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Supervisors David Haubert and Nate Miley determined Friday that Alameda County will reactivate a steering committee to oversee the county service area that provides services to the Castlewood Country Club area.
After a presentation by public works director Daniel Woldesenbet and comments from four homeowners, Haubert said the committee would meet monthly for the next year. Rick Hammel, president of the Castlewood Property Owners Association, and board member Doug Ricketts both had asked the committee start up again as prescribed in the 23 pages of county ordinances governing the area.
The committee action followed a decision by the Local Agency Formation Commission one day earlier to move to the second phase of a feasibility study on the potential annexation of the Castlewood area to the city of Pleasanton. Earlier, three Pleasanton City Council members had ranked discussions about the annexation as a higher priority for the city’s two-year work plan.
Castlewood and Pleasanton were identified in 2024 by LAFCO as worthy of the study.
At the county meeting, Woldesenbet argued that the Castlewood leaders were not speaking factually, while Hammel cited real examples including when the county switched vendors operating the water and sewer systems on July 1, 2023, and did not notify the association. He said he was getting phone calls and texts about no water. He eventually had to find Bracewell Engineering through Google search and water was restored later that morning.
More significantly, Mike Azevedo, who lives on Bunker Lane off Foothill Road and is part of the service area, pointed out the fire danger.
There’s about two hours of water in the tanks to fight fires and, if the power is out, the backup generators must be manually started to get the pumps going and bring the water up the hill to the tanks. He said, in the case of a fire and an evacuation, Bracewell has said it could not get its crew to the generators to start the pumps.
Homeowner representatives have been asking that the rented temporary generators be replaced with permanent generators that automatically turn on and off as needed. The association pays about $80,000 per year for the rented generators. The fire safety issue concerned Miley, who said public safety is the top priority.
Two speakers, Hammel and Mike Mitchell, who were directly involved in the legal action filed against the county, pointed out that the terms of the settlement agreement specified that each party would pay its own attorney fees. They objected to a $70,000 legal charge to the association. Miley said the supervisors would need to get into closed session and find out why from the county counsel.
Both in his presentation and in his response to the public testimony, Woldesenbet emphasized that despite the 92% vote against the county’s special $1.4 million assessment for funding shortfalls in two prior fiscal years, it is still a liability of the county service area.
Mitchell pointed out that the county collects about $4 million in property tax from the service area and expends about $70,000 directly to serve it, not including public safety.
The association officials were pleased with the monthly meetings and Haubert’s commitment to have a staff member attend. They believe that an eventual annexation to Pleasanton is likely the best long-term solution, but need improvements day-to-day while that is studied. There is no commitment to annexation.
