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PLACERVILLE • 85 Placerville Drive (530) 303-8962 • JACKSON 705 S. State Highway 49 • (209) 560-6676 C ALI FORN IA’S OLDE ST NE W SPAPER
– E S T. 18 51
– Weekend Edition – VOLUME 173 • ISSUE 104 | $1.00
mtdemocrat.com
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2024
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OW GUN unStyH Fairgrounds El Dorado Co
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Mountain Democrat photo by Odin Rasco
Placerville City Councillor Nicole Gotberg, Vice Mayor John Clerici, Pierre Rivas and Mayor Jackie Neau pose for a photo before cutting into a cake thanking Rivas for his 23 and a half years of service to the city. Rivas’ plans for the future include staying on hand to answer questions whenever the need might arise, in between trips through the outdoors.
Pierre Rivas
the man who wore two hats, retires Odin Rasco Senior staff writer
“L
isten, I think a know a perfect way to start this,” Pierre Rivas, soon-tobe-former Director of Development Services for the city of Placerville, said as he stepped away from his desk to retrieve something resting atop a nearby file cabinet. His desk was organized in the style familiar to the perpetually busy, with papers half-piled in a state of organized chaos; one look around his office, it’s hard to image that he’s set to retire in just a couple weeks. “Now, what do you think of that?” Rivas holds aloft a gift from previous District 3 Supervisor Jack Sweeney: a one-of-a-kind black baseball cap with a bill at both ends. One side of the cap reads “City of Placerville” and the other “El Dorado County.” Though “someone who wears many hats” has been a prevalent idiom for ages, Rivas might be one of the only people to do it in such a literal sense as his career juggled between working for the county and city for nearly three and a half decades. He shared the hat’s origin
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story, explaining how county supervisors used to jokingly ask which hat he was wearing when he would appear at board meetings during a stretch of time where he served on the Placerville City Council while simultaneously working as planning manager for the county. Toward the end of Rivas’ time with the county, Sweeney had the hat custom-made for Rivas to clear up any confusion. Now, almost 35 years after his first day of work in the county, Rivas is ready to retire on Nov. 1. As a kid growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Rivas had no grand aim to work in public planning, let alone city government. Instead, he had dreams of flying cargo planes for the United States Air Force. He participated in the ROTC program at Canoga Park High School, but discovered in his senior year that a childhood ailment meant he would not qualify to be a pilot. “I was honestly kind of adrift after that,” Rivas recalled. “I was razor-focused in high school and kind of floundering after my plans to fly fell through. I enrolled as a biology major at
Courtesy photo
An El Dorado County Department of Transportation bridge crew member begins work on a portion of the Mosquito Bridge damaged by a stuck vehicle. Two truss rods were bent and some webbing was damaged.
Truck stuck on Mosquito Bridge Odin Rasco Senior staff writer
Mosquito Bridge, and a stretch of the connecting road, was unexpectedly shut for repairs Tuesday, Oct. 29, after a truck got stuck on the bridge. As of Wednesday afternoon the bridge had reopened. While traveling across the narrow, historical bridge a large truck became wedged against the railing midway along the short span, El Dorado
■ See RIVAS, page A8
■ See STUCK, page A5
Bucks Bar bridge project taking shape Eric Jaramishian
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME ENDS THIS WEEKEND! Fall Back November 9, 2024 at 2:00am Set your clocks back one hour! You GAIN an hour!
Senior staff writer
El Dorado County is moving forward with the Bucks Bar Road bridge replacement with the Board of Supervisors unanimously voting to certify the project’s final environmental impact report. Construction could start as early as 2026, contingent on how long it takes to get the National Environmental Protection Act approval.
The new bridge will be a two-lane, on-alignment bridge raised higher than the current bridge by 5 to 8 feet over over the North Fork of the Cosumnes River. The estimated cost is $15.3 million, most of which will be funded by the Highway Bridge Program. The rest will come from local traffic impact fees and the Regional Surface Transportation Program. The current bridge was constructed and opened in the 1940s with approximately 4,200
vehicles crossing daily. The river has topped or nearly topped the bridge several times in the past 25 years, with a notable flooding incident in 1997, according to Department of Transportation Deputy Director John Kahling. “It was opened in 1941 for (that time’s) cars and traffic levels, and it is not the same anymore,” Kahling told the board Oct. 22. “It has been determined functionally obsolete by Caltrans ■ See BRIDGE, page A5
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