Last Thursday’s CCSD meeting had a larger than usual crowd of Cambrians, most of whom came to speak and view the outcome of the Rate Protest tabulations – though that was not the only item on the agenda that will affect us all in the next several years. Board President Joan Cobin rearranged the agenda to move the Rates issue to about fifteen minutes into the meeting, instead of after the staff reports, committee reports and consent agenda, as in the published agenda. I applaud her desire to “get right to business”, though the representatives from the League of Women Voters (Sara Horn and President Ann Garfinkel) missed at least half of the report from by General Manager Tammy Rudock on the counting. Ms. Horn and Ms. Garfinkel were only at the meeting very briefly, leaving before the public comments and before the Board officially accepted the League’s report. Watch their report by clicking here:
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I also missed the start of item VIII A, having planned my arrival based on the original schedule. Fortunately, the Board meetings are recorded, so I was able to catch up on what I missed later – and Cambrians who had come pretty much only for this item seemed appreciative that it was given priority and moved to the start of the meeting.
Excerpts of that part of the meeting will soon be available at Google video and audio is, as always, available at Slo-span.org. I encourage anyone who couldn’t get to the meeting to watch the conversation and deliberation of the Board that followed the public comments and lead to the unanimous approval of a resolution to raise the rates 12% and revisit the issue next year to determine if an additional 14% is really needed.
The bottom line, as Kathe Tanner notes in the week’s Cambrian, is that the Water and Wastewater enterprise funds will have more money in them to keep the system running and the effect on our pocketbooks won’t be as severe as initially proposed. The Board also directed that staff shouldn’t use any staff time to pursue a loan of any size until getting further direction from the Board.
I applaud the entire Board for the time they all clearly put into considering how to move forward. No matter what the actual number of accounts or valid protest letters, there was a clear and strong message from half of the community, and a pretty loud silence from the other half. Muril Clift’s measured approach showed he had spoken to his constituents and had the best interests of the community and the CCSD at heart when he came up with an alternative most in the community find reasonable.
More excerpts will be available in the next couple of days. Watch some of the public comments made on this item and Art Montandon’s responses to questions raised by Cambrians in their comments.
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Last 5 posts by Amanda Rice
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