TC Supervisors To Address Recent Power Outages And CARE Court

Photo by: Tracey Peterson

Sonora, CA — The pre-Independence Day power outages that impacted the Groveland area will be a big focus of Tuesday’s Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors meeting.

Thousands in the community were without power for three straight days, and the cause was determined to be a failing regulator that was overheating. The outages were part of PG&E’s Enhanced Powerline Safety Settings that cut power proactively as a way to reduce fire risk. It created a big economic loss for numerous Groveland businesses ahead of the holiday. The supervisors will have a discussion about the impacts and if they feel any actions need to be taken in response.

The county has also received some criticism from impacted residents for not opening up the Groveland Community Resilience Center that weekend. Instead, the Groveland Community Services District opened its board meeting room as a cooling center. In response, the board of supervisors will discuss potential changes to its existing Extreme Temperature Contingency Plan that was approved in 2019.

Also, the board will discuss adding $25,000 to the Office of Emergency Services Budget for shelter operations during extreme heat.

In addition on Tuesday, the supervisors will hear an update from staff on the local implementation of the state’s CARE Court initiative. The goal is to help those suffering mental health-related challenges. Tuolumne is one of seven pilot counties that will start the program in October of 2023 and the remaining 51 counties will go live in December of 2024. The CARE Court item is informational only. It will be discussed at 10am. The PG&E items are scheduled to be reviewed at 1:30pm. The meeting itself starts at 9am.

Early in the meeting, the board will also vote to declare July 16-22 as Probation Services Week.