Democrats Deny Funding for Critical Levee Repairs Needed after Oroville Dam Spillway Failure
Despite the support of a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, businesses and local agencies, legislative Democrats in Sacramento rejected funding to repair the state's water infrastructure that was severely damaged as a result of the failure of the Oroville Dam spillway.
Senator Jim Nielsen (R-Tehama) and Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) led an alliance to obtain money in the state budget to repair California's critical levees in Northern California, which are used by the State Water Project to deliver water to the Central Valley and Southern California.
“The failure to prioritize our state's infrastructure is incomprehensible,” said Senator Jim Nielsen. “Millions of Californians depend on water that passes through these critical water conveyance systems.”
Senator Nielsen added, “Our request would have provided for an investment in the state’s water infrastructure, which would protect lives, preserve property and save the state billions of dollars in emergency repairs.”
On February 7, the Oroville Dam spillway failed causing nearly 200,000 people and their pets to be evacuated. In addition, water system levees suffered significant damage that may prevent them from functioning properly in the next high-water event unless emergency repairs are completed this year.
The $100 million funding request was also supported by Senators Bill Dodd (D-Napa), Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton), Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) and the following organizations: Central Valley Flood Control Association; Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency; Northern California Water Association; Metropolitan Water District of Southern California; Western Growers; California Farm Bureau Federation; Yuba Flood Control District; Yuba City; Operating Engineers Local 3.
Senator Jim Nielsen represents the Fourth Senate District, which includes all or portions of Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Tehama and Yuba Counties. To contact Senator Nielsen, call him at (916) 651-4004, or via email at senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov.
Event Center Rebrands
The long-awaited opening for local restauranteur Chris Jarosz’s The Patriot restaurant in Milagro Centre is once again slated for some time in early July, with a possible and fitting date, given the eatery’s name, of Independence Day. When it does finally open, the restaurant and adjacent and formerly named Milagro Experience event center will operate under one moniker.
Executive Chef Jeremy Zimmerman was brought into the Jarosz fold in October of 2016 to take over the kitchen at the 8,500-square-foot Milagro Experience, following the dissolution of a partnership agreement between Jarosz and local entrepreneur Jen Crabbe, with whom Jarosz opened the center in June of 2016. The team initially brought in Chef Allyson Harvie to run the center’s kitchen. Harvie also was set to serve as executive chef for The Patriot. Zimmerman will now serve as executive chef for both spaces, which were rebranded in February as one entity: The Patriot Restaurant and Events Center.
“This did begin as two separate entities, that’s true, but now we are pushing to brand the restaurant and the event space as one,” said Zimmerman. He added that, with nearly a full year of event bookings and building up awareness in the community, the events center, he believes, has been working to build a buzz for The Patriot itself.
“We’ve been here for a while now and, while we have had delays on the opening of the restaurant, the center is building up our reputation, getting the word out,” Zimmerman said. “I know it’s not very common for one company to open a big event space and then open up a restaurant, but that’s the way this shook out and I think it’s all coming together pretty well.”
Zimmerman, who came to Carmichael following a five-year run at The Girl In The Fig, an iconic Sonoma eatery celebrating 20 years in operation, said the center has booked close to three dozen events since last June, 20 under his direction since fall. Originally from Southern California, Zimmerman is a graduate from the Scottsdale Culinary School and previously worked both front- and back-of-house positions in Pasadena, California for the Outback Restaurant chain, among others.
The Patriot Event Center is equipped with seating for roughly 350 and offers state-of-the-art video monitors for conferences, live cooking experiences with an eye on the chef in action, faux crystal banquet chairs and lavish lighting and décor—ideally suited for receptions and parties of any kind, as well as corporate meeting or offsite events.
With a new brand and name, the goal is to use the momentum and relationships established with event center patrons to build loyalty for the new restaurant, and, in return, establish relationships with new customers at The Patriot that may translate into event center bookings down the road.
“It’s really about one relationship here and we hope to build loyalty and community awareness for the center and restaurant through those relationships,” Zimmerman said.
The Patriot’s opening was set for July of 2016 but several delays have ensued, many of which are not uncommon for restaurant openings, including permit and construction blips. The 46,000-square-foot Milagro Center has been slowly filling the spaces with several eateries as the delays continued. Once in place, The Patriot will share entryway space with Fishface Poke Bar and serve to anchor Milagro’s remaining lineup, which includes Mesa Mercado and its recently opened Taco Bar, Insight Coffee Roasters, Jaynee Cakes Custom Cakery, Ghiotto Gelato and River City Brewing Company.
“Trust me, we want The Patriot to open as soon as possible,” said Zimmerman. “Why we’ve had so many holdups I honestly can’t say because I’m not the project manager. I know we did have some permitting issues and holdups with construction, but beyond that, I’m not really sure. I’m just excited to be getting really close now.”
Zimmerman said patrons can expect fresh, farm-to-table and seasonal foods, including a specialty pizza menu with a “build-your-own” option, rustic dishes that will include a list of small bites for sharing for those who, like him, love to sample multiple menu items in one seating.
“I’m somebody when I go out to eat, I literally want to order half the menu at once,” Zimmerman said. “I just want to try everything. So I want our menu to feature that too.”
The Patriot will also offer handcrafted pastas and a charcuterie program, Zimmerman said.
“It will be fine, rustic food,” Zimmerman said. “I want a beautiful plate of food. I’m not a tweezers kind of guy. I want real plates of food coming out of my kitchen.”
Church Vandalism Calms, Sheriff Alters Trespassing Citation Process
While it took close to $30,000 in security equipment and more than two years of anguish, Celebration Church officials report the vandalism and drug-related crime by area homeless individuals on its property are quieting down, and the church has a new agreement with the local sheriff’s department giving officers full authority to issue citations for trespassing on the property to further mitigate the issues.
Celebration Church Senior Pastor Mike Fraga said, following an article in this publication in April detailing the ongoing concerns the church and adjacent preschool were having with vagrants and crime, a representative from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department called him to offer information about a new program that essentially gives the sheriff’s department authority to cite individuals for trespassing on his property.
Previously, the onus was on the property owner to call the Sheriff’s department for each incident, something Fraga had been doing when the trouble began, only to get frustrated and eventually take matters into his own hands. Now patrolling officers can cite individuals for trespassing on his property without Fraga’s consent or presence, ostensibly eliminating the often frustrating process of having offenders leave the scene long-before officers arrive.
“I got a call from someone at the Sheriff’s department and it was very beneficial,” Fraga Said. “They sent me a document to sign that essentially gives officers the authority to cite anyone they see trespassing on our property. That is new, and I think it’s going to be a great addition to what we have done on our own, which unfortunately cost close to $30,000.”
The new citation agreements are not a permanent solution to homelessness and related crime, but they give officers more authority to step in. According to Lieutenant Todd Henry, North Division operations commander with the Sheriff’s department, an offender must be issued as many as 10 trespassing citations before receiving a stay-away order, the next step toward arrest.
“You have to understand how difficult it can be to deal with chronic offenders like this,” Henry said, adding that the church has been on his division’s radar for some time, despite any perceived lack of tangible progress.
Henry said officers patrolled the church and nearby area 27 times unsolicited between October 2015 and November of 2016, while only four other visits stemmed from 911 calls from the church, he said. Admittedly, Fraga has said he stopped calling for support out of frustration and, instead, installed video cameras and is nearing completion of a rod iron fence around the church perimeter, all of which have cost the small congregation roughly $30,000.
“Things are better, but there are still a ton of homeless people in the park every day,” Fraga said.
According to Henry, the swelling homeless population is a significant concern. Roughly 10 percent of calls for service to his division alone, including to the park on North Avenue across the street from the church, are connected to homelessness issues and related crime. He added that there are many so-called “hot spots” around the county where demand for help simply outpaces the recourses available.
“We have a very high demand and very limited resources,” Henry said, adding that the county’s Chronic Nuisance Offender Program is working, albeit at times slowly, to mitigate some of what he called ‘quality of life’ crimes. He added that the program alone is inadequate, and that the department’s reach and authority are limited.
“They (the homeless) antagonize, we come out and often they’ve wandered off again before we get there,” Henry said. “I know people are frustrated, but we are dealing with this new dynamic of growing homelessness. We can’t just arrest our way out of the situation.”
Gibson Ranch Management to Stay Under Ose
The County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a management contract for former Congressman Doug Ose to continue overseeing Gibson Ranch, ending months of negotiations over the fate of the 325-acre nature preserve.
Ose said Tuesday he is very pleased with the board’s decision, which essentially gives his company, GRP 211, LLC (GRP) a year-to-year contract to manage the park. The agreement will stay in place for four years and carry an option for annual extensions of up to four additional one-year terms, with a 90-day notification to terminate.
The new agreement with Ose shifts a significant portion of operational costs to the county, a win for Ose, who was granted a five-year renewable lease to manage the park in 2011, but announced plans earlier this year to pull out unless the county could renegotiate an agreement to offset what he said was amounting to out-of-pocket losses of roughly $20,000 a month due to rising labor costs.
Under the terms of the agreement, the county will take over roughly $110,500 in annual operating costs for Gibson Ranch, including an estimated $53,000 for utilities, including sewer and water quality certification; between $5,000 and $7,000 to maintain and repair the wells on the property, and provide Ose with a $50,000 annual contribution toward reimbursements for capital improvements and deferred maintenance.
An original request by Ose to raise additional revenue through a hike in the park’s entry fee from $5 to $8 was not something the entire board would support. The hike was removed from Ose’s proposal and the entry fee will not be raised, Ose said.
County Supervisor Sue Frost, who was among those opposing the entry fee hike, called the agreement a “rare win for everyone involved.”
“The county gets to have a jewel of a park for a smaller price than everything comparable in the county, and the residents of the community get to continue enjoying the park for the same fee as they are used to paying,” Frost said. “I’m extremely pleased with how this worked out.”
The new agreement also calls for the county to install an automatic pay station in the park, which could net the county additional revenue of between $7,000 and $10,000 annually.
The leading cause of death for Americans 15-20 years old is motor vehicle collisions. In an effort inform and to reduce motor vehicle collisions in California, California Highway Patrol (CHP) North Sacramento area will offer a free Start Smart class. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), mile for mile, teenagers are involved in three times as many fatal crashes as all other drivers.
Recent collisions involving teenagers in our area demonstrate the importance of these types of classes. The classes are used to promote traffic safety to both parents and teens. We encourage both parent/caregivers and teens to attend the class.
The CHP's Start Smart program is a driver safety education class which targets new and future licensed teenage drivers between the age of 15 -19 and their parents/guardians.
The Start Smart class will cover collision avoidance techniques, driver responsibility, collision trends, distracted driving laws, alcohol related driving laws and the provisional license process. The program also offers an opportunity for new drivers and parents/guardians to ask CHP Officers clarifying questions. The class incorporates videos and classroom discussion.
North Sacramento CHP will be offering this free class on Tuesday, June 13th, and Tuesday, June 27th, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The class will be held at the Sacramento Water and Sewer Treatment Plant at 5026 Don Julio Blvd, in the conference room. This building is located on the northeast corner of Elkhorn Blvd. and Don Julio Blvd.
Persons interested in signing up for the class will need to register for the class by emailing Officer Chad Hertzell at chertzell@chp.ca.gov or by sending a private message to our Facebook account at Facebook.com/chpnorthsac. It is highly encouraged that at least one parent/guardian attend the class with their teen driver. Funding for CHP’s Start Smart programs is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through NHTSA.
Triple Your Taxes for the Fourth of July?
Are you ready for California to double your taxes? What about triple or quadruple them? A bill currently making its way through the state Legislature could push tax rates up beyond imagination, making us tax serfs to the state, and driving hundreds of thousands of jobs out of California.
Senate Bill 562 (SB 562), the “California Healthcare for All Act,” proposes to ban private insurance coverage and force every citizen in the state into the equivalent of the Medi-Cal system we provide for the poor and disabled, where state-provided healthcare would be the only option. The costs would be staggering.
A recent analysis by the California Senate Appropriations Committee estimated that implementing SB 562 would set back California taxpayers $400 Billion. This year’s general fund spending – including roads, schools, universities, prisons and more – is estimated around $124 billion. In a highly-taxed state that just recovered from years of massive deficits and still teeters on the edge of fiscal ruin, where is this additional taxpayer money supposed to come from? Four hundred billion is more than $10,000 a year from every man, woman and child in the state. Do most California families have that kind of money laying around?
That extraordinary cost is consistent with estimates from other states and is the major reason that single-payer schemes have been voted down or abandoned before implementation. New York state is currently proposing its own SB 562. In 2019, when New York’s plan would be active, the state expects to collect $82 billion in taxes, but would need another $91 billion to pay for its single-payer scheme. New York, as is the case with California, will more than double its overall revenue. See a trend?
And that $91 billion number might be charitable. An analysis by healthcare expert Avik Roy concluded that New York’s plan could cost $226 billion a year, nearly quadrupling the state’s current tax collections, just to pay for healthcare, not government’s other responsibilities. Roy estimates that the plan would jettison 175,000 jobs from the state, as “high-wage, high-value industries move to neighboring states” as a result. California, a much larger state, could shed hundreds of thousands of jobs under SB 562’s crushing fiscal mandate.
California’s plan also proposes to pay for all care for all residents, regardless of whether they are in the state illegally, or whether they are here legally but just moved here to take advantage of the state’s “free” medical care. California, already the king of the tax dollar giveaway, would become the hot new destination for immigrants and indigents seeking care, driving the costs even higher.
And, even if the costs were not fantastically, impossibly high, SB 562 presents other problems for California healthcare. Our state suffers from a shortage of healthcare providers, particularly in rural and inner-city areas, a condition that would only be intensified by the provider rate caps in the bill.
Single-payer systems are also prone to deadly wait times since they ration care to reduce costs.
The United States is a medical innovator and California is the nation’s bioscience hub. That will disappear in the price-controlled, socialized system California legislators are trying to dump on the people. Price caps, a key component of single payer plans, spell doom to medical innovation.
Remaking the entire healthcare system is a terrible idea if the reform is going to make healthcare slower, less innovative, and wildly more expensive.
SB 562 is an ill-advised plan with unpayable costs that would make California taxpayers sick.
Senator Ted Gaines represents the 1st Senate District, which includes all or parts of Alpine, El Dorado, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Shasta, Sierra and Siskiyou counties.
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) is warning people of the risks of Salmonella infection associated with contact with live poultry. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that from January 2017 through May 25, 2017, 372 ill persons in 47 states have been infected with several Salmonella strains that have been linked to live poultry contact; 36% are children younger than 5 years old. Seventy-one ill persons have been hospitalized and no deaths have been reported. Infected persons include 21 California residents from 15 counties.
Salmonella symptoms include diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps, and usually begin 12 to 72 hours after a person has been infected. Most infected people recover within a week without treatment. However, some people may have severe illness that requires hospitalization. Young children, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems are at highest risk for more severe illness.
Outbreaks linked to contact with live poultry have increased in recent years as more people keep backyard flocks.
Live poultry, especially baby chicks and ducklings, may have Salmonella in their feces and on their bodies (feathers, feet, and beaks) even when they appear healthy and clean, which can get on the hands, shoes, and clothing of people who handle or care for the birds. Salmonella can get on cages, coops, feed and water dishes, bedding, plants, and soil in the area where the birds live and roam.
If you have contact with live poultry: Always wash hands with soap and water after handling live poultry, their eggs, or anything in the area where they live and roam; Prevent live chickens, ducks, and geese from coming into the house; Do not allow children younger than 5 years to handle or touch live poultry and eggs without supervision and subsequent handwashing; Do not snuggle or kiss the birds; Do not touch your mouth, or eat or drink while near live poultry.