Utility panel, JAC bus plan sessions today

An organizational meeting of a Carson City financial oversight committee and a transportation meeting to gather public input on a city bus plan are on today’s city government calendar.

The city’s Utility Financial Oversight Committee is set to meet this afternoon in the Sierra Room at the Community Center, 851 E. William St., to select a chairperson and vice chairperson and hold a discussion reviewing the unit’s mission. The session begins at 3:30 p.m.

At 4:30 p.m. today in the Bonanza Room at the same Community Center, the Public Works Department will hold a meeting for consultation with staffers and to submit comments on a five-year plan for the Jump Around Carson (JAC) bus system. The public session, which will be handled in an open-house format, is slated to last until 6:30 p.m.

Members of the public also can offers comments at the earlier utility oversight panel session. The panel was established via a resolution approved by the consolidated city’s Board of Supervisors to “provide the board with recommendations regarding continuing compliance with board-adopted utility financial policies in preparation of annual budgets.”

That language in the resolution was crafted in part due to current board members’ desires that ongoing expenditures to upgrade sewer plant and water line improvements take into account needs for maintenance and replacement problems going forward. The board has voiced concern that in the 1990s, funding for such matters that had been built into rates was returned to ratepayers rather than retained for developing needs.

At today’s bus plan meeting, meanwhile, submission of comments from concerned citizens is encouraged in order to help city transport officials craft a Short Range Transit Development Plan (TDP) for the JAC system.

“The public is encouraged to use this opportunity as a forum to provide input in the development of the plan,” according to a public notice. “However, this will not be the only opportunity the public has to participate in the process, as this meeting will be the first of public meetings held during the development of the TDP.”