Union Mine wins rivalry game
Future leader
Kiwanis Club celebrates ambitious, caring student.
Late comeback falls short for El Dorado boys hoops squad. Sports, A7
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Kiley, county leaders slam Prop. 47 Thomas Frey Staff writer El Dorado County’s sheriff and district attorney say they stand behind legislation recently introduced to repeal Proposition 47, a ballot initiative that reclassifies a number of felony theft offenses as misdemeanors. Assemblymember Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) earlier this month presented Assembly Bill 1599, to which he and 13 other elected officials are credited. Prop. 47, known as the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, was passed by California voters in 2014 and is a failed experiment, according to Kiley. He represents District 6, which includes parts of the Sacramento region, including El Dorado Hills and Cameron Park. “After years of failed policies and leadership, California is now experiencing an unprecedented surge in crime,” Kiley said. If a theft involves less than $950 in losses, the crime is a misdemeanor with no prison time. The assembly bill states 1599 would “repeal the changes and additions made by Prop. 47, except those related to reducing the penalty for possession of concentrated cannabis.” “I wholeheartedly support AB 1599,” said El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson. “Prop. 47 has failed us largely because the voters were purposefully misguided by the proponents of that initiative.” Instead of spending money on “nonserious, nonviolent crime,” the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act proposes to “invest the savings generated into prevention and support programs in K-12 schools, victim services and mental health and drug treatment,” according to the law’s text. “We should continue to seek creative ways to rehabilitate and treat those with addiction and mental illness,” Pierson said. “But we must also protect victims of crime from those who repeatedly victimize our communities. A repeal of Prop. 47 would be n
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Caldor sparks romance Neighbors meet for first time at evacuation site, fall in love
Andrew Vonderschmitt Staff writer
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hen Holly Schlumpf was evacuated from her Pollock Pines home as the Caldor Fire threatened her neighborhood she said she never imagined she would find love amid calamity. Schlumpf, originally from Sacramento, moved to Pollock Pines with her son a little more than a year ago. Roughly eight months after taking up residence the Caldor Fire sent the family, along with thousands of other El Dorado County residents, packing. “My son and I and his girlfriend went to the Red Cross at the Cameron Park Community Center,” she recalled. “I met this gentleman there and we became friends …” The Cameron Park Community Center was one of several evacuation sites set up around El Dorado County. Unbeknownst to one another, the two actually had evacuated from the same neighborhood in Pollock Pines. Waiting out the Caldor Fire’s potential destruction, their friendship began to grow. “At first, I didn’t really like him much,” Schlumpf mused about meeting her future fiancée, Tim Warren. Warren was a romantic. “We took walks together, hung out at the pool, ate together, danced together,” she said. Warren even pulled together a birthday celebration for his newfound sweetheart, buying her flowers and singing happy birthday. “There was just something
See Prop. 47, page A5
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Courtesy photo
Pollock Pines residents Holly Schlumpf and Tim Warren celebrate their engagement at the Moose See Caldor couple, page A7 Lodge in Camino in November. The couple plan to tie the knot next year.
Forest Service leaders launch ‘wildfire crisis’ strategy Mountain Democrat staff Last week the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a 10-year strategic plan, “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A PLACE ADDRESS LABEL HERE
Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests,” that maps out action aiming to protect people and communities and improve forest health and resilience. The plan, presented Jan. 28 by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Randy Moore at a news conference in Phoenix, Ariz., takes a paradigm shift in land management across jurisdictional boundaries to reduce risk and restore fireadapted landscapes by dramatically increasing fuels and forest health treatments by up to four times what’s currently being done in the West. That means an additional 20 million acres of national forest
Photo courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
The fight to protect communities in the West from wildland fire is now year round as crews work to reduce fuels on national forest land. and grasslands will be treated, as well as up to an additional 30 million acres of other federal, state, tribal, private and family lands.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will provide nearly $3 billion to help fund the wildfire crisis strategy, according to a Forest Service news
release. Fuels and forest health treatments, including the use of prescribed fire and thinning to reduce hazardous fuels,
will be complemented by investments in fireadapted communities and work to address post-fire risks, recovery and reforestation, officials said. Wildfires have been growing in size, duration and destructivity over the past 20 years. Officials say the growing wildfire risk is due to accumulating fuels, a warming climate and expanding development in the wildland-urban interface. The strategic plan focuses on key “firesheds” — large forested landscapes and rangelands with a high likelihood that an ignition could expose homes, communities and infrastructure to wildfire. Firesheds, n
See Crisis, page A7
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