mador County News, TSPN TV News Video, 5-13-11

·       Nine Amador American Legion riders will take a cross-country “Run For The Wall” to honor U.S. military on Memorial Day.

·       Amador Sheriff’s Deputies arrested an Elk Grove man for last week for theft of a TV, and a shirt in Martell.

·       The Tour of California Bicycle Road Race will ride a leg through Ione next week.

·       Plymouth city officials pore through Reeder residential project documents.

·       Mormon Emigrant Trail remains closed due to snow, and could be closed until mid-June.

mador County News, TSPN TV News Video, 5-13-11

·       Nine Amador American Legion riders will take a cross-country “Run For The Wall” to honor U.S. military on Memorial Day.

·       Amador Sheriff’s Deputies arrested an Elk Grove man for last week for theft of a TV, and a shirt in Martell.

·       The Tour of California Bicycle Road Race will ride a leg through Ione next week.

·       Plymouth city officials pore through Reeder residential project documents.

·       Mormon Emigrant Trail remains closed due to snow, and could be closed until mid-June.

Amador County News, TSPN TV News Video, 5-13-11 - TSPN's Tom Slivick sits down with Ione City Manager Kim Kerr to discuss the current happenings in the city of Ione.

Amador County – Nine members of the Post 108 American Legion Riders will be leaving early Monday with some local fanfare to head to Rancho Cucamunga, where they will be part of the 23rd annual “Run For The Wall,” a cross-country motorcycle ride to honor all Prisoners of War and those Missing in Action, Killed in Action from all wars and to show support for military personnel all over the world.

Albert “Poncho” Villa, President of the Chapter 108 American Legion Riders and his Vice President Brian Dommes, and another of the nine riders, Denver Stauss, gathered today (Friday, May 13th) at the American Legion Hall in Sutter Creek to talk about the ride.

Villa said: “Veterans, active military and supporters of our military gather at Rancho Cucamonga to begin a ride across the United States to gather at Washington D.C. and celebrate Memorial Day along with thousands of other motorcyclists.”

Villa said about 200 motorcycle riders from across the country will converge on Rancho Cucamunga, and break into platoons of 30 or so motorcycles. He said they will have northern, southern and central routes, for the various platoons, with the object being to travel across the country to Arlington, West Virginia, to the Vietnam Veterans Wall.

Villa is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, serving in 1969-1970. Some others of the nine Post 108 Riders are also. Eight are military veterans, the others and passengers, are either sons of Legionnaires, or members of the Auxiliary.

Villa said: “This is the first time to do this for all of us,” a ride for fallen vets, POWs, MIAs, KIAs and for wounded military. “This is an honor for them, for those who can’t ride. We call it a mission. It’s not a party, or a fun ride.”

Strauss said they have been planning and saving for 2 years, and expect to spend about $3,000 on the 10-day trip, on hotels, gas and food. They tried to go last year, but could not get the trip together in time. One rider from Amador went last year, and told them what to expect.

Brian Dommes, Post 108 Riders vice president, said the reason for the ride is a support effort to remember, and help the healing process from mental scars from what they saw and did over there. He said he is kind of scared, and knows it will be physically and very emotionally demanding.

The Post 108 Auxiliary will be giving the Amador Run For The Wall group coffee and pastries at 7 a.m. Monday, May 16, and Villa said they “will probably kick the stands up at 7:45 a.m.”

The Amador 108 Riders will ride through Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri, and West Virginia.

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Amador County – An Elk Grove man was arrested last week after allegedly walking out of Wal-Mart with a television, abandoning it after being chased, and then allegedly stealing a shirt from K-Mart, which he wore in an apparent attempt effort to make a get-away.

Amador County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday that deputies had made an arrest last Friday of Christian Francis Gerlach, 39, of Elk Grove, who was charged with burglary, with bail set at $40,000.

On Friday, May 5 at about 4:30 p.m. Sheriff’s Deputies “responded to the report of a male subject that had just stolen a television from Wal-Mart. It was reported that a Wal-Mart Loss Prevention Officer had chased the suspect through the parking lot until the suspect elected to abandon the stolen television. The suspect was last seen running towards K-Mart.”

The Sheriff’s office in a release said that “upon conducting an area check, a K-Mart employee told deputies that she had observed a subject enter K-Mart that matched the description of the Wal-Mart suspect.” The employee stated that the suspect stole a red shirt which he put on, before fleeing toward Highway 88.”

“Amador County Sheriff’s Deputies continued to check the area and ultimately observed the suspect attempt to conceal himself in the high grass on the north side of Highway 88 near Wicklow Way. Two deputies approached the suspect, who refused to comply with their orders. The suspect was subsequently detained in a high risk manner.”

ACSO said the “Wal-Mart Loss Prevention Officer positively identified the suspect during an in-field show up. The suspect’s identity was also confirmed via surveillance video which captured him in the act of committing the crime.”

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Amador County – The Tour of California bicycle race will make a ride through Amador County this year, with a speed trial leg of the race stopping next week in Ione.

Funk said as the AMGEN tour, a professional bicycle race was preparing for race legs all over California, ACT was working with Ione Business and Community Association and the city of Ione administration “to organize a small festival of our various recreational opportunities.”

Maureen Funk, of the Amador Council of Tourism said she will be in Sacramento Monday at the Lifestyle Festival for AMGEN and she expected to tell all of their booth visitors about the time trial conclusion in Ione the next day.

The racers are expected to be coming into Ione between noon and 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 17th, said Funk, who said the festival in Ione will have booths to help people enjoy the excitement of the Amgen Cycling Road Race, the largest cycling event in the United States.

The Tour de-France style road race has been challenging the world’s top cycling teams in eight stages, the last several years, with participants including many recent Tour-de-France winners, including 7-time champion Lance Armstrong, who will be one of 19 teams in this year’s race. Armstrong is racing with Team Radioshack.

Ione will be part of Stage 3, the Auburn to Modesto leg, which is a 121.9-mile stage, which begins at 10:15 a.m. in Auburn and will conclude in Modesto at 3:30 p.m. Cyclists are estimated to come through Ione between noon and 12:30 from Michigan Bar Road to Highway 104, through downtown Ione, and the out of town on Highway 104.

Sharon Long of Ione said: “This leg of the race will be a sprint. There will be no parking in downtown until the cyclists have gone through Ione,” and “side streets around Main Street will be blocked off.”

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Amador County – The Plymouth City Council and Planning Commission held a joint session last week and discussed Reeder/Sutherland’s two residential projects Zinfandel and Shenandoah Ridge subdivisions.

Plymouth City Manager Jeff Gardner said Tuesday the meeting showed that the Commission and Council have a lot to understand “before they decide whether or not they want to approve the developments.” That includes seeing how the projects are “fitting together with the vision of Plymouth for the future.” Gardner said a lot of good suggestions came up from the panel, and they found some things they did not like.

The two projects plan for 485 single-family homes, including 370 in the Zinfandel Subdivision, and 115 in the Shenandoah Ridge Subdivision.

Gardner said: “We’ve got many more meetings.” The Environmental Impact Report and associated issues need to be addressed, and “we don’t have to have a tax revenue sharing agreement in place but I’d like to be done with that.”

The joint meeting was continued to May 18, and “something associated with this development project will start to be incorporated into regular meetings to get the work done, he said. “Potentially at build-out these two projects could double the size of Plymouth,” he said, and the city is actually working on its first Development Agreement in 20 or 30 years, after officially lifting a decades-long building moratorium based on the city water supply.

The city has completed its $3 million sewer upgrade project, and is awaiting a new waste discharge permit approval by the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Plymouth must still work out its Conditions of Approval for the project, and staff is also working on the a revenue sharing agreement with Amador County. Gardner said “the agreement has not even been given to the County yet,” and staff is “putting together a preliminary draft proposal.”

He has talked with Amador County Sheriff Martin Ryan’s office about expectations for service levels, and they must also address the possibility of losing “COPS” grant funding. Gardner said they “may not have money to pay for police services,” and he has “to sit and discuss some service levels with the county.”

The areas planned for annexation into Plymouth will have little or no commercial development, with right now only a very small piece of commercial property in the annexation area, right along Highway 49. As a result, he hoped the revenue sharing agreement would not address commercial development right now.

Staff have been working on the Development Agreement with Bob Reeder of Reeder/Sutherland, and staff also is working on Conditions of Approval, having started with the city attorney’s “boiler plate” document. He said “Conditions of Approval are relative to impacts,” and help mitigate impacts.

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Amador County – The U.S. Forest Service announced last week that the Mormon Emigrant Trail will be closed due to snow likely until mid-June, and will not be available as an alternate route to Lake Tahoe, after Caltrans closed Highway 50 for two weeks, starting this week.

El Dorado National Forest Public Information Officer Frank Mosbacher said Mormon Emigrant Trail was expected to remain closed due to snow until mid-June. Mosbacher said the “popular El Dorado National Forest highway runs between Sly Park and Highway 88 is currently covered by 10 feet of snow on its eastern end, near Highway 88.”

He said the “road will not be available as an alternate route to Lake Tahoe with Highway 50 closing for two weeks of repairs to Echo Summit’s roadsides.

Caltrans is detouring traffic on Highway 50 eastward traffic and Highway 99 northward traffic to Lake Tahoe through Amador County, via Highways 16, 49, 88, and 89.

Caltrans District 3 made the decision to temporarily close the route while working to replace a rock wall at Echo Summit in El Dorado County. The project will include one-way traffic control for up to six weeks after Highway 50 is reopened. Highway 50 will be open with no restrictions on Memorial Day weekend.

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Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday discussed its return to the county General Plan update, set for May 25-26, in a joint meeting with the Amador County Planning Commission.

Supervisors looked at minutes from 16 separate days of meetings of the Joint Panel, for the General Plan update began October, 2008, and meeting various times through to November 2009. Amador County Planner Susan Grijalva, and Planner Heidi Jacobs prepared the minutes from tape recordings or staff notes.

Supervisor Brian Oneto asked why the minutes only now were coming to the board, and Grijalva said it was a combination of short staff time, and they did not have other joint meetings to go back to. County Counsel Martha Shaver asked if they had gone through all of the recordings of the meetings, and Grijalva said no, but she thought the General Plan fairly well reflected the Board’s direction.

Supervisor Richard Forster said all of the people at the Board’s meeting March 22, who were concerned about getting to comment on the General Plan “they should get these too.” He said they should see that “there was a lot of discussion before we made those decisions.” Grijalva said the draft minutes must also be reviewed by the Planning Commission, and would be available through the county’s website, along with the draft General Plan.

Supervisor Ted Novelli said that the minutes did not include outreach meetings held throughout the county prior to those joint panel sessions. Forster said they also took public comment at all of the 16 meetings.

Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said he wanted people to know that the Board of Supervisors still had work to do to get to the point where they can hold a public hearing on the General Plan. He said he did not want to have a rehashing of issues they had previously addressed, when “work was done, decisions were made and direction was given.”

Plasse said he would ask that Board comments May 25-26 be made in the form of motions, to be voted on by the board. Grijalva said “where you are now, it is probably more appropriate to make motions and start being more specific in the direction, because now you have a document.”

Forster said when comments come, they need to see whether people have done their homework or not, so they can keep it constructive, and keep the meeting moving.

Plasse said he did not want it to turn into a rehashing of an issue that has been discussed 10 times before. He said some groups have approached him and said none of their comments were included in the General Plan. He said people need to read the documents before they make such comments.

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