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A tie vote in the Parks Committee means the Rancho Murieta Association will keep $88,000 in parks funds it took to reimburse itself for legal expenses for the pedestrian bridge.

"I don't consider legal fees to be a construction cost," argued developer representative Louise Dutton of Reynen & Bardis. "In a nutshell, if this committee did not approve the expenditure, the money needs to come back. ... It was a fairly large percentage of money that's in the parks budget."

Dutton made the motion to return the funds at the Parks Committee meeting Thursday.

RMA representatives Paul Gumbinger and Mike Martel voted against returning the money, although they acknowledged the funds were removed without committee authorization.

Dutton and Community Services District Director Dick Taylor voted in favor of having RMA return the money.

Throughout the meeting, Martel tried to make the $88,000 expenditures part of a larger discussion about the Parks Committee. At one point he challenged Dutton's right to vote. He questioned who should be allowed to participate in the committee or even attend its meetings. He challenged the presence of RanchoMurieta.com, the only representative of the public at the session. See that story here.

Martel contended that the $10,000 cost of a temporary trail to the bridge on the South "and many, many more" expenses for the bridge should have come out of parks money and didn't. Instead, the RMA paid, he said.

"I don't care to even be passing judgment at this juncture as to ... whether the legal fees are right or wrong," Taylor said. "I have been trying to talk about only the manner in which the money was moved from the parks fund account ..."

He has criticized the way the RMA took $88,000 for its bridge legal expenses without bringing the matter to the committee for a vote. Since November 2006, Taylor has been trying to get information from the RMA about how the funds transfer took place. RanchoMurieta.com has made its own inquiries over the last year and gotten little information from the RMA.

Three members of the Parks Committee -- RMA Director Paul Gumbinger, developer representative Louise Dutton and CSD Director Dick Taylor.

The Parks Committee consists of five voting members, two from RMA, two from the development community in Rancho Murieta and one CSD representative. Dutton is the sole developer representative on the committee at this time because the Pension Trust Fund for Operating Engineers hasn't designated a representative for the North development.

The parks fund was down to $276,767 in September 2007, with "little to no money coming in," according to RMA General Manager David Stiffler. The fund is made up of fees triggered by new development, with smaller contributions from the RMA.

It was South developer Reynen & Bardis that provided $1.53 million in funding for the pedestrian bridge under a financing agreement signed by the developer, the county and the RMA in 2003. The terms of the agreement required RMA to "diligently pursue the construction of the bridge." The agreement gave the Parks Committee the authority for the expenditure of funds for the project. See the agreement here.

The permanent ordinance in 2005 approved an additional $250,000 in developer funding to cover cost overruns. The costs were provided by the project manager, RMA Assistant General Manager Danise Hetland, at the county's request. The additional costs included the RMA's legal expenses that year -- about $48,000.

The planning staff report for the ordinance is available here.

Developer Reynen & Bardis was required to pay $71,500 as its share of the $250,000 to cover cost overruns.

So although there was $250,000 approved for overruns, only $71,500 was available immediately. The rest of the $250,000 will be paid by developers on a per-lot basis.

The RMA has said it is entitled to take its legal expenses from the $250,000 based on the county's approval of the additional funding to cover overruns.

The Parks Committee wasn't aware the RMA has repaid itself for $88,000 in legal expenses until November 2006, when the final costs of the project were presented. CSD officials objected, saying the Parks Committee hadn't approved the expenditure. The Parks Committee had agreed to use the fund to cover shortfalls in bridge funding but only after considering them on a case-by-case basis.

The supervisors' approval for overruns occurred in 2005. A county document makes it clear that some of the $88,000 taken by the RMA was for legal expenses incurred in 2006.

In addition, the easements that allowed the project to go forward weren't secured until 2006, and the effort generated legal costs for the CSD and Country Club as well as the RMA. The CSD and Country Club's expenses were about $40,000 each.

At the December 2006 RMA meeting, Directors Paul Gumbinger and Chris Pedersen, then the treasurer, said information presented at the previous month's Parks Committee meeting had been incorrect -- the RMA had not been repaid for its 2006 expenses. They said no organization would be repaid for 2006 costs.

Questioned after that meeting about the 2006 legal expenses, the directors referred questions to Stiffler, the general manager. RanchoMurieta.com made repeated requests for the information from Stiffler, who responded several times that he was looking into the matter but never delivered anything.

In a Parks Committee meeting in late 2007, Dutton, the development representative, asked if the committee could see the RMA's legal invoices for the project for 2005 and 2006. It is not known whether her request was granted.

RanchoMurieta.com made a formal request to see the invoices almost eight weeks ago under the provisions of the Davis-Stirling Act. The request has not been acknowledged.

But according to a March 2006 county letter authorizing the release of $71,500 to the RMA -- the amount paid in by developer Reynen & Bardis as its share of the cost overruns -- the RMA's legal expenses for 2005 were listed as $48,467. The letter is available here.

While the letter refers to releasing funds to the RMA, it references the agreement with the RMA, Reynen & Bardis and Sacramento County. That agreement calls for the project's expenditures to be handled by the Parks Committee.

After months of requests for information about how the money was handled, Taylor, the CSD director, took his criticisms of the RMA public. "I think it is absolutely a misuse of Parks funds, no question about it," Taylor said. He has called it a "misappropriation of funds."

Taylor's comments have helped fuel a renewal of hostilities between the RMA and CSD. Even before Taylor's remarks, RMA directors, including Martel, had objected to the CSD having a seat on the Parks Committee.

At Thursday's meeting, Crouse offered this conclusion: "I just want to make sure that this is put to rest. For me it's causing bad blood between the CSD, RMA and the development community and I don't want to continue fostering this forever. I want to put it to bed once and for all and then move forward."

Martel said he wanted the RMA out of the business of handling the Parks fund.

"There needs to be a separate accounting here," he said. "I don't want the RMA to hold on to the parks money any more."

Gumbinger disagreed, saying, "Let's just be well aware of what we're doing and how monies are spent. And they're documented."

At February's committee meeting, the group plans to discuss procedures for handling funds in the future.

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