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said that the assessment process is related to the construction of facilities and not to the <br />capital costs of operating the facilities. <br />Commissioner Halkiotis asked haw the County would recoup its money from <br />building this line. Geof Gledhill said that the County has to set the cost before the <br />development is known. He does not see anything in the assessment law that allows the <br />County to make the choice after the fact about the fees. <br />Paul Thames said that because of the location of a lot of the wells along West <br />Ten Road and Buckhorn Road, they would have to shut down the wells because they <br />cannot occur close to a sewer line. There are at least ten cases of this. <br />Commissioner Halkiotis asked if the residents had been told about this and Paul <br />Thames said that he did not personally tell them, but most people in this area asked for <br />a water hookup. He said that there are two houses on very large lots on West Ten Road <br />that do not want anything to happen. They will not be happy about being put on the line. <br />Chair Jacobs said that they need to think this through, and he is in favor of doing <br />an assessment project because he wants to recoup the money. He wants to play with <br />having a cushion to help people of low income with the assessment revenues, so that <br />their fees can be reduced or revenue neutral for affordable housing. <br />Chair Jacobs asked if the Board was interested in doing the assessment project <br />and all agreed. <br />Discussion ensued about recovering the expenditures. <br />Chair Jacobs asked staff to craft an area that would be applicable for an <br />assessment project, the parameters, what costs might be recovered, and when it could <br />be initiated. <br />5. Efland Sewer System Master Planning <br />This was addressed above, but Chair Jacobs wanted to ask Pau! Thames some <br />questions. <br />Chair Jacobs said that it has been a longstanding issue that the Efland sewer <br />rates did not recover the cost of the service and Paul Thames said that this is correct. <br />Chair Jacobs asked how much everyone else in Orange County was subsidizing for this <br />per year and Paul Thames said that out-of-pocket expenditures are probably about <br />$80,OOOlyear. He said that what they should be doing and what they will have to start <br />doing is inspecting the lines and have an adopted capital improvement program for the <br />system. These are conditions of a new permit for the collection system. They have to <br />have the permit because they have a rating capacity in excess of 250,000 gallonslday, <br />even though they are only actually doing 30,000 gallonslday. They have set no money <br />aside to replace capital equipment when it comes due. Generally, generators and <br />pumps and other big-ticket items have about a 25-year lifespan and these have been in <br />place for 18 years. <br />Chair Jacobs asked that when they do the Central Efland plan and put the <br />infrastructure in place, if that would be the time to address the inequities in the current <br />rate system and Paul Thames said yes. Paul Thames said that they would be <br />essentially doubling the number of users. Chair Jacobs asked that, as part of doing the <br />Central Efland sewer planning, that the rates be part of the planning so that the County <br />can recoup the costs and plan for capital improvements. <br />Commissioner Halkiotis said that he thinks it is terrible that the County will be <br />doubling its deficit by building this system. He asked what the OCS pays far sewer <br />