Letters to the Editor 1-31-12

Attn property owners
Editor: Be aware the city council is preparing to hold public hearings in early February on a new sewer ordinance that will affect all private property sewers in Healdsburg. The proposal has come about because of a threatened lawsuit accusing the city of violating federal and state laws relating to clean water issues.
The proposed ordinance  is intended to have all sewer laterals on your private property checked for blockages, broken piping and/or root damage. A camera inspection will occur when there is any kind of blockage in your private sewer line. After the check, a report will be sent to the city for review. Furthermore, if there has not been a blockage in your sewer line in 20 years, you will still be required to pay for a camera inspection of your sewer lines.
A private organization, River Watch, is intimidating the city with a threatened lawsuit, but this organization has provided no engineering data or accurate information on Healdsburg’s sewer system to justify this new proposed ordinance. The organization is using a study done in Ukiah and is claiming that what is true about the condition of Ukiah’s sewer system must also be true about the condition of Healdsburg’s sewer system. The city and the organization have no concrete evidence Healdsburg’s sewer system has inadequacies. The city seems willing to adopt an ordinance that is a proposed solution to a problem that has not been identified as a problem in Healdsburg.
The county of Sonoma and other towns and cities within the county do not have these types of requirements for private property sewer systems. The laws noted in the threatened lawsuit do not apply to private property sewer/waste systems; they are specifically exempted. There are other state and local ordinances/regulations that already cover the maintenance of these systems on private property.
The new, proposed requirements were agreed to by the city without obtaining input from the major Healdsburg stakeholders (the property owners and citizens of Healdsburg). In addition, these new requirements could be quite expensive for Healdsburg’s property owners. Why should Healdsburg’s property owners be forced to pay for and fix problems that currently do not exist?
Robert Picott
Healdsburg
The true cost
Editor: Capital appreciation bonds, or CABs as they are known, are the latest scourge in public schools financing. Once voters approve a school bond, district officials can issue either traditional current interest bonds or CABs. Unlike current interest bonds, for which repayment begins immediately upon issuance, CABs defer repayment for years allowing tremendous amounts of interest to accrue. This allows school officials to misrepresent to voters the true cost of the bond by ignoring the long-term cost.  
Total repayment cost for current interest bonds, much like a homeowner’s mortgage, is typically two to three times the amount borrowed. As bad as that sounds, the repayment cost for CABs is ten to fifteen times the amount borrowed. A $15 million CAB issued by the Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City, for example, will cost residents of the district over $127 million to repay.  Hundreds of CABs have been issued by school districts throughout the state and represent ticking time bombs for unsuspecting residents.
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer and State Superintendent of Schools Tom Torkelson have called for a moratorium on CABs and legislation has been introduced in both the Assembly and Senate to ban the practice. We encourage passage of this legislation.
Dan Drummond
Executive Director
Sonoma County Taxpayers’ Association