News Archive (6192)
Jackson Rancheria donated $10,000 raised from the 2011 Mother Lode Hot Jazz Party
Written by Tom
Amador County – The Jackson Rancheria last week distributed the proceeds from the 2011 Mother Lode Hot Jazz Party to this year’s recipients, giving $10,000 to three organizations.
Jackson Rancheria Vice President of Marketing Ron Olivero gave large ceremonial checks to two of the three recipients of the funds last week. The Arc of Amador and Calaveras Counties received $5,000 from the Jazz Party, and Mother Lode Friends of Music got $3,000, while the Jackson Revitalization Committee received $2,000.
During the ceremonial presentation, Olivero gave a check to Vice Mayor Wayne Garibaldi and City Manager Mike Daly of the city of Jackson, for the donation to the Jackson Revitalization Committee. Olivero also gave a check to Mike Sweeney from The Arc.
Carol Cook, content developer for the Jackson Rancheria Marketing Department announced the donations for this year’s recipients of funding from the Mother Lode Hot Jazz Party. This was the first year for the Jackson Rancheria Casino & Hotel to host the Jazz Party. Cook said “over the 33 years of this event, proceeds have contributed more than $300,000 to local non-profit organizations.”
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Supervisors vote to send a letter supporting legislation to stop “reservation shopping”
Written by Tom
Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 earlier this month to send a letter of support for draft federal legislation introduced in April that would regulate “reservation shopping” by Indian tribes trying to build casinos.
U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) on April 8 introduced “The Tribal Gaming Eligibility Act,” which would clarify “the standards that must be met before new casinos can be opened on newly or recently acquired Indian lands.”
Former Plymouth Councilwoman Elida Malick, also a co-founder of the group “No Casino in Plymouth,” urged supervisors to put the issue on their agenda and “support Senator Feinstein’s proposed legislation.” Malick, in an April 25 letter, said that the “rules as (Feinstein) is attempting to get into place could have saved the city of Plymouth and the county many thousands of dollars and if implemented will save the city and county may thousands of dollars in the future.”
Feinstein’s release said “in the last decade, the Department of the Interior has received dozens of applications from tribes seeking to build casinos on lands that are hundreds, or even thousands of miles away from where they live today.”
“The Feinstein/Kyl legislation ends this practice of reservation shopping by requiring that tribes only open casinos on trust land acquired after the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 if the tribe meets certain conditions,” or if it can “demonstrate a substantial modern connection to the land,” and can “Demonstrate a substantial aboriginal or ancestral connection to the land.”
She said in the release that “some tribes have abused their unique right to operate casinos and have ignored the intent of Congress by taking land into trust miles away from their historical lands,” doing it “simply to produce the most profitable casino and the greatest number of potential gamblers, often with little regard to the local communities.”
Kyl said the “Indian Gaming Regulator Act was originally intended to promote tribal economic development and self-sufficiency – not to enable tribes to become gambling enterprises that constantly expand to new casino locations.”
Supervisor Louis Boitano said he thought it was “a no-brainer to offer support,” and suggested sending a thank-you letter to support the proposed legislation. Supervisor Ted Novelli said “it’s good to see Senators on both sides of the aisle looking at this tribal gaming eligibility.”
Boitano said “Feinstein has been helpful all along.” Supervisor Richard Forster said they should also send a copy of the letter to Senator Barbara Boxer’s son, “who is a lobbyist in this area.” They also indicated sending it to Congressman Dan Lungren.
Plymouth City Council on Thursday will consider a similar request by a citizen to support that legislation.
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Amador County – A 17-year-old Amador High School senior was arrested after stabbing a 16-year-old sophomore during a fight on their Sutter Creek campus Monday, hospitalizing the sophomore, while the senior was arrested for felony assault with a deadly weapon.
Sutter Creek Police Chief Brian Klier said since both boys are minors, their names cannot be released. He said the senior was arrested on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a weapon on school grounds, both felonies. He was also charged with misdemeanor battery on a person on school grounds, and there may be other charges, after getting a statement from the victim. Those could include “inflicting corporal injury on a child,” because of the victim’s age.
“At this time we don’t think that it is gang-related, but that is still being investigated,” Klier said. The two boys had a history of verbal confrontations, at the school and elsewhere. They “had lot of verbal taunting” between them, and “they just basically don’t like each other.”
Klier said the physical altercation was only between these two, and he was not aware of any verbal altercations between other students at the time of the fight.
The fight happened at about 10 a.m., between the office and the “S” building on the east side of campus, closest to the lower student parking lot.
Klier said the incident began as a verbal confrontation, and it was not the first verbal altercation between the two. The boys “then started to physically hit each other. Both subjects were hitting each other. During the fight, the senior bought out a small knife and stabbed the sophomore in the abdomen.” He was not sure of the depth of the wound, but from what he could tell, the sophomore stabbing victim was awake, conscious, and alert when medics were treating him.
Paramedics were immediately brought in, and the sophomore was flown to U.C. Davis Medical Center. Amador County School Superintendent Dick Glock said “according to the medical personnel the injured student’s vital signs are stable and very good,” as he was in transport to U.C. Davis. “The student using the knife and several others who may have been involved have been detained. All other students are safe and will continue through their regular day.”
The senior was “interviewed by me,” Klier said. Once completed, Klier took the senior to Sutter Amador Hospital in Jackson for medical clearance, then to the Amador County Probation Department for processing. The senior would then be taken to a juvenile detention facility out of the county.
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Anonymous donor will help the School District expand music education for the next year
Written by Tom
Amador County – Amador Community Foundation announced last week the anonymous gift of $30,000 toward music education in county schools.
Amador Community Foundation Executive Director Tina Hurley, who is disbursing the donation, said the gift is for music education. She said “Chris Tootle, Amador County Unified School District Music Educator, had partial funding for music education from other resources, but this gift allowed him to hire additional teachers and fund the music program through the next year.”
Hurley said now the High School Jazz Band can be offered this year as well as 5th & 6th grade elementary band classes. All three are “programs which were previously cut, with the loss of two full-time music teacher positions.” She said “generous gifts from other private donors at the Amador Community Foundation, Sutter Creek Elementary, and Pioneer Elementary, allowed many of these classes to return.”
Elementary Band classes are the feeder system for the Junior High and High School Bands, and the High School Jazz Band keeps the most advanced students challenged, so getting these classes back was first on the ACUSD Music Education department’s priority list, Hurley said.
“With these sizeable financial donations, we created a budget that makes it possible to teach students Band in 6th Grade, as well as Jazz Band, twice a week,” said Tootle. “We are going to try and stretch the budget through the 2011-2012 school year as well as this Spring, but once the funds run out, it is back to square one.”
In the past 20 years, ACSUD staff has gone from five full-time music teachers to one, as a result of state budget cuts, Hurley said, while many school districts across the state have cut Arts Education entirely.
Amador County schools that have added Elementary Band twice a week this spring are Pioneer, Sutter Creek, Pine Grove, and Ione Junior High. Plymouth Elementary, Jackson Elementary, and Jackson Junior High will teach Band in the 2011 school year.
Pioneer also offers K-2 General Music, 3-4 Recorder, and 5-6 Band/Violin. Thanks to the efforts of their Parent Faculty Club, Ione Elementary School offers General Music classes to each student once a week. Ione Elementary School also holds beginner, intermediate and advanced violin. The High School Jazz Band also rehearses twice a week.
The $30,000 donation was part of a total $130,000 anonymous donation to ACUSD, with disbursement made by the Amador Community Foundation. About $50,000 of the funding went to each of the Physical Education programs at the two Junior High Schools, in Ione and Jackson.
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Anonymous donor gives $100,000 for PE programs at Junior High Schools
Written by Tom
Amador County – Amador Community Foundation has received a gift of $130,000 from an anonymous donor, with the intention of benefiting school physical education at Ione Junior High and Jackson Junior High, along with the overall music program.
Tina Hurley, Executive Director of the Amador Community Foundation announced the donation last week, saying she was “delighted” to begin her position as ACF executive director “by awarding a gift of $130,000 from a generous anonymous donor to benefit local schools,” especially “at a time when state budget cuts and pink slips are expected.”
Hurley said she met with the Physical Education staff at Ione and Jackson Junior High Schools “to announce that their departments would be enriched by $100,000, thanks to a generous donor to ACF. The gift allocates funds to both junior high P.E. programs.” It also supports music education in the elementary and junior high schools with a $30,000 allocation.
Hurley said she initially met with Justin Brazil, Christine Kearney and Kelly Hunkins, P.E. teachers at the two junior high schools, who “were thrilled that a donor saw the need to support P.E. at this time of reduced resources for our schools.” Ione and Jackson Junior High Schools will each receive about $50,000 to be used to enhance and improve P.E. at the schools, Hurley said. There are 385 students at Ione Junior High, and 320 at Jackson Junior High.
Justin Brazil of the Ione Junior High Phys Ed Department, said: “We have been able to make sure we have enough of each type of equipment to maximize each student’s chances for success. Having enough of the right equipment also allows us to offer a higher quality experience for our students.”
Brazil said the anonymous donation “has allowed us to get equipment to offer new units that we were not able to teach before, giving the students more potential choices to stay active and lead a healthy lifestyle.”
Hurley said the successful disbursement of the donation “truly exemplifies our mission to connect local generosity to local needs.”
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Preston plans its final open house in a closure ceremony June 2
Written by Tom
Amador County – The Preston Youth Correctional Facility plans its final open house to coincide with a closure ceremony June 2nd at the Ione facility.
Preston officials announced that “after more than 100 years in operation, Preston Youth Correctional Facility will hold an open house closure ceremony next month.”
“To celebrate its rich history,” officials said in a release that “the public is invited to an open house closure ceremony,” set for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, June 2. On-ground tours of the facility will be offered to the public from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., and from 12:30 to 2 p.m. A flag lowering ceremony will be held at noon in front of the administration building in the parking lot.
The Preston Visiting Hall will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with various historical displays, and refreshments will be served.
The Release said the “Preston Youth Correctional Facility, established in 1894, is scheduled for closure on June 30 by action of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Legislature. Preston has served the state of California and its youth for 117 years. Preston began as a proposal in the Legislature to remove youthful offenders from San Quentin and Folsom state prisons.”
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Jackson City Council to review an update of a new city park survey
Written by Tom
Amador County – The Jackson City Council today will hear additional survey results for potential uses for a new city park on the Oro de Amador, also known as the former “Wheel Development,” on land that holds former Kennedy Mine tailings.
The Council is scheduled to hear results of the survey being conducted by the Amador County Recreation Agency as part of a Proposition 84 grant application for the property, as park land and potential facilities. An April meeting of the Council had a consensus that more surveys be sought from other age groups and different areas of the community, said Mike Daly, in a report for today’s meeting.
ACRA Executive Director Tracey Towner-Yep submitted the updated survey findings, which could be discussed by the council today, with possible direction to staff and ACRA as lead agency, on behalf of the city in the application.
The results show the total polled responses, including three groups of surveys taken at fifth grade classes Jackson Elementary Schools, as well as other classes at Argonaut High School. The results also broke down the numbers with responses from the “taxpaying population,” as requested by the Council in April.
The Council will also consider an expansion of the city Façade Improvement Program to the northern areas of the city, and will discuss application periods for positions on the city Planning Commission and the Cemetery Committee.
The meeting is 7 p.m. today at the civic center.
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Amador County – The Northern California Society of American Foresters plans its 2011 Summer Field Meeting for August 5-6 in Jackson.
The organization announced the plans in its latest newsletter, saying “we will gather in beautiful Amador County, in the heart of the Mother Lode.” The meeting’s focus will be “Biomass: From Forests to Energy,” and a committee developed “an informative and enjoyable program to pique everyone’s interest and increase knowledge about the opportunities and challenges for foresters, landowners and agencies.”
Organizers said the “meeting will include a winery dinner and evening speaker to set the stage for the Saturday field tour, fuel site visits within the Mokelumne River watershed, lunch at a hunting preserve on the shores of Lake Camanche, and a tour of the Buena Vista Biomass Power plant in Ione.”
The newsletter said it is an “opportunity to learn, network and visit with foresters and others interested in this important developing issue.”
Recent postings said the Aug. 5-6 NorCal Society of American Foresters summer meeting “kicks off with wine tasting and dinner at Avio Vineyards (in Sutter Creek) with guest speaker James D. Boyd, Vice Chair, of the California Energy Commission.”
The postings said registration will be Friday night in the Jackson City lot behind Mel & Faye’s Diner, where attendees will get opening remarks and can organize carpools.
“Saturday’s field tour will visit past and current forest thinning operations designed to create fuel breaks for adjacent subdivisions.” The group will travel up Highway 88 to the Pioneer area for field stops to see work on “fire hazard reduction & wood utilization; fuels management & thinning for biomass.”
They will also “discuss the economics and environmental implications of fuel treatment options and end uses, including biomass for energy production, and address the challenges of working in the wildland-urban interface and the Mokelumne River drainage.”
Field meeting attendees will take lunch at the private Camanche Hills Hunting Preserve, “where managers will describe land management challenges” in the Moke watershed, which “supplies water to Bay Area residents while providing diverse recreation opportunities for local residents and visitors.”
They will also “explore the relationship between hazardous fuel treatment and fire safety in the upper watershed and water resource management down river.” They will also consider the difficulties and “social and economic benefits of building an energy facility in California.” The field meeting will end at the “Buena Vista Biomass Power plant, an 18-megawatt generation facility that is being repowered as a long-term sustainable biomass energy generation facility.”
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Amador County – The Amador Water Agency last week approved a tentative internal reorganization of the agency, but also said that rate increases are needed and will be forthcoming.
General Manager Gene Mancebo said the savings will be realized over three years, including $232,000 the first year, $428,000 the second, and $450,000 the third, for $1.1 million in overall reductions.
The reorganization would eliminate a human resources technician position and create a human resources and risk position from the human resources coordinator position.
An information systems manager position would be eliminated, Mancebo said, and the duties would either be distributed to other employees in the agency, or handled by contract.
Mancebo said the plan also called for elimination of the finance manager position, with finance duties taken over by the controller. The position of customer service manager would be taken over by an Office Manager, who would oversee the controller, accountants and customer service reps.
Three departments of construction, operations and engineering, each now headed by managers, would be consolidated into one department, under a Field Operations Manager, with two administrative assistants. Six divisions under separate leaders, include the largest division, under the Canal and Distribution Supervisor, who would oversee 5 distribution, 2 utility, 1 construction and 1 inspection technicians.
There would also be a Construction Foreman over utility techs, and a Supervising Engineer, over an assistant engineer and a tech. A Water Production Supervisor would oversee three operators, a Wastewater Supervisor would have three operators, and an Installation and Electrical Supervisor would oversee two techs.
Mancebo recommended approval, due to the current economy, the “lack of rate increases in some systems during the past five years, increased operation costs and the overall agency financial condition.” The agency identified a $750,000 shortfall, which it discussed two weeks ago, when four of the five members voted 4-0 to approve the draft reorganization plan, and have the board’s specially assigned Ad Hoc Committee look it over, along with comments from the public and employees.
Past AWA President Bill Condrashoff last week said a change in makeup of the Ad Hoc Committee may be a violation of the Brown Act, and they should be leery of actions that the committee takes. Director Paul Molinelli replaced Director Robert Manassero on the Ad Hoc Committee because Manassero was on vacation last week. Molinelli said it may be questionable, but it “doesn’t change the numbers.”
AWA President Don Cooper was aware of the vacation plans, which was why he called the special meeting two weeks ago. Cooper said “this is a critical element for out budget to move forward.”
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Amador County – The presence of an Amador Sheriff’s K9 led to the arrest early this month of a parolee at large surrendering in Camanche.
The Amador County Sheriff’s Office reported that the arrest occurred at about 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 3, when the “Sheriff's Office received information that Robert James Ramsey, 31, of Ione was possibly seen near the residence at 4081 Zumi Court in the community of Camanche.”
The Sheriff’s officer report said “Ramsey was wanted by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for being a Parolee at Large. Ramsey was also wanted on active Amador Superior Court arrest warrant” for violations of inflicting “a traumatic injury upon a spouse or cohabitant” and for “battery of a spouse.” ACSO said the bail was set at $50,000 on the Amador warrant and the Corrections warrant was “no bail.”
The report said “Amador County Sheriff's Deputies assisted by Amador County Probation Officers responded to the residence. Upon arrival, Ramsey was observed running from the front of the residence toward the rear bedrooms.”
The “presence of perimeter units kept Ramsey from exiting the residence” and “deputies entered and conducted a search,” the Sheriff’s report said. “During the search it was determined that Ramsey had barricaded himself in the attic. Ramsey was given numerous orders to surrender and exit the attic,” and “refused to surrender. Upon the arrival of an Amador County Sheriff's Canine, Ramsey was advised that the canine would be deployed into the attic via a crawl space. Ramsey immediately surrendered and was taken into custody without further incident.”
The report said “Ramsey was processed into the Amador County Jail on the active Amador Superior Court Warrant and CDCR Parole hold.”
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