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170-year-old city saw roughly half its workforce head home. Jeff Meader, the owner of the magazine and stationary store Placerville News Company, said he got multiple notices of the impending blackout a day before it happened. For businesses like his, the outage lasted from Sunday evening to late Monday afternoon. Meader says he’s most concerned that the shut-off is part of PG&E’s longterm tactic for operating in fire-prone California. Meader fears such outages could become semi-regular occurrences next summer. “It’s going to be a big problem for businesses if it starts happening a lot,” he said. “It was a huge disruption down here.” Businesses in south El Dorado were hit even harder. Power wasn’t restored in parts of Grizzly Flat, Somerset, Fairplay and Mount Aukum for three days. Jolene Kaiser, owner of Crossroads Coffee in Somerset, said the outage cut into her revenues. “It’s rough having to be closed, especially with Monday being one of our busiest mornings of the week,” Kaiser observed. “The amount of food we keep here is small enough that we were able to pack it up, bring it home and keep it cool; but the grocery store just up the road lost food.” One person taking a nuanced view of the incident is Laurel Brent-Bumb, who’s the CEO of the El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce, as well as the founder of the Sustainable Forest Action Coalition. While Brent-Bumb is concerned about the PSPS program’s impacts on small businesses, years of studying forest fuel density in California has left her troubled about the other side of the equation, too. Brent-Bumb says she’s worried Placerville is one emergency away from suffering the same fate as Red Bluff and Santa Rosa. “What didn’t happen Monday was a catastrophic fire,” she pointed out. “What happened was a lot of residents and business owners were inconvenienced, and there was an economic impact, especially to the businesses that had perishables. But it worked in the sense that there wasn’t a fire.” Brent-Bumb added, “Why did the power take so long to turn back on? That’s my great concern now.”
locals wanted answers as they poured Kristine oase guth, manager of the el into county government chambers last Dorado County Emergency Preparedness week. It was Tuesday, October 16, and and Response program, told SN&R that some 5,600 residents of El Dorado County sheriff’s officials, firefighters and health still didn’t have power. By PG&E’s own workers are coordinating a plan for the admission, that included 245 “medical outages that might come next summer. baseline customers,” meaning people She said assisting elderly residents and who get extra allotments of electricity for people with fragile health will be a top special equipment needed for significant priority. A likely scenario, Guth added, health problems. would include opening various shelters The task of explaining what happened with generators to run medical equipment. fell on Aaron Johnson, vice president Asked if PG&E had shared its list of PG&E’s community wildfire safety of “medical baseline customers” with division. Johnson said the PSPS county officials, Guth responded program constantly monitors that it had not. weather forecasts, paying “We don’t have that close attention to a list,” she acknowledged. certain combination of “I don’t know if they dry conditions, low can share it because humidity and high of customer privacy winds. issues and HIPPA, “The wind is but either way, we’re what puts it over trying to figure out the top for us,” he ways to duplicate told supervisors. that same informaTeresa Lukini “It’s not that our tion, so we know resident, Mount Aukum equipment isn’t rated where those people are.” for those types of wind During the October 16 speeds—it certainly is—but board meeting, county leaders it’s more about the debris that didn’t press PG&E on whether it breaks loose and flies into our lines, could share its medical baseline customer potentially causing a line to come down list. Instead, several supervisors wondered and be a source for a spark.” aloud if it wasn’t time for every business Johnson went on to explain that winds of owner and resident of El Dorado County 25-to-35-mph and gusts, which are sudden to have their own generator. They also bursts of high winds, of 45-to-55-mph can discussed the need for residents to be selftrigger a power shut-off if conditions are dry reliant by having a personal action plans enough. He added a tree had just struck a for outages. Those sentiments didn’t go power line in a part of Amador County that over well with Teresa Lukini. was also blacked out, potentially avoiding Lukini, who lives near Mount Aukum, a fire. Johnson called that “a data point” to said during public comment that she has indicate he’d made the right decision. elderly neighbors, a mother on oxygen and Johnson also addressed why it was three family members with diabetes. She taking so long to restore power. stressed most of her neighbors can’t afford “The challenge with this program is that a generator, nor can they just take a trip once you make the decision, in advance of a when the power goes out. fire, to turn off power, we lose our eyes and “I have four generations of my family ears of the electrical grid,” he said. “Before in my house and it’s because they can’t we can reenergize that, we have to physiafford to live somewhere else, so going cally patrol the lines.” somewhere is not an option for most District 2 Supervisor Shiva Frentzen people,” Lukini said. “If something were asked Johnson if there was a way for PG&E to have happened to my family, there to examine historic weather data and predict would have been no way to call the sheriff how often it might have to yank El Dorado or anybody. … It’s all dandy to say we County’s power. Johnson told her the have to buy a generator and be prepared company is exploring that possibility, but to have a plan. Well, maybe some people then noted she shouldn’t get her hopes up. don’t have a plan because they can’t “As weather continues to get more afford a plan.” Ω extreme in this state, the past will not necessary be a predictor of the future,” Johnson said soberly.
“Going somewhere is not an option for most people.”
Jewish groups at UC davis are not satisfied with the administration’s response to anti-Semitic fliers discovered on campus earlier this month. Noticed on October 8, the fliers depicted U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, George Soros and other prominent Jewish figures with the Star of David on their foreheads while seemingly blaming Jewish people for fabricating sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice brett Kavanaugh. The fliers credited the daily Stormer, a white supremacist website that has resurfaced on the dark web since getting banned by Google and Go Daddy. Shortly after news of the fliers spread, Chancellor Gary May released a statement denouncing their content and calling for compassion. But May didn’t mention the Jewish community outright, which drew a letter from more than a dozen Jewish groups on campus. “We are frustrated that hate incidents like these are continuously being swept under the rug, and that the community is choosing to look the other way,” the joint statement read. “[T]he campus’ response to this incident is insufficient and does not offer specific support for Jewish students.” May addressed the Jewish community directly in a letter two days later. The university is also planning a town hall and meetings with the Anti-Defamation League, but only after specific requests from the campus Jewish community. Anti-Semitism on UC Davis’ campus is nothing new. In 2016, anti-Semitic fliers were printed on campus computers asking “white men” if they were tired of Jewish people destroying the United States through immigration and degeneracy. In two separate 2015 incidents, swastikas were painted on a Jewish fraternity house and carved into cars in a university parking lot. (Dylan Svoboda)
rUral rent Control? Voters in the city of Sacramento might not be the only ones casting a ballot for rent stabilization in 2020. The same fight’s also starting to brew in rural, Republican-red el dorado County. On October 16, Kathy Kniffen of the Diamond Springs Mobile Home Park Homeowners Coalition, informed county supervisors that her group is hoping to get a rent control ordinance on the ballot by the next presidential election. The reason, she said, is that seniors in the community have recently been targeted by predatory property ownership groups from out of town. Kniffen started her presentation by referencing what has happened at the diamond Springs Mobile home park, where she says a Southern California company that purchased it in May is now drastically raising rents for the lots, as well as leveling new utility fees. Mobile home owners generally own their structures but pay rent for the lots they sit on. “These are people who are in their 70s, 80s—some are a hundred—and they’re terrified,” Kniffen told supervisors during public comment. In August, los angeles County supervisors passed a temporary rent control measure for mobile homes in their jurisdiction after rents began skyrocketing and owners protested. In Mountain View, mobile home owners have been demanding to be included in the groundbreaking rent control measures that were recently passed in that city. Kniffen told supervisors that mobile homeowners across El Dorado County would be organizing at the county’s veteran’s hall on October 25. “I don’t know where these people are going to go,” she said of the seniors on the verge of displacement. “Where are the elderly going to go?” (Scott Thomas Anderson)
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