Angels Camp City Council members liked what they saw Tuesday night in a midyear budget update, beginning with figures that showed lodging, property and sales taxes all exceeded anticipated performance as spending has remained below projections.

The style of the presentation also drew glowing praise from council members who said they felt frustrated by unclear budget reports lacking detail in recent years.

Prosecutors opened their case Tuesday against a Valley Springs man charged with second-degree murder in Calaveras County Superior Court.

In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Seth Matthews told a jury that the victim, Marvin Brown, 52, was being visited by friends Reanna Silveira and Angela Sullivan on June 29 when the defendant, James Alison Livezey, 41, arrived.

Several community members and former educators continued Tuesday night to call for Columbia Elementary Superintendent John Pendley’s resignation and more answers from the district about a sex abuse case on campus.

About 23 people attended Tuesday’s board meeting in the Columbia Elementary School Library, including several school staff members and parents who showed up to defend the superintendent and the board.

A former Calaveras and Tuolumne county school administrator has been bound over for trial on child molestation charges in Stanislaus County Superior Court.

Thomas “Kevin” Hart, who last served as superintendent and principal of Valley Home Joint School District, is scheduled to be re-arraigned Feb. 21 on two felony counts of sexual abuse of a child.

In a statement released Monday, the Tuolumne Utilities District said it is continuing to review the acquisition of the Tuolumne City Sanitary District as it prepares for dissolution.

The two agencies have been working on a merger deal for the past year, and TCSD is looking to turn over all of its contracts, debts and assets, including a wastewater treatment plant, to TUD.

The Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors officially appointed Michael Knowles as the county district attorney on Tuesday.

Knowles, who has served as acting DA since Jan. 20, when Donald Segerstrom resigned from the position to accept a judgeship, will serve out the remainder of the term through Jan. 5, 2015.

Tuolumne County officials will move forward on a proposal to expand a special tax on local lodging businesses and use the extra money to temporarily help fund Railtown 1897 State Historic Park and the Mother Lode Fairgrounds.

 The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously voted to move forward on a process that will put an item on the ballot to expand the county’s Transient Occupancy Tax, a 10 percent tax on hotel and motel stays. Under the proposed expansion, RV parks, houseboats and privately run campgrounds would also fall under the occupancy tax, which is not currently the case.

CYCLISTS ride through downtown Sonora in January for filming of a promotional ad for the Amgen Tour of California. File photo/Union Democrat, copyright 2012

The starting line for the fourth stage of the tour will be in front of Courthouse Square in downtown Sonora on May 16.
Riders will set out on a 130-mile portion of the race — the longest stage in the tour — along a series of rural roads that include a major portion of Highway 49 in Tuolumne County, according to event organizers.

Bret Harte High School administrators want to make sure that when you buy a T-shirt or mug with the school’s bullfrog logo, at least some of the money will benefit students.

During its regular meeting on Monday, the Bret Harte Union High School District Board of Trustees voted to begin the process of trademarking the school’s logo amid concerns that local businesses were using it without permission. 

Two species of yellow-legged frog found in the upper elevations of the Sierra Nevada were chosen for protection late last week by the California Fish and Game Commission.

The commission voted Thursday to list the Sierra Nevada mountain yellow-legged frog as a threatened species and the Southern mountain yellow-legged frog as endangered.