It’s time to release the confetti and open party favors at Harrah’s Rincon Casino, where after 13 months of construction, they will soon celebrate the new $168 million expansion, including a 21-story tower, the tallest in North County.
The ribbon-cutting will be Dec. 20, 10 a.m., in the new hotel lobby. This will be a “soft” opening that will be followed in January with a retro-Vegas celebration the entire month of January.
This fourth and largest expansion at Rincon since it opened in August of 2002 will put the casino resort in a position to be one of the premiere destination resorts in San Diego county, and certainly places it at the top ranking among Indian casinos in the Golden State.
Janet Beronio, general manager of the casino resort, told The Roadrunner, “This is an important day for us here at Harrah’s Rincon. After a little over a year of planning and hard work we are ready to open the doors on what we feel is truly the ultimate getaway here in Southern California. You can’t imagine how excited we are to unveil all of the great additions to Harrah’s Rincon and share them with our guests.”
The building of the 21-story hotel brings the total of rooms to 651. All feature one king or two queen beds, large luxury bathrooms with separate Roman tubs and glass-enclosed showers, and other fine amenities.
The entire 21st floor consists of nothing but suites. There are other suites throughout the hotel – a total of 104 including 36 end suites with private patios and a spectacular mountain view, 47 two-bay suites, three 3-bay suites, and a luxurious Presidential suite.
There’s also a 7,500 sq. ft. spa with ten treatment rooms and a separate area dedicated to manicures and pedicures. Services will include massage therapy, hydrotherapy, manicures, pedicures, and facials.
There is also a state-of-the-art fitness center.
Another new feature is the low-rise structure with 12,000 more sq. feet of gaming floor space. On this floor gamers will find a new cashier’s cage, new promotions booth, new Total Rewards Booth and a 2,000 sq. ft gift shop.
The existing casino has also gotten improvements, including the larger Diamond Lounge adjacent to the high limit area and a larger poker room.
The resort has also renovated its pool area. The two-tiered pool with its crystal clear fountain features both a hot and cold pool and is surrounded by a tropical garden complete with private Jacuzzis.
Eight private cabanas can be rented out.
The area can accommodate weddings and concerts. The pool area is also the site of the newest Harrah’s Rincon restaurant, Cabana Cove. This eatery has a laid-back, California beachfront ambiance. Food and beverage offerings are on the casual side with cuisine from Mexico, Asia, Hawaii, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and California.
Kathy Swank, public relations and strategic alliances manager for the casino talked about the month long celebration in January.
“Throughout January we will have old-school Vegas entertainment including showgirls and celebrity impersonators, special complimentary spa days for charitable and civic organizations, weekly trip giveaways to other Harrah’s properties, and terrific headliner entertainers Gladys Knight, The Doobie Brothers and Legends in Concert in The Pavilion.”
The resort will also offer “classic” food and beverage specials throughout January to help us celebrate. That means food prices the way they used to be in Vegas: low.
There will be entertainments and events intended to remind you of the old Las Vegas of Elvis and Sinatra, with showgirls, and lounge singers.
VC water board voted Monday to increase domestic water rates by 8.4% and ag rates by 11.8%. It also voted to add a new charge to the water bill that will be identified as a charge to replace property taxes confiscated by the state government.
By DAVID ROSS
When Gov. Schwarzenegger said he would balance the California budget without raising taxes, he didn’t say he wouldn’t “raid” taxes.
One district whose property taxes were raided 100% this year is the VC Municipal Water District. It must make up for $1.4 million a year for the next two years.
This shift in revenues is called an ERAF (educational revenue augmentation funds) shift. It takes funds voted in by residents of this district to support water and sewer services, and shifts them to the state’s schools budget.
This is combined with hikes in the price of water from the two suppliers of water to the district, the Metropolitan Water District and the San Diego County Water Authority. The result is the hardest rate hit to local farmers in many years, even though directors, three of whom are farmers took pains to spread the pain.
Water board president Gary Broomell had a less kind term for what has happened to the district’s property taxes than raid or shift. He called it “stealing” at Monday’s meeting, when directors grappled with how to make up the difference.
They were faced with an unpleasant choice: Pass the costs on to rate payers, and risk driving some farmers out of business. Eat the costs, and harm the district’s capital improvement and maintenance program, which is beginning to replace pipes that are nearly five decades old.
Earlier this year the state legislature and the governor struck a deal. The state’s special districts would agree to give up 40% of their property taxes for two years to help balance the budget. In return they would get a promise that it would never happen again.
However, the final budget deal left out fire districts and hospital districts from cuts. It raised the hit on “enterprise districts” such as water districts, to 100%. The theory is that districts that sell a commodity, such as water, can afford to pass the money loss onto their customers.
Directors struggled Monday how to pass on the monetary hit, without harming local farmers too much.
As three are growers themselves, they realized the impact these increases would have on agriculture.
But they also know that if maintenance and capital replacements are deferred now, they will cost even more in two or three years.
Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant commented, in an oblique reference to a neighboring district: “We don’t have to look very far to find an example,” of a district where directors took the opposite course: refusing to raise rates, no matter how high the cost of the commodity rose.
The neighboring district Arant was probably referring to is the Rainbow Municipal Water District (He didn’t name Rainbow, but The Roadrunner has no need to be diplomatic about it). That district has gotten into dire straits in the last decade due to its deteriorating delivery system and lack of an effective capital improvement program to address it.
Arant and staff had asked the board to offset the ERAF shift with a $15/acre foot increase this year and a $15 increase next year.
This approach would spread the pain, collecting the $2.8 million over four instead of two years.
Directors felt that this placed too much of the burden on water consumption and the largest ag users.
“This is going to be the biggest hit that ag users have had for a long time. It’s going to be difficult for some of our growers,” commented Director Bob Politio.
A New Charge
Directors decided to replace some lost revenue with a new fixed charge on the water bill.
So far they haven’t come up with a name for the new charge, but, according to Arant, “it will be a one which is easily identified by our customers as a charge to replace the their local property tax revenue which was raided by the State of California.”
The new charge is as follows:
3/4" Meter: $3.00 ; 1" Meter: $4.00; 1 1/2" Meter: $6.00; 2" Meter: $8.00; and 3" Meter: $12.00.
The new charge will be a monthly one and will be in addition to the currently monthly meter service charge.
This new fixed charge will generate about $450,000 a year, which is 30% of the total annual ERAF Shift loss.
The new charges won’t be fully implemented for another year, so it will take three years to fully recoup the $2.8 million loss.
“And then we will face the prospect of the money being taken again,” Arant told The Roadrunner.
That’s because, although Prop. 1A, passed by the voters in November, protects special districts and cities from ERAF shifts in the future, it allows them for two years out of every ten, if the governor declares a budget emergency and two thirds of the legislature agrees.
So, the district can no longer look at the property taxes as an untouchable revenue stream.
“I don’t think the rating agencies are going to look at that revenue stream as a secure revenue stream any longer,” said Arant. “When we look at a long-term debt program there are some realities out there.”
Using the new charge, the purposed ERAF shift offset commodity increase was reduced from the staff’s recommendation of $15/acre ft. to $10.
This reduced the overall increase on the domestic rate from 9.2% down to 8.4% and the overall rate increase for certified agriculture from 12.8% to 11.8%.
Of the $54.71 total dollar impact on domestic, $52.00, or 95% came from MWD, SDCWA and the ERAF Shift. Only $2.70, or 5% was for VCMWD's operational cost increases. Of the $57.70 increase to certified agriculture, $55.00 of it came from MWD, SDCWA and the ERAF Shift, and again, only $2.70 was for VCMWD.
Valley Center’s postmaster Candace Watson will be moving on in January to be the permanent postmaster at the neighboring Bonsall post office.
She had previously served as Pauma Valley’s postmaster before becoming the postmaster in VC.
Mary Pfeifer will be taking over as the new postmaster of Pauma Valley.
At this time it’s unknown who will be the new postmaster in VC. We may have to wait a few months, Watson told The Roadrunner.
replacement WON’T be Joe Prentice, who has been the pinch hitter for Valley Center several times over the years. Prentice has another assignment that he can’t leave, said Watson.
In spite of predictions a decade ago that agriculture was on its way out in Valley Center, the VC Municipal Water District continues to be primarily an agricultural district.
The district’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, issued this week, shows that 81% of the district’s water still goes to farming activities, with the rest going to domestic, i.e. residential customers. That compares to 86% ten years ago
The district’s top ten customers account for 17.12% of all of the water sold in VC.
These large water users include N.J.C. Stehly, Sierra Pacific Farms, BSTCO, Harlan Beck & Associates, John DeJong, Grandon Ranch Corp., H.C.J. Coykendall, Rancho Sereno, Dr. Joseph Clayes and Rancho Trio.
The district, now in its 50th year, serves 64,253 acres with 283 miles of water main, eight inches and larger in diameter. The district operates 41 enclosed reservoirs, one open reservoir, 26 pump stations and 52 miles of sewer lines.
As the district grows, so does the number of active meters. This year, there are 6,479 domestic active meters, compared to 5,835 last year. There are 1732 agricultural meters, compared to 1,699 last year. This serves a district population of 23,814, compared to 22,781 last year.
This district is also near record levels for the amount of water that it sells. A dry year of 11 inches of rain compared to 19 inches bumped this year’s fiscal year sales (ending in June of 2004) up to 49,336 acre feet (AF) compared to 42,070 the year before.
The all-time high for VC water sales was in 1989-90, when the district purchased 52,535 AF and recorded sales of 48,437.
As recently as 1995, however, water sales were down to 29,763 AF, and the district was talking about the inevitable, and possibly rapid decline of agriculture, and how the district would have to switch over to serving primarily residential customers.
Of course, that’s still expected to occur someday, but just not as quickly.
During last year the number of residential meters increased by 11%.
According to the report, “The district continues to see a steady demand for new connections, and has service availability letters for about 400 connections in progress, including Woods Valley Ranch, Island, Oak Woodlands, and Sherwood Ridge developments.
Wholesale water rates have increased significantly to fund the increased capacity for imported water. this caused ag users to begin conserving even more aggressively. At the same time, the kind of ag users have changed, with a shift from orchards towards more cut flowers and exotic fruits.
In 1994 the Metropolitan Water District created the Interim Agricultural Water Program (IAWP), which provided a discount to ag users. In return for saving $114 AF, farmers agree to have their water supply reduced first during droughts and other emergencies.
So, looking at a crystal ball that is, at best, cloudy, it appears that, for the foreseeable future, the VC water district will be a mostly ag district that is slowly transitioning to residential.
The County Board of Supervisors last week unanimously voted to enter into an agreement with the Rincon San Luiseño Band of Mission Indians to transfer open space land in Bonsall from the tribe to the County of San Diego.
The agreement involves nearly 83 acres of open space land along the San Luis Rey River, south of Hwy 76, between Gird Road and Via Monserate and includes sensitive wetland and upland habitats.
Fifth District Supervisor Bill Horn praised the cooperation of the Rincon tribe. “We’ve been working for several years to create the County’s newest regional park, so this is a great step forward,” said Horn. “It lets Rincon identify suitable land to mitigate the impacts for the construction of a casino and hotel, while allowing plans to go forward in developing a park next to the San Luis Rey River along with widening Hwy 76.”
The goal of the agreement is to provide for the preservation of a 53-acre portion of land and future widening of Hwy 76.
If an agreement is reached, upon acceptance of the 53-acre mitigation parcel for preservation in perpetuity, the County Department of Parks and Recreation will manage the land in accordance with an Interim Management Plan approved by U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
The County wants to take title to the property and begin development of a regional park for habitat conservation in the San Luis Rey River Valley.
Rincon has been working with the USFWS to identity suitable land to mitigate the impacts for the construction of a 180,000 square foot gaming facility and a 200-room hotel on Rincon’s Tribal Trust land in northern San Diego County. Rincon is required to provide off-site mitigation of 53 acres, to provide protected habitat for the arroyo toad.
Two such properties are in the vicinity of Bonsall along the San Luis Rey River.
“We're committed to creating a San Luis Rey River master plan that has input from the community, the State and federal government,” said Horn. “This is a precious resource. When completed, the river park will allow people from the entire region to experience what will be one of the crown jewels of North County for generations to come.”
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
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