mountainecho.com

Fall River attorney Jim Reed (pictured right), who practices general law, in the Valley and the Bay Area, told the Shasta Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) that they had two months to straighten up their act and start doing Municipal Service Reviews (MSR) and Sphere of Influence (SOI) studies they were mandated to do every five years by law. He said his decision to sue or not to sue would be based on whether or not significant progress was made in those areas.
According to LAFCO Executive Officer Amy Mickelson, of the 35 agencies they work on, 17 are exempt by the board’s current policy and the remaining 18 are in various stages of the review process. When asked in a Mountain Echo interview who retained him, initially Reed declined to say, then when told that Terry Briggs, husband of Fall River Valley Community Service District board member Barbara Briggs, told that board he had retained an attorney to sue LAFCO, Reed said it was no secret that Terry Briggs was one of the individuals who was retaining him. He emphasized that it was not the CSD, but by individuals.
He told LAFCO, the Redding Record Searchlight and Mountain Echo that he was representing 56 special district and the three cities in Shasta County. When told of at least two districts who hadn’t heard anything about the suit and hadn’t voted to be a part, he said that he would be contacting them within the two months he had allowed before filing the suit.
He also said this was the type of suit authorized by the California Government Code where the judge didn’t have to consider winner or loser, but could order that the government agency being sued, in this case LAFCO, to pay the attorney fees and court costs.

Mayers Memorial Hospital District is asking local residents to write their state legislators and ask them to support Assembly Bill AB 900 which would halt implementation of cuts to reimbursement for Medi- Cal services provided by distinct part skilled nursing facilities. Sample letters are available on the Mayers Memorial Hospital website or from Mountain Echo.
Passage of AB900 is imperative for Mayers Memorial. The pending cuts to MediCal would have adverse effects on the facility, employees and the economic stability of our rural community.

“The federal wildland fire policy has not changed since 1995. Neither the direction issued last year nor my letter this year represented a shift in Forest Service policy for fighting fires,” USFS Chief Tom Tidwell said in a statement Monday.
“We always look at the conditions that exist around each fire, season, our available resources, and then provide guidance to the field. It takes resources to suppress fires, and to manage them for resource benefits. We do have a set amount of expertise in this country but when we get a wildfire season like we did last year, we have to take some steps to manage just how much fire we can have on the landscape.
“So last year we asked forests to elevate decisions on wildfires to the regional forester. Based on this year’s projections, we no longer see that as a necessary step at this time.

John Heil, spokesman for the Lassen National Forest says there will be no change of policy from previous years on the Lassen. On the Modoc where they do have a limited managed burn policy, the change is that any decision on fires in those areas will be made by the Forest Supervisor and not the regional supervisor.

Is Fall River Valley Community Services District (Fall River) to pay or not pay its $8,785.55 invoice, was the lengthiest item on the recent Local Agency Formation Commission’s (LAFCo) agenda last Thursday. There are those who contend the bill is too high, overbilling occurred, LAFCO billed for items it shouldn’t have and the district doesn’t have the financial means to pay its invoice.
LACFO’s chief executive officer Amy Mickelson explained that Fall River’s former general manager said the district would pay the expenses it incurred for the sphere of influence (SOI) endeavor, and signed an agreement to that effect. At the last LAFCO meeting, the commissioners directed Mickelson to ask the district four questions regarding the invoice: how much time the district needs, what issues does it have with the invoice, what is its’ capacity to pay off the invoices, and any alternative ideas on how to pay the bills. To date, Mickelson said, “none of the questions have been answered.” She added, “Other agencies shouldn’t have to bear.

Donna and I were able to go to the Burney Booster/Baseball Crab Feed and Raffle Saturday night. I left stuffed, impressed by the turn out and delighted by the attentive service of the baseball team.
I couldn’t help but reflect that a large number of the adults in the room had been kids the same age as the baseball players serving tables. had bought music or books from Donna at Caldwell’s Corner and who I had covered in sports, plays, Burney Basin Days or other events.
Now they were there to support their kids or already had kids who had graduated and who had kids.
I was also impressed with the school’s principal, Mr. Guerrero and his staff.
Burney has been working on their school spirit for years and it appears that under the leadership of Mr. Guerrero they have it nailed down.
On another issue – Regarding Mayers, Memorial Hospital is facing a real threat to its survival when it comes to possible Medi-Cal cuts.
The CEO, board, staff and citizenry have been waging a war to save the income and thus, likely, the hospital as we know it.
Yes, the facts remain the same. Mayers is not twisting facts, forgetting things they would rather not remember, or doing things behind closed doors that should be done in public.
They are waging their all-out war in a way that will, with continued community support, win the day.
Yes, you are being asked to write another letter with the same facts and the same message, possibly to the same people.
Those letters help. They show that we want our hospital. They show that we are concerned. They also let the hospital association, MediCal agency, along with Mayers staff and patients know just how important the survival of Mayers and thus their survival is to each of us.
Sample letters and the addresses of the legislators are available on the Mayers web site or by stopping by Mayers. I urge everyone to send another one. You aren’t wasting your stamp.

BURNEY — Three of the board of Directors present at the Burney Water District’s monthly meeting, President Tim McCammon (pictured above with Laborers Local 185 Business Representative Gary Sharetten) and directors Roger Borkey and Fred Ryness came out of their closed session last Thursday to ratify and sign the Memorandum of understanding they had reached with the Burney Water District and Burney Classified Association and the BCEA and Laborers Local 185. The document must be signed by the labor side before any details of the memorandum will be made public. Water board directors Valerie Dickinson and Cindy Dodds were absent.
Rick Matson and Dan Gibbs, of Sol Haven Development Partners, LLC appeared before the board for the second month. The pair had told the board in January that they would have a solar farm letter of intent to present in February and the letter, from Fenway Energy Group, was in the board packet. However Matson and Gibbs asked that the letter be discarded, that Fenway Group, had changed the game plan, and was not giving the district what Sol Haven had been led to believe. Fenway Group had found another backer which would give the Water District a lot more.

McARTHUR — The most recent belt tightening done to insure the continuation of the Inter Mountain Fair was Manager Bob Macfarlane’s decision to retire, not from the job, but from payroll. That was a major reduction in expenses to the fair, but not the only one, as he explained to the Burney Rotary Club last Thursday (several Rotarians are pictured above at the Heritage Foundation Room).
When the state fell on hard times, it stopped giving the fair’s a cut of the pari-mutual funds and a county department that is expected to pay a share of all county management expenses, but one that is also self sufficient or it doesn’t survive.
The result was a major review and overhaul of its operations. They discovered they could do without full time employees, that saved them $150,000 a year, Macfarlane says .

FALL RIVER MILLS — The Fall River Valley Community Services District’s financials showed, Wednesday night, that the district currently owes $96,050 not counting the $65,617 owed that will come out of grants and low-interest grant related loans. The billing also reflects service charges and penalties charged by their attorney (Mark Atlas) of $171, Cal Pers for $600 for their past due bills. And a bill from PG&E dating from November.
Acting District Treasurer Cecil Ray, pointed out to the board Wednesday that the state Water Board had a bill pending approval for $12,394 that, included the threat of a $1,000 fine a day, if not paid.

FALL RIVER MILLS — The directors of the Fall River Valley Community Services District unanimously agreed to send a letter to the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) board, questioning what they were being billed for, giving their interpretation of the law under which LAFCO operates and telling that agency’s board that they did not understand the several page breakdown of the bill already submitted to them and said it was vague.
“It is a bloated, ambiguous bill,” said Director Barbara Briggs. She went on to say that they probably did owe LAFCO some money, but not the amount LAFCO claimed.
The board members said they found the letter non-confrontational and reasonable.
 Board Chair Jerry Monath and board member Barbara Briggs did have a difference of opinion over a comment Briggs made about it might be necessary to hire an attorney to appear before LAFCO for them.

The Community Services District had a fairly uneventful meeting last week and the board started to get a handle on several items.
There was none of the back biting and theatrics which had plagued the meetings in previous months.
Instead they got down to business and stayed focused on business.
They spent a little money they didn’t have to get a financial wizard to tell them where they are financially and how they can get out of the hole they now find themselves in.
They are revisiting the sewer rates trying to find out what it will take to break even, before going back to their customers with another increase proposal.
They are starting to discuss the grants, which are really necessary and whether they can afford them if it takes borrowing money to get them.
They are having a hard time letting go of LAFCO which I suspect will cost them more grief than not in the long run. They haven’t learned that LAFCO has the size, power, and resources and have been reasonably patient.
They also fail to realize that the Fall River CSD is a small district which, because of its own greed spent over $40,000 on an attorney who didn’t win the district anything and $15,000 plus with a consultant who failed to supply LAFCO with the information needed, in the format it needed, to get the job done without using an unusual amount of time to decipher it. Sooner or later the LAFCO board which is made up of professionals and their professional staff will get tired of being lectured by laypeople from Fall River CSD who want to berate LAFCO staff and waste the Commission’s time.
On a positive note the board turned down any current consideration of wage increases because they simply didn’t have the money to pay the employees more. It also appears that with Dave Hall donating his time in the management position, that they might be able to make up some of the losses incurred under the previous manager.
All in all the board listened patiently to members of the audience as they asked questions and submitted ideas.