City Council Minutes 1985 01 15 - Laserfiche WebLink

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According to Williamson, the City has acquired a very substantial ownership interest in the Davidson Ditch and. Goodhue Ditch systems, both by dedication from developers and by acquisition on the open market. None of these water rights have ever been transferred through the appropriate court proceedings and included in the City's treated water system. In December, 1983, the City filed a water rights application to transfer all of the water rights in those two ditch companies that the City owned at the time. There was approximately 800 shares of Goodhue Ditch stock and approximately 470 shares of Davidson Ditch stock which were included in transfer proceedings. Included in that transfer proceeding, were 29 shares of Goodhue Ditch stock which the City acquired by dedication from the Aquarious group in 1976. These shares were dedicated to the City when that land was first annexed. The 29 shares that were formerly used for agricultural purposes on that property are the subject of Mr. Brock's discussion with the staff recently. This water represents about 1~ of the water that is involved in the case as a whole. So it is a relatively insignificant portion of the proceeding. We have not had any hearings on the water court transfer proceeding, although I would expect that prior to the end of this year we will have a trial on that matter, and those shares would be transferred to the City for diversion either into Marshall Lake or through the municipal pipeline for general City municipal purposes. Williamson: "The question at hand is whether or not the 1982 agreement between the Aquarious group and the City, which I will refer to as the 'Open Space Agreement' (it is the one that set up a series of rolling options for the City to buy the open space land), whether something happened in that transaction that encumbered these particular 29 shares so that they should not be included in the general City water rights inventory (or) should instead by set aside and in essence be escrowed for irrigation purposes at the private cemetery which is being developed by the Aquarious group. My understanding of the documents was that the shares were to be available to the property owners until such time as the legal proceedings were completed by the City and they were available to the City for general municipal purposes. That is apparently disa;~reed with somewhat strenuously and is the issue that we really need to decide. 5