Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Water Project In Jeopardy

By JOHN MILLER

Problems still remain for the Gurdon Rural Water Project.

Gurdon Mayor Rick Smith said at the regular monthly meeting of the Gurdon City Council Monday night, about 400 easements were needed to get to the construction phase and all but about 70 have been obtained.

While there are enough easements on hand for the project to go to bid, construction cannot occur until 100 percent of the easements have been obtained and approved. This, Smith said, puts the project in jeopardy.

One reason for this is some of the property in question is in timberland. Once the water lines are installed, this property can no longer be used to grow trees.

Another problem is finding absentee owners.

Smith said the city does not want to resort to condemnation of the property, but may be forced to. If it has to invoke condemnation, he said, each one will require a jury trial to determine the fair market value of the property in question.

With 70 parcels of land to be examined, Smith said this could be even more costly.

Mark Izard, with PEBSCO, talked with the council about the program, what is offers and how it would benefit city employees.

He said PEBSCO offers a deferred compensation plan with city employees allowed to contribute up to 25 percent of their pay or $7,000 per year, whichever is less. This is done without cost to the city. The payroll deductions are made before taxes are taken out, with the taxes being deferred until the money is removed from the program.

The benefits can only be received once the employee has terminated their employment with the city, either through leaving the job, retirement or in hardship cases.

At this time, Izard said, Gurdon has about 20 percent participation in the program.

Smith said the council could help the employees get more money into the plan by putting funds into it for them instead of a 3 percent cost of living adjustment (COLA).

Izard said the top two issues on workers' minds today are health insurance and pension plans. They wonder, he said, if social security will be around and provide enough money for them to live on.

In addition, he said, should the city decide to put money into the plan, it can do so on an annual basis as decided by the council, or could give a small raise and place funds into the plan.

Jana Perry, also with PEBSCO, said the employees can choose a fixed annuity at 6.3 percent or venture into more risky areas with variable annuities or mutual funds.

It was agreed to have Perry and Izard meet with interested employees to discuss the plan with them.

In other business, the council passed a resolution stating how a pickup donated to the Gurdon Fire Department can be used.

The 1995 Ford Ranger was donated to the GFD by Austin Capps, not purchased by the city. In fact, Capps paid for everything on the vehicle, including the decals and instrumentation.

The council agreed the vehicle can be used by the acting fire chief to come and go from work, if the chief works within the city limits. The vehicle can only be used outside the city limits on official business.

In other fire department business, Smith pointed out $9,752 is owed to the GFD for its responding to fires outside the city limits in the past two years.

Residents, he said, are being billed, but aren't paying.

Arkadelphia has raised its solid waste fees for Gurdon to $31 per ton, going up from $25 a ton.

Smith said the city handles about 750 tons per year, and this situation could prove problematic in the future. However, he said the city's solid waste program is currently in good shape and no fee hikes are anticipated.

But, he continued, the council may have to reexamine the commercial accounts to see if all commercial customers are paying their fair share. Commercial accounts, he said, are based on actual garbage hauled off.

It was agreed the city's clean up campaigns are successful in their purpose and could be held even more often.

These campaigns, Smith said, don't cost the city anything, as the county handles the removal of the items brought in.

The final item of business was a short discussion of the 1997 budget.

Smith said the budget committee needs to get together and work on the proposed fiscal document and bring it back before the council next month.