WEDNESDAY 4-13-22 KAHI LOCAL NEWS

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By Jerry Henry on April 13, 2022.

The Chamber of Commerce MEDDLERS meeting, a weekly session every Tuesday, yesterday, received the regular updates on City of Auburn business, and an update on the Placer County activity from Auburn Mayor Sandy Amara and Chairperson County supervisor Cindy Gustafson. The guest speaker was Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire.

Mayor Amara reported the city is working with Auburn Unified School officials on complaints about drug use and smoking in the park behind City Hall, a review with Police Chief Brian Kinnan, and mentioned that the council meetings start at 5 p.m. now at city hall.

The county update included a request from residents to update the county on status of internet signals throughout the county to help them try and get the status of the county to be rural which will help getting grant money from the state to get upgraded internet services; a renewal of a 5-year agreement with Gathering Inn for the management of the homeless shelter program at Dewitt Center; and brief of activity on wild fire fuel management in the county.

DA Morgan Gire updated the group on his background and career, mentioned the DA process of selecting cases, explained their approach at dealing with increases of illegal drug activity and DUI cases. He stated that fentanyl is dangerous and 4 out of ten pills on the street have enough poison to kill a human and the majority are coming from China. He also said they eliminated over 400 thousand of these illegal drugs from getting to street users. DA Gire also explained his office is pursuing murder charges on anyone selling these drugs which results in death of the user.

MEDDLERS meets every Tuesday at 7:00 a.m. in room 12 on the third floor of Auburn City Hall, and on zoom for internet users.

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Union Nurses and other health care workers at Sutter Health plan a one-day walkout, Monday, at three Sacramento-area hospitals and 12 others statewide, including Sutter Auburn Faith in North Auburn,  Monday after contract negotiations stalled. One complaint by the Union is Sutter refuses to include them in planning and implementing policy during a pandemic.

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Auburn Journal carrying a story about Placer County Sheriff deputies responding to the North Auburn ROSS store last week in the evening and interviewed a suspect of shoplifting at the store. The suspect revealed she and two friends had stolen items from the store. Deputies searched suspects vehicle finding $400 worth of merchandise, and a male suspect was found with large amounts of fentanyl and meth along with pepper spray, and a meth pipe. 32-year-old Christopher Twilligear was charged. The sheriffas office public information office said the ROSS store declined to press charges. Twilligear was released from custody April 7^th.

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Auburn Area Recreation and Parks District (ARD) is scheduled to host its second water-based Easter event Saturday. The event is being held rain or shine, said ARD Recreation Services Manager Mark Brunner, and ARD staff hopes Mother Nature will cooperate. The event is scheduled from noon-2 p.m. Saturday at the Sierra Pool at Recreation Park.

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Sacramento police said they have identified another suspect in the deadly K Street shooting in Sacramento. 27-year-old Mtula Payton has multiple warrants outstanding for domestic violence and firearms.  The warrant relating to domestic violence was issued after officers went to a home belonging to a relative of Payton on April 2. At the home, police said they talked to a woman with injuries who said Payton was the one responsible for hurting her. This brings a total of five suspects police have identified in the Sunday shootings that killed 6 and hurt 12. Police say gang violence appears to be the root case of the shootings.

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According to new data from the California Department of Education, enrollment is continuing to drop at a faster rate than before the pandemic. California now has fewer than 6 million students attending public schools for the first time since the start of the century. Cal Matters listed some key takeaways from this recently released data. One of the biggest is that statewide enrollment has dropped by over 110,000 students during the current school year. The current number of enrollments is 5,829,240. Additionally, charter school enrollment is also down for the first time since at least 2014. Some school officials also believe mask mandates and other COVID-19 safety precautions prompted some parents to take their kids out of public school. The superintendent of the Nevada Joint Union High School District Brett McFadden told Cal Matters: aDeclining enrollment cannot be fixed. I think we must recognize that declining enrollment is part of broader demographic trends that are happening in our state.a

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