WILDOMAR: Committee to reconsider $600,000 request

Water district officials say county funds aren't needed for pump station project

By AARON CLAVERIE - Staff Writer | Thursday, July 31, 2008 8:58 PM PDT ∞

WILDOMAR ---- Call it "take two."

An advisory committee consisting of Wildomar and Lakeland Village residents will reconsider its support for using $600,000 in county redevelopment money to help fund a $4.3 million pump station project proposed by the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District.

The Lakeland Village/Wildomar Project Area Committee voted 9-0 during its meeting last month to send a recommendation to county Supervisor Bob Buster's office in support of the allocation.

Water district officials, however, responded that they don't need the money for the project.

Barbara Dye, a Lakeland Village-based member of the committee, confirmed Wednesday that the vote will be revisited at a future committee meeting.

"I don't know where the communication problem between the community and the board of directors and the (water district) general manager started," she said.

According to a presentation staged by water district Director John Lloyd at the earlier meeting, the district needed the funding to help speed construction of the project: a new 800,000-gallon reservoir and pump stations in Lakeland Village that will boost water pressure there.

Lloyd acknowledged during the meeting that the project would be built with or without the financial assistance of the county but he said it would be finished faster if the funds were earmarked for the project.

The morning after the meeting, water district officials said the district doesn't need the county's money because the project is already fully funded.

The officials ---- the general manager, two directors and the district's spokesman ---- said they didn't know why Lloyd had been invited to the committee's meeting to solicit funding.

Lloyd, after he found out the project was already fully funded, chalked it up to a "win-win" misunderstanding. He said the committee could considering using the $600,000 on another area project.

But some questions remain.

The district director who represents the Lakeland Village area, Judy Guglielmana, said she doesn't know why she wasn't asked to address the committee, formed after the county sold millions of dollars in redevelopment area bonds earlier this decade. The committee advises the county on how it would like to see the revenue from those bonds spent in that redevelopment zone.

Members of the committee want to know why they had been asked to consider a request for funding that wasn't needed.

Some of those questions probably will be answered at the committee's next meeting, scheduled for Sept. 17. In the meantime, Aurelio Aguirre, regional manager of the county's economic development agency, shed some light on the unusual turn of events.

Aguirre, who attends each of the committee's meetings, said the county and the water district have teamed up in the past and will team up in the future on infrastructure projects. Those types of projects are appropriate uses for redevelopment funds, he said.

Earlier this year, county staff members and water district administrators were discussing projects in the Lakeland Village and Wildomar redevelopment area and the reservoir/pump station project was mentioned.

Aguirre said Lloyd was picked to address the committee and talk about the project because some members of the committee are opposed to another district project, a controversial proposal for a hydroelectric power plant. That project, if it is ever approved by federal and state government agencies, will involve construction of a huge reservoir in a canyon west of Lakeland Village.

Lloyd has been one of the only voices on the water district's board of directors critical of the power plant project.

Aguirre said the district's general manager, Ron Young, didn't know about the presentation or the funding discussion because the conversations about the project involved lower-level district staff members.

On Wednesday, the district's spokesman, Greg Morrison, backed Aguirre's account.

"I think it's as simple as lower-level staff members not communicating with management," he said.

Morrison said the pump station project will be put out to bid in the next couple of weeks with construction scheduled to start in the fall.

The stronger water pressure in Lakeland Village resulting from the pump stations will be a boon for firefighting efforts. Residents also should notice better water pressure in their sinks and showers.

Contact staff writer Aaron Claverie at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2624, or aclaverie@californian.com.