Sixteen days into his term as District 4 Supervisor, Steve Griefer is entrenched in the challenges facing Tuolumne County and specifically, the Highway 120 corridor. A standing-room-only audience attended Supervisor Griefer’s first Groveland Town Hall meeting, where he ran through a litany of high-priority issues being addressed.
Top of the list was the resignation of County Administrative Officer Tracie Riggs and the Board of Supervisors’ demand for a 15% reduction in county spending across the board, except safety, law enforcement, fire and emergency services. He spoke of the need for restructuring some county functions for better efficiency and this, along with the search for a new CAO will cause some temporary angst, saying “the next 45-90 days are going to be a bit rough.”
Emergency services and law enforcement are high on Griefer’s agenda, with the devastation and safety issues caused by the LA firestorms putting more emphasis on our own wildfire risks. He announced that CalFire will add year-round staff in Groveland “on the state,” as part of a recent “Let’s Not Burn” mandate, and that the Sheriff’s Department is finally fully staffed. One of his personal goals is to get a second ambulance based in Groveland as backup when one is on call at a resort or down the hill.
When it comes to safety, the state of our county roads must be improved. Griefer noted that the current formula for allocating funds raised by the 2017 SB1 gas tax legislation penalizes our county because of low population. Supervisor Griefer believes that this can and should be reassessed to include the significant impact of fluctuating seasonal populations. The topic of adding another crosswalk in downtown Groveland as well as making the crosswalks more visible to traffic was also discussed at various times during the meeting.
PG&E’s regional public affairs director Nathan Alfonso took the podium for a quick update on their commitment to underground 16 miles of power lines in Pine Mountain Lake. Alfonso said that this community’s response and reaction to the power outages of two years ago “shook our company to the core all the way up to the CEO level.” He noted that we’ve experienced significantly fewer, shorter outages since PG&E installed “sectionalizing devices” along the local grid that isolate and limit outages to a smaller number of customers.
Pine Mountain Lake’s general manager, Joe Powell commented that PMLA staff and the board is now in communication with the PG&E team and will be working closely with them as the undergrounding project moves from the surveying and preparation phase into actual construction later this year. Tomas Hernandez, who manages a number of short-term rentals, emphasized the need for timelines and details of when and where construction will be happening, noting also that the roads in Pine Mountain Lake must be restored to their original conditions before undergrounding began, “like for like.”
Supervisor Griefer briefly touched on several additional topics including the proposed pellet plant on La Grange Road (J59) at Highway 120/108, his dedication to keeping Pine Mountain Lake Airport open as a critical lifeline for this community, line-of-sight visibility at Powderhouse Road/Main Street when vehicles are parked in front of the Rivian Charging Outpost, and the still-disproportionate county funding for local programs and projects versus revenue generated by this community.
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