FREE Estimates & 3D Design! Call Today!
(530) 622-8477 Your Vision, Our Expertise!
Visit our Showroom at 386 Placerville Drive
AMERICAN KITCHEN CABINETS & COUNTERTOPS Cabinets You Want at a Price to Fit Your Budget! americankitchencabinets.co • Call or Text (530) 622-8477 C ALI FORN IA’S OLDE ST NE W SPAPER
– E S T. 18 51
– Weekend Edition – FRIDAY, MAY 10, 2024
VOLUME 173 • ISSUE 54 | $1.00
mtdemocrat.com
FARM DAY FUN
Mountain Democrat file photo
The Snowshoe Thompson mural in downtown Placerville gets a fresh layer of paint during a 2023 touch-up from its creator, local artist Oran Miller. The artwork has greeted visitors to downtown Placerville since 2003 and now the city hopes to incorporate more art in public spaces.
City Council finalizing its public art plan Mountain Democrat photos by Odin Rasco
Students from Indian Creek and Meyers Elementary schools participate in a race to lay and connect an irrigation line run by Chris Delfino from Camino’s Delfino Farms as part of El Dorado County Ag in the Classroom’s 22nd annual Farm Day. Third graders from across the county participated in a range of farm- and natural resources-related activities and presentations at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds in Placerville Tuesday.
Ag program encourages growing minds
■
Odin Rasco Staff writer
T
he El Dorado County Fairgrounds in Placerville was abuzz with excitement as more than 1,400 third graders from across the county flocked to Ag in the Classroom’s 22nd annual Farm Day Tuesday morning. Students from schools throughout the county were able to directly interact with multiple facets of El Dorado County’s rich agricultural and environmental resources
Staff writer
A coordinated and cohesive master plan for public art in Placerville is coming soon, with a draft of the plan now under review by the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission. Placerville City Council entered into an agreement with Arts and Culture El Dorado in 2022 to commission a public art plan that would “establish a vision, standards and funding strategies for art on public property that may come before the City Council,” according to an April 9 city manager’s report. The plan would create clear guidelines and processes for how the city could acquire and install public art at parks and other city sites. The plan was developed with th e help of Art Builds Community, a California-based public art planning firm. ACED hired ABC with the help of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts ■ See CITY ART, page A8
Rescue Elementary School student Dylan places an orange paint-smeared hand onto a lamb brought to farm day by Ponderosa High School FFA students. By the end of the day, the lamb’s wool was a vibrant canvas covered in small handprints.
County’s ARPA spending plan gets adjustments Eric Jaramishian Staff writer
■ See FARM DAY, page A10
PLACE ADDRESS LABEL HERE
Odin Rasco
Buckeye Elementary School students tear moistened strips of newspaper to serve as part of the bedding in worm boxes created by their classmates, providing worms a chance to enjoy the Mountain Democrat.
Maddox, a student from Indian Creek Elementary School, attempts to lasso a hay bale stand-in for a bull during Farm Day.
El Dorado County leaders have shifted some of the $37.5 million American Rescue Plan Act revenue received, including using $10 million to cover lost revenue. To help achieve this, previously $4.5 million allocated for broadband projects will be put to other uses. The new proposed spending plan for the entirety of ARPA funds, which includes allocating $19.4 million to cover the public health emergency and negative economic impacts, $8.6 million in water and sewer infrastructure and approximately $8.6 million in replacing lost public sector revenue, was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors April 30. No money will go to fixing transportation or community development due to the small list of ARPA fund’s allowed uses in that category. Natural disasters cost reimbursement will include $52,000 in newly allocated funds and program administrations will receive $778,746. All funds must be obligated for use by Dec. 31 and used by 2026. “We have three goals in our office when we are looking at the administration of the APRA. We don’t want to return any of the funding to the federal government, we want to make sure that El Dorado County uses and keeps our full allocation of the funding (and) want to meet all the reporting deadlines and obligation deadline for ARPA … and to reduce the risk of any audit,” said Emma Owens, a principal analyst for the Chief Administrative Office. Other changes include the county allocating more than $3.1 million to offset costs to ambulance services in the Tahoe Basin due to COVID-19 pandemic impacts. The board made two previous contributions in the amount of $1,025,000 and more than $2.1 million, which are all eligible as pandemic impacts, according to Owens. ■ See ARPA, page A9