Assemblymember Alyson Huber to speak
at March 24th Citizens Alliance meeting

The meeting will be:

     Tuesday, March 24th, 6:30 p.m., 30 minutes earlier than usual
     El Dorado Hills Library
     7455 Silva Valley Parkway



No specific topic is announced, but we can predict a bit based on her talk at the March 9th meeting of the Foothill Democratic Club. Look for some true tales of wild and woolly lawmaking, then a fresh perspective on necessary reforms to do it better and make a democratic government work in the Capitol. Two key high level issues are resolving partisan contention, as in "build bridges, not walls", and finding a workable balance balance between democracy-by-initiatives  and authority for the Legislature to do the needed job. The current case in point has been the enormous budget deficit with so much spending direction written into the state constitution by initiatives that the legislature has authority to control only 7% of the budget.


Population updates and the 2010 Census


SACOG (Sacramento Area Council Of Governments) has just issued a call for comments to review and suggest modifications to the Census Bureau's definitions of block groups, census tracts, and Census Designated Places (CDPs) to prepare for the 2010 Census. This is a highly expedited process because of late release of materials by the Census Bureau.

The Citizens Alliance has submitted comments recommending that the El Dorado Hills CDP be redefined to use boundaries based on those of the EDH fire district ("El Dorado Hills County Water District"). The currently definet CDP covers only 17.9 square miles and contained a population of 18,016 in the 2,000 Census. In contrast, the fire district occupies more than 40 square miles and its 2008 Annual Report estimated a population of  42,387.  The edhca.net automatic daily extrapolation of our population has finally settled down to use the near-zero growth rate of 2008, now showing an estimate of 42,445 for today.

Another Census Bureau note is that the QuickFacts section on its web site no longer lists cities with populations less than 25,000. Consequently, Placerville and South Lake Tahoe are no longer listed. El Dorado Hills is the only community in El Dorado County with a population that would qualify for the QuickFacts city reports.




Library hours reduced

Our library now has evening hours only on Mondays and Tuesdays.  Aside from normal library functions, local organizations were already experiencing contention in scheduling its meeting room for evening meetings with availability 3 nights per week.

This calls into question El Dorado County's ability to support the levels of service that our "uncity" deserves and needs. Here's how El Dorado Hills and Folsom compare for library service:

Measure	Folsom	El Dorado Hills
Number of library branches	2	1
Total library branch-hours per week	98	42
Main branch	58	42
Secondary branch	40	--
Total evening library branch-hours per week	15	6
Main branch	9	6
Secondary branch	6	--