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FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
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DISTRICT 1 RACE
John Hidahl ready for second term Sel Richard Staff writer Incumbent John Hidahl, El Dorado County District 1 supervisor, hopes to hold onto his seat in what could be a contentious election this March. Born and raised in California’s Central Valley, 68-year-old JOHN HIDAHL Hidahl grew up working on his family’s peach farm and driving trucks before getting his mechanical engineering degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. From there, he spent 31 years at Aerojet as a rocket scientist and 10 years at Northrop Grumman as a chief systems engineer, retiring in 2014. A grandfather to 10, Hidahl and his wife Eileen have been El Dorado Hills residents for 41 years, seeing all five of their daughters through Oak Ridge High School. Elected to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors in 2016, Hidahl said he’s proud of achieving his previous campaign goals of structurally balanced budgets for three successive years, preserving open space and providing multiple senior housing facilities in El Dorado Hills, adding that he hopes to complete the work he started in the last three years. Hidahl acknowledged the help of staff and department heads who brought about the culture change he has seen within the county in his efforts “to improve and lean out county government.” Describing himself as a financial conservative n
See HIDAHL, page A9
NOTICE
In observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday the Mountain Democrat will not publish Monday, Jan. 20.
Democrat photos by Krysten Kellum
Jordyn Bernard embraces Leo the lovable orange tabby after the indoor-only cat spent 47 days on the lam, sneaking out the front door of his Placerville home Nov. 24.
Leo’s home! Leo’s Fine! Leo had better stay there, forever Pat Lakey Staff writer
Desperation seemed to punctuate their uriosity words, and killed this between the lines cat — but the message was the undying love of loud and clear: his family brought This cat isn’t just him back. missing — he is Forty-seven sorely missed. days later, Leo is Hayley back, Mountain Shelstad and Democrat readers her 12-year-old will be happy to daughter Jordyn learn. Leo — the Bernard, along orange tabby, the with Hayley’s Leo’s family, Doug Shelstad, Jordyn Bernard and Hayley Shelstad, spoil him same cat featured parents Doug and with a two-layer cat food cake served up on a “you are special today” plate. on page 1 right Liz Shelstad, had after Christmas almost given up Eve because he had gone missing. had slapped “missing” posters on hope, however, as Christmas and phone poles, put out the alert on And yes, a missing cat New Year’s Day passed, calendars social media sites and elsewhere normally wouldn’t be a stopwere turned to 2020 and still when their beloved orange the-presses situation — but no Leo flipping his striped and tabby sneaked out the front something seemed a bit special animated tail at the Shelstad door around Thanksgiving and in the effort put forth by the disappeared. Shelstad clan of Placerville who n See LEO, page A8
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Nutting nabs opponent’s campaign literature Dylan Svoboda Staff writer With the March primary election just weeks away an El Dorado County supervisor candidate has been caught on camera apparently sabotaging one of his opponent’s campaigns. Ray Nutting, a former District 2 El Dorado County supervisor once again running for that board seat, admitted Wednesday to taking a fellow candidate’s political literature from the front door of a Cameron Park home and replacing it with his own. The campaign brochure belongs to Ken Pimlott, former Cal Fire chief who’s also running for the District 2 seat. Like many wrongdoings these days, Nutting was caught by home security footage. After a video of the incident surfaced Tuesday evening, Jan. 13, Nutting confessed to the Mountain Democrat that he made “a silly Security footage captured at a Cameron Park home shows El Dorado County mistake.” District 2 Supervisor candidate Ray Nutting taking a flier off the residence’s “I’ve been walking hundreds and hundreds front door. of homes,” he said. “It was the first campaign
literature I saw and I was curious. I had not seen any before. It was very wrong of me to take the brochure that was meant for the property owner. I personally apologize to the homeowner … My curiosity got the best of me.” The video that surfaced on social media captured Nutting taking a piece of paper from what appears to be a crack in the front door, placing it in his pocket and putting another paper in the same spot. The timestamp on the video indicates that the incident took place Wednesday, Jan. 8, just before 6 p.m. He added that he realized the brochure was “political in nature” at the time but didn’t know for what candidate or cause. Pimlott spoke lowly of Nutting’s actions, describing them as anti-democratic. “It’s disheartening,” Pimlott said. “We’re all just trying to do the right thing and give the voters all the information so they can decide for themselves what choices they want to make. For another candidate to do that, to willfully take information away from a voter and put his n
See NUTTING, page A9
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