Special meeting of Water Board to deal with another round of past due bills
Humboldt Sentinel
12/26/08
By Sentinel Staff
EUREKA -- Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District trustees are in much the same position they were two weeks ago, as the idle Evergreen Pulp Mill is yet again in default on its water bill.
“If the mill fails to pay us for the water, our only remedy is to shut off the water,” Water Board president Bruce Rupp said at their last special meeting on Dec. 8. “Nothing in life is free, if we ship it to the mill, somebody is paying for it.”
A new special meeting is set for 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 30 at Eureka City Hall, where trustees will consider water service termination and other default remedies -- although their agenda also includes the possible adoption of an interim agreement to temporarily continue water service. Public safety officials from the town of Samoa made it clear to the Water Board earlier this month that they continue to be dependent on the industrial supply of water to Evergreen for their basic fire suppression capacity.
An in-person appearance apparently isn’t the highest priority for one of the five elected Water Board members, as Division One trustee Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap has instead opted to participate by phone.
Under public meeting law in California, any elected official choosing to participate remotely in a noticed hearing must be in a publicly accessible location, should the public wish to make themselves directly heard to the official. For any local ratepayers looking to make a 1,000 mile trip to the Sopoci-Belknap ancestral abode in New Mexico, she will be phoning in from 1316 Galisteo Parkway in Santa Fe.
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2 comments:
Charles: This might be the beginning of the end for the Pulp Mill. Too bad it has came to this. See you Tuesday!
It doesn't seem so likely that they'll come up with the money this time around. I'm similarly fatalistic on the mill's future.
I'm more curious to see what Samoa public agencies have done with the briefly extended lease on life they got to make alternative arrangements for their water supply.
Needless to say, I'm sadly confident that the Water Board has done little to nothing to really cope with the big hike in water bills coming down the pike, which will only drive more businesses to the brink of closure and more residents to be brink of bankruptcy.
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