Can I reserve a park for a planned event?

Yes! More information regarding the OPUD Park reservation policy can be obtained by visiting the OPUD website, www.opud.org or by calling Sherry Koller at (530) 743-8132.

Why are the parks in Plumas Lake nicer and more thoroughly maintained than the parks in Olivehurst?

In short, designated funding. The planning documents that regulated development in Plumas Lake created land dedicated for parks, development fees to build parks, and maintenance fees to take care of parks; e.g. irrigate, mow, remove graffiti, and repair equipment. The only source of revenue to maintain parks in Olivehurst is a small share of property taxes. The property taxes OPUD receives from Yuba County are divided among OPUD Fire, Olivehurst parks, Olivehurst street lights and maintenance of the Johnson Park storm water canal. As property values decrease, the share of OPUD property tax correspondingly decreases. The lion’s share of the property tax received by OPUD is allocated to the Fire Dept. By contrast, even though OPUD does NOT receive property tax from Plumas Lake, the parks in Plumas Lake have a designated maintenance funding source, which is independent of property values. In fact, an inflation adjustment attribute allows the funding to increase with inflation. Each home in the Plumas Lake area pays a park maintenance component as part of County Service Area (CSA) 66. The amount of funding available for park maintenance through CSA 66 is far greater than the limited and shrinking amount of funding through a share of property tax is Olivehurst. Funding from CSA -66 MUST be spent inside of the legally defined geographic boundaries of CSA-66, i.e. OPUD cannot spend CSA 66 funds on Olivehurst parks.

Is the money I’m paying in taxes (e.g. CSA-66) and the money from the park development fees paid when my house was built being “siphoned off” and spent in other neighborhoods?

We receive this question (or derivatives thereof) most often from residents of the Plumas Lake area in housing projects where development stopped suddenly, and prior to building of any neighborhood parks This answer assumes such a perspective from the question CSA-66, the maintenance funding mechanism, has a legally defined boundary. This boundary is similar to the legally defined boundary of a city limit or county line. The source of park development fees stems from the planning documents. The planning documents associated with the development of Plumas Lake, which include the Plumas Lake Specific Plan (PLSP), North Arboga Study Area (NASA) and PLSP NASA OPUD Parks Master Plan stipulate that all parks within the planning areas benefit all properties within the planning areas. Therefore, park development funding can be expended on any park inside the legally defined boundaries of PLSP and NASA (which are incorporated into the PLSP NASA OPUD Park Master Plan. Though we would not agree with the characterization used “siphoning off”, we understand the sentiment, which is just one of the negative consequence to the sudden cessation of development. There are projects with only a few houses built, roads to nowhere, and oversized (relative to the present number of houses) infrastructure. Both the development funding and the maintenance funding are derived from a nexus (a study performed to correlate the fees and charges to the benefit received and the cost of providing such). The two nexus studies (building and maintaining parks) are integrated. In other words, you have to match the funding available to build the parks with the funding available to maintain the parks. If you deviate too liberally away from the master plan or nexus, e.g. build additional parks that may serve the shortterm needs of an unanticipated small project, both the nexus studies may be severely compromised. OPUD could end up with too many parks for the available maintenance funding and/or insufficient development funding to complete the parks described in the planning documents.

I plan to have an event in one of the OPUD parks. Do I need some sort of permit?

It depends on the nature of the event. If the event is going to incorporate any kind of powered equipment (e.g. bounce houses, amplified sound/music, lighting etc.) then the event will require a park use permit, which can be downloaded at www.opud.org or obtained by calling (530) 743-4657. The nature of the requirement to have a park use permit is NOT to discourage events. It is an issue of liability. If you’re going to have equipment which substantially increases the potential for an accident, you need to bear the risk/liability instead of all the other owners of the parks, the residents of Olivehurst and Plumas Lake bearing the risk/liability. The OPUD Park Use Permit includes provisions for obtaining insurance for the scope of the event. The most common means of compliance with this requirement is individuals obtaining a one-day rider on their homeowner’s policy. Many homeowners’ insurance companies charge little or nothing for the one-day rider, under reasonable circumstances. In other words, it likely wouldn’t be feasible to host a chainsaw juggling event with a one-day rider.