DENAIR—Dalton Day fielded Denair’s opening kickoff at Summerville’s 20 yard-line close to the right sideline.
This was Friday night in Denair.
“We wanted to set the tempo,” said Summerville’s Eddie Carpenter, who was blocking on the Bears’ front line some 25 yards ahead of Day. “We wanted to start this game off with a bang.”
Did they ever.
Day didn’t run forward though. He ran to his left.
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Bears romp over Denair, remain unbeaten
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Cats beat area-rival Skins
Sonora Wildcat junior quarterback Andrew Nessi hadn’t played a single down on defense all season. He hasn’t even practiced on that side of the ball. He’s got his hands full trying to learn and perfect the Cats’ triple option attack.
But when Sonora’s defensive backfield was short-handed with 2:09 left in a tight game against the Calaveras Redskins on Friday, Nessi got the call.
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Bullfrogs lose on road to Hughson
By TAYLOR LUCKIE
For The Union Democrat
HUGHSON—The Bret Harte Bullfrogs football team travelled to Hughson High School Friday looking to spoil the Huskies’ homecoming. The Huskies, however, would not let the event be tarnished so easily.
Behind a well-balanced offensive attack that racked up 470 total yards, Hughson controlled the action to come away with a 40-7 victory. Huskie quarterback Kyle Kerlee went 10-13 for 212 yards and a touchdown, while Tanner Duron rushed for 107 yards and three scores.
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Datebook for Sept. 20 to 26
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Women join cancer fight
Three Sonora women have posed for a 2013 calendar that will help fight leukemia and other blood cancers.
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Cole Porter tunes get chorale spotlight
The Sonora Master Chorale, under the direction of Melina Cherling, will present a concert of Cole Porter music on Saturday and Sunday at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, 13880 Joshua Way in Sonora.
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Letters to the editor for September 19, 2012
Yes on Prop. 32
To the Editor,
Local polls finding that respondents would not support the Sonora or Summerville High school bond measures, caused me to write.
Back in 2000, I helped qualify a petition that made it onto the November ballot that year, because I found in 1996 California School system ranked 49th and had over 800 “administrators” in Sacramento salaried over $100,000 a year.
That 2000 petition was Proposition 38 for school vouchers, allowing children in unsafe schools to be enrolled out of district at another school.
I watched the California Teachers Association (CTA) spend $26,366,491 to defeat it. The California Fair Political Practices Commission, a government agency, issued a report in March 2010 saying that the CTA had spent $211.8 million on political campaigns in California in the ten-year period beginning on January 1, 2000 and ending on December 31, 2009!
How much has CTA spent since 1876?
That money was from union dues and should have gone for benefits, and very few union members have much of a say of where their dues go politically; and this union has too much political power and has done too little to help the schools and our children.
Before those who support more money for schools to be taken from us I would suggest you ask the CTA for the money the schools need. Obviously the CTA has more than enough, and what they have done with it sure doesn’t seem to help the children’s education!
Maybe that’s why Prop. 32 made it on this November’s ballot, prohibiting unions from using dues politically unless permitted by union members; rightfully giving union members a say where their money goes.
Barry F. Wilson
Jamestown
The rich and poor
To the Editor,
A popular conception today is, “The reason so many people are poor is because the rich have so much.” Once upon a time I believed there some validity to this argument.
For several years I worked for a firm in clown-town Berkeley. Every day, I saw many street people and beggars on Shattuck Avenue. I helped when I could, but of course I couldn’t give them all money.
None of them owned automobiles while up in the hills were many big, beautiful homes with numerous new and late model vehicles parked in the driveways.
Was it fair that the wealthy all had multiple cars and trucks while the poor people down below couldn’t even have one?
Then one day a light came on! Just a few blocks down the street was auto row with dozens of new cars and trucks just waiting to be bought, the discrepancy between rich and poor had the availability of goods and services. It has everything to do with decisions people make with their lives.
I know that this letter will infuriate certain people but don’t expect a retraction from me. Truth is truth whether it is accepted for now.
David Holcomb
Groveland
Encourage voting
To the Editor,
All my life, I have heard the mantra, “Vote, or you deserve what you get!”
So now, in 2012, 50 years after the Civil Rights Act assuring us that we are all equal, why have several states put restrictive measures on everyone’s right to vote?
In Ohio, voting hours have been cut. Don’t we all remember the long lines in Ohio in 2008, with some people just finally giving up and going home?
Pennsylvania is going to require an I.D. card, making it difficult for seniors, people living in inner cities and thousands of university students who have been told their student I.D. cards won’t be acceptable.
After the state legislature passed this despicable measure, one legislative member gleefully shouted, “We have just made Mitt Romney President of the United States!”
Then there’s Florida where thousands have been stricken from the voter rolls. One 92 year-old man received a letter telling him he was no longer eligible, even though he had voted in every election since he was of voting age.
The people responsible for these outrages should not be allowed to get away with it. People should be encouraged to get to the polls — not stay away.
Sue Glass
Sonora
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News of record for September 19, 2012
TUOLUMNE COUNTY
The Sheriff’s Office reported the following:
MONDAY
10:43 a.m., Crystal Falls — Gang related writing was scrawled on the water pump shed near the old firehouse at Crystal Falls and American River drives.
10:44 a.m., Sonora area — A coin-operated newspaper rack was found off the road near the 17900 block of Old Wards Ferry Road, where a similar rack had been found a month before.
2:09 p.m., Jamestown — A woman on the 10500 block of Ninth Street said her roommate threw urine all over her early in the morning. She asked for assistance with the eviction process.
4:24 p.m., Soulsbyville area — A man on the 21700 block of Hunts Road said someone stole his video games.
9:44 p.m., Jamestown — A woman said her friend suffered a broken arm after being hit by a man while parked at a business on the 18100 block of Highway 108. The suspect ran away on foot with a knife in his hand and was believed to be in the Jamestown area, she said. An ambulance was requested for the victim, a 24-year-old man, who had a broken arm. The victim was later arrested at Sonora Regional Medical Center on a local misdemeanor warrant for failing to appear on a misdemeanor charge.
10:02 p.m., Jamestown — Someone squirted ketchup and mustard all over the front door of a house on the 10200 block of Preston Lane.
10:53 p.m., Jamestown — Someone broke into a man’s apartment on the 10200 block of Preston Lane and stole diecast models.
Felony bookings
MONDAY
1:14 a.m., Columbia — Stacy Lynn Lien, 47, of the 11200 block of Union Hill Road, Sonora, was booked on suspicion of drug transportation, drug possession and a misdemeanor charge of possessing drug paraphernalia, after an arrest at Big Hill and Upper Quail Mine roads.
1:43 a.m., Columbia — Nichole Star Wyatt, 26, of the 21600 block of Wastach Mountain Road, Sonora, was booked on suspicion of drug possession, after an arrest at Big Hill and Upper Quail Mine roads.
The Sonora Police Department reported the following:
MONDAY
7:51 p.m., fight — Two men got into a fight at a Mono Way restaurant. After the fight, one man was sitting outside the restaurant with a bloody nose and the other drove away in a white Saturn car going north on Greenley Road. The man with the bloody nose refused medical treatment and didn’t want to press charges. The other combatant was contacted by an officer and also declined to press charges.
CALAVERAS COUNTY
The Sheriff’s Office reported the following:
MONDAY
10:59 a.m., Burson — Someone’s identity was stolen on Keystone Way.
1:26 p.m., Valley Springs — “Small items” were stolen on California Street.
6:41 p.m., Valley Springs — Someone vandalized a vehicle and attempted to steal it at a business on Highway 12.
6:47 p.m., Valley Springs — Someone attempted to steal someone else’s identity on Didier Road.
8:58 p.m., Valley Springs — An arrest was made on local warrants at Daphne and Laurel streets.
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Letters to the editor for September 20, 2012
Sherri Brennan for supervisor
To the Editor,
Bob and Sherri Brennan are good friends and wonderful people. When we learned that Sherri was running for Supervisor in District 1 it made us excited for her and for the county.
They have raised two children who would make any parents very proud. Their daughter attends CSU Fresno and their son is a high school senior. They are the type of parents who have taught their children good values to live by and we are confident she will bring those same values to the board.
Our county needs new blood with leadership that will take us boldly into the future while stabilizing the economy and ensuring our quality of life.
Sherri has the vision, the experience and the ability to do that. The Brennan roots go deep and they reflect a love and respect for the people, the environment and the history of Tuolumne County.
Anybody who knows her like we do knows that she will make an excellent supervisor. Our county needs Sherri Brennan on that Board of Supervisors. We hope you agree and will vote for Sherri Brennan, supervisor District 1!
Carol Slicton
Sonora
Political parties
To the Editor,
America’s major political parties’ hegemonic foreign policies can only ultimately result in total failure, because those policies are based on the unrealistic attempt to limit the global spread of scientific knowledge, and the foolish objective to crush the resolve of peoples around the world to take charge of their own destinies. The historic record on this latter point is clear to anyone interested in American foreign policy research. (Example: see “Killing Hope,” William Blum, 2004) The U.S. looks out on the world and sees limitless “evil doers”; the world looks on the U.S. as an hypocritical power that wishes to maintain its own nuclear weapon superiority to deny to others what it has in abundance. It preaches “democracy,” “rule of law,” but sets itself out as the ultimate arbiter of what is “just” or “unjust.”
“You are with us or against us” (Bush 2). This simplistic mantra is totally empty of furthering any progress on a more peaceful world. So is carrying around in your back pocket a “kill list” of those we wish to eliminate without the “rule of law” or “due process” (Obama).
Others also see the transparent idea that if one possesses nuclear weapons and the systems for ultimate delivery they essentially immunize themselves from further destabilization attempts by the U.S. The corollary to this terrible policy is that in order for the U.S. to further its own “interests” abroad with such unrealistic policies it must further undermine the basic constitutional rights here at home of its own citizens. (Example: The American Defense Authorization Act 2012)
This is a recipe for national and ultimately global disaster. We are destroying our republic for empire.
Bert Canepa
Groveland
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Obituaries for September 20, 2012
June S. Brown
June 15, 1923 — Sept. 15, 2012
Sonora resident June S. Brown died Saturday at her daughter’s home in Soulsbyville. She was 89.
Mrs. Brown was born in Minot, S.D.
She moved to California in the early 1950s with her first husband, Gene Kampa.
She taught home economics in Hollister for 25 years before retiring to Tuolumne County in 1975, where she settled in Long Barn.
She moved to Sonora in the late 1980s.
Mrs. Brown held a variety of jobs in the area, including a rural mail delivery route, as camp host at Pinecrest Lake Campground and a cashier at Chicken Ranch Bingo and Casino.
She was a member of the Aronos Research Women’s Club, the California Retired Teachers Association and enjoyed playing bridge.
Her family said that she was always coordinating birthdays celebrations and often made trips to see her 11 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
She was a mother of five with a schedule full of sporting events and school activities and worked two jobs to support her family.
Mrs. Brown was preceded in death by husband, Robert W. Brown and former husband, Gene Kampa.
She is survived by her sons, Robert Kampa, of Aptos and Peter Kampa, of Sonora; her daughters, Frances Johnson, of Soulsbyville, Margaret Fortino, of Gilroy, and Carol Butros, of Mersin, Turkey; 11 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Donations can be made to the Aronos Research Women’s Club scholarship fund.
A celebration of life will be held at 11:30 a.m., Oct. 13 at the Willow Springs Ranch Clubhouse.
Heuton Memorial Chapel is handling arrangements.
Jonne Christian (Withers) Zahm
Sept. 6, 1919 — Sept. 12, 2012
Sonora resident Jonne Christian Zahm died Sept. 12 at Avalon Care Center of Sonora. She was 93.
Mrs. Zahm was born and raised in Berkeley, but her family had vacationed in Tuolumne County all her life. As a young girl, they camped in Pinecrest.
Her family built a cabin in the area in 1926 but sold it in the 1960s.
She settled in Tuolumne County 47 years ago.
Mrs. Zahm had several occupations throughout her life, she worked as a receptionist with the Holiday Inn, as a clerk at Brady’s Drug Store on South Washington Street in Sonora, as a clerk with the U.S. Forest Service and was a staff member of Sierra Foothills Residential Care.
She attended the University of California, Berkeley for a couple of years but did not graduate.
She joined the U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve and served from Oct. 1943 to Dec. 1945.
After the war she worked in Japan at a service club for the military. She would later return to Japan in the mid 1950s with her second husband, Ron Zahm as part of his military service.
She volunteered with the Senior/Youth Partnership program, enjoyed reading and animals.
Mrs. Zahm was preceded in death by her parents, John Walter Withers and Gertrude Alice (Morin) Withers; her sisters, Virginia Cramer Barnett, Sally Withers and Billie Leslie.
She is survived by her daughter, Laura Zahm, of Sonora; her niece, Carol Stephens, of Sonora; grand niece, Tiffany Flavin and her husband, Tim, of Sonora; and one grandnephew, of Oakland; and former husband, Ron Zahm, of Ohio.
Donations can be made to the Tuolumne County Humane Society, P.O. Box 830, Jamestown, CA 95327.
No services are planned.
The Neptune Society of California is handling arrangements.
Notices
OXLEY — Gloria Oxley, 90, of Sonora, died Wednesday at her home. Terzich and Wilson Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
RUTHERFORD — William Rutherford, 71, of Tuolumne, died Wednesday at Sonora Regional Medical Center. Terzich and Wilson Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
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News of record for September 20, 2012
TUOLUMNE COUNTY
The Sheriff’s Office reported the following:
TUESDAY
7:40 a.m., Groveland — A Pine Mountain Lake property owner rammed the main security gate with his vehicle “causing a lot of damage,” after being asked for identification before entering.
9:27 a.m., Sonora area — Someone went to the Sheriff’s Office to report the theft of a purse and laptop on the 9800 block Highway 49.
1:13 p.m., Columbia — A woman on the 10000 block of Horseshoe Bend Road said fraudulent charges were made to her debit card.
1:25 p.m., Sonora area — Someone alleged a woman stole cash advance checks from a mailbox on the 18300 block of Aarondale Road and wrote checks to herself.
1:46 p.m., Twain Harte — A new gas stove oven was taken from a rental property on the 18800 block of Manzanita Drive.
1:55 p.m., Groveland — A man suspected neighborhood juveniles have been repeatedly vandalizing his condominium on the 19200 block of Salvador Court.
2:27 p.m., Sonora area — A woman on the 17000 block of Oak Tree Lane said someone used her ATM card without her permission.
3:01 p.m., Sonora area — A woman on the 21600 block of Wasatch Mountain Drive said an unknown person was using her 16-year-old son’s Social Security number for employment in Los Angeles.
4:16 p.m., Jamestown — A black powder rifle in a black carrying case, about 15 fishing poles and other items were taken during burglary at a residence on the 10100 block of Peppermint Circle.
7:55 p.m., Columbia — A woman said her daughter’s iPod was stolen while at Columbia Elementary School. She was tracking the device’s location through an Internet program and provided sheriff’s deputies with the possible suspect’s address. The device was recovered and returned to the victim. Deputies took a theft report and forwarded it to the probation department.
WEDNESDAY
12:49 a.m., Sonora area — A woman said her house was burglarized on the 12800 block of Chukar Circle and $25 in quarters was missing and a wine glass was broken. Sheriff’s deputies determined the glass had broken because it wasn’t secured properly and the woman found the missing quarters in her car.
Felony bookings
TUESDAY
10:40 p.m., Sonora — Dorothy Raquel Clisbee, 27, of the 17200 block of TImber Lane, Soulsbyville, was booked on suspicion of petty theft with a prior conviction and a probation violation, after an arrest at a business on the 1100 block of Sanguinetti Road.
The Sonora Police Department reported the following:
TUESDAY
11:36 a.m., theft — A man said a woman entered his unlocked residence on North Stewart Street through a screen door and stole about $40 cash. The suspect was last seen walking south on Stewart Street.
11:57 a.m., found property — A man found an empty 9-millimeter ammo clip in a pouch outside of the Tuolumne County Superior Court on North Washington Street. It was unknown who it belonged to, but a report was taken.
1:23 p.m., found property — Someone turned over a cell phone found in Coffill Park on South Washington Street.
CALAVERAS COUNTY
The Sheriff’s Office reported the following:
TUESDAY
11:19 a.m., San Andreas — An attempted scam was reported at apartments on Lewis Avenue in which the caller posed as the victim’s grandchild and asked for money to post bail.
11:22 a.m., Avery — A vehicle was burglarized at Hunter Dam and Moran roads.
1:07 p.m., West Point — A dog was stolen and later returned to its owner on Winton Road.
9:22 p.m., Douglas Flat — A 61-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication.
Arrests
Cited on suspicion of driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs:
TUESDAY
10:30 p.m., Valley Springs — Alan Joseph Victor, 56, of the 700 block of Silver Road, was arrested at St. Andrews Road and La Contenta Drive.
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Obituaries for September 19, 2012
Carol Christine Cupps
Dec. 1, 1948 — Aug. 27, 2012
Jamestown resident Carol Christine Cupps died Aug. 27 at her daughter’s home in Lincoln. She was 63.
Mrs. Cupps was born in Meadville, Pa.
She lived in Tuolumne County for 11 years from 1983 to 1994 but left when her husband was transferred out of the area. She returned a year ago to be closer to family.
She worked as a phlebotomist at Sonora Community Hospital for 10 years.
Cupps enjoyed gardening and “do it yourself” projects.
Mrs. Cupps was preceded in death by her husband, Alan Cupps, in 2010; and her father, Charles Myers, in April 2012.
She is survived by her mother, Doris Myers, of Folsom; her children and their spouses, Jennifer and Jon Williams, of Tuolumne, Jayne and Jamie Anderson, of Lincoln, and Justin and Katie Cupps, of Idaho; her siblings, Karen Johnson, of Folsom; Terri Dent, of Austin, Texas, and Jerry Myers, of Santa Clara; grandchildren, Nathan and Zakkary Williams, of Tuolumne, and Haley and Ashley Anderson, of Lincoln.
Donations can be made to Hospice of the Sierra, 20100 Cedar Road North, Sonora, CA 95370.
A memorial service will be held at noon on Oct. 6 at Valley Springs Presbyterian Church, 2401 Olympus Drive, Roseville, CA 95661.
The Neptune Society of California is handling arrangements.
Notices
BROCKMAN — A memorial luncheon will be held for Joyce Brockman, 83, of Sonora, at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 25 at the Pine Tree Restaurant, 19601 Hess Ave., East Sonora. Call Mary Jane Moffat at 533-8664 for details.
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Hard times in Tuolumne County
The average Tuolumne County resident is getting older and is worse-off financially than a decade ago, a new statistical profile of the county shows.
The 2012 Tuolumne County Profile was compiled by the philanthropic Sonora Area Foundation and released Wednesday.
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Musher to train for Iditarod
By this time next month, Andrew Brown will be on top of the world — or close to it anyway.
The 23-year-old Phoenix Lake-area resident and Sonora High School grad is moving to the Arctic Circle to embark on a crash course in the art of training sled dogs for one of the most grueling races in the world — Alaska’s 1,100-mile Iditarod.
He will join a professional dog-sled team next month and train Alaskan huskies to pull a 400-pound sled across endless expanses of snow and ice.
“It’s like driving an 18-wheeler backwards,” he said. “It’s a tough job.”
On Oct. 1, he will board a plane bound for a frigid coastal outpost called Kotzebue, Alaska. The town lies 40 miles across the chilly side of the Arctic Circle and is only accessible by airplane (or a stout team of sled dogs, of course). There, he will fill a supporting role on a winning Iditarod team, and has ambitions to one day be a world-class “musher.”
Brown is a self-described “free spirit” whose only experience with a 9-to-5 job was a two-week stint working at Little Caesars Pizza.
He has worked in a number of outdoor professions around the Mother Lode, including work as a dockhand at Pinecrest Lake Resort, as a snow cat driver and white water rafting guide.
Lately, he has been working as a sled dog trainer for a resort in Truckee that takes customers on short sled dog trips.
He always had a knack for training dogs growing up, but never looked at them as a potential career until about three years ago, when he bought an aging Alaskan husky named Martina.
“She’s unlike any dog I’ve ever seen, and she had the spirit and demeanor to match,” he said. “She came with a harness, so that made me think of getting into some kind of sled dog sport.”
He has since added three more dogs to his burgeoning team: Jekyll, Cancan and a puppy named Alligator.
Unlike their more photogenic Siberian cousins, Alaskan huskies are bred for their ability to pull a sled and not for their looks. Under their fluffy black and white winter coats they are lean and built like canine marathon runners.
“These are the strongest pound-for-pound animals in the world,” said musher John Baker, 2011 Iditarod champion who hired Brown to train more than 50 of the world’s top sled dogs.
Baker, who set the Iditarod speed record with a time of eight days and 18 hours, said that Brown will help run the dogs and train them to handle a wide range of challenging situations in the Alaskan wilderness.
Brown will work in one of the most isolated parts of the world, cut off from roads and socked in by ice for six months out of the year. It’s a place where the average winter temperatures hover around zero degrees and the sun stays down for 20-days at a time. Basic necessities have to be flown in or carried on a barge. A gallon of milk costs $15 and a 20-pound bag of Puppy Chow costs $80.
“There will definitely be a lot of things he will have to adjust to, but his enthusiasm spoke for itself,” Baker said. “With that kind of enthusiasm, you can’t go wrong.”
Brown said he doesn’t plan to race in the Iditarod himself this year, but instead will run the 440-mile Kobuk sled dog race either this year or next. Eventually, he hopes to build his own dog team to tackle the granddaddy of all sled dog races, which stretches from Anchorage to Nome. The Iditarod begins in March and traces an historic Inupiat trail used for hundreds of years.
“That’s my ultimate goal — that’s why I got into the sport,” Brown said.
He said training a good sled dog isn’t so much about power as it is about stamina. Each animal in the typical 16-dog Iditarod team only has to pull about 5 pounds of lateral weight across the landscape, but they have to do it for 12-hours a day through blizzards, snow drifts and in stinging headwinds.
The only spoken commands he teaches the dogs are “gee” to turn right and “haw” to turn left. The rest comes from the subtle unspoken bond shared between the musher and his dog team.
“The dogs instinctively know what to do,” he said. “They pick up on your attitude. They can tell when I’ve been having a bad day and it shows in how they pull.”
In fact, the dogs are so eager to run that they will continue to pull the sled even if the musher has fallen off, abandoning him without supplies necessary for survival.
“That’s every musher’s greatest nightmare,” Brown said.
Brown has never been to Alaska before and said he expects the 2,800-mile move to be an adjustment, but he is looking forward to exploring a new opportunity.
Unfortunately, he will not be able to bring his own dogs with him when he moves. Dogs that have grown accustomed to California’s more-mild climate won’t adjust well to persistent cold weather in the Arctic, and the cost of getting them up there is prohibitive, he said. The animals will be left with family members or sold to other sled dog enthusiasts.
He said he will miss his family in Tuolumne County and that they have been supportive of his extraordinary lifestyle. He has two siblings, a brother and a sister, and his mother works at Avalon Senior Center in Sonora.
“I’m a little nervous like anyone in their right mind would be,” he said. “But I’m kind of a free spirit, and I want to see where this takes me.”
Contact Ryan Campbell at rcampbell@uniondemocrat.com or 588-4526.
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Oil prices down, but will it show at pumps?
Although crude oil prices dropped dramatically this week, Mother Lode residents will probably not see significant changes in gasoline and propane prices immediately, according to experts.
Crude oil prices fell below $96 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday, after already plunging more than $4 on Monday afternoon.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration identified crude oil as the main contributor to the large changes in gas prices across the country in recent years.
U.S. refineries can produce about 19 gallons of gasoline from a 42-gallon barrel of crude oil.
AAA Northern California spokeswoman Cynthia Harris agreed that gas prices are centered around crude oil costs, but said it takes time for those fluctuations to affect consumers at the pump.
Other factors that influence fuel costs include weather, turmoil in the Middle East, conditions at refineries, peak travel times for consumers and seasonal blends of gas, she said.
“The volatility in gas prices is really the norm at this point,” Harris said, adding that speculation of any disruptions in the production or distribution of gas drives up prices.
Harris said gas prices are beginning to stabilize throughout Northern California after soaring over the summer.
Gasoline prices in Sonora ranged from $3.99 to $4.15 per gallon of unleaded on Tuesday, according to Californiagasprices.com. A week ago, they ranged from $4.03 to $4.19.
The Sonora gas station with the cheapest fuel was the Arco at Mono Way and Standard Road.
San Andreas gas prices were at $4.13 on Tuesday.
The national gas price average was $3.86 on Monday, which is 3 cents higher than the average price a week ago, according to AAA.
Crude oil prices also play a role in the price of propane, which is a popular energy source in the Mother Lode.
Debbie Bertini, owner of Bertini Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning in Avery, estimates that 70 percent of households in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties use propane.
However, like gas, propane prices do not usually reflect changes in crude oil prices immediately, according to Lesley Garland, president and CEO of the Western Propane Gas Association.
Garland said, if the drop continues over the next couple weeks or months, crude oil prices will undoubtedly alter the price of propane.
Garland added that, in addition to having an impact on production costs, changes in crude oil prices can affect distribution expenses. If fuel prices rise due to the changes, propane delivery costs increase as a result.
Weather conditions also contribute to the distribution costs of propane, as well as the demand, according to the California Energy Commission.
The commission cited weather and proximity to suppliers as the two main reasons why propane prices vary nationwide.
Propane is normally created as a byproduct of petroleum refining and natural gas production, which makes natural gas prices another factor in propane costs, Garland said.
Ernie Burgess, manager of the Amador County branch of Kamps Propane, said low natural gas prices have been keeping propane costs down.
The natural gas price for the U.S. was $4.20 per wellhead in June 2011 and decreased by $1.66 to $2.25 in June of this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Prices for 2012, which are only available through June, peaked in January at $2.89 and hit bottom in April at $1.89.
Kamps Propane prices have slowly been creeping up over the past six weeks and, on Tuesday, reached $2.09 per gallon. The price is lower than this time in 2011, but last year’s prices were unusually high, according to Burgess.
He and Garland said that propane prices in the area typically increase during winter months due to supply and demand.
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Yosemite food box fix to deter deer mice
Yosemite National Park officials have been sealing off hundreds of food storage boxes in response to an apparent outbreak of a deadly rodent-borne disease in the park this summer.
Public health officials have yet to identify the cause of the hantavirus outbreak in Yosemite Valley’s Curry Village that has killed three park visitors who stayed there in June, but the park has further “rodent-proofed” the food boxes in each of Curry Village’s more than 400 cabins to reduce possible risk, according to National Park Service spokeswoman Vickie Mates.
“Any information about (the outbreak) being tied to the boxes is purely speculative,” she said.
The boxes, which are intended to keep bears away from the area, have drainage holes on the bottom that park officials have been sealing off, Mates said.
She said the park has already completed work on hundreds of boxes since the initial cases of hantavirus were reported last month, but the exact number and their locations were not released.
So far, nine cases of hantavirus have been tied to the park this summer. All but one of the victims stayed in “signature tent cabins” in Curry Village during the middle of June or early July.
Three of those cases ended up being fatal.
The park responded to the outbreak by sending notices to all registered guests who stayed in Curry Village during the month of June and closing off all 91 “signature tent cabins.” The number of notices doubled when a case was confirmed in a visitor who stayed in the High Sierra Camps of Tuolumne Meadows.
After the ninth case of hantavirus was confirmed last week, even more notices were sent to visitors with the hopes that it would reach a total of 230,000 who were possibly exposed from June to September.
A hotline was also set up for questions about the disease and situation in Yosemite. It received about 1,500 calls in its first week, but the rate of calls has been steadily decreasing, Mates said.
The hotline received 26 calls Monday, according to Mates.
Visitors also haven’t been shying away from the park, despite the national media coverage of the outbreak, Mates said.
The park reported 683,730 visitors in August of this year, which is down from 724,934 during the same month in 2011.
Mates said the park believes the primary reason for the larger number of visitors in August last year was due to the near-record high snowpack in 2011 that created raging waterfalls and attracted more people later into the season.
She noted there were only 683,661 visitors in August 2010, less than was seen this year.
Contact Alex MacLean at amaclean@uniondemocrat.com or 588-4530.
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Bowers pleads guilty to shotgun slaying in ’09
A former Columbia man has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for shooting and killing his neighbor in 2009.
Vernon Bowers Jr. on Friday accepted a plea agreement with the Tuolumne County District Attorney’s Office that stipulates he serve 25 years to life in prison for the murder of Michael Keith Bates, prosecutors said.
Bates was found dead in his Upper Quail Mine Road trailer on Oct. 27, 2009. Authorities determined he died from a close range shotgun blast to the head.
Bowers, who lived with his mother in a nearby trailer at the time, was considered a suspect not long after the shooting based on witness statements and fingerprints found on DVDs in Bates’ home that were purchased just hours before he was killed.
“There were a number of factors that came together and substantial evidence against him,” said Deputy District Attorney James Newkirk, who prosecuted the case.
Bowers was scheduled to appear for a trial readiness conference Monday, but his attorney, Douglas Gee, indicated to the court last week that his client was ready to accept the District Attorney’s offer.
“A lot of times, when people are in a settlement mood, it helps to do it right away rather than letting them sleep on it over the weekend,” Newkirk said of the decision to reschedule the hearing.
The plea agreement stipulates Bowers serve at least 25 years in prison before he can be eligible for parole.
An enhancement for robbery — Bates had cashed an employment check earlier that day, but the money was missing from his body — was dropped along with a weapons charge.
But had Bowers been convicted of the murder with the robbery enhancement, he could have faced life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“In this case, there were a number of significant witness issues that would have made for some problems at trial,” Newkirk said of the decision to settle the case. “We felt that this was the best disposition based on the quality of the evidence.”
Bowers was initially questioned about Bates’ murder in November 2009, after being arrested for failing to register with the county as a sex offender after moving from Fresno. The details of the conviction that requires Bowers to register as a sex offender are not available because he was a juvenile at the time.
During the interrogation, Bowers admitted to visiting Bates at his home the day of his death, but denied killing him.
Sheriff’s investigators alleged that Bowers, at some point during the interview, hid a roll of money in a tissue box that was later discovered by a Sheriff’s deputy cleaning the interrogation room. They believed the money had been stolen from Bates at the time he was murdered.
Bowers was convicted weeks later in Tuolumne County Superior Court for failing to register as a sex offender and sentenced to prison until May 2011. While he was incarcerated, prosecutors built a case against him for the murder of Bates and issued an arrest warrant.
Upon being released from prison, Bowers was immediately transported to Fresno County, where he was wanted for a probation violation. But Fresno County jail officials overlooked the arrest warrant for first-degree murder in Tuolumne County and released Bowers on his own recognizance.
Bowers was taken back into custody days later after being located by fugitive-apprehension officers. In November 2011, he was finally transported to Tuolumne County to face the first-degree murder charge.
Newkirk said the District Attorney’s Office under the administration of Donald Segerstrom, now a Tuolumne County Superior Court judge, decided not to seek the death penalty.
“Whenever there is a capital case, we essentially have a committee that looks at it in its entirety and decides whether to pursue the death penalty. In this case, the administration decided not to seek the death penalty,” Newkirk said, but declined to give specifics about the decision.
In Tuolumne County, only one murder was recorded in 2009, according to statistics from the California Department of Justice.
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Gas leak spurs evacuations
A gas leak forced the evacuation of San Andreas Elementary School on Wednesday.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. received a call at about 11:10 a.m. regarding a leaking gas line on the 300 block of Neilsen Road, a little less than a mile from the school, according to PG&E spokesman J.D. Guidi.
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Cross takes reins
A relative newcomer to Angels Camp, Tey Cross hasn’t been shy about stepping up to become a community leader and successful businessman.
Cross, 40, moved to the city in May 2009 from Vallejo after purchasing the Cooper House Bed and Breakfast Inn.
He joined the Angels Camp Business Association and became its president for a two-year term that began late last year. More recently, he took the lead on the enormous task of what is shaping up to be the city’s biggest celebration in decades.
Cross is the chairman of the Angels Camp Commemorative Committee, which is preparing to host a street festival Sept. 28 and 29 that will shut down Main Street downtown all day for the first time in about half a century. Organizers hope it will draw about 5,000 attendees.
Cross had co-led the committee’s effort with then-Angels Camp Museum Director Craig Hadley. Hadley stepped away from his committee position a few months ago due to the time commitment required as he commuted to Angels Camp from his home in Lake Tahoe.
Cross has relished the opportunity to be a part of something big for little old Angels Camp.
“I’m really proud to be a part of it,” he said. “I’ve never done a public event as big as this as an event coordinator, (but) I jumped into it head first.”
Cross said the success of a smaller but well-liked gathering for an “old-fashioned” Fourth of July at Utica Park which the committee put on gives him confidence that the centennial event will bigger and better yet.
“I love Angels Camp. I love the small community feel. I know a lot of people,” he said. “The people I don’t know, if they’ve been here for any amount of time, are smiling. I’ve got just such a great group of friends here.”
Cross said it seems as if everything has fallen into place perfectly for the centennial, giving particularly women reason to celebrate. For example, a plaque will be laid on the “Hop of Fame” during the festival to honor Laura Kitchell, he said, who became the first woman in about 30 years to win the International Frog Jump at the county fair. Her timely win comes 100 years after the first election in which Calaveras County women were able to vote, the one that gave an overwhelming “Yes” to the question of Angels’ incorporation.
“He’s done a great job. He’s been real proactive,” said Elaine Morris, now serving as only the city’s third woman mayor. “I think we’re going to have a great event and I think he’s been a big part of that.”
Though Cross has often been the face of the centennial celebration, he is humble about his role.
“It’s been a real community effort,” he said. “You just need somebody dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.”
ACBA Past President Anne Forrest said Cross’ networking abilities have been key to making the festival a better event and rejuvenating the business association.
“He brings so much enthusiasm and organizational skills and good ideas to everything that we’re doing,” Forrest said. “He’s a very busy business person and then he’s taking on an enormous amount of time — farmers’ markets, Taste of Calaveras, the centennial … he’s made a tremendous contribution.”
Ohio-born and Kentucky-raised, Cross had an early fascination with the California of Mark Twain’s “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” which he read in fifth grade.
“California seemed such a far off land,” he said.
Cross lived for a decade in Florida before reaching California in 1999. He spent time as an administrator for Gump’s San Francisco. He met partner Rob Carpenter in 2000 and the couple came to Angels after tiring of Vallejo crime.
“My truck was broken into for the fifth and final time,” Cross said. “I was over it.”
From a young age, he said he collected tea sets, pitchers and other pieces he thought “would be great for a bed and breakfast someday.”
“Four or five storage units later, I’d be ready to go,” Cross said.
When the time came, he and Carpenter saw Cooper House as their best opportunity. They gave the inn an extensive makeover and expanded the business to become C House Lodging, also taking on vacation rentals including the Murphys House on Main. They gave that creekside house a recent facelift that included a much-needed fresh coat of paint, Cross said.
“I’m hoping people will stop dubbing it the mortuary now,” he laughed. “We put some lipstick on it.”
Cross said he is no remodel guru but he learned a few things about design and appearances at Gump’s.
“I call myself a kind of jack-of-all-trades and not a master of any one,” he quipped. “It’s not brain surgery. I won’t give that (brain surgery) a shot but pretty much anything else, I’ll try.”
Cross is also involved in a more family-wide business. He opened the Chocolate Lady shop last year in Angels Camp with confections made by Carpenter’s mother, confectioner Edna Patitucci. He owns the Angels Camp retail shop and Patitucci makes the chocolates and owns stores in Amador City and Sutter Creek. Patitucci will retire next year and Cross will then own all three shops, he said. Son Kyle Carpenter, 24, of Angels Camp, moved from the Bay Area to become store manager of the Angels location.
Kyle is also studying to become an EMT at Columbia College. Daughter Shelby Carpenter, 21, followed her veteran father Rob into the armed services in November 2011. The family recently saw her off to a deployment in South Korea where she works as an interrogator for the U.S. Army.
Cross’ talents for making a business work and willingness to look and move forward have been a boon for both him and ACBA.
“He’s got lots of entrepreneurial ideas,” Forrest said. “He’s not accepting the status quo, the way we’ve always done things.”
Contact Sean Janssen at sjanssen@uniondemocrat.com or 890-7741.
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Calaveras D1 candidates show stripes
The two candidates in the runoff for Calaveras County Board of Supervisors District 1 fielded questions on economic development, the general plan document for land use and infrastructure in a forum hosted Wednesday night by the Calaveras County Chamber of Commerce.
Supervisor Gary Tofanelli and challenger Cliff Edson squared off at the Jenny Lind Veterans Hall in Valley Springs. Each touted his success after hard work and facing adversity in starting businesses. Edson owns a restaurant in San Andreas and Tofanelli has a steel fabrication company in Stockton.
Edson had criticisms for some county policies and the board’s working relationship with other entities. Tofanelli, meanwhile, defended his efforts in his first four-year term to minimize the local impacts of a nationwide recession and begin to have a recovery.
“We need to find work ... because (now) people need to leave the county to find work. I can supply them a job at minimum wage. What’s that going to do for them?” Edson said. “There’s no real affordable housing for them. We need to find a way to create jobs.”
Later in the evening, Edson said his restaurant “had a problem with finding good help.” He and Tofanelli agreed a community college campus in Calaveras County will help, in Edson’s words, to “keep our talent here.”
The challenger garnered his greatest applause of the night when he described the benchmark his restaurant had reached after initially scratching out gross revenues of just $275 a night.
“Last year, we actually paid taxes,” Edson said, of the improved income.
Tofanelli got a similar round of cheers when he promised to commit 5 to 10 percent of his fundraising for the remainder of the campaign to the Valley Springs Youth Center.
The incumbent gave a more-upbeat assessment of the district’s economic pulse, saying he has helped business owners who have asked for it and said a “Dollar Market” could soon be coming to San Andreas.
“Those people were very, very, very happy when they found out what our permit fees were compared to other places they’re expanding,” Tofanelli said.
He also said he supports putting a livestock processing facility in the works just north of San Andreas that would employ 40 to 50 people.
When moderator and Chamber President Jeff Davidson, a Calaveras County Water District director, asked about protecting the county’s water rights, each candidate took a different tone.
Tofanelli said he has spearheaded written complaints to keep San Joaquin County from grabbing for point-of-origin water rights held in Calaveras.
Edson said he has heard from water and sewer district officials that the county has not done enough.
“I’ve talked to a few people with the water district, they don’t feel like they have a good relationship with the county … sewer districts, there’s not real happy vibes going on there either,” he said. “The Board of Supervisors should be working with them to make our county more secure on water rights.”
Tofanelli seemed to have higher suspicions of the draft general plan land use map revealed earlier this year.
“The initial one, I did not agree with it because they had all of the properties down here (near Valley Springs) under resource production. To me, that is going to be a problem for the people who have 5-acre lots, 10-acre lots, 20-acre lots, 40-acre lots, when they go to sell their homes,” Tofanelli said. “A lot of people have their life’s investments here. They want to sell 5-acre parcels on their 40-acre parcels. That’s what their nest egg is based on … I support the (subsequent) changes that were made.”
Edson praised the expertise of Planning Director Rebecca Willis, who has made significant strides in resuscitating a languishing update effort.
“Rebecca Willis is probably the best planner we’ve had in a very, very long time. She’s got a really good feel on Calaveras, what direction it needs to go,” he said. “She’ll finish the general plan if she gets the chance, if everybody will leave her alone and just let her do her job.”
Tofanelli said he thinks the long-awaited general plan update can be done in nine months, half of current estimates. Edson said Valley Springs’ own specific community plan got bound up in “personal agendas.”
“I think it’s going to be quite miserable around here for a while if people don’t learn to work together,” he said.
On Highways 12 and 26, Tofanelli said he stopped an unworkable solution to traffic congestion.
Both highways have been improved, curves corrected and upcoming improvements at the roads’ intersection will improve its functionality and appearance, he said.
A Caltrans plan for a stoplight “would have been bad for downtown … a roundabout was proposed that would tear out half the town,” Tofanelli said.
Edson said the intersection study showed the improvements would be good only until about 2021.
“We’re gonna spend $2 million to bring it up to a ‘C’ level (of service) for nine years,” he said. “You do the math.”
Tofanelli said math is on his side when it comes to his service on a committee overseeing requests for cost add-ons for contractors on the new justice center project in San Andreas.
“I have saved you taxpayers in this county hundreds of thousands of dollars on change orders on that jail in the last nine months,” he said. “I know what the lingo is. I’ve played that game.”
Edson said a commission could be created to focus on economic development and utilize the business expertise of retirees from “high-powered businesses” now living in the area.
“You can sit up there and say we’re open for business all you want, but until you prove it and roll out the red carpet ... we’re just going to sit here like this,” he said.
Edson said he wants to see more small businesses succeed but knows it’s difficult.
He said amongst larger retailers, he is more friendly to Target or Ross and has disdain for Walmart.
“I am not a Walmart fan. Walmart comes in and they take away the lifeblood of the community,” he said. “They put people to work for $8 to $10 an hour.”
Tofanelli was more generous.
“I’m in favor of property rights. I’m in favor of free enterprise,” he said. “If you have a piece of property and it’s 60 acres and that’s what it’s zoned for ... you have every right to put it there. If it’s a permitted use and they asked me for guidance to get through the process, I certainly would.”
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