCSD they actually had to deliver something if they were going to charge fees did they suspend the practice. Do you think you are expected to deliver anything for all the years you did levy the fee?
Do note on lines 4-6 page 4 that it explains that LAFCos cannot engage in land use decisions.
Land use decisions are made the the County of SLO, and in our case they said long ago “build houses”.