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Staff from El Dorado County’s former Department of Transportation, now a division of the new Community Development Agency, presented its proposed Capital Improvement Projects list at a recent Board of Supervisors meeting. An annual exercise in long-range planning, the new CIP includes some projects from the 2012 list’s “future projects” element. “The purpose of the [...]
The Southeast Capital Connector Joint Powers Authority took a big step forward at its March 8 meeting at Rancho Cordova City Hall, approving project design guidelines and a finance plan. Both measures received unanimous support from the board: Chairman David Sander, Rancho Cordova; Patrick Hume, Elk Grove; Don Nottoli, Sacramento County; Jeff Starsky, Folsom; and Ron [...]
Transportation planner Jerry Barton named several El Dorado Hills representatives who helped create the commission’s 2005 Bike Transportation Plan, and others involved in its 2010 update. Barton recapped the three classes of bike trails and typical cost per mile: • Class I — a separate paved and striped path: $400,000 to $1 million-plus • Class [...]
The growing popularity of cycling in El Dorado Hills has spawned several clubs and a bustling bike shop in Town Center: El Dorado Hills Bike and Tri Owner Erin Gorrell hosts multiple teams. She estimates that El Dorado Hills is home to 2,500 to 3,000 competitive riders and untold numbers of less serious pedal pushers.
El Dorado County Board of Supervisors Chairman Ron Briggs referred to the proposed Capital Southeast Connector road project as a “35-mile-long subdivision.” Beginning at Highway 5 in Elk Grove, skirting Rancho Cordova, brushing Folsom and then running through El Dorado Hills, the “connector” would merge with Highway 50 in the neighborhood of a newly built [...]
El Dorado County needs approximately 12 acres of additional land to begin building the Silva Valley Interchange at Highway 50 between Bass Lake Road and El Dorado Hills Boulevard. Negotiations with about 15 owners of separate target parcels have not been fully successful, and the county must begin the process of acquiring some of the [...]
Four years ago John Knight predicted he would soon replace his 1984 Mercedes-Benz. Fortunately for the out-going District 1 El Dorado County supervisor, he found a way to address his wife Georgi’s complaints (she had to sit on a pillow in the driver’s seat) without giving up his beloved car. Georgi got her own Mercedes, [...]
The longest serving County Counsel in the history of El Dorado County retired effective Friday Dec. 7. After nearly 17 years on the job, Lou Green said, “It’s time to find out what else life holds for me.” In a wide-ranging interview after his last El Dorado County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, Green described [...]
EDITOR: While I praise Supervisor Knight and the Board of Supervisors for their efforts to improve traffic conditions in El Dorado Hills, I also challenge them to think. Traffic is merely a symptom of the larger problem of overwrought development in El Dorado Hills, primarily along Green Valley Road and Silva Valley Road. The Silva [...]
The traffic study for the proposed 209-home high-density Dixon Ranch project predicts that it won’t bump any of 21 intersections studied to another Level of Service grade by 2016. The 6,892 daily trips anticipated at buildout in 2025 don’t fare much worse. With no mitigation, the report predicts that only two intersections would fall a [...]
Residents of the Highland Hills area in northeast El Dorado Hills oppose a 709-home, high-density subdivision proposed for 280 acres of the historic Dixon Ranch, located on their eastern boundary, between Green Valley Road and Serrano. On the surface the story looks like a typical “Not In My Back Yard” affair. But a deeper examination [...]
District 2′s Ray Nutting described his experience and energy as two attributes he would continue to bring to a second consecutive term as El Dorado County Supervisor District 2. A veteran of two terms on the county’s governing board in the 1990s, Nutting told the Mountain Democrat’s editorial board May 16 that there are many [...]
Clarksville Day 2012 attracted an estimated 4,000 people on May 5 to the ghost town that predates El Dorado Hills, including a record number of ranch family descendants. Serrano’s original ranch residents, the Walker clan, were out in force to celebrate the 85th birthday of Mazie Carnell, who attended Clarksville’s one-room schoolhouse in the 1930s, [...]
The Folsom City Council was the first of the five jurisdictions in the Capital Southeast Connector Joint Powers Authority to pass a resolution approving the general alignment adopted by the JPA board of directors on March 7. The Folsom City Council voted unanimous support at its regular meeting on April 10. JPA Connector Executive Director [...]
Ron Mikulaco is challenging John Knight for the District 1 seat on the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors. Mikulaco describes himself as “enthusiastic, passionate and hard working … a regular guy, a man of the people, not a career politician.” He came out firing at a recent candidate forum, proclaiming, “It’s time for ordinary [...]
The Tea Party Patriots of El Dorado Hills’ candidate forum last week included El Dorado County Supervisorial Districts 1 and 2. Both races have a standing supervisor running for reelection opposed by a single candidate. The similarities stop there, however. In El Dorado Hills-centric District 1, the incumbent, longtime local resident and activist John Knight is opposed [...]
At a recent meeting of the Capital Southeast Connector Joint Powers Authority, held at Rancho Cordova City Hall, the directors formally rescinded certification of the Program Environmental Impact Report, prepared to recertify an amended report, and approved a financial study to fund construction of the project, including consideration of using tolls. Chairman John Knight, from [...]
FOLSOM — The El Dorado County-Folsom Joint Powers Authority held its quarterly meeting Oct. 19 at Folsom City Hall to update the two jurisdictions on the status of projects of mutual interest, primarily the Highway 50-Highway 99 connector and Folsom’s developement plans for south of Highway 50. Folsom Mayor Andy Morin, who serves as chairman [...]
Kathryn Matthews is following another curve in her road. After almost a decade as executive director of the El Dorado County Transportation Commission, Matthews is heading to Ashland, Ore., for the next stretch of her journey as a grandma, perhaps a teacher, or maybe something else entirely. In her EDCTC office, filled with plaques of [...]
Certified back in 1991, the Environmental Impact Report for the Silva Valley Parkway Interchange project had to be updated. Consequently the El Dorado County Department of Transportation prepared a Supplemental Environmental Impact Report that was approved by county supervisors during a recent meeting. Because of the “passage of time,” minor changes to the project and [...]