By: Madeleine DeAndreis-Ayres
Submitted: Nov. 2, 2023
Fort Jones City Council has made many decisions in the past year that citizens were not aware of but impact us all nonetheless. We no longer have consistent news sources printing or posting news. Because it is important to get the information out, below is a summary of some of the decisions made and executed by the council and Mayor Mercedes Garcia. The Fort Jones Town Council has not posted meeting minutes online since last March.
5 Comments
This is an example why we need local news. We as citizens lose the benefit of independent information, with the loss of active investigations of a free press. We’ve lost local radio, a nearby television station… this all impacts accountability at the local level. Even if everything is explained, this is an example of what could occur without anyone keeping up with what is going on. Thank you for the story.
Very good Madeleine! You expressed your concerns clearly and concisely. I only hope more citizens of Fort Jones will get involved and help remove this Council before irrepairble harm is done to our town.
Re. the park grant that was voted to be returned by the current council… wasn’t it a “Matching Grant”? Which meant that the city would need to match those funds in order to use them? It’s the people who own homes and live in Ft. Jones (owners of rentals included) who would need to pay higher property taxes, along with the businesses, if I understand what the big concern was by the citizens vs. the businesses (which was stated it would benefit). Maybe the citizens of Ft. Jones should have been offered a vote on if THEY wanted to pay for it, thru higher property taxes, before the grant was even written and submitted? As a rental owner of multiple rentals in Ft. Jones I’m one who was against having our property taxes raised w/o our voice being heard. There are so many “sides” to this story all of which need to be heard and addressed imo.
I also want to be able to read all City Council Minutes from the Council Meetings in a timely manner. I’ve been searching for them on the City Website and was wondering why I wasn’t able to find them. Why are they not being posted shortly after EVERY meeting for all of us to see what’s going on in our city government? That needs to change and hopefully will. I also encourage all to attend the City Council meetings (as I plan to be doing) AND for them to be posted as to date AND time with enough adequate notice so the public can see them easily.
I was recently told that the upcoming regular Council meeting this coming Monday (11/13) is scheduled for 7:00 PM (not 6:00, which is supposedly their regular meeting time).
Hello Rhonda, I am sorry, but you have been misled in your understanding of that specific Park Grant. It was not a matching grant. It was a $480,000 grant that was a no strings attached grant and would not have cost the citizens a dime. Not only would it have provided public rest rooms, but would have provided an event venue for Farmer’s Markets, music, dancing, food vendors and other public improvements that would have benefited not only the residents, but all the businesses in town, which would have brought more tax money into the town to help pay for all of the services a town provide the citizens.
I want to thank Madelyn for her article which was enlightening, but didn’t really touch on all of the other grants the council has wasted by not following through, including the multi million dollar grants previous councils had lined up to upgrade the water system, wastewater treatment plant, Highway 3, sidewalks and upgrades to traffic control. All things that would have been paid for by NON-matching grants. In fact of the $3+ million in grants I brought to the town in the short time I was City Manager, not one required any kind of match.
It is time for the people to rise up and vote this council out of office before they destroy everything that has been built up by the previous council.
I’m curious as to when Adam Cox had the time to do this seeing that he is GM of Chester public utilities district and several other agencies in Plumas county.
I question if Adam cox is working on the other agencies while he is getting paid to do his job at chester public utilities district. Seems to me it would be difficult to work on all of these things at once.