Mariposa County District Attorney Bob Brown went before the board explaining that the contract with John C. Fremont on blood draws for suspected DUI's is costing the county $60.00 for every blood draw and that the rate of return by the defendants to pay for this blood draw has cost his dept. $600.00 so far and that this cost is going to have to come out of the general budget. The problem is with collections as many of the defendants are slow paying, no paying or that the payment they do make, only 3.7% out of that money goes to paying for the blood draw.

Ken Gosting, Dick Hutchinson, Paul Hall and Elaine Seymour all went before the board to tell them how well things went in Fresno last week at the San Joaquin Rail Committee Meeting as they are amending their bylaws to let Mariposa County in as a full voting member with two seats.

Keith Williams, Treasurer / Tax Collector / County Clerk then presented the Senior V.P. of Investments for Fiduciary Trust who gave a glowing account with many pages of how Mariposa County investments should do for the coming year with his thoughts on how the economy will perform, (Look for a further article on this).

Philomene Schultz, Chairman for the Catheys Valley Western Fair gave the board an update on the different venues that will be taking place at the first annual Catheys Valley Western Fair scheduled for May 19 and 20, 2007.

A discussion took place on the Stanislaus National Forest Off Highway Vehicle Program OHV Route Designation and how two county maintained roads in Mariposa County could possibly be used for these off highway vehicles to travel on. Supervisor Lyle Turpin said that the CHP had concerns with this and also is their not an ordinance prohibiting these vehicles on county maintained roads? The roads that could be used are Bull Creek and Anderson Road.

CAO Richard Benson, gave a mid year budget request and recommendations talk for reducing the General Fund altogether by $590,000 as different departments are over budget. Such as Admin because of benefits, the DA office $160,000, due to paying back the state for the Stayner trial, Indigent Defense Fund $52,000, Juvenile Detention $53,000, the Mariposa County Jail $40,000, and other areas that total up to the $590,000. Also the Computer needs software in Probation that will cost about $69,000. All these numbers together will reduce the contingency fund by over 20%. Mr. Benson also mentioned that sales tax is down over 6.5% for the year but that the Bed Tax (TOT) is staying flat.

Supervisor Lyle Turpin gave a talk about the condition of the roads in Mariposa County and how everyone talks about fixing the roads but that nothing gets done. He also mentioned that $300,000 was taken from the road budget. Dana Hertfelder, Director of Public Works, painted a dire picture as he anticipates some state funding for the roads to dry up and that the price of raw materials has risen dramatically.
Janet Bibby, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors then read a list that she had made up of all the deferred maintenance on everything in the county not just the roads. Supervisor Dianne Fritz mentioned that Mariposa County needs to become a self-help county. The County CAO, Rick Benson said that the county has no money for the roads and that any money to fix the roads will have to come out of the State Government.
The talk turned to raising the Bed Tax or a raise in the Sales Tax that would be used just for the roads. Neither idea was very popular with any of the supervisors or members of the public.