Yosemite National Park officials have released for public review their plan for addressing overuse of the popular Half Dome trail.

Public comments on the Half Dome Trail Stewardship Plan Draft Environmental Assessment will be accepted through March 15, a park statement said.

 The field of potential candidates for Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors hasn’t grown in the past week, but those interested in running still have time before candidates become official.

The number of people who have initiated the process to run for supervisor remains at nine so far: Jim O’Neil, Patricia Adams and Karl Rodefer in District 5; Liz Bass, Jim Garaventa, Jim Hildreth, Randy Cofer and Sherri Brennan in District 1; and John Gray in District 4.

National Park Service employees clear debris created by a rockslide on Big Oak Flat Road in Yosemite National Park. Alex MacLean/Union Democrat, copyright 2012

Park Service officials as of this morning were unprepared to offer any estimate of when the road will be repaired. A roughly 40-foot stretch of the lane entering Yosemite Valley was wiped out when a boulder the size of a two-story house cut loose from a hillside about 11:30 p.m. Sunday.

National Park Service employees this morning continued to clear debris from a massive rockslide on Big Oak Flat Road, while Groveland area business owners Tuesday braced themselves for a possibly calamitous spring economically.

Park Service officials as of this morning were unprepared to offer any estimate of when the road will be repaired. A roughly 40-foot stretch of the lane entering Yosemite Valley was wiped out when a boulder the size of a two-story house cut loose from a hillside about 11:30 p.m. Sunday.

Area water experts breathed a sigh of relief as the first drops of rain began to soak the Mother Lode over the weekend, but a dry summer could still be on the horizon.

The storms brought roughly eight inches of precipitation to the foothills and have so far quelled fears of an oncoming water crisis, but water management experts say the region is still well below expected storage levels for this time of year.

A local nonprofit organization is struggling to find new homes for several Sonora residents of an apartment building destroyed by fire last week.

Six of the residents were participants in the local chapter of a National Alliance on Mental Illness housing program, which used federal grant money to rent seven studio apartments in the building.

A county committee is finished with its revisions to a guide intended to help builders navigate regulations, and now it’s time for members of the general public as well as federal and state agencies to have their say.

The county started a 45-day public comment period on Wednesday for the now-updated Biological Resources Review Guide. County planning officials also sent copies of the 46-page document and its 187-page appendix to the state Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers, all of which must approve them.

A Mexican citizen was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Fresno to nearly four years in prison for his part in conspiring to cultivate and distribute marijuana grown in the Stanislaus National Forest.   

Jesus C. Garcia, 53, of Michoacan, was also ordered to pay the U.S. Forest Service $4,921 to cover costs associated with cleaning up the grow site, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.

Summerville High School administrators came under fire at Monday night’s Board of Trustees meeting, where parents accused staff of pushing racially charged incidents under the rug, and a special-education aide said she was forced to plagiarize students’ work and administrators did nothing to stop it.

Parent Peggy Blue ad-dressed ra-cially charged and “hate-motivated” comments and actions by some students, including an incident six weeks ago involving one of her daughters in the school library.

Central Sierra ski areas received the first significant snowfall of the season from storms that began Thursday, a boon for what has been a mostly bust ski season.

Dodge Ridge Ski Area, which depends solely on natural snowfall, is opening for the season Wednesday.