2021’s most notable
2021 in many ways felt like a continuation of the unprecedented and challenging previous year, though a number of its own unique milestones still managed to emerge.
Here are some of the major stories we covered throughout the year, in no particular order, that we felt best characterized the most significant local, state and national events of the past 12 months.
COVID-19 vaccines become widely available
The year began on a hopeful note for many with the rollout of vaccines aimed at preventing severe illness, hospitalization, or death from COVID-19.
However, like many aspects of the ongoing pandemic nearing the end of its second year, what could have been viewed as a unifying moment of scientific achievement instead became mired in divisive political posturing and rhetoric.
Supply issues at the beginning of the year caused anxiety among some at higher risk from the potentially deadly contagion, but Tuolumne and Calaveras counties had mostly worked out the kinks by the time all adults became eligible for vaccination in midApril.
The dropoff in demand for the vaccines after they became widely available was noticeable as public health departments began rolling up mass vaccination clinics and putting out calls about leftover doses in need of arms.
Emotions became further inflamed as politicians from Gov. Gavin Newsom to President Joe Biden began to announce vaccination mandates for federal and state health care workers, schoolchildren and large companies.
Protests against such mandates erupted in many places throughout the United States over the summer, with downtown Sonora’s Courthouse Square playing host to several large ones locally.
The percentages of the vaccinated eligible population in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties at 59.6% and 63.2%, respectively, remain lower at the end of the year than the statewide and national percentage.
Delta surge pushes local hospitals to brink
Another surge in the COVID-19 pandemic arrived over the summer through the emergence of the highly contagious delta variant.
Unlike previous surges, the delta variant also came at a time when vaccines proven to be effective at preventing serious illness were widely available, prompting many local medical profes
sionals to speak out as hospital beds filled up and deaths spiked.
Nurses, doctors and administrators at hospitals in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties treating the most sick COVID-19 patients offered rare glimpses into the devastating toll it was having on themselves and their facilities.
Dr. Artin Mahmoudi, a pulmonologist and ICU doctor at Adventist Health Sonora, described the situation to The Union Democrat in midAugust as “a tragedy.”
“Unfortunately, the way we are creating vacancies in the ICU is by people dying, not going home,” he said. “We are losing people who should not have been lost had they gotten vaccinated.”
Statistics released by Adventist Health Sonora showed about 90% or more of the hospitalized patients at any given time were unvaccinated, a fact that continues to hold true despite the lower numbers now.
Mark Twain Medical Center in San Andreas sounded the alarm in late August that its limited capacity to handle the ill was “quickly drying up,” with 17 of the hospital’s 25 beds occupied by COVID-19 patients at one point.
The delta surge also became the deadliest period of the pandemic for Tuolumne County, more than doubling the total number of deaths from 73 on Aug. 1 to 148 as of Thursday. Seven of the deaths were people who had been fully vaccinated.
New jail and courthouse open
After nearly two decades in development, the final two main pieces of Tuolumne County’s Law and Justice Center off Old Wards Ferry Road in Sonora opened this year: a new $51 million county jail in January and a $70 million statefunded courthouse in November.
The county Sheriff’s Office moved the 105 inmates at its former lockup on Yaney Avenue in downtown Sonora to the new Dambacher Detention Center on Jan. 16, a day described at the time by Sheriff Bill Pooley as a “piece of history” for his agency.
Civil grand juries and state corrections officials long criticized the former Yaney Avenue jail originally constructed in 1960 as being inadequate, outdated, cramped and a growing safety concern for both inmates and staff.
Securing the funding for the new jail took years and came through two state grants totaling $33 million, as well as $18 million in leaserevenue bonds that will be paid back over 30 years using several county-owned buildings as collateral.
The new 63,000-square-foot jail increases the number of beds from 147 to 230, though only 150 were usable when it opened due to issues surrounding COVID-19 and staffing.
Tuolumne County Superior Court, meanwhile, opened for business at its sprawling new facility at the Law and Justice Center campus on Nov. 15 following months of construction-related delays.
All of the funding for the new courthouse’s construction was provided by the California Judicial Council, which owns the new facility.
Moving to the new courthouse marked the end of an era for downtown Sonora as the superior court’s hub since 1854, leaving the prominent historic Tuolumne County Courthouse on Yaney Avenue and satellite branch on North Washington Street both vacant.
A $283,000 study commissioned by the county Board of Supervisors is currently underway to determine the best uses for the former courthouses, as well as several other empty or underutilized county-owned buildings.
With the completion of a $20 million juvenile hall in 2017, the final missing part of the original vision for the Law and Justice Center are new offices for public safety agencies, including the sheriff, district attorney, public defender and probation.
The board opted to consult with a financial advisor before making any decisions on developing three remaining parcels at the Law and Justice Center, which were estimated to cost between $71 million and $93 million depending on the plans.
Discussions are expected to continue in the next year regarding any future development at the site.
Taxes and recalls
Two special elections this year failed to achieve the desired results of those who put them to a vote.
The first was a local property tax measure placed on the ballot for a June 8 special election by the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors to provide a new, dedicated source of funding for fire services.
Known as Measure V, the proposed $150 additional annual tax for parcels with homes or commercial structures on them — and $75 per year for vacant lots — failed hard with local voters, with 68% who cast ballots voting no.
Local fire chiefs and some elected officials showed support for the measure in the months leading up to the election, as many say the current tax base isn’t keeping up with rising costs to maintain the level of fire protection that people have come to expect.
The measure was opposed by the Tuolumne County Farm Bureau, who largely argued the structure of the tax wasn’t fair to people with small single-family residential lots or many pieces of vacant land.
Another special election was held statewide on Sept. 14 for the potential recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a first-term Democrat whose COVID-19 response helped fuel supporters of ousting him from office.
Out of the 12.8 million California voters who cast ballots, nearly 62% voted to retain Newsom as governor and 38% voted to recall and replace him with another candidate.
Republican radio host Larry Elder blew out the 46 other candidates on the second part of the ballot had a majority been in favor of recalling Newsom, receiving more than 48% of the vote.
The opposite was the case in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties. About 61% in Tuolumne voted to recall Newsom and more than 62% voted for Elder as his replacement, while 65% in Calaveras voted to recall Newsom and 63% picked Elder.
Developments on homelessness
Homelessness remained one of the most discussed topics in the Mother Lode and beyond, as leaders continued searching for elusive solutions to the multi-faceted, complex problem.
Among the significant developments on the issue locally in 2021 were the closure of Camp Hope off Stockton Road in Sonora, the opening of Resiliency Village on Big Hill, the City of Sonora’s approval of the first new homeless shelter in years, and agreements between the city and county to look into a possible designated encampment in the future.
Tuolumne County closed Camp Hope in late August, less than two years after advocates for the homeless launched an unofficial effort to see how providing basic amenities — including portable toilets, garbage collection and a water tank — would impact the people living there.
While advocates attested to seeing positive changes in some of the Camp Hope residents, the area started to gain a bad reputation over crime and repeated fires.
The county and California environmental health officials stepped in over concerns about soil contamination from a former burn dump that had operated at the site decades earlier, ultimately cordoning off the area and moving the remaining residents out.
Some of the former Camp Hope residents went into a new program run by the nonprofit organization Resiliency Village, which was launched as an effort to develop a community of tiny houses centered on healing people from past trauma.
The founders of Resiliency Village finally found a home for their vision off Jenny Lind Road in the Big Hill area and completed a purchase of the property in May.
Resiliency Village opened in September despite protests from some of the surrounding neighbors, though about 10 formerly unhoused people have been living there since that time.
In addition, the City of Sonora purchased a blighted property on South Stewart Street earlier in the year using redevelopment funds and plans to renovate it into a new homeless shelter that will be able to house up to about 15 people.
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Community Action Agency will run the city’s new shelter, in addition to the 25-bed shelter it already operates on South Washington Street.
Earlier this month, the county Board of Supervisors and Sonora City Council also unanimously endorsed an idea proposed by the county’s newly formed Commission on Homelessness to create designated camp areas for unhoused people to stay.
The commission was given the greenlight to develop a more detailed proposal to be discussed and considered at a later date.
Groveland-raised woman competes at the Olympics
She grew up in Tuolumne County raising livestock, doing 4-H, and shooting .22-caliber rifles at Mother Lode Gun Club in Jamestown.
She rose to the world stage at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, reaching the final round of an international smallbore rifle competition for just the second time, and she faced off against seven of the world’s most elite shooters in Asaka, Japan. She placed fifth in the women’s 50-meter smallbore rifle three positions event that began with 38 competitors.
The year 2021 has been busy for Groveland-raised U.S. Army sharpshooter Sagen Maddalena. In November, she competed in the invitation-only 2021 International Shooting Sports Federation’s President’s Cup in Wroclaw, Poland, an event reserved for the top 12 rifle and pistol athletes in the world.
Maddalena won two gold medals and the Best Athlete of the Year title at the elite ISSF Rifle/pistol President’s Cup competition. She took first place in the individual women’s 50m three-position rifle event, then teamed with Istvan Peni of Hungary in the 50m rifle mixedgender doubles event to defeat combined teams from Germany-belarus and Norway-russia.
Maddalena, now 28, tries to bring mental clarity, precise breathing, and stillness to master the hyper-focused intensity required at global shooting competitions.
“I’m really happy I could bring so many people together for that one event and to represent my country and Tuolumne County, this small town of Groveland,” she told The Union Democrat in a phone interview from Japan in early August.
“The goal was obviously to podium and to miss that was a little disheartening for a while,” she said of first Olympics experience, “but putting up a qualifying round that was to my training, it kind of puts the ball in my court and lights a fire under my butt.”
Washington and Airola fires
The Washington Fire and the Airola Fire that broke out on consecutive days in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties in late August shocked many residents, elected leaders, and public safety authorities.
Towering smoke columns were visible in both counties when each fire broke out, on Aug. 26 between Sonora and Jamestown, and on Aug. 25 in the Stanislaus River canyon on the Calaveras side upstream from the new Parrotts Ferry Road bridge.
A month after the fires, Cal Fire investigators ruled out the possibility of arson as the cause of the Washington Fire that destroyed at least 19 structures, including the homes of at least 10 families, and cost more than $1.5 million to put out. They said the cause of the blaze was “accidental in nature.”
As of Dec. 29, no citations or arrests were made, the investigation had concluded, and the lead investigator was finalizing his report, said Matt Gilbert, a battalion chief with the Cal Fire Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit.
Human remains were found Aug. 28 on Silver Pine Drive in the burn area above Golden Dove Lane. The Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office has yet to release any additional information.
The Airola Fire, reported about 2:55 p.m. Aug. 25 off Airola Road, burned 635 acres. Airola Fire suppression costs totaled an estimated $1.8 million. In late September, Cal Fire said the cause of the Airola Fire remained under investigation. As of Dec. 29, no citations or arrests had been made and an investigation was still open, Gilbert said. Investigators were no longer seeking information from the public.
A wet start to winter amid drought
While 2021 started out dry, it’s ending on a wet note with an exclamation point.
The record-setting wet start to this winter in the Mother Lode and the rest of the Central Sierra contrasts sharply with last winter, one of the driest on record.
A series of slow-moving atmospheric river storms have soaked the Mother Lode foothills and the rest of the Central Sierra with rain and snow since the current water year began Oct. 1, and they have already combined to ease drought conditions up and down central and northern California.
As of Thursday, the Central Sierra region that includes the Stanislaus River and Tuolumne River watersheds, Calaveras Big Trees, Hetch Hetchy and the Stanislaus National Forest had received 20.2 inches of precipitation in the last three months of 2021. That regional total was equivalent to 169% of average for the date Dec. 30.
The Central Sierra regional total for the last three months of 2021 already exceeds the 18.8inch total for the entire previous water year, 2020-2021, the thirddriest on record.
Sensors high in the mountains keeping track of snowpack this week showed Central Sierra snow-water equivalents at 164% of normal for the date Dec. 30, and 58% of average for April 1, a key date water agency managers use to monitor each year’s water supply.
Statewide, snow-water equivalents were 160% of normal for Dec. 30, and 55% of average for April 1.