The switch was sudden and abrupt. One day, Eileen Hardy stopped by the Sutter Creek Auditorium and saw a posted notice that a Social Security representative would no longer be making monthly visits to the auditorium, leaving dozens of aging county residents without what had come to be a necessary service.

That was Nov. 6. Since then, supervisors Ted Novelli and Brian Oneto, as well as Amador Senior Center Executive Director Laurie Webb, have lobbied state legislators to exert some pressure and reestablish the monthly visits, which Oneto estimated saw an average of two dozen senior residents a month. Their efforts have finally been successful, with a Social Security representative tentatively scheduled to make his next visit Jan. 22.

"It looks like the service will be coming back to the community," Oneto said, though a new location is still up in the air. The current options include the senior center, County Administration Center, and Health and Human Resources Department, but not the auditorium, which had been charging a modest rent.

Any of those would be better than the Placerville office, which was the closest alternative for the past two months.

Why the problem occurred, and how it was fixed, remain minor mysteries, however.

"In all honesty, I am not exactly sure what happened," Webb said. After Hardy, her administrative assistant, told her of the posted notice, Webb contacted Dan Slater, the county ombudsman appointed by Oneto, "because this is exactly the kind of issue a 'governmental ombudsman' could address."

Webb said she didn't hear back from Slater and attempted to contact the Social Security office herself, with little luck. After six phone calls to the Placerville office, including one that lasted 26 minutes with her on hold, Webb sent e-mails to California Democratic senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Webb never heard back from Boxer, but she did receive an e-mail from Feinstein's office offering a case worker "to help you with your difficulties with Social Security."

"At that point, I sort of let it all go," Webb recalled.

But soon after, she received a call from Oneto, who had been contacted by Slater and was working with County Clerk Mardell Anderson to contact Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi (R-Lodi) and Congressman Dan Lungren (R-Gold River) in the hope of having the service. As Oneto explained, "Placerville is a long drive. The closer you can keep a service to home, the better off you are."

Oneto, Novelli and Anderson reserved a room within the County Administration Center for a Social Security representative to use at no charge, while, at the same time, Webb was considering the possibility of offering a room at the senior center at no charge.

"We thought it would be a win-win situation for us and Social Security, but after visiting the center the representative, Mark, was unsure if it would be an appropriate location since a large percentage of clients are young families getting S.S. cards for babies and small children who would be waiting," Webb said.

Novelli said that once he learned about what was happening, he "immediately got on the band wagon and started making calls" to find out why the services had been discontinued and what he could do to get them reinstated.

"Supervisor Oneto and I called everyone we could," he said. "I talked with Lungren and Nakanishi and he called Boxer and Feinstein." Novelli still doesn't know why the service was discontinued in the first place.

"I can't tell you why. We don't know why," he said.

But after a conversation with Lungren at the congressman's office, Novelli said he was assured the service would be reinstated. Webb and the two supervisors learned recently that a Social Security representative would begin making monthly visits the fourth Tuesday of every month, with the first scheduled for the auditorium, though no one at the Sutter Creek City Hall knew who was responsible for that decision, according to Webb.

"They said they were just told to set up the representative for the fourth Tuesday from then on," she said.