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Nominate local elders News, Page 2
Community Corazón amplifies cultural voice Features, Page 1
Volume 141, Number 8 — Locally-owned since 1884
Local News Briefs Express staff
Support Class of 2024 This week, the WHS Grad Nite Parent Group is hosting its last Dine & Donate event in partnership with Putah Creek Cafe on Thursday, March 28, available for pickup after 4 p.m. The carry-out family-style dinner feeds four and features a chicken alfredo dinner with Caesar salad and garlic bread. For every family meal ordered, Putah Creek Cafe will donate a portion of the proceeds to host a Safe & Sober Grad Nite for the Class of 2024. To order, visit https:// bit.ly/4cvzA2G. Choose Thursday, March 28, for the order date field, and select the “WHS
Family Meal — Chicken Alfredo” menu item.
History hike Join Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve docent coordinator Bill Pevec will lead a hike about the post-indigenous human history of the Putah Creek Canyon this Saturday, March 30, from 8 to 11 a.m. Sign up at https:// forms.office.com/r/ myJWQ5idX8.
Local egg hunt Genesis Community Church will host the Winters City Park Egg Hunt on Saturday, March 30 in the wooden City Park from 10 a.m. to Noon. Children can participate for free and hunt for 3,000 candy-filled eggs. The Easter
See BRIEFS, Page 5
City continues cannabis, homeless conversations By Amelia Biscardi Express staff writer
EXPRESS
In a 4-0-1 vote, the Winters City Council approved directing staff to bring back licensing information for all cannabis licensing types at a future council meeting. The only council member voting in opposition was Mayor Bill Biasi. On March 19, there was a lot of debate over safety concerns and which option the council should choose to move forward on the consideration of the licensing types that were discussed, including cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, testing lab, retail, non-store retail and micro business.
Spending an hour discussing what to move forward on, the city council took questions and discussed briefly what types of cannabis licensing might fit Winters and listened to public input. The three options brought by city staff were: 1. Continuing to prohibit cannabis cultivation on the commercial level, 2. Bringing back cannabis licensing for some types allowing for the council to discuss it more in depth at a later date, and 3. Allowing some cannabis licensing types but setting the number of licenses allowed at zero, to make to a decision on the number of licenses at a later date. Among the licensing options, council member Jesse Loren brought up concerns
Winters, Yolo County, California, Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Robotics qualify for Championships First middle school team heads to Dallas in April By Crystal Apilado Editor-in-Chief Following robotics tournaments earlier this month, two Winters Robotics Club teams have qualified to compete at the VEX World Championship in April. One is a duo from Winters Middle School, earning the honor of being the first middle school team to represent Winters at the World Championship. WMS students August Nelson and Jack Dennis make up Team 95694B and are looking forward to the next level of competition. The duo earned a qualification invitation by earning a high skills score. “The skills score is based on autonomous coding and driver control execution of the game,” Dennis said. Their next step to prepare for the championship is to ensure it works the best it can be by reworking and improving the different parts. “It feels really good to know we qualified for Worlds,” Dennis said. “It’s an exciting opportunity for all of us.” Team 39599B members Miles Mariani, Ben Nelson and Jack Tuel have traveled to the World Championship before, but that won’t stop them from giving it their best.
By Logan Chrisp Express staff writer
See CITY, Page 5
Index
We at he r Rain
High
Low
Mar. 20 .00”
77˚
46˚
Mar. 21 .00”
77˚
48˚
Mar. 22 .00”
72˚
48˚
Mar. 23 .06”
70˚
48˚
Eventos hispanos ....... A-2
Mar. 24 .08”
61˚
46˚
Mar. 25 .01”
65˚
46˚
Opinion ......................... B-3
Mar. 26 .00”
67˚
42˚
Real Estate ................... B-2
Rain for week: 0.15 in. Season’s total: 21.33 in. Last sn. to date: 34.78
Classifieds ................... B-4 Community .................. A-2
Sports ........................... B-7
Credit
ABOVE: Team 39599B members Miles Mariani, Jack Tuel and Ben Nelson will compete in the high school session of the VEX World Championships. BELOW: Team 95694B members August Nelson and Jack Dennis will represent Winters as the first middle school team to head to the Championships.
ics Club will share more information on how the community can support the teams as information is finalized.
Get involved
Tuel said the team will continue to build and improve their current design and to keep working on the programming to make it more accurate and efficient. “Our goal was to qualify by doing well at states, but a few things went wrong there,” Tuel said. Despite the challenges, the combination of the team’s skills score and random chance helped them to earn a spot from off of
the waitlist. “I was surprised and excited about qualifying because we were told not to expect to make it — We were sent an email a few hours later congratulating us for qualifying,” Tuel said. The 2025 VEX World Championship takes place in Dallas, Texas. The high school competition is from April 25 to 27 and the middle school competition is from April 28 to 30. The Winters Robot-
The Winters Robotics Club teams are made up of students from both Winters Middle School and Winters High School. They work together throughout the week, and high school students help to mentor middle school students. Winters Robotics Inc. serves as a support to the teams by helping to provide funds for tournament registration, supplies and more. For more information and updates, follow Winters Robotics on social media at facebook. com/wintersrobotics or Instagram.com/wintersrobotics. To learn more about volunteering opportunities or on how to donate, send an email to wintersrobotics@gmail.com.
Supervisors give go-ahead to begin construction of El Rio Villas playground On Tuesday, March 12, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors approved the agreement to construct a new playground in
Features ........................ B-1
The hometown paper of Jason Conner
Date
Winters rainfall season began 7/1/23. Weather readings are taken at 9 a.m. daily by local weatherman Joe Bristow.
the El Rio Villa Housing Community just outside of the city of Winters. The agreement provides $50,000 from District 2 to New Hope Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization that supports affordable housing in Yolo County. The $50,000 will be funded through the previously set-aside $750,000 for the Community Benefit Equal Allocation Plan, which allocated a portion of that funding equally to each of the five supervisorial districts. Ian Evans, the executive director of Yolo County Housing, signed the final agreement with New Hope Development Corporation after the Yolo County Board of Supervisors approved
the agreement at the March 12 meeting. “The project went through a competitive process with a review panel who scored proposals and ultimately as the executive director, I signed the final agreement with the selected vendor,” said Evans. New Hope Development is an ancillary entity to Yolo County Housing Authority. New Hope Development has provided equity or loans to several low-income projects in Yolo County, such as the Cesar Chavez apartment complex in Davis, which provides housing for low-income individuals who have experienced a history of homelessness and mental and/ or physical disabilities.
The new playground will serve as a replacement for the old playground that was removed due to being unsafe five years ago. This play structure is one of several projects underway to improve the El Rio Villas housing community which includes projects to repair aging water lines in the housing community, improve the area of Putah Creek that overlaps with the El Rio Villas Community with a walking path and to the removal of weeds and invasive plants. New Hope Development’s goal is to have the playground open for children to play in by the end of June, just in time for summer. Construction is expected to begin this May.
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