TROUBLE IN TAHOE
Inspirational art
Meyers residents plan third tourism protest.
Sierra scenes on display through Sept. 27.
Inside, A5
News, Etc., B1
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Volume 169 • Issue 104
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City budget balanced despite virus Pat Lakey Staff writer As Placerville City Council member Patty Borelli gleefully told city Finance Director Dave Warren, “I told you so!” when a special budget meeting starring COVID-19 got underway Wednesday, Warren sounded happy to take the jab — and more than happy to report to the City Council sales taxes for the quarter that just ended were … up. You read that right — up, despite doom and gloom forecast by a consulting firm hired to guide the city through what were supposed to be troubled waters stirred to a froth by the coronavirus. With so many businesses shutting down since midMarch, and those that remained open keeping curtailed hours, it was thought n
See City budget, page A11
OR coach out for season Thomas Frey Staff writer Oak Ridge High School cross country and track and field coach Bob Wright’s suspension was upheld Friday by the El Dorado Union High School District Board of Trustees Wright was suspended by the board June 29 after he didn’t fill out a use of facilities permit for a May 23 race organized by Jesuit High School distance runner Matt Strangio. Wright has coached at Oak Ridge since 1996. At the trustees’ Aug. 25 meeting supporters of Wright spoke for two hours in favor of lifting the suspension. Superintendent Ron Carruth at the time said the board — who voted 5-0 to suspend Wright — would consider everything said by Wright’s supporters. Three days later Wright said the board informed him they had decided to uphold the suspension which excludes him from coaching for the entire 2020-21 academic school year. In observance of the Labor Day holiday the Mountain Democrat will not publish Monday, Sept. 7.
Mountain Democrat photos by Kevin Christensen
Jeff and Vicki Kennedy of Placerville await their Old Town Grill entrées at a white-tablecloth-dressed picnic table last Friday during the first Fair Market al fresco dinner fundraiser on the El Dorado County Fairgrounds.
Fine dining on the fairgrounds
Kevin Christensen Staff writer Chef John Sanders and the Old Town Grill team served up their first Fair Market dinner last Friday on the El Dorado County Fairgrounds. Sanders has partnered with the El Dorado County Fair Association to use fairground facilities — a commercial kitchen and shaded picnic tables spread throughout the park-like setting — for outdoor dining in his ongoing, community-minded fundraising campaign. There’s also a new-this-summer farmers market that takes place Friday evenings on the fairgrounds — the Fair Market — where Sanders gathers locally grown produce from area farmers to use in his cuisine. Some of n
See al fresco, page A8
Head chef and owner of Old Town Grill John Sanders, left, and his kitchen team cook up gourmet fare in one of the kitchens on the fairgrounds
3 make Placerville’s pot shop roster, again Pat Lakey Staff writer Get out the score card if you are following the competition over who will open up Placerville’s first recreational marijuana store. Because after rounding first and second bases — then pausing as other teams called foul — the three pot store sites that had been named the winners back in January but were forced to await the “umpire’s” decision have now rounded third and are heading for home.
Given the “go sign” back in January — and confirmed during a special meeting that went extra innings in late August — are Sacred Roots, Chuck’s Wellness Center and Reserve House. Those three locations were named when the year began, but there was no way to predict the wild pitch that came in mid-March when COVID-19 took the field. The choices announced by Placerville’s city manager in January had been appealed, a process that under normal circumstances would have
run its course and game over. But after months of delay, four other applicants for a city permit to sell recreational marijuana finally had their day to tell their side to the ump — in this case, the Placerville City Council. Although it appeared in late July the council was poised to start the whole application process over — game called due to hazy scoring processes involved — instead the council decided they were right the first time: The recommendations made by City Manager Cleve Morris
“The council appears in agreement that three is the number that the community would support.” — John Driscoll, Placerville City Attorney were the best choice for the town after all. That included the fact that only three pot stores would be allowed within city limits at a time; talks had included the possibility of opening up the application to anyone and everyone who thought they could succeed in a commercial commerce brandnew to Placerville. But City
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Attorney John Driscoll told the Mountain Democrat it appeared to be the consensus of the City Council that three recreational marijuana stores were all the public was willing to accept. “The council appears in agreement that three is the number that the community
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