General plan’s land use map to debut Tuesday

The long-awaited second draft of Calaveras County’s land use map will be unveiled Tuesday, March 19, at a special meeting of the Board of Supervisors and the county Planning Commission. The meeting is open to the public for discussion and comment. In addition to the introduction of the new draft of the land use map, comments received regarding the first draft – released Feb. 2012 – will be reviewed and discussed and new data associated with... Read More

Historic Lode road straightening inches along

By Dana M. Nichols February 22, 2013 Record Staff Writer February 22, 2013 12:00 AM SAN ANDREAS – Ranchers whose refusal to allow biologists onto their properties threatened to delay a $60 million highway project by a year and add millions to the cost have relented, Calaveras County officials said. Biological studies and other field work required to prepare plans for the straightening of a 6-mile-long section of Highway 4 between Copperopolis... Read More

CCWD in the ring for state grant funding

Posted: Friday, February 22, 2013 9:22 am After five years of struggling to work together, the Tuolumne-Stanislaus Integrated Regional Water Management Program –which includes local water agencies like Calaveras County Water and Murphys Sanitary districts – put forth a package of prioritized projects that may qualify for state grant funding Participating agencies have been working to better understand each other’s objectives and duties as well... Read More

Wagon trail project keeps rolling along

By Kristine Williams | Posted: Friday, February 22, 2013 9:13 am http://www.calaverasenterprise.com/news/article_8cf4bc4a-7d11-11e2-855f-0019bb2963f4.html A necessary “boots on the ground” deadline for securing continuance of the contentious Wagon Trail Realignment project was met earlier this month. As of Feb. 15, the Wagon Trail project development team secured right of entry consent from more than a dozen potentially affected property owners.... Read More

Rancher, 94, sues to block quarry project near his property

By Sam Stanton sstanton@sacbee.com Published: Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 1A Forty years ago, Fraser West pulled onto Dutschke Road outside Ione and drove less than a mile before he found his destiny. Stretching out below him, West could see the 40-acre ranch he would snap up in 1973, a wide-open swath of grassland and heritage oaks where he has raised generations of longhorn cattle and horses with Teddy, his wife of 68 years, and... Read More

Bigelow: Bill Would Help Thin Forest

Sacramento , CA — Assemblyman Frank Bigelow, along with a Bay Area Democrat, is introducing a bill designed to reduce the amount of fuels on forest land. Assembly Bill 350 would increase the diameter of trees that qualify to be cleared under the state’s Forest Fire Prevention Exemption Law, which was approved in 2003. It would increase the diameter of the trees that are allowed to be cleared in “special circumstances” from... Read More

County fire chiefs awarded grant money

By Joel Metzger | Posted: Friday, February 15, 2013 10:13 am $1.8 million could help with shortage of firefighters More than $1.8 million in grant money awarded to the Calaveras County Fire Chief’s Association will hopefully help address a growing safety concern – a vast shortage of volunteer firefighters. At last count, the county’s 11 fire protection districts were about 233 bodies short of the 450-plus firefighters needed to protect the county. “We’re... Read More

Columbia to boost Calaveras offerings

Written by Brenna Swift, The Union Democrat February 15, 2013 08:06 am Columbia College plans to offer a substantial number of courses in Calaveras County this year, which would fill a longstanding community need. Beginning as early as this summer, Columbia could offer enough courses for 100 students to take a full class-load. They would most likely be held in the Calaveras County Office of Education building in Angels Camp, said college President... Read More

In need of overhaul?

Objection over planned truck stop west of Lodi adds new fire to debate over California Environmental Quality Act By Alex Breitler Record Staff Writer February 19, 2013 12:00 AM Virtually no one objected to developer Kevin Huber’s plans for a new truck stop. Not the environmental groups. Not the air quality cops. Not the county bureaucrats. Indeed, since the project was formally pitched nearly three years ago at Flag City west of Lodi, there... Read More

CEQA overhaul puts lawmakers on tightrope

At the urging of Gov. Jerry Brown and major business groups, some of the most influential legislators in Sacramento are trying to fix the California Environmental Quality Act. Lots of luck with that. Many of the law’s defenders say privately that provisions permitting lawsuits are misused. But CEQA’s protectors include organized labor, plaintiffs’ lawyers and environmentalists, the foundation of the Democratic Party’s base,... Read More