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With less than a month remaining in Alameda County’s fiscal year, the county Public Works Agency and the Castlewood Property Owners Association remain at loggerheads on financial issues the county wants resolved this month.
That’s the takeaway from the association’s semi-annual meeting May 26 that was attended by about 30 people at The Club at Castlewood in Pleasanton.
Looming over the association is fire season and the vulnerable water system that serves the fire hydrants in the hillside community served by one narrow road. Five years ago, the county, with the association and the country club paying the bill, replaced the original redwood water tanks on the hill above the club. The 150,000-gallon tanks are filled by pumps serving the wells that provide the historic water source that pre-dates the club on the Bernal property near the Arroyo de la Laguna and just north of the golf club’s Valley Course.
When the new tanks were installed, nothing was done about the pumps and/or their power source and alarms. Instead, the public works leaders have leased portable generators for emergency electrical power. If the power goes out, someone needs to contact Bracewell Engineering in Morgan Hill, the contractor responsible for the water and sewer operation.
Bracewell must then dispatch an employee to literally plug in the generators and start them to power the pumps. Two weeks ago, power was out overnight for about 15 hours when a branch fell across electrical lines in the high winds. The generators were not started.
The danger from a power outage and a wildfire or structure fire remains daily.
Doug Ricketts, the association board member dealing with water issues, also has focused on upgrading the pumps to variable flow to lessen pressure on the pipes when they start and stop.
There have been several pipe breaks in recent years. The county and the association have been meeting monthly this year and Ricketts reported that the county was moving ahead with the new pumps, about a $600,000 project. But he was just informed that that price — its components not specified — now is an estimated $2.2 million.
After the project is set and bid, then the association will go through the process specified by Proposition 218 that requires notices be sent to each homeowner, and if more than 50% object then the project does not move ahead. There’s also debate about the need to replace pumps at the midway station, an item that just came up in the monthly meetings.
The voting process was used last year on the $1.4 million the county still is trying to collect from the project over-runs on the tank replacement that association leaders believe was mismanagement by the county. Ricketts showed some slides with declining costs in recent years when he actively tracked expenditures and outages.
Public works officials have said they still believe the association owes the money and had an item on the supervisors’ agenda this spring that would have added a loan to the association’s account. It was pulled from the agenda by Supervisor David Haubert, board president, who represents the district. The association had to file legal action to force the Prop 218 vote last year and has been using its attorneys to deal with the county in the current negotiations.
Association members were stung with a 172% increase in the water and maintenance fee last year and now pay the highest rates in the county.
While there’s been the continuing struggle over water, the association’s road representative, Paul Wiener, reported good progress with public works on road repairs and resealing. He noted it was the sweet spot for the department, and, after analysis, the cost estimate had dropped from $3.3 million to $2.5 million.
A majority of those attending approved moving forward with the roads, so the county will bid the project and then residents will have a Prop 218 vote on the roads. The cost per home is estimated at $11,000 for the initial upgrade and then $600 annually to pay into the fund for ongoing maintenance so a special assessment should not be needed.
During other reports, residents were urged to be good neighbors, particularly with speeding on the narrow roads with the 25 mph limit. The roads are so narrow that there’s no parking on the roads and, even with parking cutouts, there’s often not the required 20 feet of clearance. One fire engine had to back up to provide enough clearance for an ambulance to transport a resident to the hospital.
Editor’s note: Pleasanton Weekly freelancer Tim Hunt’s home is served by water and sewer services through the property owner’s association.
