LAKEPORT ? In order to pay for an unanticipated $26,000 Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) bill, the city of Lakeport intends to pull $18,000 from its Community Development budget for professional services.
The money was originally intended to pay consulting fees to the planning company Quad Knopf Inc. the city hired to complete its general plan.
A general plan is a city”s means of planning for expansion, both determining use for land the city already owns and where the city plans to extend its boundaries and spheres of influence to accommodate population and other growth.
Now that plan, which has been in the works for years and is about 55 percent complete, may be on hold for the rest of the fiscal year, according to City Manager Jerry Gillham.
Community Development Director Richard Knoll said another option would be to keep Quad Knopf working and cover the $18,000 taken out of the budget to pay LAFCO in the next fiscal year, which starts in July.
“What we had hoped to do was have Quad Knopf finish up as much as they can, and we would then initiate payments in the new fiscal year ? we”d have to address the shortfall then,” Knoll said.
He said Quad Knopf still needs to work on including additional land into the general plan that the city wants to bring into its sphere of influence and eventually annex.
That land is roughly 900 acres, 800 of which is part of the city”s waste water facility on the south side of town. The site could be converted in the future into a housing development and golf course, a plan the city council has already agreed to with developer Matt Boeger, Knoll said.
But the $18,000 being pulled from the community development budget won”t cover the entire LAFCO bill. To pay the rest, an additional $7,000 will be redirected from other various budget items which have not yet been determined.
The redirection of funds comes at a time when the city is trying to close a $1.5 million dollar deficit the city discovered last summer. Previously, the city had not balanced its budget for two years.
The city normally includes the LAFCO bill into its budget each year, but because Gillham was hired by the city in May when the budget was being put together, he did not know to include it because in Oregon, where he previously worked, LAFCO bills are not paid directly by the city. The city”s interim manager at the time was Knoll, who assumed Gillham would know to include it in the budget.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
