Free lunch
Crowds gather for return of Bean Feed after one-year hiatus
The mood was festive, holiday spirits were bright, the energy palpable, as people lined up Friday at noon to partake of beans, quesadillas and garlic bread and watch Mark Mutzner ring the bell to set off the 33rd annual Sonora Bean Feed.
“My father would have wanted me to do it, to ring the bell for him,” Mutzner, 65, of Sonora said.
It marked the event’s return from a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic and with the absence of founder and Mark Mutzner’s father, Galen “Mut” Mutzner, who died at his home in Sonora on July 22, at age 94.
Mut founded the event in 1987 and hosted it until his retirement in 2017, when he turned over the gargantuan cauldron and wooden stirring paddle to the Tuolumne County Sportsmen, a local nonprofit fishing and hunting organization whose guiding principles are to promote public hunting and fishing grounds while safeguarding wildlife.
“My father loved the Bean Feed,” Mark Mutzner said. “He looked forward to it all year long.”
The event costs approximately $1,000 to host and is supported through donations from the Sonora Area Foundation, which provides the food; Conifer Communica
tions, which supplies the paper goods; and the Tuolumne County Sportsmen organization volunteers cooked and served the goodies, according to the group’s president, Jim Phelan, 74, of Sonora.
Prior to the start of the annual event more than a dozen
volunteers from the Tuolumne County Sportsmen arrived on Linoberg Street at 6 a.m. and began setting up the gigantic vat containing 100 pounds of pinto beans, mixed with sausage, ham, onions, garlic, spices, tomato sauce and tomato puree.
By 6:30 a.m. the propane was fired up and the bean mixture simmered in the huge pot until noon.
The aroma of the beans cooking gently wafted in the frosty air throughout the downtown area, as volunteers took the lid off of the huge vat and took turns using the big wooden paddle, which resembled a canoe oar, to stir the beans every 15 minutes.
Volunteer Bill Morales, 69, of Sonora, got up well before sunrise, with temperatures in the mid 30s, in order to help set up for the event, which required getting the vat, food, propane, stoves and tables, set up at the cooking and serving location between The Union Democrat and The Sportsman, located at 90 S. Washington St.
“It was important to be here because it has been a Sonora tradition for more than 30 years,” Morales said, smiling as he stirred the beans. “When
one vote over 50% in the races for the Board of Supervisors and countywide offices, the two candidates who get the most votes will face each other in a runoff in the Nov. 8 general election.
More candidates could emerge after Jan. 3, which is when people interested in any of the six countywide offices can begin pulling papers from the Elections Office for gathering signatures to reduce their potential filing fees.
Prospective candidates for the two county supervisor seats can begin taking out papers to gather signatures for a reduction in filing fees slightly later on Jan. 11, due to the Board of Supervisors not approving a new redistricting map until this past Tuesday.
There is no filing fee to run for the Sonora City Council.
The actual nomination period for all candidates to gather the necessary amount of signatures and pay the required fees to appear on the ballot begins Feb. 14 and ends at 5 p.m. March 11, Bautista said.
Campbell and Pooley were each interviewed by The Union Democrat on Thursday to talk about why they decided to run for reelection, their accomplishments thus far, and what they would like to do if voters give them another four years in office.
County Supervisor Ryan Campbell
Campbell said he wants to run for another fouryear term as county supervisor for District 2 because he sees a number of opportunity on the horizon and wants to make sure the community can take advantage of them.
One of the opportunities that Campbell cited is the proposed repaving of Standard Road, which he said they hope to begin next year after “scrounging, scraping and finding sources of revenue” to conduct the work.
Another opportunity that Campbell wants to see through is the repurposing of the former Tuolumne General Hospital building in downtown Sonora, which has sat mostly vacant for more than 10 years, into the new offices for the county Health and Human Services Agency.
The county is currently conducting a study that was championed by Campbell to see how certain departments currently in rented facilities could be moved into underutilized county-owned buildings, such as the old hospital and now-vacated courthouses in Sonora.
“We’re hoping to save the county money and breathe new life into an eyesore,” he said. “That will take time to accomplish.”
Campbell also wants to remain in office to help safeguard the county’s public library system, which repeatedly dealt with layoffs and budget cutbacks before the board was able to restore some of the funding to it in recent years.
Helping to stabilize the county’s General Fund budget, which pays for most core services and regularly faced multi-million-dollar shortfalls until recently, is also an accomplishment that Campbell cited over his tenure up to this point.
“We were spending too much money on projects and ideas that I don’t think were the highest priorities of our community,” he said. “We were spending beyond our means, so I think being very careful with budgeting and being strict, this is the first time in over a decade that we’ve really had our budget under control.” Campbell said he’s also proud of work the county has done related to fire safety and roads, including the formation of an advisory commitee on the topic, conducting fuels reduction along county roadways, and purchasing new equipment to help improve and maintain road conditions. The freshman county supervisor has served as board chairman since January, a position that rotates each year typically in numerical order by district. His district covers a large swath of the county that includes the communities of Cedar
Ridge, Soulsbyville, Willow Springs, and Crystal Falls.
“I certainly expect our community to want to know how I’ve been spending my time these past three years and how I’ve been fighting for them,” he said. “I’m really ready and eager to have that conversation.”
Campbell was elected in 2018 after taking former County Supervisor Randy Hanvelt to the November runoff and ultimately defeating him that year.
Sheriff Bill Pooley
The longtime lawman and first-time elected sheriff said he’s seeking a second term in office to continue building from what he described as a solid platform that his agency has established over the past few years. “I think the biggest thing is the work we’ve done on advocating for our ability to recruit and retain top-flight deputies,” Pooley said, citing a recently negotiated new contract with Tuolumne County Deputy Sheriff’s Association that included pay raises, hiring bonuses and incentives for longeyity Pooley also said his other top priority over the past three years he’s served as sheriff has been on community outreach, which he plans to continue if reelected. The past nearly two years of the COVID-19 pandemic has made outreach efforts more difficult due to limiting the ability for Pooley and other Sheriff’s Office personnel to meet with members of the community in
person, but he hopes that will soon change.
“I’m looking forward to a point where we can get back out in the community and do those things,” he said.
Pooley said the community outreach also aims to help with the ability for the Sheriff’s Office to recruit and retain quality deputies because he and other law enforcement executives throughout the nation say fewer young people are going into the field.
It’s generally been a difficult time for law enforcement over the past few years with increased scrutiny on policing practices, though Pooley said he and his staff are grateful to work in a community that has strong support for the profession.
Changes to sentencing laws in California and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have also presented challenges, Pooley said.
“I feel like there is a lot of angst and anxiety within our community and throughout the nation,” he said. “In the areas of fighting crime and other aspects of our agency, everything there is on track, but I think we’ve just had a difficult time as a country.”
Some examples cited by Pooley of ways he and his agency have worked to foster trust in the community is through hosting events to interact with the community, speaking engagements with various groups, going to schools, and a soonto-be-implemented body cameras for all deputies.
Pooley said he believes the body cameras will provide a safer environment both for his deputies and the public, while the events and speaking engagements help people get to know those who are sworn to serve and protect the community outside of emergencies and moments of crisis.
“I firmly believe that the first time you meet law enforcement should not be when you’re in crisis,” he said. “We should meet you first through any number of community forums, be it 4-H, schools, farm bureau, service groups … We need to meet with these folks so they trust us.”
Before becoming elected, Pooley previously served as undersheriff of the agency. He ran unopposed in the 2018 election following the retirement of former Sheriff Jim Mele.