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Mariposa County Board Of Supervisors Meeting
Selected Highlights For September, 19, 2006

 

The residents in the Don Pedro Sewer District will soon see their sewer bill rise by 10% as the county gets ready to build the new Wastewater Treatment Plant. The raise will take place on October 1, 2006 and will raise the average sewer bill from $39.75 to $41.75 a month. The former number has been in effect since 1997 when the last time the sewer rate had gone up10%.

Although a lot of planning has been put into the design of this sewer plant, no dirt can be turned until the County and the Department of Conservation come to an agreement on the land use around the sewer plant. According to the Public Works Director, Dana Hertfelder, the Department originally was in agreement with the County plan then for some reason changed their mind.

Mr. Hertfelder also said he had grave concerns if the plant did not get started this year. Possibly implying that the costs could probably rise to build this plant.


Items on the Ferguson Slide:
Yarts is trying to find smaller buses so they can take more passengers around the slide. They are scouring the state for busses that are at the 28 foot limit.
Also in a related note, Caltrans has agreed to look at roads J59 and Highway 132 and what it would take to allow 45 foot busses to reach Coulterville.



























 		   The big item of the day came from the Consent Agenda, with an agreement with a company called CD-Data and the County with taking GIS Property maps for free from the County and updating them with current information that will then be sold to customers such as real estate companies, title companies and other unmentioned companies.

Technical Services Director, Rick Peresan said that the county did not have the manpower to update these maps like CD-Data can.

How does the County make money on these maps?
Well Mr. Peresan said the payback could possibly be in about ten years as the county would receive 20% of the first $100,00 in sales and 40% of the second $100,000 and further breakdowns in returns as they sell more maps.

Here is a link to CD-Data: CD-DATA.COM

The Attorney General has said that these maps are in the public domain and cannot be sold by companies like Cd-Data. Mariposa County Counsel, Tom Guarino is not in agreement with the Attorney General on this matter. He stated that the A.G. poorly researched this matter.

Supervisor Janet Bibby wanted to know how this company was selected and if other California counties were using CD-Data for their maps.


Surprisingly no other counties are using this company for their GIS property maps as they are waiting to see what the Attorney General is going to do. Apparently Rick Peresan had not researched any other companies that provide this service. Also this has not come before the board before for direction.

The information that CD-Data would put on these maps would be copyrighted by them, as they would then own this information.


Janet Bibby wanted to take a wait and see position on this item and to talk with other counties about how they feel about selling these GIS maps. She also had concerns about liability to the county.

When it was all said and done the vote was 4-1 with Supervisors Pickard, Fritz, Stetson and Turpin voting for giving this company a contract.  Supervisor Bibby  opposed this.

So, Mariposa County will be the first county in California to use their GIS maps in this fashion and against the Attorney General 's direction.



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