Amador County - Bank repossessions continue to drive the suffering housing market in the Sacramento region. According to researchers at MDA Dataquick, a market tracking company, purchases of cheap repossessed homes resulted in the most sales since January of 2006. 2,806 new and existing homes closed escrow in January in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties- a gain of 928 over the same time last year. Analysts say the steadily rising home sales are the result of drastically lower home prices in the region’s hardest hit areas for foreclosures. The deals have attracted large numbers of area and outside investors who account now for about one of every four sales in Sacramento County, according to DataQuick. Amador County reported 13 sales in January and saw median prices dip to $190,000. That is down 24.5 percent from the same month in 2008. Prices peaked at $425,000 in the county in 2006. Neighboring El Dorado County's 109 January sales showed a median price of $339,500. That is down 16.7 percent from the same time last year. The county's 2006 peak was $531,250. Sacramento County's 1,903 sales accounted for 68 percent of the region's total. The county's median price - where half cost more and half less - fell 34.8 percent from the same time last year. The new median is down by more than half from a 2005 high of $387,000. Story by Alex Lane This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – The Plymouth City Council on Thursday hosts a special meeting and workshop to address its expected growth and planning issues, with presentations by four city staffers. City Manager Dixon Flynn will review the city’s strategic plan and city objectives, while Consultant Richard Prima and City Planner Darcy Goulart will speak about growth management. Goulart will also give an update on the city’s General Plan update and its related Environmental Impact Report. Finance Director Jeff Gardner talk about budget amendments for fiscal year 2008-2009. The council last week heard a presentation from Goulart on city design guidelines, and received a report from City Planner Paula Daneluk detailing some of the draft amendments to the city’s zoning code. Daneluk said planning staff has been working with the planning commission and city council since last year on the downtown area design guidelines. She said “over a 2-month period, each section of the draft design guidelines was workshopped with the planning commission.” At the time, the commission discussed extending the “downtown corridor” of guidelines eastward across Highway 49, and last Thursday, the council discussed that as well. Mayor Jon Colburn asked if there was “any drawback” for having the same design guidelines that apply to downtown also apply to commercial development. Flynn said he did not see a problem in doing so. Prima said if the guidelines were applied to all commercial buildings in the city, the ordinance would require some wording changes. Colburn suggested moving the boundary to align with the city boundary line. Flynn asked if they wanted to include the Fiddletown Road area. Councilman Greg Baldwin said they should include that, at least until they can add a “Scenic Corridor” to the design guidelines and zoning. Goulart asked if they council wanted the same standards all around the city and Flynn said the council wanted the same look all around the city. The council sent the guidelines back to the planning commission for the changes to the boundary and to apply the downtown look to commercial and new development. The city council special workshop meeting is 5 p.m. Thursday and precedes the Planning Commission’s meeting at 7 p.m., during which the commission will discuss the city General Plan update. Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – When the dust settles on federal stimulus funding numbers for California, the Amador Water Agency should expect to be in a stiff competition for water and wastewater project funding. AWA Financial Services Manager Michael Lee attended the California economic stimulus workshop January 22nd in Sacramento and heard some rough numbers. He said at the time it looked like California would get 10 percent of the $800 billion economic stimulus package, or $80 billion. Roughly 1 percent of that would toward state-wide water and wastewater projects. Lee said that could be $500 million to $800 million, but that number might increase. He will report to the AWA board of directors at its next meeting, February 12th, when they will discuss projects they are targeting to be ready for stimulus funding consideration. He said the USDA, the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Department of Public Health will have state offices that could dispense the funding. “With water and wastewater, you have to compete for it,” Lee said. “It’s based on what the projects are putting forth, the severity.” He said if projects are helping small communities that are failing, they have a better chance. He said “it would be a lot better if we were just given our fair share of the pie, but we are asking for a fairly good chunk of the pie for a county our size.” Amador will compete with the state, including counties the size of San Francisco. Lee said the AWA has “5 good priority projects that we think can be moved forward to constructability fairly quickly.” Those are the Gravity Supply Line to serve the Central Amador Water Project; and improvement of the Lake Camanche Water System with a new tank, well and piping. Another is improvement to the Buckhorn Water Treatment Plant backwash and byproducts systems. Also, a project on the list would work on a leach field at Gala Manor. A fifth priority project would be to place a small diameter pipeline in the Amador Canal. Lee said the priority projects would have to be ready to construct this summer. Story Jim Reece

Amador County – The Amador Water Agency Board of Directors holds a special meeting Wednesday morning at the agency office on Ridge Road, with a Water Rights Workshop as the headline item, and three topics of litigation to be discussed in closed session. Cris Thompson, executive clerk of the AWA board, announced the special meeting last Friday. Board President Terence Moore, District 4, has referred to the Water Rights Workshop in past meetings, urging the four new board members to attend as he said it would bring a better understanding to many upcoming issues. AWA Attorney Steve Kronick will host the workshop, and give an “update on the history of the Amador Water Agency's water rights for the Amador Water System and the Central Amador Water Project system. The special meeting of the AWA board includes 3 items to be discussed in closed session. One includes a conference with agency Attorney Kronick on pending litigation regarding Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s “Application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a Pumped Storage Project. The board will also confer with Kronick on pending litigation regarding the AWA’s Mokelumne River Water and Power Authority Water Right Applications before the State Water Resources Control Board. A third closed-session item regards potential initiation of litigation for 1 case. The meeting is set for 9 a.m. Wednesday at the AWA office, 12800 Ridge Road, Sutter Creek. Story by Jim Reece