News Archive (6192)
Supervisors say Volcano, Pine Grove wildfire plan should set a county example for future plans
Written by Tom
Amador County – Amador Supervisors discussed a draft Pine Grove/Volcano Community Conservation Wildfire Protection Plan on Tuesday, and directed staff of the Amador Fire Safe Council to take it back and go through comments by the county’s environmental consultant, and then take that to all of the partner agencies for reconsideration.
County environmental consultant John Hofman said he was not part of the Plan’s steering committee, as Amador Fire Safe Council drafted the plan, but it was his understanding that once the core team finished the wildfire plan, it would go back to the steering committee. He said the decision makers have not been involved in deciding what was in the plan. The council used a template provided by Sierra Nevada Conservancy, whose $50,000 grant is funding the plan.
Supervisor Ted Novelli asked if the Bureau of Land Management was to be consulted and to be involved in the process from beginning to end. Hofmann said that was true, but BLM also has not been involved. Hofmann said the main purpose of the Community Conservation Wildfire Protection Plan was to allow communities meaningful input on the management of forest lands. He said this particular planning area “has very little federal lands.”
The Volcano and Pine Grove area was chosen for the first county wildfire plan because it was identified by studies as the highest risk to wildfires in Amador County. Hofmann said the plan is put in place to “prioritize federal funding.”
Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said the “Wildland Urban Interface” was a major part of the plan, and he commended the Amador Fire Safe Council for its work on the Plan. Plasse said he would “like to move in a direction of working more collaboratively with the Fire Safe Council.”
Giving direction, Supervisor Richard Forster said it was pretty clear they wanted Hofmann to go back to work with the Fire Safe Council, to look at adding Hofmann’s statements, and remedy the grammatical errors.
Plasse said this Community Wildfire Protection Plan “does become a legal document, and he did not want to have ideology become part of that legal document.”
Supervisor Brian Oneto said it was “kind of like a philosophical document,” and “some of that philosophy I don’t really agree with.” He said he would like to put it forward to the other signatories (Cal Fire and the County fire chiefs) for their opinion, and reprinting it would be his preference, rather than using Fire Safe Council consultant Jim Simmons’ urging to use an errata attachment. Oneto said “I would like to see the whole document reprinted.”
Plasse said he agreed with Forster that the “grammatical errors lessen the credibility of the document.”
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Jackson City Council appointed five people to its new design review committee
Written by Tom
Amador County – The Jackson City Council on Monday appointed five members and three alternates to its all new Design Review Committee, which will have limited powers to decide historic design review and historic variance, and also make recommendations regarding demolition and project master plans.
The council received eight applications for the Design Review Committee, and appointed five to the committee. They are Eduardo Avelar, Errol Esbit, Phillip Giulani, Lucy Hackett and Ron Regan. The Council also appointed the three other applicants, Robert Burdick, Robert Carr and Lesley Davis to be alternate members of the committee.
City Manager Mike Daly said the council discussed the number of committee members, it was considered to appoint all eight applicants to the committee, and to have an eight-member committee. Daly said the Architectural Regulations Committee recommended that the Design Review Committee have five members. He said architectural regulations also stipulate that the Committee must have five members. He said an eight-member committee would make it harder to have a quorum, and could lead to split votes.
The Committee will have regularly scheduled bi-monthly meetings, open to the public, which can be cancelled if there are not applications for review. Daly said the Committee will meet on an as-needed basis, and City Planner Susan Peters is still working with committee members to determine the best meeting time and day of the week for the committee.
The first work will be to look at an application for a façade improvement for Café de Coco on Main Street. The council recently approved a façade improvement plan for Richard and Sherry’s antiques shop.
The committee will review city design standards mandated by the city development code, to ensure high-quality neighborhoods and commercial centers, sensitivity to the city’s unique character, and compatibility with the surrounding structures and neighborhood while incorporating the Mother Lode style. It also keeps them sensitive to the natural environment.
The Design Review Committee will make recommendations on demolition and master plans, and will make decisions on Historic Design review, and Historic Variance. The committee’s historic decisions could be appealed to the Planning Commission, then to the City Council.
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AFPD recommends using Prop. 172 funds to fully pay Amador Fire Plan
Written by Tom
Amador County – Amador Fire Protection District voted 3-2 Tuesday to recommend to the Amador County Board of Supervisors to remove Proposition 172 funding from Amador Fire Protection Association, to fund the “Amador Plan” contract with Cal-Fire, to operate the Pine Grove Mount Zion Cal-Fire station through winter, and also to fund the county emergency dispatching contract with Camino.
Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said the $453,000 would include $247,000 to CDF, and $206,000 to Camino. Plasse voted against the recommendation by the AFPD board, along with Supervisor Vice Chairman Louis Boitano.
Plasse said he would rather try to supplement the Amador Plan by paying staffing for CDF, or hiring personnel, to possibly have more than one Cal-Fire staffed station operated in the non-fire season. He said CDF can staff two stations with one officer each, but an engine cannot make a mutual aid call without two officers on duty. He said taking the $247,000 to supplement staffing with CDF could help keep two stations open.
Plasse said the funding is from Proposition 172, a state-wide ½-cent sales tax measure for public safety, which came about to replace funds taken from county general funds for schools. He said County Administrative Officer Chuck Iley found a way to balance the budget by taking the Prop 172 General Fund money from the Amador Fire Protection Authority, which disburses the funds in the same way it puts out Measure M funds. But he said the two are different funds.
Plasse said 172 funds are “earmarked” for fire or emergency services, and Amador County at some point began to split those between fire and police services. The funds go to AFPA, which was formed to pass Measure M, a county sales tax to fund firefighters. He said the Prop 172 money is from the General Fund, but goes through AFPA and is distributed to all of the fire brigades around the county.
He said those fire departments are subsidized by the county General Fund 172 money, and the departments have been asked to consolidate, but most have chosen not to. Plasse said individual fire departments could benefit from consolidation by sharing administration, and having fewer chiefs and more firefighters.
Supervisor Ted Novelli said last week that the goal was consolidation. He said Prop 172 funds are different from Measure M funds. 172 funds are allocated to public safety, jails, police, and law enforcement.
Novelli said there is a concern that the county should contribute local 172 money for local entities, not the state. But he said the CDF contract benefits the county with mutual aid, between November and May dispatching helps county-wide.
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Amador County – The Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection announced this week the retiring of its unit chief and the installation of a new unit chief.
Lisa Williams Resource Secretary for CDF’s Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit, said Tuesday that Unit Chief Mike Noonan retired, effective in July. She said new Unit Chief Brian Kirk took over on Aug. 1 to head the Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit, based in San Andreas.
Williams said Kirk has more than 29 years in the fire service. He began his career in El Dorado County in 1982 as a volunteer firefighter at the Cameron Park Fire Department.
Kirk then worked as a Firefighter, Fire Apparatus Engineer, Captain Paramedic and Fire Marshal for Cameron Park when he started with Cal-Fire through a Cooperative Fire Protection Agreement. He has held Battalion Chief positions in the Camino Emergency Command Center and Amador County. Until this appointment, Kirk was the Assistant Chief for the Amador-El Dorado-Sacramento-Alpine Unit’s Southern Division in Amador County.
Williams said Kirk has held positions on several CDF Incident Command Teams, most recently as Incident Commander on Cal-Fire Team 4. He has also held the position of CDF Computer Aided Dispatch Project Manager where he earned the Directors Innovation Award.
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Supervisors say the first Wildfire Protection Plan should be an exemplum for others that follow
Written by Tom
Amador County – The first county Community Conservation Wildfire Protection Plan, for the Pine Grove and Volcano area, was scrutinized by Amador County Supervisors on Tuesday, who said decision makers should consider the county consultant’s comments for the draft document.
Supervisors directed Amador Fire Safe Council to get with county environmental consultant John Hofmann, to reconsider his suggestions.
Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said that “comments made by the consultant are the comments of the Board of Supervisors,” and Hofmann, as a member of the Wildfire Protection Plan steering committee is a signatory of the Board of Supervisors. Plasse said this was the first of several county wildfire plans, and “we should be setting the bar high.”
Plasse said Cal-Fire wants to be more involved in the plan, which is funded with a $50,000 grant from the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, which also supplied a template for the wildfire plan.
Supervisor Richard Forster said he did not expect every comment by Hofmann to go in, but he expected it to be discussed. He said misspellings should be eliminated and he wanted “everything to be as correct and as complete as possible.” Fire Safe Council consultant Jim Simmons said he wrote it and would take blame for typos, but Forster said the Conservancy’s “template came with plenty of errors.”
Supervisor Brian Oneto said he was not sure he liked some parts of the Conservancy’s template. He said it “inserts ideological thoughts,” which he had a problem with inserting into a wildfire plan. Plasse agreed, noting one listed practice of preserving canopies to encourage shade for development of pine trees. Plasse said it should “use language to reflect the local government.”
Simmons said a template from the California Fire Alliance (which Oneto suggested) was too simple. Oneto said if it was easier to read, more people would actually read it. Simmon said that the plan was strictly for Pine Grove and Volcano, and that a different document would come with the wildfire plan for the high country.
Forster said he did not want to shelve the Conservancy’s template, but he wanted to correct its logic and “errors in their thinking process.”
Plasse said “ideological statements” do not need to be in the wildfire plan, and he asked Hofmann if he would like a re-review of his comments. Hofmann said that because the other 2/3rds of the signatories have signed off on this, they should reconvene the decision makers, that is, CDF and the county fire chiefs, to “have them decide what’s important and what’s not important” to include in the plan.
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Reported knife attacker shot by Amador County sheriff’s deputies on Saturday has been identified
Written by Tom
Amador County – Amador County Sheriff’s Department released details of an officer-involved shooting Saturday, and identified the subject killed as Gaylord Neil Story.
Amador County Undersheriff Jim Wegner released details Tuesday about the Saturday afternoon 9-1-1 call from a 53-year-old woman who lives on Primrose Lane in Pine Grove. The woman said her neighbor, Gaylord Neil Story, 59, “showed up at her property, covered in blood. The caller reported that she believed Story had been shot.”
She reportedly asked Story if he was “OK.” He replied: “I am now.” She “told Story she would call 9-1-1 for him” and he reportedly said “don’t do that.” She “fled into her residence and called 9-1-1, as Story attempted to force entry into the home.”
The sheriff’s release said the “caller fled the residence to an area near her horse stalls” and Story broke into her home. She last saw Story “searching for her near her horses.” The woman “fled to a nearby neighbor’s home.”
Amador Sheriff’s deputies responded at 5:58 p.m., interviewed the caller and then went to her property. “They immediately encountered Story standing near the residence and rummaging through the caller’s vehicle.”
“Story’s torso was covered in blood,” the release said. “Deputies ordered Story to show his hands.” Story reportedly replied: “You are too late.” The “deputies continued to give Story orders which he ignored,” the release said. “Deputies were ultimately able to see that Story was attempting to conceal a large knife. Story then ran towards the rear of the property.”
The release said “deputies followed Story who ran towards a wooded area behind two outbuildings. As deputies looked for Story, he appeared from behind the outbuildings. Story raised a large butcher-type knife over his shoulder and rapidly advanced on the deputies.”
The release said Story’s “immediate actions forced the deputies to discharge their firearms to protect themselves. Two deputies shot at Story. Both fired two rounds. Story was approximately 15 feet away from the deputy he was attacking when he was shot. A third deputy was present but did not discharge his weapon as he was not in a position to do so.”
A Sacramento County Coroner’s forensic report said three gunshots struck Story in the torso, and one in the thigh. The release said the examination “revealed Story had numerous self inflicted stab wounds to his torso, two of which were very serious, one of which would have been fatal.”
During the investigation, the release said the woman’s horse was stabbed and severely injured by Story. A veterinarian treated the horse at the scene. Wegner said the horse, a 14-year-old quarterhorse gelding named Toolie, was doing fine Tuesday and is expected to make a full recovery.
California Department of Justice is investigating the shooting. Involved deputies are still on administrative leave but are expected to return to duty next week.
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Supervisors want Hofmann comments in Volcano, Pine Grove Wildfire Plan
Written by Tom
Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday directed Amador Fire Safe Council to more closely consider comments from the county’s consultant on a draft Community Conservation Wildfire Protection Plan for Volcano and Pine Grove, saying the consultant is the signatory of, and speaks for the Board of Supervisors.
Fire Safe Council consultant Jim Simmons said he “dropped the ball” on not including in the draft document the comments and grammatical corrections from Amador County environmental consultant John Hofmann.
Fire Safe Council Executive Director Cathy Koos-Breazeal said the Amador County Association of Fire Chiefs, Cal-Fire and AFPD Chief Jim McCart had all signed off on the plan, and they held 11 stakeholder meetings with Upcountry civic groups.
Simmons said he followed the Sierra Nevada Conservancy’s template but “dumbed it down a lot,” taking out entire sections because of its lever of technical forestry, to make it more readable to the average lot owner. He said landscaping could be used in the plan to prevent large losses. He said John Hofmann “submitted some edits that didn’t get included,” and “I dropped the ball on that,” but the grammatical errors could “easily be corrected with simple errata.” And he said the document does not need to be that complicated, and should be more reader friendly.
Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said “we are the decision makers,” and the decision makers have not been convened to decide on what is included in the plan. Supervisor Brian Oneto said, per law creating the Wildfire Protection Plan, “the three members must mutually agree” on the plan, those members being the Board of Supervisors, CDF, and local fire agency chiefs. Oneto said Hofmann represents one of the three teams.
Plasse showed a draft document with tabs, including red ones showing Hofmann’s comments, purple showing typos. Plasse said “I don’t feel compelled to put Amador County’s signature on these documents” when the county’s “comments have been ignored.”
Simmons said he thought making some of the “finite distinctions” was not worth the trouble. Oneto said: “I would like to see more credence given to Mr. Hofmann’s comments because he’s representing us,” and he believed many in the county felt the same way.
Supervisors Ted Novelli said: “I don’t think it should be our job, as a Fire Safe Council, to say this is too difficult for” someone to read. He said there are a lot of forestry professionals in the county. Novelli said: “I’m not trying to badmouth your knowledge” and he suggested it include a letter explaining the approach.
Supervisor Richard Forster said it was worth noting why catastrophic wildfires occur, due to logging practice changes, as noted by Hofmann. Oneto suggested they sit down with Hofmann “and address some of our concerns.” He said: “There’s three entities that have to mutually agree on it.”
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AWA vote tie tables notice of rate increase for Camanche water
Written by Tom
Amador County – The Amador Water Agency board of directors tied 2-2 Thursday on whether to send Lake Camanche Village water customers a rate increase notice, or delay the action until after completion of a rate study associated with an agency-wide consolidation.
AWA General Manager Gene Mancebo said Agency Counsel Steve Kronick recommended delaying the notice, to determine if an agency-wide notice was needed, so they could “do it once … so there is certainty to the public of what you would be approving or disapproving.” AWA directors in June approved sending a rate notice to Camanche customers, but omitted a date to do so. But earlier this month, they approved a county-wide consolidation rate study.
The issue was clouded by a $150,000 Water Development Fund grant that the Amador County Board of Supervisors offered if a rate increase was approved in Camanche. Critics urged sending the notice, including Craig Walling, secretary of Camanche Homeowners Association, who said the $150,000 grant was “almost extortion.” He questioned the emergency in Well 14, and said Camanche residents still wanted information “line by line how many hours” AWA worked at Camanche, and how AWA spent their money.
Director Paul Molinelli Senior voted against sending the notice and favored tabling it until after county-wide rate study was done by Bob Reed of the Reed Group. Director Gary Thomas also voted against it, saying “I have a lot of faith in Bob Reed’s studies. He’s pretty darn good.”
Regarding the emergency at Well 14, Thomas said “the water demand, we know, is far greater in the summer.” Mancebo said “I was genuinely concerned about capacity of that well, especially if we had a problem with Well 9.” He said tests tend to support what the consultant said would likely fix the well. He said countywide consolidation would fix existing structural budget deficiencies at Camanche.
Molinelli told Walling to carry back to his board that AWA needs to know what they really want regarding financial information. The board directed staff to send a letter to Camanche Homeowners Association to ask them “what specific information do you want.”
Director Art Toy voted to send the rate notice, and said the letter should ask them “why the information they have is not adequate.” Director Robert Manassero also voted to send the notice, and the 2-2 tie came because President Don Cooper was absent.
Manassero said there is no water emergency because of the cold summer but “the emergency is, who do we borrow the money from next?” Manassero said “I don’t know what figures they want” but they have not had a rate increase since 2006, and if they’d had an adjustment, “we wouldn’t be here today.”
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Wineries were a frequent subject in Supervisor discussion of draft county design review guidelines
Written by Tom
Amador County – The question of inclusion of wineries was brought up several times during the Amador County Board of Supervisors’ discussion of a draft design review guidelines and ordinance at its early September meeting.
Supervisor Brian Oneto of District 5 pointed out the issue late in the discussion and said in the Shenandoah Valley, some people love the wineries, and some do not. But he said vintners are real entrepreneurs and they have individual visions of what they want. He said he did not want to “take away their visions and entrepreneurship” with guidelines for design.
Oneto said the historic buildings of the Gold Rush region, including Amador County, often include false walls. Supervisor Vice Chairman Louis Boitano agreed, saying that “Gold Rush architecture” was practical and cheap, and people built what they needed quickly.
Supervisor Richard Forster said if the county wants to be consistent, it should be consistent, and said some of the new winery designs in the Shenandoah Valley were not very handsome. He supported including all wineries, vintners and tasting rooms under design review guidelines, because some of the wineries attracted more people than commercial businesses in the county.
Supervisor Ted Novelli said wineries have big metal buildings, and they do not see it as a problem. He said Shenandoah Valley has something very unique, and it is just as good as what they have in Napa Valley.
Supervisor Chairman John Plasse said he would “like to critique some of the categorizations in here more closely,” as they continue to work on the ordinance. Oneto agreed, saying he would “like to fine-tune what’s in this.”
Plasse said he would like to send the design review ordinance and guidelines back to the Planning Commission. Planner Nathan Lishman asked about some comments, including proposed districts for design guideline areas, and also looking at applicability, and defining uses.
Plasse said he would like to look at having districts, instead of going county-wide. He also saw a problem with loading areas and parking areas. He said having two access areas to a building could present major logistical problems for some businesses. Oneto said they should consider issues with reciprocal or access driveways.
Lishman asked if staff should bring back another proposal, and Plasse suggested that each Supervisor submit their own comments to the Planning Commission, which could then apply the comments, and then bring it back to the board of supervisors.
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Supervisors say Highway 88 Pine Grove Corridor meeting could have gone easier on facilitators
Written by Tom
Amador County – Supervisors attending a Highway 88 bypass workshop last week said they thought some comments could have gone easier on facilitators.
Supervisors Louis Boitano and Ted Novelli attended the meeting, at which some people complained Amador County Transportation Commissioners were not in attendance, except for Jackson Vice Mayor Keith Sweet. Debbie Dunn called it a “disconnect” because ACTC’s board meeting was canceled that night.
Novelli said ACTC Commissioners, Supervisors John Plasse and Richard Forster were attending a conference of the Regional Council of Rural Counties. Novelli said he is the Board of Supervisors’ ACTC alternate, so two commissioners were there.
Novelli said he thought people were overly critical at the meeting. “I felt bad for some of those facilitators,” Novelli said. One man questioned traffic numbers, saying in the past he was told 27,000 vehicles per day travel through Pine Grove on Highway 88. Fehr & Peers representative Dave Robinson last Wednesday said their estimate was 15,000 vehicles a day. Novelli said the reduction could have come from increased gasoline prices and the economy.
One man asked about valuation costs, and how it could cost more to build bypasses on undeveloped land than it would to build on land held by existing businesses. He asked if right-of-ways on undeveloped land were more expensive.
Rebecca Neillon of Dokken Engineering said the bulk of the cost for a $71 million south bypass estimate was for earthwork. She said $26.6 million of that would build the road, and $12.2 million was for right-of-ways. Engineer Matt Griggs said they do about 10 projects a year, which go through the right-of-way process, or to construction, and use that knowledge to make estimates. Neillon said they do factor in possible property value increases.
Jill North asked how repairing the 1-and-a-half mile stretch of road would impact traffic on all of Highway 88. Robinson said it is a very local traffic problem and “use in Pine Grove is creating the need for additional capacity” that needs to be addressed.
Novelli said Thursday that Pine Grove Elementary school is the biggest cause of traffic congestion, and peak flows make turning onto the Highway dangerous.
ACTC at the meeting said a 5-lane expansion through town is preferred by Caltrans, and would cost $52 million, while all bypass alternatives have been abandoned due to excessive cost. Caltrans’ project manager said at the meeting they are willing to work on seeing how a 3-lane, through town project might be made to work, and ACTC expects a hybrid solution between the two.
Novelli said Caltrans is responsible for that highway, now and when it is done. He and Boitano thought it was wrong for some to say Caltrans was somehow “stonewalling” the project. Novelli said they have to balance everything out and make sure it works correctly when it is built.
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