The Amador County Unified School District and Office of Education is looking for new and exciting ways to not only improve the educational experience of its current students, but also ways to attract home-schooled and privately educated students back to the district. Asst Superintendent of Curriculum Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti presented several options of the Board for the increasing opportunities. The use of the Drytown School House as a center for Independent Study and home schooled students is what was termed as “an exciting possibility”.

For every two homes that are sold in the eight-county Sacramento region, another one goes back to the bank. The eight county area includes Amador County. That is the latest indicator of the area's housing market, considered among the worst in the state. Last month, 2,978 new owners bought homes in Amador, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties, according to La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems.

The El Dorado County Sheriffs Department is reporting a bizarre pitbull attack story out of Lake Tahoe- the victim of the attack: a Sheriff’s K-9 unit dog. The incident took place Saturday about 2:00 p.m., as an El Dorado County Sheriff’s K-9 unit was assisting the South Lake Tahoe Police Department with an in progress felony call for service. The call at the Value Inn involved a suspect armed with a knife and fighting with others at that location.

Park rangers called for a large-scale search and rescue mission yesterday as they continued searching for a 58-year-old city worker who last communicated with anyone on Friday afternoon. Ronald Hoggard is the city manager of Corcoran in the Central Valley. He called his wife from his car on Friday afternoon, and rangers say he seems to have disappeared somewhere between Fresno and the park's south entrance near Fish Camp. Hundreds of people are reported missing each year in Yosemite National Park, which gets more than 3.5 million annual visitors. Most turn up within hours, after friends or relatives report them missing. This is the second time this year that the park has called in rescue specialists, canine squads and helicopter crews. In late July of this year, an 80-year-old Indiana woman went missing after a day hike in the high Sierra, and was found dead about two weeks later.

O.J. Simpson has been arrested and is now facing multiple felony charges in an alleged armed robbery of collectors involving the former football great's sports treasures, authorities said. Prosecutors were planning to charge Simpson with two counts of robbery with use of a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery, burglary with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and coercion, said Clark County District Attorney David Roger. A conviction on the most serious charge, robbery with use of a deadly weapon, could bring a sentence of three to 35 years for each count, he said. "He is facing a lot of time," Roger said.

At this week’s Amador County Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting, a future facilities general obligation bond was discussed.Superintendent Mike Carey told the Board, during his report, that he and other district officials had been in contact with the consultants that helped the district pass the last bond measure, measure F. That bond was for 11-million dollars which, Dr Carey says, was matched with state funding to give the district a value of 25-million dollars in badly needed improvements.

At yesterday’s Amador Water Agency Board of Directors meeting, Duke Foster, Project Coordinator for non-profit group Resources for Humanity, requested the Agency to take temporary title of about 30 acres of land for watershed protection and possible recreation use along Jackson Creek.  The property along Hwy 88 would be paid for by a grant from the State under a program designed to protect water quality in lakes, streams and wetlands in the Sierra Nevada/Cascade Mountain regions.

Many Amador County Residents turned out in droves at the Amador County Planning Commission Meeting Tuesday, hot to debate the issue of whether the Pioneer Baptist church should be able to expand its facilities to include a 250 person capacity open-air pavilion. On January 9th, the Planning Commission voted to amend the church’s Master Plan-Use Permit to allow the addition of the pavilion, which will be used mainly for classrooms and administrative offices, but will also facilitate potluck dinners and occasional concerts and picnics.