In Amador County, the term Mello-Roos conjures a knotty history, so much so that officials and developers admit avoiding saying the names aloud.

In Sutter Creek Monday night, the words were spoken at a planning commission meeting in connection to the Gold Rush Ranch and Golf Resort project currently awaiting updated fiscal analysis and a tentative development agreement.

Financial consultant Mark Northcross of Northcross, Hill & Ach, said that Sutter Creek is both a low sales tax retention city and a low property tax city. "Only about 20 percent of sales tax paid by residents of Sutter Creek stays in the city," he estimated, "and 90 percent of property tax goes someplace other than Sutter Creek. We recommend a surcharge be put on the Gold Rush project. We recommend that you make up for the shortfalls by using the Mello-Roos law."

The city's embrace of Mello-Roos financing for the Powder House Estates hasn't turned out exactly as planned. The city put the mechanism in place for developer Stan Gamble to proceed with the process, but that mechanism has not been triggered and no bonds have been sold. The property is currently for sale. City Attorney Dennis Crabb, who helped Sutter Creek officials navigate their way through that process more than a year ago, explained that "Mello-Roos and community facilities district are two ways of saying the same thing."

The county has one operational CFD, No. 2006-1, which provides funding for firefighting and emergency medical services. Amador Fire Protection District Chief Jim McCart said that there are currently 64 parcels on the CFD rolls, adding that the cities of Jackson, Sutter Creek and Plymouth have agreed to include new developments in the CFD. The tax imposed by this CFD is presently $536.12 per single family dwelling. For commercial properties, this amount is multiplied by how many times 2,500 square feet are in the building.

The Mello-Roos Act provides mechanisms for two types of financing. One is through the sale of bonds that raise money to build infrastructure and the other is to provide money for services on an ongoing basis.

The city of Ione has both. Ione City Manager Kim Kerr calls the bonds Mello-Roos, but refers to the service tax as a CFD. "They are the best way to pay for infrastructure," she said. Ione did have some hiccups over the Mello-Roos bonds years ago. In the late 1980s, the city's Castle Oaks subdivision development defaulted on bonds that were issued and supposed to be paid back with Mello-Roos taxes. But Kerr said that all is well now.

Henry Mello was a state senator and Mike Roos a state assemblyman who sponsored legislation in 1982 to fund projects and developments in California in the wake of the 1978 Proposition 13 property tax limits. The legislation aimed to provide a way for willing communities to tax themselves at a rate higher than the 1 percent of assessed property value allowed under Proposition 13. Their collaboration resulted in a law known as the Community Facilities District Act, better known by its hyphenated name, Mello-Roos.

In Goodwin's Sept. 3 fiscal impact analysis, it explains that Mello-Roos can fund a variety of public services, including police and fire protection, street maintenance, recreation and library services, park and open space maintenance, among them.

The average amount of CFD tax on each home in the Gold Rush project was calculated in the September report as $308. On Monday night, Chris Curry of Goodwin Consulting joined Northcross in proposing that the dollar amount be removed from the formula. Their proposition was that the fiscal study be redone for each phase of the development.

Northcross brought up the issue of certainty. "The developer needs certainty, but the certainty for the developer creates uncertainty for the city of Sutter Creek," he said.

Noting the city's recent budget problems, Commissioner Frank Cunha said, "There is a $1.9 million drop (in general fund deficit) from draft to final draft. What happens in the final final?"

"To make it really simple, we take $10,000 per acre per year for park maintenance times 15 acres equals $150,000 per year," Northcross said. "Divided by 1,400 houses, this equals $100 per house. At $450,000, it was no big deal, but ..."

The suggestion appeared to be that the housing market has yet to sort itself out and "pouring concrete on numbers" was not advisable.