Supervisors hold off on Vina GSA legal finance support – Chico Enterprise-Record

OROVILLE — The Butte County Department of Water Resource Conservation requested a budget adjustment of $8,000 from the Butte County Board of Supervisors to go toward costs accumulated through a legal complaint against the Vina Groundwater Sustainability Agency.

Department Director Kami Loesser was joined Tuesday by Assistant Director Christina Buck before the board to make the request.

With Supervisor Doug Teeter unable to attend Tuesday’s meeting during which the request was made, the board’s vote was split 2-2 with supervisors Debra Lucero and Tami Ritter voting against it.

Lucero expressed concern that there had been no tracking of costs and time associated with the GSA, which is made up of Butte County, Chico and the Durham Irrigation District.

“My problem with this is the same problem and I spoke with Kami at length about this last evening,” Lucero said. “This is through the end of the fiscal year so this is a request through June 30. So that’s just for this fiscal year. There’s no idea as to how much the costs are going to be. So again, here we are in this grey area. I feel uncomfortable committing even $8,000 toward a black hole not understanding what those costs are going to be and not understanding how they’re going to get paid.”

In total, the legal fees come out to $20,000. Chico will be asked to pay $8,000 and the Durham Irrigation District will be asked for $4,000.

Kelly Peterson, a scientist with the department, spoke on the cost,…

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