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Opinion Bravos to the fair, Public Works and Angels Camp
Bravos to the fair, Public Works and Angels Camp
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It’s time for the midsummer edition of Bravos & Barbs, The Union Democrat’s irregularly published compendium of the good, the bad and, occasionally, the ugly here in the foothills. Once again, our lists are hardly complete. We in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties are so blessed with samaritans, local heroes and public officials who put their constituents first that we don’t have enough room to thank them all. And for the less admirable folks who may have dodged our barbs this time around, may your luck run out next time. Without further ado, July’s B&B: Bravos • For Mother Lode Fair Manager Jan Haydn-Myer and her staff. Despite heat that crowded the century mark throughout the weekend, the three-day event drew 19,800 — 10 percent higher than last year’s total. And, despite fewer animals, generous bidders paid out more than $171,086 — $6,000 more than last year — to the fair’s exhibitors. From the opening of the turnstyles on July 9 through the last Destruction Derby crash on the 11th, the 2010 Mother Lode Fair was a huge success. • For Calaveras County Supervisor Gary Tofanelli and others whose persistence paid off when several federal and state agencies agreed to allow the long-overdue clean up of Cosgrove Creek, a clogged and choked waterway whose waters over the past several years have flooded neighborhoods in Valley Springs and elsewhere. • For the Tuolumne Narcotics Team, which with help from other agencies has so far this year seized and eradicated a record 237,311 marijuana plants in raids on several huge gardens. Yes, views are split on legalization of pot, a question that will be decided by California voters in November. But nobody favors huge plantations put in our own backyards by Mexican drug traffickers. • For the Angels Camp City Council, which voted to crack down on owners of weed- and junk-strewn lots by not only charging for city clean up — a practice some violators thought was a bargain — but billing for all related costs. • For the Tuolumne County Public Works Department, which at long last has begun widening and installing guardrails on the narrow, winding Old Priest Grade Road. Paid for with $700,000 in federal highway funds, the work will be done in early September. And, as long as drivers don’t see the improvements as a license to speed up, they will be a blessing. • For Angels Camp entrepreneurs, who have proposed both a Mexican restaurant and an ambitious, lavish overhaul of the historic Utica Hotel on the city’s Main Street. With projects like these — and a new, outdoorsy frog mascot named Monty — can prosperity be far behind? Barbs • For former Big Oak Flat-Groveland School District trustee Mike Malloy, who resigned from the board earlier this year to settle a pair of lawsuit brought against him for allegedly harassing district employees. Now Malloy not only wants the district to cover his legal costs, but is seeking $42,500 more because details of the settlement — as well they should have been — were made public. Any vestiges of the notion that Malloy has the interests of the district in mind are now gone. • For Sierra Conservation Center correctional officer Christopher Bradbury, who was convicted of battery on a peace officer, resisting arrest and other charges after fighting California Highway Patrol officers during a 2008 DUI arrest. “It shocked the heck out of me,” said Tuolumne County Superior Court Judge Eleanor Provost, who sentenced Bradbury’s to 110 days in jail and five years probation. We who pay this peace officer’s salary should be shocked as well. • To California’s Legislature, which for the 19th time in the past 25 years has failed to pass a budgets by July 1 as required by law. As the deadline came and went and a $19.1 billion deficit loomed, it was business as usual for our partisan lawmakers: fundraising and jockeying for position as the November campaigns gear up. We deserve better. |
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