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Hey everyone. This page is for you, The Divide Community. Its meant to be a Hub for easily accessing information about our local water, especially information relating to GPUD & the fees & rate increases some of you, who don't own a well, have seen on your current water bills. Recently I posted a series of questions I had about the situation on Facebook posed to the community at large & especially to candidates, employees of GPUD & anyone upset with the current state of things to respond to, if they so chose. I decided that, due to the evasion by self proclaimed experts in this issue & interest by the followers on the Facebook group The Divide & an overwhelming amount of information that I never thought I would be expected to personally sort through (it would take years), that building a website was an easier way than trying to maintain one post to keep us all connected on the feedback I got from asking those questions. My hope is that I won't be the only one that gets involved in researching the answers to these questions & that anyone that cares about our vital water resource being managed properly will take on one or several topics to provide me answers with documentation to back them up. Then maybe we can get to the bottom of what is really going on with our water supply. In my opinion based on the reaction to my questions, the current individuals in power & striving for power over this small town board, while they may be very passionate about their views & correct in their veiled statements they use to manipulate & sway the people to their opinions, are not honest & forthright about their real motivations, or the reasons behind these new rates & fees, nor the supposed opposition of these fees. Just because someone says something happened doesn't mean they have proof. I want some documentation to base my opinions on & it would honestly take me years to sort through all this mess on my own. I just hope that you the people of our community know that there are factions out there manipulating this water situation for their own gain. The self proclaimed heros are not what they appear. The people accused by the people raising an out cry are not innocent of their own machinations. Just be really careful how you vote this election because there are individuals behind the scene trying to take the people's voice away who have ulterior motives, agendas & really nasty ways of being. This website is going to be a temporary resource & will only last so long as the people are interested, so read it, tell me what you think & protest at the board meetings, etc. if you aren't happy with how our life giving resource is being manipulated to control us. Water is Life.

The Original Group Facebook Post on The Divide


Group Facebook Page The Divide
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Water is Life: So for those of you affected by the rate increases on your water bill on The Divide that want info. about it read this post.
I really didn't want to be involved with this but apparently there is a bunch of fighting & crap going on with our water. I wanted to offer all the people involved an opportunity to answer some questions honestly on a public community forum in their own voice without slander, or a bunch of gossip, so I wrote these questions & offered to send them to Lon Uso, Cindy Garcia, Mike Saunders, Dave Souza & anyone else involved & influential at the heart of the situation & then let the community decide who they want in charge & if they want to make an effort to pay attention outside of their day to day to change things.Hopefully this brings all the info. to one place openly & in layman's terms so you can be easily involved in having a voice in how our community is run. Feel free to post questions on this thread, or documentation proving points. Please keep things civil as this is not normally a political community page & just post facts not heated opinions.
The divide community alliance says there is a meeting happening in Cool on Sept. 27th in regards to candidates running for positions on the GPUD board.
Stephen Proe & another have also filed a lawsuit against GPUD, because they feel these rate increases & fees are unjust & that GPUD won't account for their reasons behind expenses & charges.
There is supposedly an election coming up Nov. 5th, i think, that will affect your water bill & how our water is handled. Get involved, if this matters to you, & stop complaining, if you don't.
These are the questions I have for people involved. Answer & attach your responses accordingly. So far Lon Uso has agreed to answer these & I haven't heard back from anyone else. (Please see updates to this comment below.)
Tag People & Share this to other groups if you feel inclined 
Comments


Stacy Keith Catrambone Times like this I cherish having a well. Best to everyone involved in this!!


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. I miss my well dearly!


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John Spencer The word going around is that El Dorado County is going to have something added to the tax bill to tax wells. I have no details on this.


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. John Spencer well I would be voting a resounding NO on that.


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John Spencer Stephanie Cimmarusti Its County so they don't need to ask for a vote - it will just show up on your tax bill - just like the liquid and solid waste taxs showed up many years back.
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. John Spencer well then how do people stop it from happening? I would just not pay it myself.
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John Spencer Once its on the tax bill and you don't pay it then its considered an unpaid tax and the county puts a lien on your property. Then after I believe its 7 years the county will SELL YOUR PROPERTY AT AUCTION. We will just need to wait and see if (or when) it really happens.
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Cynthia Buendia This initiative bothers me bcuz the county doesn't maintain and/or fix my well if there are issues. They certainly didn't pay for it to be dug so not sure how they can access a "tax". Will continue to follow this proposal.


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Cynthia Buendia that's the point is they should have no right unless your well affects the community's water supply in some way, or they maintain it in some way, which they don't. It's crap.


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John Spencer The reasoning for the well tax is that every drop of water you take out of a well does effect the ENTIRE community by lowering the water table. In Southern California entire towns have lost as much as a foot or more in elevation because all the wells lowered the water table.
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Steven Proe John Spencer Hi John Spencer, where source of this rumor pls.? What part of the county is requesting this Fee increase?


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Steven Proe I just called District IV, Supervisor Mike Ranalli Office for a reply, I had checked with the Clerk to the Board ad they suggested that I check with Brenda assistant to Supervisor Ranalli .


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. John Spencer how I understand it we don't have the same thing with our water up here & that the classic water table model is based on eluvial fans with Sand type water seepage over bedrock & wells in areas like that are straws drinking from the same underground river, lake, or aquiduct & when in a dry season the Wells run dry with over use so the government does need to become involved to regulate usage. From what I have been told we are not the same up here. Our water table is millions of pockets of underground cracks, caves, fizures lakes, & rivers & our individual wells draw off of many localized pockets of water. Most of these sources never run dry, unless you live somewhere like pilot hill where the well levels are affected by the ground water saturation of folsom lake. Either way there's no legitimate reason to tax someone to live off their own water supply.
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John Spencer As I said we will just have to wait and see what happens. I have been told Placer County has already passed a well tax so you know our county - if they can do it so can we. Besides the Gov is also behind state wide well taxing. Just need to sit back and wait and see. No one that really knows is going to tell us anything.
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John Spencer P.S. When we happen to tap into an underground stream or river we are actually lowering the flow for your neighbor. Thats why there are a lot of El Dorado County wells going dry.


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Stephanie Buss The state of California is charging certain areas usage fees on their wells. This area is not one of them but it is already happening. You can find this information out on the State Water Resources Control Board.


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Steven Proe John Spencer I have checked with the county and their reply was "nothing to change on wells the only thing "I was told was a application for a new well."
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. https://voteforcindygarcia.org/ this is the website link for info. About Cindy Garcia, one of the candidates running. She has agreed to answer these questions as soon as she has time & post them on her website. I will link her answers to here once she says she's done.
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. https://www.votemikesaunders.com/ This is Michael Saunders website. Another candidate for the Board at the next election. He says he will answer my questions as well as others via YouTube & chanel 13 videos on this website as he can, but that he may not have time to answer them directly. He feels this post will be lost in the scroll of facebook & that you the community won't follow this post. I am hoping this post remains pinned as an anouncement & is shared to other groups to bring all the info on this topic to an easily accessed hub that provides definite answers people can weigh. It only works if people are willing to participate.


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. If anyone knows Jessie Hanschild, or Bonnie Neeley please let them know that they are also welcome to be involved as other candidates. If anyone tapes the 2 debates this month they can be attached here too.


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Manda Golino Thank you Stephanie Cimmarusti for taking the time to do this for us


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Manda Golino your welcome. Hope they actually answer, if not, then at least you guys know who cares.


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Dave Bishop most of yur questions are really `staff'' related in a manner of speaking. I took a shot at some of the questions and will relate my thoughts as follows...these are from page three.

I did not know there was a mandatory amount of water calif required.…See More


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Dave Bishop the first two pages of questions , one must have been involved with the district at a staff/board member level, to answer. from a `outsider looking in' perspective, I am completely convinced that this board manufactured numbers that they are now trying…See More


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Dave Bishop thank you so much for taking the time to answer 
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Monique Grant-Hughes Terry Royal. Here is some more information on what we were talking about


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide.https://m.facebook.com/groups/376430186117923?view=permalink&id=512268659200741 a community members response to the willingness of candidates to answer questions.
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CJ Glasgow to Divide Community Alliance
September 19 at 9:41 AM
This election for GUPUD board has really bothered me this time around. There are a few points that I can just no longer stay quiet on. I never have and never wi...
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. This thread now contains information about GPUD salaries. If you go to the Divide Community Alliance you can search within the group in the search bar for info. on many subjects. Cherie Carlyon says answers to many of these questions are on their page, or the GPUD website, but you will need to hunt for them yourself.
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Sept. 26th Cool Hall candidate forum will apparently be at 6:30pm & Sept 27th 6pm Cool Hall RCC will hold a customer water meeting. Some of the candidates will be at Founders day in Georgetown. Lon Uso does not have a website this time around. Via email Lon stated he has responded to a large number of my questions & will be sending the response in 2 parts. I will post his answers here when I receive them. Other people have taken issue with my lack of numbers on the questions & the quantity of them. So may I suggest you count in your head from the top down starting with the number one & answer any of them that takes your fancy. There's no requirement to answer them all, or all at once.
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Lon's response so far: I have to say that I object to Proe’s characterization that our rates are unjust. They are necessary and we have proven that over and over. 
You have interesting questions but the sheer volume is overwhelming. I will answer the rest as I have time.


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Thank you for taking the time on the first half of your response Lon Uso. You are the first one to answer.
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Lon Uso's response. Whether you agree, or disagree with his responses, at least he has taken the time to answer.
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Technical difficulties... will post the rest asap
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. So everyone knows I was just removed from the Facebook group The Divide Community Aliance, after being told that they care more about people being polite & supporting their exact view points than freedom of speach & American laws. They are excluding alternate viewpoints from their site, & spreading petty personal grudges instead of standing up for their opinions on how GPUD is being handled with verifiable documentation. There are some people that genuinely care with info. On their page, but overall I personally have decided that their way of behaving is close-minded & their views thus far groundless. I will be answering my own questions in the comming weeks & posting what I find for all of you to make your own decissions.


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Ken Pauley Didn't even know that group existed..... 


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Steven Proe All of a sudden Stephanie is on the scene humm,: Stephanie, was asking all kinds of questions even thought I and others set her information. Then she stated that she had not even read the Writ filed against GDPUD, to me it seemed a bit fishy as if Stephanie Cimmarusti , may have been a ghost Writer for someone maybe a present siding Board member in my opinion. Again thanks to all you efforts, but beware of strangers bearing gifts.
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Steven Proe what is your deal? I told you on the other page that I don't know what a writ is & the only reason I mentioned you on this post is that you told me you filed a lawsuit against Lon Uso & GPUD & I have received no info from you. Though I said you were welcome to answer the water questions I asked for the community on here with any documents attached to back up your views on the water situation in our community. That offer still stands. I think it's kinda amazing you are paranoid enough to think I'm a part of a conspiracy just because I was trying to be neutral about all of this.
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Stephanie Cimmarusti One woman on The Divide Community Alliance is the only one who had sent me anything documented. Lon Uso responded to my questions partially. Cindy Garcia said she will answer my questions soon. That is all.


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Steven Proe Stephanie Cimmarusti If what your are saying is correct, why don't you ask GDPUD, not many in the Public have documents as GDPUD at times can be difficult to obtain documents from, but even then you have to know what questions to ask.
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Steven Proe I don't really know what you want from me here. I have asked all the current board members & community to participate however they like to answer with what info they claim to have to offer easier & more transparent info. To the community. B…See More


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Ken Pauley Yea, geez, give her a break. She's asking the candidates to respond to some questions for her, things others in the community might want to hear answers too as well from each of them. All getting the same questions. Has nothing to do with what you're asking her about, why attack her? There is no need for her to go to GDPUD and ask the question you are asking, she wants to hear answers from the candidates.


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Kirsten Deva Jensen I agree water is life and I don’t think people realize how fortunate we are to have clean source mountain water from Stumpy. There are communities right here in central Ca who have been without water. It saddens me our community has been divided and we are not on the same team. It seems the previous board has let our infrastructure go and this board has taken on the hard job to fix it and keep the state from taking over our water which is HUGE! Although I don’t like the increase I definitely like having clean water. Foresthill water is still more then ours! I support the current board and most of all support having good water and that does cost a price. Thank you Stephanie Cimmarusti for taking the time.


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. For those of you following the thread I had an interesting chain of events happen. People were MAD that I posted my last comment. I got verbally personally attacked from people that I'm unsure which side their affiliated with, I got private texts from candidates in the weee hours of the morning & my phone seemed to be hacked this morning logging me out of facebook, trying to log itself back in with a picture less profile, my phone call feature was on with a little window like the microphone was listening. I had to remove the battery & change Internet connections to post this & the keyboard is glitching as I do. Just want you all to know what a couple questions can cause even locally right now. So it's my anneversary with my hubby & I would rather spend it with him than some water debate. If anyone tapes the results feel free to post it here. In the next 3 weeks I'm going to attempt to build a website with my views on the answers to my own questions, but that will take time since most people that say they're involved have no interest in making it easy. Have a beautiful day.


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Kirsten Deva Jensen Stephanie Cimmarusti you have the right, ignore people causing troubles and by all means have a HAPPY ANNIVERSARY my dear!


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David Verdugo Stephanie Cimmarusti grew up on the divide and seems to care more about the region than most people that are our age. 

But in the 22 or so years I lived up there, I never met or heard of this Steven Proe dude.

And if what Stephanie is saying is true, I would say his comment might shed some insight. 

He mentions a ‘ghost writer for a sitting board member’. That is a strangely specific speculation to make. But remember! Liars and deceivers often tell you the truth about themselves as they accuse others.


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. David Verdugo thanks for thinking of that. I thought his comment was wierd too.
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Kirsten Deva Jensen Totally agree David Verdugo, well said!
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Also does anyone know what a writ is? He mentioned it twice to me in regards to this supposed lawsuit. I would like to read whatever it is &, if it's relevant, explain it simply to people on here & attach a document.
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David Verdugo I think a writ is a pre-decision order by the court to take/force some action.


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Kat Mendenhall A writ: a form of written command in the name of a court or other legal authority to act, or abstain from acting, in some way.


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Thank you guys. I wonder why he thought I should have read this, or where I would look this up. Maybe call the courthouse next week, but since I'm not involved with this legally, would they release info. To a random community member?
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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Also El Dorado Superior court is only open for phone calls from 8am to 1pm mon. To fri. Their phone number is 621-6426 their website is www.eldoradocourt.org . Under search case records, civil case index you can look up Steven Proe & it will return 8 records including one filed with Michelle Tourney. The most recent case is El Dorado County Taxpayers vs GPUD writ of mandate unlimited case #PC20180211 filed on 5/1/2018. There's no info. Other than that. To see the record it costs $10 or $40 rush plus a $15 fee if it takes them more than 10min. To find the record, $0.50 to copy it & $25.00 to certify it. There is no way to see what stage of the process this is in or if there was a ruling, but I don't know where else to look. I don't have that kind of money to satisfy curriosity, but maybe someone else would like to post it. You will need to file a Local form M-5 with the case number. This just shows Stephen filed this writ, not that anyone is innocent or guilty. He hasn't been gracious enough to provide the record for anyone to read.
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Kat Mendenhall Also the Rural Communities Coalition will be meeting tomorrow night (9/27 at 6pm) at the Cool Hall regarding GPUD rates. They are asking people to attend and bring their bills and their stories so that they can see if the RCC might get involved.


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Michael SaundersMichael and 12 others joined The Divide within the last two weeks. Give them a warm welcome into your community! This post is on numerous FB pages, results posted one place may not show up everywhere. My response to this post on a different page before I was asked to join this page expresses this point - "Thank you, Stephanie. I am a campaign of one and will try to get as many of your questions answered in my community issues videos as I produce them. 
For you and others in the community unable to attend the debates. I will post which of the debates may be videotaped and available via Youtube and through Comcast Channel 13.

Facebook is a difficult medium … if you are not in a group you will never see a message and certain groups choose who they let into them. Algorithms.. so some messages may not show up in your feed. Scrollapalooza ( lots of messages and posts and feeds and an individual post/message can be buried in the weeds), not everyone uses Facebook, and we are on the Divide so for many of us...internet is an issue.

Also, you are missing Candidates Jessie Hanschild and Bonnie Neeley 

Thanks, visit me at https://www.votemikesaunders.com, https://www.facebook.com/saunders4gdpud" There are debates and events where the candidates answer questions. The debate yesterday was not videotaped by Channel 13, I am not aware if there is an audio recording of it. I use my campaign sites as a source where you can go and ask questions and the answers remain there for anyone interested to read. Thanks again.


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. Michael Saunders thank you for posting this here Michael  I am planning on building a small website to link all of the info. Together so it won't be lost in one facebook feed when I un pin this anouncement from the page.


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Stephanie CimmarustiYou manage the membership and posts for The Divide. I have been informed what a writ is & been provided a copy of the writ filed against GPUD along with a copy of what I believe is the amounts GPUD employees are paid by a woman in the community who wants to help make info. Easily available to all of you. When I'm in front of my laptop next week I'll convert these to something facebook will upload &/or put them on the webpage. Stay tuned...
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