Amador County – About two dozen members of the Amador Calaveras Consensus Group attended the group’s March meeting Wednesday at the Jackson Civic Center, and discussed various regional projects.

Members made reports. Among them, Amador County consultant John Hofmann said the Amador Resource Advisory Committee has about $40,000 yet to disburse to grant applicants for projects that benefit the National Forest, though they do not need to be located in the forest. He said the committee has not yet voted, and will probably meet again in May. It has applicants, but will wait and see if a better project comes along.

Katherine Evatt of the Foothill Conservancy reported that her group awaited a ruling in its lawsuit against the East Bay Municipal Utility District regarding expansion of the dam at Pardee Reservoir. She said East Bay MUD has been approached about joining the Consensus Group.

William Haigh, the Folsom director of the Bureau of Land Management, said the BLM will be “building a $1 million whitewater take-out facility” on the Mokelumne River, below the Highway 49 bridge, at Electra Road. He said the project includes $250,000 from Pacific Gas & Electric. Evatt said the project has been in the works for two years, and she gets almost weekly calls about it from the Calaveras County OARS rafting group. She said if East Bay MUD builds a bigger dam, the take-out facility could be under water.

A representative of Sierra Pacific Industries reported it was upgrading its Sonora sawmill to open sometime in May, to mill smaller diameter logs. He said he was “lobbying for the smaller, the better.” The mill previously milled logs in the 15- to 16-inch diameter range, and they are probably talking about 7- to 8-inch logs.

He said SPI’s fencing mill at Chinese Camp is now taking 5-inch logs, and will add white fir to its stock, instead of just using cedar material. He said the Sonora plant’s co-gen plant would reopen, and with the mill would be buying wood fuel in large 40-foot trailer quantities, as it would not produce enough biomass waste itself.

A PG&E representative said the Mother Lode region was hardest hit with heavy, wet snow in two recent outages. The utility had work crews in groups of 40-50 working on the outages, instead of its typical 3-4 groups at a time. He said the outages drew work crews from Washington, Oregon and around the state, and PG&E is “probably going to spend anywhere from $30 million to $40 million on restoration.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – Superior Court Judge Don Howard ruled Tuesday against an Amador County request for an injunction to stop the closing process of the Preston Correctional Youth Facility in Ione.

The suit in Amador Superior Court continues and the next date involved is a mandatory settlement conference scheduled for March 28.

Amador County is suing the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation to stop the closure of Preston on the grounds that CDCR did not properly follow the California Environmental Quality Act when it determined that Preston should be closed.

Deputy County Counsel Greg Gillott said Tuesday’s hearing was the county’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would have at least temporarily stopped the process of closing Preston on the merits of the pending lawsuit. Judge Howard denied the petition for a preliminary injunction.

Gillott said the county had to show two things to prevail. He said the judge had to find that ultimately the county would prevail in the suit. The judge also had to find that the county showed that there was immediate irreparable harm that would happen to county as a result of the closure.

Gillott said either Judge Howard believed the county did not make sufficient showing that it would prevail, or if it did, the county did not show irreparable harm would befall the county. He said the closure process will continue and the county’s lawsuit will continue.

Amador County believes there are impacts to CEQA, Gillott said, such as the county’s understanding that Preston’s closure will stop operation of a pump out of a pond that runs a sprinkler system in front of Preston Castle. He said the county thinks things like that are significant and CDCR should have evaluated things like that before making a decision to close, and should have come up with mitigation. If the county prevails, CDCR would have to go back and do CEQA analysis of its decision.

No hearing date has been set, but the county and CDCR have a settlement conference, required under CEQA, which is set for March 28. They will also talk about hearing dates in the future.

CDCR will have to prepare an administrative record of everything it evaluated when it made the decision to close Preston, Gillott said, and “that’s ultimately what the court will rule on.” The county may have issues with what is or is not included in that record.

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Amador County – The Sutter Creek Police Department has confirmed that there was a murder over the weekend at the Days Inn Hotel in Sutter Creek, and that the victim has been identified as a 62-year-old woman who was not a resident of Amador County.

Authorities are seeking to interview a “person of extreme interest” in the case, a male, who is also not a resident of Amador County. Sutter Creek Police Chief Brian Klier confirmed that there was a homicide in a room at the Days Inn Hotel over the weekend of March 12th and 13th, but he said he would not yet narrow down the date of the murder’s occurrence.

He said the victim has been positively identified as a 62-year-old white female Caucasian, but authorities are still trying to notify her next of kin, so he was not able to release her name this morning. He said he may be able to release more information this afternoon. Klier said “neither the victim nor the person of interest is an Amador County resident.”

Klier said Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe’s office has been and continues to work on the case. He said an autopsy was done Wednesday in Sacramento, and determined that a homicide had occurred, but he was “not going to describe the method of how it was done yet.” He said he would give a rough guess that there will be some sort of press conference by Monday.

He said the male person of interest is not a suspect, but is being sought for questioning. Klier said anyone who may have seen any suspicious activities around Days Inn over the weekend is being asked to notify police.

He said the victim was found by a staff member of the Days Inn Hotel, who immediately contacted the Sutter Creek Police Department. The woman’s body was found in a room at approximately noon on Monday.

Klier said besides vehicular homicides, this may be the first murder case in Amador County in as many as 30 years.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – Superior Court Judge Don Howard ruled Tuesday against an Amador County request for an injunction to stop the closing process of the Preston Correctional Youth Facility in Ione.

The suit in Amador Superior Court continues and the next date involved is a mandatory settlement conference scheduled for March 28.

Amador County is suing the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation to stop the closure of Preston on the grounds that CDCR did not properly follow the California Environmental Quality Act when it determined that Preston should be closed.

Deputy County Counsel Greg Gillott said Tuesday’s hearing was the county’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would have at least temporarily stopped the process of closing Preston on the merits of the pending lawsuit. Judge Howard denied the petition for a preliminary injunction.

Gillott said the county had to show two things to prevail. He said the judge had to find that ultimately the county would prevail in the suit. The judge also had to find that the county showed that there was immediate irreparable harm that would happen to county as a result of the closure.

Gillott said either Judge Howard believed the county did not make sufficient showing that it would prevail, or if it did, the county did not show irreparable harm would befall the county. He said the closure process will continue and the county’s lawsuit will continue.

Amador County believes there are impacts to CEQA, Gillott said, such as the county’s understanding that Preston’s closure will stop operation of a pump out of a pond that runs a sprinkler system in front of Preston Castle. He said the county thinks things like that are significant and CDCR should have evaluated things like that before making a decision to close, and should have come up with mitigation. If the county prevails, CDCR would have to go back and do CEQA analysis of its decision.

No hearing date has been set, but the county and CDCR have a settlement conference, required under CEQA, which is set for March 28. They will also talk about hearing dates in the future.

CDCR will have to prepare an administrative record of everything it evaluated when it made the decision to close Preston, Gillott said, and “that’s ultimately what the court will rule on.” The county may have issues with what is or is not included in that record.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – About two dozen members of the Amador Calaveras Consensus Group attended the group’s March meeting Wednesday at the Jackson Civic Center, and discussed various regional projects.

Members made reports. Among them, Amador County consultant John Hofmann said the Amador Resource Advisory Committee has about $40,000 yet to disburse to grant applicants for projects that benefit the National Forest, though they do not need to be located in the forest. He said the committee has not yet voted, and will probably meet again in May. It has applicants, but will wait and see if a better project comes along.

Katherine Evatt of the Foothill Conservancy reported that her group awaited a ruling in its lawsuit against the East Bay Municipal Utility District regarding expansion of the dam at Pardee Reservoir. She said East Bay MUD has been approached about joining the Consensus Group.

William Haigh, the Folsom director of the Bureau of Land Management, said the BLM will be “building a $1 million whitewater take-out facility” on the Mokelumne River, below the Highway 49 bridge, at Electra Road. He said the project includes $250,000 from Pacific Gas & Electric. Evatt said the project has been in the works for two years, and she gets almost weekly calls about it from the Calaveras County OARS rafting group. She said if East Bay MUD builds a bigger dam, the take-out facility could be under water.

A representative of Sierra Pacific Industries reported it was upgrading its Sonora sawmill to open sometime in May, to mill smaller diameter logs. He said he was “lobbying for the smaller, the better.” The mill previously milled logs in the 15- to 16-inch diameter range, and they are probably talking about 7- to 8-inch logs.

He said SPI’s fencing mill at Chinese Camp is now taking 5-inch logs, and will add white fir to its stock, instead of just using cedar material. He said the Sonora plant’s co-gen plant would reopen, and with the mill would be buying wood fuel in large 40-foot trailer quantities, as it would not produce enough biomass waste itself.

A PG&E representative said the Mother Lode region was hardest hit with heavy, wet snow in two recent outages. The utility had work crews in groups of 40-50 working on the outages, instead of its typical 3-4 groups at a time. He said the outages drew work crews from Washington, Oregon and around the state, and PG&E is “probably going to spend anywhere from $30 million to $40 million on restoration.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.