News

Today's blog is by FOSMAS Treasure and volunteer extraordinaire, Ave Geddes:

Property owners have multiple resources on the Web and by telephone to learn more about the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s annual fire prevention fees, according to a press release from CalFire.The outreach effort is being implemented as a result of Assembly Bill X1 29, which was signed into law July 2011, establishing a fee for fire prevention services in the 31 million acres of State Responsibility Area, according to the CalFire release. CalFire has established a website, www.firepreventionfee.org, which contains information about the fee, as well as helpful links to maps, the law language and answers to frequently asked questions. Also, a customer service call center is staffed Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., to further aid homeowners who have questions about the fire prevention fee. The call center number is 1-888-310-6447. The revenue generated from the fire prevention fee pays for vital fire prevention services within the SRA, according to CalFire. Fire prevention services funded by the fee include strategic fuel reduction activities, defensible space inspections, fire prevention engineering, emergency evacuation planning, fire prevention education, fire hazard severity mapping, implementation of the State’s and local fire plans, and fire related law enforcement activities such as fire cause determination and arson investigation. Under the law, the California Board of Equalization is responsible for collecting the fee, the CalFire press release says. The bills scheduled for mailing this year are for fiscal year 2012/2013. The fee applies to the homeowner of record as of July 1, 2012, for all habitable structures within the SRA. The BOE began mailing the fire prevention fee bills July 19, 2013. 

The Wineries of Santa Clara Valley held their bi-annual Passport Weekend Saturday and Sunday, offering tours of the area's historic, family-owned or start-up wineries.

Live Oak girls volleyball head coach James Uthes was let go from his position following a Sept. 27 arrest on an outstanding Santa Clara County Sheriff Department traffic warrant, according to authorities.

There are moments that live forever.

Interim Superintendent Steve Betando’s recommendation to the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s Board of Education is to deny Navigator Schools’ charter petition to open an elementary school within district boundaries for the fall of 2014, according to the Board’s meeting agenda for next week. The agenda was posted online Friday afternoon. 

An east Morgan Hill resident reported seeing a mountain lion in her neighborhood early Tuesday morning. The wild animal was spotted in the area of Morgan Avenue, according to the resident, who said she reported the sighting to police. “We were alerted by our dogs about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, as I looked down into our neighbor’s backyard (the) motion lights were triggered and I was surprised when I saw a mountain lion strolling near the back of (the neighbor’s) buildings,” said an e-mail sent by the resident to the Times. Mountain lion sightings are not unheard of in Morgan Hill, which is surrounded by dry, rugged hills that provide an ideal habitat for the predators, according to authorities.As recently as Sept. 20, a resident near Uvas Reservoir submitted a photo of a mountain lion at night to the Times' website. The closeup image appears to have been snapped by a stationary automatic camera.In September 2010, police used pepper spray guns to scare off a mountain lion who was resting near a backyard of a home in Holiday Lake Estates, just up the hill from Tuesday’s sighting. That mountain lion had been lying still before police frightened it away with the pepper-gun pellets. The resident reported the animal to police, who estimated the mountain lion weighed about 100 pounds. In May 2011, at least one mountain lion was confirmed to have been an ongoing nuisance for a resident and her sheep on the 100 block of West Dunne Avenue, less than one mile from downtown Morgan Hill. The animal returned to the property multiple times to feast on sheep the resident owned, which were grazing in a pasture in the resident’s front yard, according to police. Authorities even set up a trap to try to catch the mountain lion, but the effort to ensnare the feline failed, police said at the time. The mountain lion or lions killed four of the resident’s Galapagos sheep over the course of about six weeks. After she removed the surviving livestock to another location the predator was not seen again on the property. The California department of fish and game confirmed by examining the carcasses of the sheep that the deaths were the work of a mountain lion. Police said at the time that even though mountain lion attacks against humans are rare, the animals are dangerous and should be avoided. Mountain lion sightings can be reported to Morgan Hill police by calling (408) 779-2101. 

Here is the South County Sheriff’s arrest log from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2.