Mountain Democrat, Monday, June 14, 2021 by mcnaughtonmedia

170

C a l i f o r n i a ’ s O l d e s t N e w s pa p e r – E s t. 18 51

Volume 170 • Issue 69 | 75¢

mtdemocrat.com

Monday, June 14, 2021

Out with dining out — council to let permits expire Andrew Vonderschmitt Staff writer Temporary outdoor dining permits will expire in the city of Placerville June 18. Outdoor dining for Placerville restaurants was added to last week’s City Council agenda after news from Sacramento heralded loosened restrictions to permits throughout the state. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced June 3 that outdoor dining would be permitted through the end of the year, despite the state fully reopening June 15. Newsom said he would like to let individual cities decide how to proceed with outdoor dining programs based on community needs. “California will now allow to-go cocktails and outdoor dining expansions to stay after we fully reopen June 15,” said Newsom.

“One of the reasons this has always been a concern for me is public safety.” — Dennis Thomas, mayor of Placerville Placerville Vice Mayor Kara Taylor at the Tuesday night meeting asked to add the topic to the agenda and after a quick conference with City Attorney John Driscoll it was determined permissible. On May 11 the City Council approved a resolution to terminate the outdoor, no-fee dining permit program June 15. A caveat was added, giving restaurants until Friday, June 18, to remove their encroachments. Options up for discussion included doing nothing, which would mean the program would indeed end on June 18, or to n

See permits, page 3

Mountain Democrat photo by Krysten Kellum

Diners at Heyday Café in downtown Placerville opt to dine in the restaurant's outdoor dining space Thursday night.

First sale

Tahoe native fish numbers declining Laney Griffo Tahoe Daily Tribune

Kelly Chiusano, above photo, a local cannabis dispensary owner himself, makes the first legal storefront purchase of a marijuana product in the city of Placerville Thursday, June 10, after the grand opening and ribbon cutting celebration for Chuck’s Wellness Center on Broadway. Assisting Chiusano, who’s working to open the city’s next dispensary — Sacred Roots — in coming months, are Chuck’s consultants Mike Trevino and Deana Garcia. Chuck’s owner Annie Aubrey, left photo, officially opens the doors to her dispensary. Mountain Democrat photos by Andrew Vonderschmitt

Housing needs plan released Carla Hass El Dorado County Chief Administrive Office El Dorado County’s housing plan is available for public comment and has been submitted to the California Department of Housing and Community Development for review. The 2021-29 Housing Element update is the county’s plan for addressing the housing needs of residents of all income levels in the unincorporated areas of the county. The public review draft of the 202129 Housing Element update is available on the county Long Range Planning website at edcgov.us/government/

LongRangePlanning. The major update and required changes are centered on the revised housing allocations based on regional housing needs assessment, an update of inventory using the General Plan land use designations, addressing affirmatively furthering fair housing in accordance with state law and a review of the success in meeting the goals and objectives of the previously adopted element. The Planning and Building Department will accept public comments through July 8, which will be n

Lake Tahoe has changed over the years and that change becomes obvious when looking at the lake’s food web. Due to overfishing, introduction of non-native species (both on purpose and accidental) and elevated water temperatures, the lake basically has a new ecosystem. While all but one native species still exist in the lake, their numbers are dwindling. “Before (species were) introduced Lake Tahoe had a very simple food web,” said Dr. Sudeep Chandra, a professor of biology at the University of Nevada, Reno. “It had about 12 types of invertebrate orders … maybe up to 18 but not a lot.” A look at the food web in the 1800s shows the Lahontan cutthroat trout at the top of the chain of offshore fish — fish that hang out away from the shoreline. Under it is the tui chub and mountain whitehead. These offshore fish feed on zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrates, or bottom dwellers, which feed on phytoplankton, near-shore plants and algae. Feeding on the zooplankton and benthic macroinvertebrates are the nearshore and bottom fish which consist of speckled dace, Paiute sculpin, Lahontan redside and Tahoe sucker. Chandra, who specializes in restoring native species and managing non-native species, said there were about two to six native plants. Over the years the cutthroat population began to decline. “It was essentially commercial fisheries of cutthroat trout in the late 1800s, they were harvesting more fish than the population could sustain,” said Brant Allen, a biologist with the University of California, Davis, Tahoe Environmental Research Center. “With the decrease in the cutthroat trout they started looking for other species of game fish that could replace them.” Between the 1800s and 1900s rainbow, brook, brown and lake trout were all introduced into the Tahoe. The introduction of lake trout, also known as mackinaw, marked the end for the cutthroat trout. By the late 1910s mackinaw were established in the lake and by 1940 the cutthroat trout was gone from Lake Tahoe. Sarah Hockensmith, the outreach director for the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science, has studied natural resource management. She is an avid angler and has caught many of Tahoe’s

See Housing needs, page 9

See Native Fish, page 6

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