COUNTY OF DEL NORTE

Office of the County Counsel

981 "H" Street, Suite 220

Crescent City, California 95531

Phone Fax

(707) 464-7208 (707) 465-0324

Date: December 13, 2006

To: Board of Supervisors, all members

Jeanine Galatioto, County Administrative Officer

From: Robert N. Black, County Cou

Re: ADOPTION OF AN AMENDED PLAN FOR SERVICES TO BE

ATTACHED TO RESOLUTION 2006-61 PROPOSING CHANGE

OF ORGANIZATION OF PACIFIC SHORES SUBDIVISION

CALIFORNIA WATER DISTRICT

Agenda date : December 19, 2006

Recommended action : That your Board adopt the attached Amended Plan

for Provision of Services within the territory currently within the boundaries

of the Pacific Shores Subdivision California Water District and direct staff to

forward the amended plan to Del Norte County LAFCO.

Discussion: Attached is a letter directed to your Board of Supervisors from

the Pacific Shores Water District. The letter indicates that the Water District

cannot participate in any effort at an alternative development plan. As the

letter states, "By legal advice the Water District may not spend any of our

taxpayers money on any effort, no matter how seemingly worthwhile, that

cannot be directly related to our duty to seek approvals to provide the

subdivision with water and sewer service."

Your Board of Supervisors, by Resolution 2006-61, proposed dissolution of

the Pacific Shores Subdivision California Water District. Because LAFCO will

be the lead agency for CEQA compliance purposes, the Resolution you

forwarded to LAFCO has not yet received a certificate of filing. It will not do

so until the CEQA steps have been completed.

Attached to Resolution 2006-61 was a Plan for Services. That plan suggested

that the County might exercise leadership in the development of a commoninterest

development within Pacific Shores. Later, Mr. Dwayne B. Smith

appeared before your Board of Supervisors and conducted a number of

private meetings in which the common-interest concept was explored.

Based on the October 10, 2006, letter, it now appears that neither Pacific

Shores Water District, nor any of its assets, would be voluntarily involved in

such a project.

Based on the forgoing, I suggest that the Plan for Services be amended to

specifically make no provision for any alternative development. The plan

simply recognizes the environmental, engineering, and financial realities that

there will never be a water system distributing water to individual lots, nor a

sewer system conveying sewage from individual lots. Therefor, Pacific Shores

Water District cannot and will not perform any useful function. The new Plan

for Services recognizes this, and simply identifies a "no service" option as the

so-called Plan for Services upon dissolution of Pacific Shores.

Alternatives : Decline to amend the Plan for Services.

11 / 06/ 2006 1 3:55 t074656369

October 10, 2006

TRIPLICATE NEWSROOM FHUh nl

PACIFIC SHORESWATER DISTRICT

Partners W th T-he Environment

County of Del Norte

Board of Supervisors

981 H Street

Crescent City, CA 95531

RE: County Plan for Pacific Shores

Dear Members of the Board of Supervisors,

The Pacific Shores Water District Board of Directors thanks you for your interest in developing a

plan to assist the long-suffering Pacific Shores property owners.

Unfortunately, the Water District cannot participate in any way with such endeavor. We have

been scrupulous in making sure we do not engage in any action contrary to our charter to build. a

water and sewer service and to perform the studies necessary for permitting such service. By

legal advice the Water District may not spend. any of our taxpayer's money on any effort, no

matter how seemingly worthwhile, that cannot be directly related to- our duty to seek approvals to

provide the subdivision with water and sewer service.

The Pacific Shores Water District does however, prays the County Board of Supervisors, the

California Department of Fish and Game, and the Coastal Conservancy can develop an

ownership project within Pacific Shores or without, that the Pacific Shores Property Owners

Association would support.

The Pacific Shores Water District wishes the County good luck in their effort to correct the

wrongs visited upon the property owners of the subdivision who have been guilty of nothing

more than a desire to build a-home -in-hc beautiful County of Del None.

Respectfully yours,

Dwayne B. Smith, President

Pacific Shores Water District

cc: interested parties

P,O, Box 2151 , Hawthbrnc, CA 90251.2151 • Phone/1 nx 310-644.1914

Paclik $horcs $ubd(WAion Callfofnia Wafcf District

AMENDED

PLAN FOR PROVISION OF SERVICES WITHIN THE TERRITORY CURRENTLY

WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF THE PACIFIC SHORES SUBDIVISION

CALIFORNIA WATER DISTRICT

This plan is attached to and made a part of the Board of Supervisors'

Resolution 2006-61, adopted pursuant to Government Code section 56654,

applying to the Del Norte County Local Agency Formation Commission for a

change of organization dissolving the Water District.

The Board of Supervisors accepts that there does not appear to be a feasible

plan for providing potable water and wastewater treatment services critical to

the development of the individual lots in the Pacific Shore Subdivision. As

evidence for this, it appears that the Pacific Shores Subdivision California

Water District has acquired and expended millions of dollars and initiated a

variety of technical studies, none of which have ever reached a positive

conclusion. Nor have these studies even been finalized. Hundreds of lot

owners have lost their property due to tax-default and hundreds of others have

elected to sell their lots to the State of California.

In addition to the infrastructure limitations described above, the subdivision is

a mosaic of wetlands in the wet winter months and contains a number of

sensitive species and habitats.

The concept of developing individual lots is also financially questionable. The

State of California now owns an additional mosaic of lots, constituting nearly

half of the subdivision. Because the State's purpose in acquiring these lots

does not involve sharing the financial burden of a community water or sewer

system, the cost per private lot to develop such systems is roughly doubled.

Therefor, the plan for services proposed by this dissolution is that the concepts

of water and sewer systems be abandoned. Whether the Water District

continues in existence or not, no services will be extended along the lines

originally contemplated by the Water District.

Further, this plan for services contemplates that the special tax assessed by

the Water District be terminated and any residual assets of the District be

distributed to the remaining lot owners on a basis proposed by LAFCo in

conjunction with the dissolution.