COBB AREA COUNCIL
PUBLIC MEETING
Thursday September 21, 2017, 6:00-8:00pm
Little Red Schoolhouse/Cobb Mountain Lions Club
15780 Bottle Rock Rd., Cobb, CA 95426
MINUTES
PRESENT: Cindy Leonard (Alternate), Jessyca Lytle, Gary Prather, Jessica Pyska, Eliot Hurwitz (Chair)
13 people in attendance
Chair called the meeting to order at 6PM
• SHORT ANNOUNCEMENTS
General:
Eliot H. – spoke with Byron Turner – in next month should see process of updating Cobb Area Plan kick into high gear
Lions Club Announcements:
Kyle – Crab feed Oct 14th fresh Alaskan crab with raviolis. Hired a DJ for dancing. Funds will be used to support Little Red
Oct 4th– Lions doing food give away, donated by Gleaners 8-10am. Need 24 families to start regular food drive. Every 1st Wed of month – no forms to fill out to receive. Different program from Hunger Task Force; they will connect.
Oct 20th – and every 3rd Friday of the month at 7pm Lions will do family Bingo night. Food concessions as well. Like the Lions on Facebook to get updates of information.
• APPROVAL OF MINUTES from August 18, 2016
1 correction to minutes from Richard Curtola, “county” should read “county supervisor”
Motion to approve: Robert Stark
2nd – Richard Curtola
• TREASURER’S REPORT
Total: $2,283.27
1 check written for cables to use for mtgs
1 check intended for web domain
• PUBLIC and BOARD COMMENT ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS (3 mins./individual)
Jessyca – Stepped down from CAC – thanked everyone for being a part of creating, organizing, and running CAC in first year. Wished CAC well in future projects, etc. Cindy Leonard, Alternate, will take Lytle’s position on the council board.
Cindy – Asked Robert Stark to update on Rainbow Rd Bridge
Robert – Fish and Game permit submitted. $5,000 pd by Friends of Cobb Mtn.
1st thing to repair is broken beam.
Next goal- determine how new and old bridge are affixed
County owns current bridge – Robert will ask the county to just give the bridge to Friends of Cobb and/or the water dist. So then we can just do what is needed with old bridge and replace it with a new one.
Friends of Cobb may just buy a new bridge to replace at this point if it is the easiest?
• SHORT REPORTS from CAC Committees as needed
Mitigation Committee –
Karl Parker: Hobergs update. Showed slides of before and after from a year ago, including aerials, to today and discussed progress. Cleanup recently slowed again because manager had property in Florida affected by Hurricane Irma.
<Get report from Karl…>
Eliot Hurwitz: Attended Lake County Fire protection mtg. We were encouraged to look at areas up here that could be set up for fire-wise communities. Fire season is not over yet…
Gary Prather: Last year, they didn’t lift burn ban until over 20 inches of rain. Very conservative last year.
Question: Fire siren updates?
Answer: Do not know.
Jessyca L. suggested that next mtg we have Calfire officials come to mtg to give updates on fire siren’s for Cobb area.
- Also to give information about what grant funding will be available in the future for fuel reduction, chipping programs, education programs, etc. since the fire prevention fee will not be in place for many years now.
Beverly Hill: Heard at a BOS meeting that five fire chiefs for Lake county want to move their emergency dispatch to St Helena??
Gary – Sirens were turned off because they were old and responders were relying more and more on beepers for emergency calls. The problem has always been how to tell people what the siren alarm means and get word about where and what to avoid. Moving dispatch to St. Helenea is an ongoing discussion because the chief feels that adding Lake Co to that dispatch area might be an overload on that dispatch. St. Helena would be carrying 6 counties for dispatch then. Nothing has been changed.
Magdalena Valderrama: Reminder re: CodeRed alert system – handles more local system, closer than Nixle system
• SUPERVISOR’S COMMENTS/ANNOUNCEMENTS
Rob Brown not in attendance – no new news
Nancy Kaymen – Building department here, unofficially. Invited by Kyle Noble to come and give an update on status review. Department is now caught up on building inspections. She was recently hired away from another county and happened to already live in the Cobb community. Just posted advertisement to hire a 3rd building inspector. Rob no longer out doing inspections. County hired three local retired contractors who are doing inspections too. Department just interviewed for Plan Checker position. Acknowledges it’s less expensive for the county and the individual to do the plan checking in-house. Further questions, call her at 263-2382.
• PRESENTATIONS/DISCUSSIONS
Andy Nestor: Update on Lake County Broadband Solutions, a new broadband service for the Cobb Area with high speed wireless internet to Cobb and all Lake County.
Introduced Terre Logsdon as their new Chief Operating Officer.
Started planning phases 5 yrs ago.
Just completed fiber work to the Seigler Mountain tower. Circuits will be turned on and live at the tower as of this coming Monday.
Building 1st link up to the office at the old Work Rite building in Kelseyville; then raise a few more antennas that will be aimed into Cobb area.
Will start serving Cobb estimated in end of October – beginning of November
Go to: lake county broadband solutions.com (temp website)
Put name and address in and that will let them know that you are interested in seeing if you can get service at your address; will soon start marketing, but this will give them an idea of the service concentrations needed
Services provided residentially have no caps. You can stream movies, etc.
Once initial tower site and office site are linked they will be moving out and expanding from there.
In the future they will be tied into state OES networks.
Also will have weather stations to track weather and air quality locally on their towers and network as well
Q: Where are the tower locations?
A: Towers and relay points will be on private property, via lease agreements with the property owners. Maximum 12-15 feet tall.
A: Antennas are like home wifi router antennas. They are small like having a satellite dish, but smaller. The technology is “terrestrial point to point”, i.e., allows uploads speeds to be much higher and consistent because there is no time lag going up to and back from a satellite. The system will be able to keep and maintain that speed and not fluctuate. Also no data caps. Good for businesses and residences.
Q: Cost estimates?
- Income qualified – approx. $26 per mo. Have to qualify for Calfresh. 20 mbps download 5 mbps upload — still way better than what people are getting now
- Regular residential – approx.. install $149 $52 per month 40 mbps down 20 mbps up
- No contract (buy your own equipment – no monthly fee)
Ques – Robert Stark gave card for water district to give access to their tanks and towers for use.
Q: Are you a privately funded company
A: Yes…privately owned and operated. Owned by all of the people in Lake County (co-op)
If any questions go to the website and send an email.
• SUGGESTIONS FOR NEXT MEETING
None
• ADJOURN
Motion to adjourn – Gary Prather
2nd – Jessyca L.
Meeting adjourned 7:07 pm