Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed 2008-09 state budget includes serious cuts to parks, fish and game and other conservation agencies, but not the Auburn-based Sierra Nevada Conservancy.

Izzy Martin of the Sierra Fund reports that the Schwarzenegger budget proposes $4.7 million for staff and operations, and another $17 million for grant programs from Proposition 84 funds. The conservancy’s total allocation of $21.7 million is a slight increase over the current budget, according to Martin.

The conservancy has been located in rented quarters in Auburn since it was established by legislation a number of years ago. Its governing board is expected to announce the locale for a permanent headquarters in the near future.

Auburn remains a leading contender as the permanent site because of its proximity to Sacramento and its location at the intersection of east-west Interstate 80 and north-south State Highway 49.

Surrounded by supporters and local officials such as Placer County Supervisors Kirk Uhler and Bruce Kranz, Rep. John Taylor Doolittle (R-Granite Bay) announced he would not seek reelection.

At his Thursday morning press conference, held in Roseville at the Maidu Community Center, Doolittle said the decision to retire had been made recently.

"I plan to complete my term and finish my congressional service at the conclusion of this Congress," he said to a room full of television cameras and newspaper reporters. He held the press conference after he had met with staff members and supporters, to break the news to them first.

"My wife, Julie, and I have made this decision after much prayer and deliberation. It was not my initial intent to retire, and I fully expected and planned to run again right up until very recently," he said.

Doolittle said he had no plans regarding his future after his term ends.

He said he hopes to call California home when he leaves office, but he wasn’t sure.

As far as the upcoming election goes, Doolittle said he was anxious to see how it all plays out and he wasn’t planning to endorse any candidate for his seat.

To read more about the election and Doolittle's retirement, read next week's edition of the Sentinel.

– Reporting by Don Chaddock

The recently daylighted creek running through the Auburn School Park Preserve looked more like a rushing river on Friday afternoon. Photo courtesy City of Auburn.

Trees and power lines toppled over, damaging homes and blocking roadways from the coast to the Sierra Nevada.

On Saturday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Sacramento, Glen and Kings counties. Monday, he added Placer County to the list along with Yolo, Sutter, San Francisco, Yuba and Butte.

“Hard-hit areas such as ... Auburn and the Sierra Nevada foothills are projected to (have power) restored late Wednesday,” according to a press release issued by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Wednesday is after the Sentinel’s press deadline.

At Auburn Recreation District’s Recreation Park, large trees and branches succumbed to the storm, forcing the evacuation of the modular “clubhouse” units.

“We kept losing trees and branches in rapid succession (on Friday) so we evacuated the children from the modulars and moved them to the main building,” said Kahl Muscott, ARD administrator. “It became a safety issue. We called all the parents and told them to pick up their children at the main building.”

Placer County supervisors have delayed a decision on whether to ask county voters to give them hefty salary boosts.

The supervisors on Tuesday directed the staff of the charter review committee to obtain more precise information on the matter and report on it at a March meeting.

The charter review committee’s recommendation that the board ask the voters to approve a salary of about $98,000 per year (including benefits) was presented by Wayne Nader, the committee chairman. The supervisors’ annual compensation has been set at $30,000 since the passage of Measure A, a charter amendment, in 1992.

Nader said the $30,000 salary of 1992 is worth about $15,200 in today’s dollars.

Nader also emphasized the committee’s conclusion that being a supervisor in Placer County is a full time job — and then some. But at $30,000 a year, he said a Placer supervisor probably would have to be retired, be independently wealthy or have a job with flexible hours.

District 5 Supervisor Bruce Kranz, a state retiree, suggested that District 4’s Kirk Uhler, who at 40 is the board’s youngest member by far, is the only current supervisor who falls into the “flexible hours” category. “I don’t know how you do it,” Kranz told Uhler.

The witty English writer Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) once casually remarked to James Boswell, his future biographer, “Depend on it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” The same is true in politics. Whenever the political class – career politicians and their special interest financers – feel hemmed in by the voters, whether it’s through term limits or fair re-districting, they fight back like a man going to the gallows.

I’ve closely observed this attitude for almost three decades. In November 1990, California voters had finally had enough with a Legislature corruptly and cynically run by Speaker Willie Brown – the self-described “Ayatollah of the Assembly.” They wanted to clean house after several legislators had been convicted and gone to jail for taking bribes in exchange for votes in the FBI’s sting operation called “Shrimp-Scam.” The voters, despite the urgent pleas from the political establishment that the sky would fall and millions of dollars in negative advertising, enacted Proposition 140, which restricts an Assembly member to 6 years of service and each Senator to 8 years of service. The efforts by high-priced lawyers representing incumbent legislators to overturn the will of the voters failed. Soon after the term limit law went into effect and record numbers of minorities and women were elected to the California Legislature.

Storms were Placer’s Katrina

Dear Editor,

The wind, rain and snow storms the first week of January found agencies in Placer County fumbling with uncertainty over jurisdictions that is reminiscent of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Louisiana with hurricane Katrina. While the crisis in Placer County was minor compared with Katrina, some of the same communication problems arose.

Fortunately, while Placer’s storm damage was not life threatening (mostly), the coordination of services left much to be desired, especially if a toxic danger were to arise in the future. Where minutes or hours, not days, would be vital for response.

One example includes a tree that fell in Meadow Vista during the wind storm on Thursday, Jan. 3., blocking a roadway, knocking down a power pole and leaving about 700 feet of power line on the ground and road. Local residents called PG&E and Placer County administration on Friday morning to report the situation.

PG&E did shut off the power line but do not notify the county. Placer Public Works came to the scene, but would not touch the fallen tree since the power line may still be hot, so they left. On Saturday, a series of PG&E people arrived to deliberate over who should remove the tree so they could replace the pole and string new wires. This was repeated on Sunday and through midday Monday. Meanwhile, nothing happened to fix the problem.

If this had been a toxic chemical attack/disaster, lives would have been lost if delays lasted longer than hours.

County CEO Tom Miller should convene a meeting with all critical agencies – fire, police, PG&E, etc. and set up a crisis management system that works, with a chain of command that can adapt to situations as they happen.

Wally Reemelin, Meadow Vista

The Placer County Water Agency is mid-way through the complicated process of getting its Middle Fork American River hydroelectric project relicensed and plans to spend $5.7 million on the effort this year.

Agency directors recently approved task orders to continue the work of six environmental consulting firms in 2008. The task orders total $5.7 million; the overall eight-year process will cost $30 million.

PCWA built the multi-purpose project under a 50-year federal license granted in 1963. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) must renew the license by 2013.

The PCWA and County of Placer formed the Middle Fork Project Finance Authority two years ago to fund the expensive relicensing process, prospective improvements and any other conditions that FERC might impose.

In another matter, the directors were informed that Friends of the River and the Sierra Club are supporting the PCWA’s water rights extension filings with the State Water Resources Control Board.

In their statement of support, the two environmental organizations cited the agency’s “superior stewardship” and demonstrated commitment to water conservation.

The agency board’s next meeting will be January 17, starting at 2 p.m., in the PCWA Business Center at 144 Ferguson Road in Auburn.

Friends of Placer County Communities, Inc., the grass roots organization that was a major force in stopping Wal-Mart from building a megastore in North Auburn and had a hand in halting or modifying several other projects, is ceasing operation.

Dale Smith, FPCC’s vice president and leading spokesman since 1992, said the closing papers were filed with the state after the executive board voted to disband the organization on December 14.

Smith declared: “I believe the FPCC was the right instrument at the right time to help preserve some of the wonderful environment in Placer County and our rural way of life. ‘Some’ is surely the operative word because the urban growth machine (UGM) has already destroyed much of the county.”

Smith’s lengthy statement included a gloomy prediction: "For most of the years of the FPCC, Placer has been one of the fastest growing counties in California and the results are seen when driving up I-80 from Sacramento through Roseville and Rocklin. The UGM will march that pernicious development up the hill and kill our beloved Auburn....There are those who believe that sprawl is inevitable, that it is the price of progress. It is not inevitable. It is what greedy developers want as they destroy the land to build and then move on to greener pastures to repeat the rape of the environment.”

In his statement Smith paid special tribute to three women who led the No Wal-Mart Committee: the late Esther Stanton, Gloria Cavanee and Janeene Coleman, a former member of the Auburn City Council. He also singled out Ralph Roper for his work as the FPCC’s chairman.

Smith also sent a letter to the county supervisors re-emphasizing FPCC’s concerns over the fire flow water situation in North Auburn and especially at the Home Depot megastore the county is allowing to be erected on county-owned property at DeWitt Center.

Smith stated, in part: “Recently, the FPCC has learned that the combined resources of the Placer County Water Agency and Nevada Irrigation District cannot meet in any way the fire flow water demands of the Home Depot at DeWitt...We know for a fact that there is not sufficient fire flow water for the Plaza project on Highway 49 and Luther Road.”

A Placer County swindler has been sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for a series of con jobs that fleeced more than a dozen people out of at least $350,000.

U.S. District Court Judge Morrison C. England dished out the sentence last week to Randall B. Foshie, 58, a South Placer resident who pleaded guilty to using the mail to defraud his victims with schemes that included taking upfront “commitment” fees for business loans that never materialized and accepting payments for phony electric car dealerships.

Foshie, whose rap sheet includes two prior fraud convictions, claimed to be a billionaire with plenty of money to lend at attractive rates.

Matthew Bockman, a deputy federal public defender, urged the judge to take Foshie’s poor health into consideration. Foshie appeared in court in a wheelchair and claimed to be suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Judge England replied that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has sufficient medical staffing to care for Foshie while he’s behind bars.