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Community provides input about public services

Residents voice issues with water, roads and planning ; review may open door to change

Carmen George

(Updated: Thursday, February 02, 2012, 12:00 AM)

The majority of about a hundred residents at an Oakhurst meeting last week said area public water and road services are below satisfactory along with Oakhurst planning.

The meeting was held Jan. 26 at the Oakhurst Community Center to gather public input and discuss quality, cost and overall effectiveness of Oakhurst area sewer, water and road maintenance systems as well as other related services.

Local input is being used to help inform an Oakhurst Area Municipal Service Review underway by the Madera County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), an autonomous agency outside of county government, to suggest ways to solve issues. Municipal service reviews are required periodically by state law.

Information was gathered through an electronic survey, with hand-held clickers given to those at the meeting to answer questions.

"The problem we have in Oakhurst is we are somewhere inbetween -- we are not a big urbanized area and we're definitely more than just a roadside collection of rural homes," said Dave Herb, LAFCO executive officer after the meeting. "We're starting to develop some of the issues that urbanized areas have and we're struggling with how to come up with a structure to help the community address these issues in a more efficient fashion, and trying to marry that with a very independent rural mind-set, which I totally respect."

The commission's job is only to open doors for residents in seeking possible solutions to problems -- not to cram ideas down anyone's throat, Herb said.

Results from the poll, what ranged from almost a hundred voters to about 50 near the end of the three-hour meeting, showed that a majority are interested in learning more about consolidating service providers to run more efficiently, or believe they should be consolidated. 30% voted that things are fine the way they are.

Half of the room said they believe the people of Oakhurst are ready, or may be ready in a few years, to take more local control of their public services by electing local boards of Oakhurst residents to oversee services. The other half said they prefer the current arrangement of services.

Currently, most of the Oakhurst area's estimated 27 service providers are either run by the Madera County Board of Supervisors, with one of five seats elected by those in the Oakhurst area, or private companies.

Consolidation of public services would allow service providers to team up to tackle bigger-than-the-neighborhood issues, such as water contamination issues, or to widen the scope of services provided in an area, Herb said.

Many voiced concern that the review might be an attempt at the incorporation of Oakhurst, what LAFCO held meetings about several years ago. Herb said the review is simply a state requirement.

To implement any suggestions from the Oakhurst area review, Oakhurst voters would also have to push for and pass them, said Steve Brandt, a consultant with Quad Knopf working on the review with LAFCO.

Brandt posed some key questions to get the discussion going:

How satisfied are Oakhurst area residents with their public services? How much do residents want to do on their own, and how much do they want to do as a community?

Local agency formation commissions have been established in each of the state's counties with the charge of discouraging urban sprawl, encouraging orderly formation of local agencies and conducting special surveys to review the possibility of streamlining governmental structure and increasing cost effectiveness.

An update of the review will continue over the next couple months, and will be presented to LAFCO's five-member board of commissioners, including supervisors Tom Wheeler and Ronn Dominici, one member from Madera and Chowchilla city councils and one public member. Public input is still being taken, and the public will be able to respond to the updated review as well, Herb said.

Statewide, Madera County is second only to Los Angeles County in holding the record for the most maintenance districts, said Jerome Keene, county planner and LAFCO assistant executive director.

The majority of the Jan. 26 meeting was spent asking residents how they feel about their current levels of service. While some said they wanted to know more about the details related to the review, Brandt said questions about public satisfaction of services were being asked first in order to better steer LAFCO's review in the right direction.

One question presented was to choose the most important and least important things from a list of 10 things.

Based on the votes, the most important was providing better road maintenance, more reliable water, and overhauling area planning and zoning.

The least important included parks and recreation, street lights in community areas, and more of an ability to have sewer systems instead of septic tanks.

In overall satisfaction of services, road maintenance fared the worst, with about half stating maintenance is below satisfactory.

Water quality was a big concern for those connected to water systems, with the majority voting that water is below satisfactory. The other half of the room with private wells were asked to select "I don't know." Many with personal wells said their water quality is very good.

Those voting that water is below satisfactory said their water has higher than acceptable levels of arsenic and uranium, and that water is brown, smells like eggs and is so bad it's not drinkable -- even for the dogs.

Oakhurst area planning and zoning was also in question, with 43% below satisfied and 30% satisfied.

For those connected to sewers, the majority ranked service satisfactory or above. 67% chose "I don't know" because they have septic tanks not connected to a sewer system. Many said they are satisfied with their septic.

Solid waste disposal, police and fire services all fared well, with more than half satisfied or above satisfied with services.

Regarding whether residents were willing to pay extra fees or taxes if necessary to improve services, the room was split between not wanting to pay extra, and maybe paying extra, but needing more information first in order to decide.

Public input can be sent to dherb@maderalafco.com or mailed to LAFCO at 2037 W. Cleveland Ave. Madera, 93637.

A LAFCO meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22 at the Resource Management Agency building in Madera.

The preliminary review is available online at madera-county.com/rma/lafco/lafco_agendas and selecting "Oakhurst Municipal Service Review." Meeting minutes are planned to be posted on the LAFCO site.