A proposed "drop-dead deadline" now hovers over efforts to turn 13 square miles of the Arden Arcade area into a city.
"If you don't make it, you are done," said Steve Miklos, chairman of the Local Agency Formation Commission, a group that regulates political boundaries.
At a meeting last week, cash-strapped cityhood proponents were told they should pay $141,811 by Aug. 1 before studies needed to put the issue on the June 2010 ballot are resumed.
LAFCO Executive Director Peter Brundage said the "up-front" money was needed to avoid the "pay as you go" payment plan for proponents that led a consultant to resign in April after it became apparent a needed fiscal analysis could not be completed in time for this November's election.
But before the commission, which is made up of area elected officials, could vote on Brundage's recommendation, commissioners said they had several concerns, including what one described as a "compromise" that was delivered to the commission an hour before the meeting.
Joel Archer, chairman of the Arden Arcade Incorporation Committee, proposed paying $50,000 to LAFCO by August and paying the remainder of the $141,811 – using funds already on deposit – in installments in November 2008 and in February 2009.
Though Brundage had said the $141,811 was overdue in March, a date that proponents agreed to meet last August, Archer said the total "was a lot to come up with."
Archer's alternative plan prompted Miklos, who de- scribed Archer's proposal as a compromise, to insist upon wording in an agreement that says any additional costs in the studies caused by delays in the payment plan were the responsibility of cityhood proponents.
Though Archer said Miklos' suggestion was acceptable, that triggered commission member Susan Peters, a Sacramento County supervisor whose district includes the Arden Arcade area, to say that uncertainties in what the fiscal study will reveal make installment payments a shaky proposition.
"For safety's sake for everyone, the smart thing to do is to have the money up front," Peters said.
At the end of the meeting, commissioners declined to take a vote on the payment plan and Brundage's recommendation on a replacement consultant to resume the fiscal study. They instead postponed the decision to the next LAFCO meeting in June.
The issue over how to pay for two consultants to perform separate studies has been a controversy from the start of the incorporation effort.
The incorporation committee claims that other cityhood efforts in Rancho Cordova, Citrus Heights and Elk Grove were allowed to pay LAFCO costs after the fiscal and environmental studies were completed.
LAFCO officials insist that times have changed, and a new board with different priorities is now commanding LAFCO business.
Archer claims that the incorporation committee has raised $63,189 for the two studies from July 2007 through January. With LAFCO's matching share that has been spent so far, that brings the total to $126,000 that has been raised for the fiscal analysis and an environmental study.
The environmental study is nearly complete, but the majority of the fiscal analysis has yet to be performed.
Brundage told commissioners at the meeting that the Arden Arcade committee was inconsistent in making its installment payments and that led to a "quagmire" for LAFCO officials, forcing them to "split the baby" in deciding which of the two consultants were paid to perform their studies.
Although Brundage said he was opposed to the idea, the new consultant has agreed to break down the work schedule into specific tasks and costs.
The drawback to this ap- proach is "possible uneven commitment of consultant re- sources" that led to April's resignation of the former consultant, Brundage wrote in his staff report for the commission meeting.
In urging his fellow commissioners to postpone making a decision last week, Miklos said the commission needs the extra time to have staff members research inconsistencies in the recommendations. Commissioners also need extra time to think before making a decision, he said.
"It seems like we are moving too fast. I'm uncomfortable with that," Miklos said.
Call The Bee's Ramon Coronado, (916) 321-1013.
