The Angels Camp City Council will get a midyear budget update Tuesday night.

The second-quarter report appears to have as sunny an outlook as the first quarter, with major revenue sources like lodging, property and sales taxes each exceeding anticipated performance while expenditures have remained below projections.

The Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors will likely make Michael Knowles’ appointment as the county’s next district attorney official this week.

The board’s Tuesday agenda includes Knowles’ appointment to the position, which has been vacated by Donald Segerstrom, who announced he would resign earlier this month to take a position as a Superior Court judge. Supervisors voted last month to put the appointment on the agenda for their next meeting.

 The Sonora City Council will meet tonight to hear a presentation from an AT&T representative regarding a proposed cellular antenna site at the Sonora Fire Department station.

The cell site would provide faster data speeds, improve coverage and quality of service, and increase the number of users on AT&T’s network, said AT&T spokesman Lane Kasselman.

Tuolumne County Superior Court Judge Eleanor Provost on Friday denied a request to exclude the entire District Attorney’s Office from prosecuting a group of people arrested in a May 2010 raid on a medical marijuana dispensary.

Defense attorneys sought to bring in the California Attorney General’s Office as the prosecutor instead, claiming there is a conflict of interest because former District Attorney Donald Segerstrom, who filed the complaint against the marijuana providers, is now a Superior Court judge and may be called to testify in the trial.

A possible plan to broaden a local tax on some tourism-related business in Tuolumne County could help keep the doors open at Railtown 1897 State Historic Park and the Mother Load Fairgrounds.

The county Board of Supervisors will decide in the coming weeks whether to place an item on the June ballot to change the local transient occupancy tax to include campgrounds, RV parks and houseboats.

Abandoned buildings at Little Sweden on Highway 108 east of Long Barn were demolished Friday. Amy Alonzo Rozak/Union Democrat, copyright 2012

The area was long ago abandoned but remained a popular Highway 108 stopping point for sledders. County officials deemed it a safety hazard.

A winter storm is forecast to arrive in the Central Sierra on Tuesday, bringing much-needed rain and snow to the parched region.

The National Weather Service says a slight chance of precipitation tonight will develop into a 70 percent chance Tuesday. Clear skies are again forecast for Wednesday and the next chance of precipitation comes Sunday.

The 2011-12 rain season — which began July 1 and ends June 30 — has been unusually dry.

 Sonora has gotten only 8.07 inches of precipitation this year. Average for this time of year is about 32 inches.

Two weeks ago, a storm passing through the area dropped about four inches of rain and eight inches of snow in the higher elevations. Before that storm, 33 days passed without precipitation, according to the National Weather Service.

Dry spells of more than 30 days are rare in this area. The most recent was in 2008, from the end of February through late March, but the last time there was no rain for 33 days or more during the winter was in 2000, from Dec. 10 to about Jan. 10, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Mathews, in Sacramento.

The longest winter period without precipitation was 44 days in 1976, he said.

Temperatures — hovering in the low to mid-50s during the day — are on par with historic averages.
The lack of rain and snow can be chalked up to a high-pressure system over the eastern Pacific and West Coast that is keeping storms out of our area, Mathews said.

The atmosphere is filled with low-pressure troughs and high-pressure ridges.

While there’s usually a ridge over the Pacific and Gulf of Alaska, it’s stronger this year and is preventing low pressure systems from coming down from Alaska, Mathews explained.

"It's stronger this year than last year. That’s why it’s been drier in our area,” Mathews said.
“Unlike last year, low pressure (systems) from Alaska dipped into our area and gave us cold storms accompanied by snow and rain,” he said.

“Sometime, before the end of time, it will rain in Tuolumne County,” Mathews joked.

Fire erupted in the garage of a three-story, 4,000-square-foot home on the shores of Lake Tulloch Saturday morning.

A Soulsbyville stay-at-home mom said she played a role in nabbing a man suspected of leading local authorities on a high-speed chase through East Sonora on Thursday.

Bobbie Carne, 38, mother of four, said a green Honda car driving at a high rate of speed zipped by her Buick Enclave SUV and nearly ran her off the road.

More than a decade has passed since the last financial audit of the Central Sierra Economic Development District and the district’s new staff had to scramble to file years-old reports overdue to the U.S. Economic Development Administration, officials reported Thursday during a district board meeting.

“They probably should have done a fiscal audit in the last few years, but they have not,” said CSEDD and Tuolumne County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Larry Cope.