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Cougars score two victories over D’backs.
2019’s wine grape harvest was challenging.
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Garden Valley weighs options in wake of assessment failure n Board of Directors to
vote Wednesday Dawn Hodson Staff writer
In September voters in Garden Valley rejected an additional assessment to fund fire services in their area. Since then the Garden Valley Fire Protection District has been trying to decide what to do about the financial squeeze they now find themselves in. Facing a June 30 deadline, the Garden Valley Fire Protection District Board of Directors explored
options for continuing to provide fire protection at its Jan. 28 meeting. Joining in the discussion were several representatives from the El Dorado County Fire Protection District, including Chief Tim Cordero and Division Chief Paul Dutch, with Dutch providing a presentation on two options open to Garden Valley that were previously explored by the two agencies. Board members were presented with six options in all, although some members said they were open to additional ideas as well. These options were described in more detail later in an email to the Mountain Democrat
“We have exhausted every option at this point — annexation, consolidation, tax/assessment measure and nothing has materialized ... “ — Clive Savacool, Garden Valley fire chief from Garden Valley Fire Chief Clive Savacool. One option is for Garden Valley to maintain the status quo, which would require laying off three firefighters and living within the district’s existing budget. That would mean going back to the model of operations from the 1990s, according to Savacool, which means one firefighter with the support of volunteers.
Option two would be to disband and be absorbed into the county fire district. The level of service would remain the same but local control of the fire district would be lost. The county has a larger unfunded pension (CalPERS) liability than Garden Valley and if absorbed, the residents in Garden Valley would share in that n
See Garden Valley Fire, page A3
Who’s tribe is it anyway?
“After a good start in December, January saw dry conditions that added little to the Sierra snowpack.” — Karla Nemeth, director of the Department of Water Resources
n Lawsuit challenges
federal recognition of Shingle Springs tribe Dylan Svoboda Staff writer Another chapter of the long-running battle between Cesar Caballero and the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians has come to a close — this time with a fruitless ending. In September, Caballero, the chief of what he claims to be the true Miwok tribe, sued the current tribal council members of the federallyrecognized Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians tribe over control of the name and Shingle Springs Rancheria. Despite “I don’t have any a packed procedure where courthouse and highly I can make this anticipated decision ... It’s hearing, El Dorado outside of the County realm of the state Superior court.” Court Judge — Dylan Sullivan, Dylan El Dorado County Superior Sullivan Court judge moved to dismiss the lawsuit during Jan. 24 proceedings. As a state court judge, Sullivan said that she couldn’t act on the lawsuit because the Rancheria was granted to the tribe by the federal government through an Act of Congress — a statute the law doesn’t allow her to overrule. The room grew intense at times during pre-hearing testimony, with about two dozen members of Miwok Nation, Caballero’s tribe, in the gallery. Representing Caballero, attorney Herman Franck said the Miwok people have been disenfranchised and robbed by the current tribal council. “The folks who have taken over this land are imposters, they are frauds,” he said. “They should not be allowed to exclude true Miwoks.” He continued, charging that the tribe’s actions are unlawful. “To me, it’s a theft. Like a theft of property. It’s a theft of a whole rancheria.” At the core of the lawsuit is a debate over the ethnic makeup of current tribe members. The lawsuit alleges that “at no time
Photo by Ken James/California Department of Water Resources
Sean de Guzman, chief of the California Department of Water Resources, Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Section, measures snow depth and density at Phillips Station Thursday, Jan. 30.
Snowpack dwindling after dry January n Measurements statewide are 72% of average Dawn Hodson Staff writer While last month’s snow survey by the Department of Water Resources was promising, the second survey of 2020, conducted Jan. 30 at Phillips
Station near Echo Summit, showed below average results. The manual survey recorded 40.5 inches of snow depth and a snow water equivalent of 14.5 inches, which is 79 percent of average for that location.
Photo by Kelly M. Grow/California Department of Water Resources
The snow water equivalent measures the amount of water contained in the snowpack, which provides a forecast of spring runoff. Last month the results were better when the agency’s staff recorded a snow depth of 33.5 inches and a snow water equivalent of 11 inches, which was 97 percent of average. “After a good start in December, January saw dry conditions that added little to the Sierra snowpack,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “As climate change continues to impact California’s snowpack, we look to actions described in the recently released California Water Resilience Portfolio to meet the challenges brought by weather variability to California’s water supply.” In addition to the manual surveys, DWR collects readings from 130 electronic snow sensors scattered
A patch of bare ground is visible at the base of a tree near the snow survey site.
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See Snow pack, page A3
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