District officials hope construction will start sometime in the late spring or early summer. They want to have the district up and running by the summer of 2001. Tuesday's vote tally ended a 45-day election. It also came after a public hearing on Tuesday in which a number of residents asked that supervisors delay ratifying the election results until a number of issues had been addressed. Lyon likened the structure of the election to little more than the buying of votes, since votes are based on how much money someone contributes to the district.
Officials say they had no choice since state law mandates that the election be held that way.
Not About Water Committee members also said they are being charged more for fire protection to subsidize the costs for water users in the district. Poole said district officials have given Lyon's group lots of opportunity to meet with them. He added he hoped the group would not sue. Still, she said, the amount of money those within the fire district will have to pay for more fire protection pales in comparison to the amount they would lose if their homes were destroyed by fire. This is less than half the market rate.