The County wants to raise the rent that the Vaqueros horse group pays to use the 40-acre Aerie Park from $400 a year to $2,500 a month.
It has given the group until January to make up its mind whether it wants to pay that.
The horse group, through VC Parks & Rec District (VCP&RD), has been using the converted landfill since 1980, and has invested many thousands of dollars in its upkeep.
Its most recent investment of time and money was last year when Vaqueros members revamped the entire park, spending $4,000 of their own money, and a grant of $10,000 from Supervisor Bill Horn’s discretionary fund, according to club president Teri Stathatos.
The VCP&RD, which rarely reacts publically against being kicked by the County, has been roused to declare, “…we have been unjustly required to pay an unreasonable fee for renewal of the subject lease.” It also calls the new lease being thrust upon it by the County, “outrageous and unreasonable.”
Of course, since, as VCP&RD pointed out, the $2,500 a month would be one-tenth of the district’s annual budget, the practical affect is that the Vaqueros will probably be out of the park by January.
According to Mrs. Stathatos, “It is affecting us horribly. We can’t afford it. We’ve been used to paying $400 a year and the water and now we’re being asked to pay $2,500 a month. We’re all just devastated!”
Last year when the group refurbished the old abandoned landfill, they had to haul in new dirt and wattles. “It took a lot of man hours and then a year later they want to shut us down!” says Mrs. Stathatos.
The group uses the park frequently during the year. It is open to all members any time. They put on four Silver Buckle shows during the year, one Old Timers Show, and a Halloween show. The club also holds monthly meetings there.
They also have the Young Rider program and frequently camp outs during good weather.
“For the County to shut us down like that! The kids will have no place to ride if we don’t have Aerie Park. Parks & Rec is doing everything they can to help us relocate but it’s hard to find someone who will take the responsibility,” says Mrs. Stathatos.
She adds, “It’s really sad because we just started the Young Riders and we have a color guard team where we work parades and carry flags. We have riders as young as 2 out there riding.”
Trash bags and old appliances may start appearing on County roads in the Backcountry—just in time for Christmas.
Several years ago the County, and especially supervisors Bill Horn and Dianne Jacob, celebrated getting out of the landfill business.
By the beginning of December of this year, three landfill collections sites in the Backcountry, now under private ownership by Allied Waste Inc., will close. Residents in those areas have few options, other than transporting their trash 20 or 30 miles.
Will this mean that refrigerators, old furniture and trash bags will start to proliferate on County roads? Many residents of outlying areas fear that may happen.
The following sites are being closed:
Julian, 500 Pleasant View Drive
Palomar Mountain, 22090 East Grade Road
Boulevard, 41097 Old Highway 80
At its Web site (www.sdcounty.ca.gov/dpw/recycling/rural_bin_closures.html) the Dept. of Public Works offers affected residents the following choices:
“1.) Call 1-877-R-1-EARTH (1-877-713-2784) to learn about your disposal options.
“2.) Contact curbside haulers that service your community. Waste haulers offer different levels of trash and recycling service and pricing. Make sure you find the one that best suits your needs and your budget.
“3.) Talk with neighbors about going in together on one container to be picked up weekly in your neighborhood.”
Unfortunately, the options offered by the helpful person at the 800 number do not offer services on Palomar Mountain, except for Ramona Disposal.
Ramona Disposal (Jemco) which can be reach at 789-0516 does offer bins ranging in size from one cubic yard to three cubic yards.
The smallest bin, suitable for seven to ten bags per week, costs $100 for delivery and $99.50 a month, dumping once week. The other sizes go up from there.
Allied Waste will send letters to community planning and sponsor groups, take out ads in local papers and hand out flyers at the bin sites. Their flyers and ads will include the County 1-877-R-1 EARTH (1-877-713-2784) hotline and its options, which, as noted above, are mainly unusable.
According to a representative of the county Dept. of Public Works, “This action is a private corporation decision. Fortunately, there is service coverage by other haulers in your area. If you have additional inquiries regarding these closures, please contact Wayne Williams in the County offices at (858) 874-4108.”
Williams, who is the program coordinator, Solid Waste Planning and Recycling Section, DPW, seemed surprised that most “options” offered by DPW’s Web site were not-starters.
“I’m surprised that none of them would serve up there, however it IS distant,” he told The Roadrunner. He added, “The County is in the process of trying to make adjustments on this.”
The Roadrunner asked what adjustments they had in mind.
“We want to clarify what the positions are on the haulers and see about extending the life on the bins.”
He noted that the number of those who use the bins per Saturday at the Palomar site was 9-10 customers.
One Palomar Mountain resident, Bonnie Phelps, suggested that the bin be open once a month.
“Closing the bin site would really be a hardship for many on Palomar. We are also concerned about the potential of debris dumped over the side of the mountain. The people of Palomar are proposing having the bin site open only one Saturday a month. This could make sense financially to your company. The land is already set up, the bins are in place, and it seems to be worth pursuing the idea.”
For those hardy souls who want to transport their own trash bags, the following locations are sort of in the area:
The Ramona Dump.
Fallbrook Transfer Station, Edco operates, 550 W. Aviation Rd. 760-728-6114
Escondido Transfer Station
1440 W. Washington Ave.
Williams added the following information: “My staff has contacted the haulers and for Palomar Mountain, Jemco (Ramona Disposal) will continue their service. Diamond and Edco will provide service in the form of 1 ∏ - 2 and 3-yard bins for those persons looking for curbside service. Houses can also share a large bin as long as the waste only comes from Palomar .”
The “Semper Fi” ride started in Scottsdale, Arizona and ended in Oceanside and on Oct. 25 passed through VC. It helps raise funds through rider sponsors for the Wounded Warrior Program for the Marines.
The Governor's Council on Physical Fitness & Sports came to VC Tuesday to present the Primary School with a check for $8,000 in recognition of its physical ed program. Shown are (from left) Mary Blackman - San Diego County Office of Education, physical education coordinator; teachers Diana Souther and Lori Vanderwoude; Jake Steinfeld, chairman, Governor's Council (also, Body by Jake); Kenny Rogers, executive director, Governor's Council; Principal Patty Christopher; financial director Pam Moe and Supt. Lou Obermeyer. Also shown are several students from the school.
Jeff Knightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District (the Met), which serves six Southern California counties, including San Diego, appearing before the local water board, painted a bleak picture of declining supplies for at least the next ten years, and prices going up steeply until 2011, with farmers left to scramble among the cracks for an affordable supply.
Meanwhile look for residential water rationing as high as 15%, possibly next year.
Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
“I told him that even though we are ground zero of the ag cut that we are all gentlemen and will treat him with respect,” quipped VC Municipal Water Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant, introducing Knightlinger.
“I appreciate being here. I appreciate not being strung up,” the Met chief replied with a grin.
He talked about the work local farmers, and Arant, have made in meeting the 30% cutbacks imposed earlier this year.
"This is the first time we've ever done an ag cutback under the IAWP (Interim Agriculture Water Program), but I feel good about the great cooperation with the water agencies. We have demonstrated that the program really works. They have been exceeding the 30 percent we hoped for. It's not pleasant but it went as smoothly as it could."
The Met recently voted to phase out the ag discount program over the next five four years, or by December Dec. 31, 2012.
The Met recently voted to phase out the ag discount program over the next five years.
Knightlinger noted that California can no longer count on water it once got from the Colorado River because states along the river increasingly use their shares. “We knew we had to change the way we did business,” he said.
Knightlinger discussed the efforts to restore the flows in the Colorado River Aqueduct to historic levels through conservation programs in the Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella and Palo Verde, and feels deliveries should approach 1.0 million acre feet by 2018. He also discussed MWD’s work to purchase transfer water from Central Valley and North of the Delta farmers to bring to southern California.
Despite these efforts, Knightlinger stated, “Because of problems in the delta, until we get a canal or bypass, we will pretty much be year to year. Best case scenario won’t get canal on line until 2018,” he said.
The canal was once known as the “peripheral canal” for bringing water down from Northern California, bypassing the delta, which has environmental issues associated with it. A judge’s decision last year cut supply considerably to protect a fish known as the delta smelt.
Such a canal is part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “delta vision” plan.
Although the peripheral canal was killed a generation ago by opposition from the Bay Area and Central Valley farmers Knightlinger feels it, “has the best chance in a generation. We have a decent shot.” That’s because the Bay Area is experiencing water rationing and gets a lot of water from the delta. This time Central Valley farmers support the plan.
Environmentalists, who generally oppose increasing water supply, also recognize that something is going to be done.
“But it’s still going to be difficult,” he said. “We’ve constructed our political system to where we almost require unanimity.”
Don’t count on desalination plants to pick up the slack.
“To replace the 1.5 million AF from the state water project would require 50 such plants.” That would be a huge power consumption that could only be made up by nuclear—which the state opposes building.
The Met’s total usage right now is 2.2 million AF. This year it expects 1.2 million AF from the Colorado River. It must make up the rest from the state’s supplies.
Because of drought, manmade and God-made, some on Knightlinger’s board want to accustom people to shortages by imposing rationing in January.
He will recommend waiting until April to see what this year’s rainfall and snowfall brings.
“It starts to be an issue with the public when you start rationing and it rains. You want to measure twice and cut once,” he said.
But that decision is up to his board, made up of representatives of districts in Southern California. He predicts a 50-50 chance of 15% rationing in April.
He wants to give retail agencies plenty of lead time. “Retailers need ninety to one hundreds days to get things in place. We want plenty of lead time. We don’t want to do what we did in 1991 when we cut fifty percent without much warning.”
He added, “We’re going to be living year to year. That will force me as a manager to start every year implementing a thirty percent cut until we know the situation. Because we have a basic infrastructure problem I don’t see normal deliveries for ten years.”
One problem is that the state doesn’t have a lot of storage for dry years. It produces 20–30 million AF, but has 8 million in storage. After two years of drought it starts “strangling.” Currently it is pulling down reserves by about 500,000 acre feet a year.
Expect prices to start climbing again, by as much as 20% a year. Prices haven’t risen much in a while, said Knightlinger, but now the infrastructure is aging. Repair and replacement will cost $100 million a year. There will also be capital projects to build more storage.
“Our cost of business has gone up. The reason we didn’t raise rates much for ten years was that we were selling a lot of water. Now we are playing catch up.”
Another price driver is that water from the Colorado River and the State Water Project used to be essentially free and we were only paying the capital power and O&M costs of delivery. Now, were are paying for the the conservation program costs and the water on top of the delivery costs, which adds to the overall cost of water.
Knightlinger expects this to reach an equilibrium by 2011.
Director Merle Aleshire asked about the long range future of ag.
“In our service area it’s going to grow more and more constrained,” although Knightlinger noted that last year was the first that ag use in the Met’s service area went up,” he said. “They think it was related towards growth of farmers market.”
He added that population growth is driven by birth since as many people are leaving the state as are moving in.
The Valley Roadrunner
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