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Share input at fire safe community workshop News, Page 5
AYSO coed soccer team wins gold Features, Page 1
Volume 139, Number 43 — Locally-owned since 1884
The hometown paper of Bob Schultz
Winters, Yolo County, California, Wednesday, November 23, 2022
INSIDE THIS EDITION OF THE WINTERS EXPRES�!
City Council approves road closures for Tractor Parade festivities By Jacob Hoffman Express staff writer Winters City Council voted to approve road closures on Main Street, Railroad Street, Grant Avenue, Valley Oak Drive and Abbey Street on the weekend of Dec. 2–3 in regard to the holiday festival events and activities planned. City Manager Kathleen Salguero Trepa gave a brief update on the planning of the events of the holiday weekend as well as changes made compared to last year’s event. Previously, the two events occurred on the same day, but in 2020 the risk of COVID spreading prompted event officials to
split the two events to reduce congestion and, “make for a safer event so people didn’t crowd into the downtown area,” Trepa said. The City Council staff report for this recommendation stated having the two events separated was, “very successful and allowed for better crowd management,” and said during the meeting the measure was, “hugely successful in terms of managing crowd size.” Thus, Trepa recommended the City Council continue this practice. But, Trepa noted that splitting the events into two days meant, “two nights of pretty intensive activities,” and to address the effect of these ac-
tivities on Winters’ traffic, she recommended some changes to the events’ organization, including road closures. A major change to the events is that the Winters District Chamber of Commerce Board will no longer be organizing the events — instead, it will be up to the city. Trepa then said because the city’s staff, “did not have the capacity or bandwidth,” to organize the event on their own, the City hired a professional event coordinator who has been organizing the holiday events thus far. Trepa continued that goals for this
See ROADS, Page 3
New partnership revives Winters youth basketball By Jacob Hoffman Express staff writer Winters City Councilmember unanimously approved entering into a partnership to provide a youth basketball league at the Nov. 15 City Council meeting, City Manager Kathleen Salguero Trepa presented a recommendation to enter into a contract recreation model in partnership with the National Academy of Athletics in order to organize a new youth basketball league in the city. For a number of years, the city orga-
nized a youth basketball league in Winters before having to shut it down by the pandemic. The original volunteer who organized the league is no longer available, and City staff wasn’t able to organize it itself. But this new measure would enter the City of Winters into a contract with the National Academy of Athletics (NAA) to reform another league for children in Winters from kindergarten through fifth grade under the NAA’s supervision. The City has already worked with the National Acad-
emy of Athletics on a number of sports initiatives, with Trepa noting that existing programs like swim lessons and the swim team are organized by the NAA on a revenue share model, which the new basketball league would also be organized with. The revenue sharing model, Trepa explained, “means that they offer turnkey services to coordinate the basketball league,” in exchange for a 90 percent profit split of participation costs, meaning, “there’s no
See HOOPS, Page 3
City council race remains close, County continues counting vote totals By Crystal Apilado Editor-in-Chief
EXPRESS
While the early front-runners in the Winters City Council race remain at the top, the order has adjusted as the Yolo County Elections Office continues to count the vote totals from the Nov. 8 General Election. The last vote total update was posted on Tuesday, Nov. 22 at 3:47 p.m.
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The total number of unprocessed ballots was 687 in the county. The estimates of unprocessed ballots account for the entire county and details of each jurisdiction are not available, according to the elections office, “as ballots are received and processed in batches from throughout the county.” As of Tuesday, the City Council race results had Albert Vallecillo with 1,260 (22.79 percent), Carol Scianna with 1,192 (21.56 percent), Richard Casavecchia with 1,190 (21.53 percent), Lisa Baker with 1,111
(20.10 percent) and Michael Olivas with 775 (14.02 percent). The Winters Trustee Area Two race had Incumbent Carrie Green with 256 (63.68 percent) and Challenger Robert Warren with 146 (36.32 percent). The next update will post by 5 p.m. on Nov. 29. Dec. 8 is the deadline for the county elections office to finalize the vote totals and figure out how many registered voters actually voted, and members of the public are welcome to observe the canvassing process.
Index Features ........................ B-1
Express staff writer
Rain
High
Low
Nov. 16
.00
69˚
42˚
Nov. 17
.00
70˚
35˚
Nov. 18
.00
66˚
37˚
Nov. 19
.00
69˚
46˚
Eventos hispanos ....... A-6
Nov. 20
.00
65˚
30˚
Nov. 21
.00
65˚
30˚
Opinion ......................... B-3
Nov. 22
.00
66˚
32˚
Community .................. A-5
Real Estate ................... B-2 Sports ........................... A-2
Rain for week: 0.00 in. Season’s total: 2.09 in. Last sn. to date: 8.24 in. Winters rainfall season began 7/1/22. Weather readings are taken at 9 a.m.
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Although Winters is known for its agriculture, its reputation as a robotics powerhouse is quickly gearing up. The proof is in the gears — and gold — as the Winters Robotics Club (WRC) won first place in yet another VEX robotics competition on Nov. 12–13. Taking place in Granite Bay, 27 teams and their robots assembled for gear grinding competition.
With their combination of engineering, coding, strategy and tenacity, the WRC teams showed they’re a metallic force to be reckoned with. “We had three teams competing — our A, B and C teams. The A team went undefeated, but our C team was our rookie team and they held their own and did pretty well. They made it to the quarterfinals and went against our A team and only lost by four points,” said WRC coach Dianne
Halsey. “You can see the members’ growth from their first year. Even though this was the winning robot,” Halsey said, referring to the Team A robot, “they’re already re-designing and coming up with new ideas. It’s always a learning experience and it’s great to have them come in and constantly be growing. It’s called iteration and that process is to keep improving and that’s what makes
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Winters Robotics Club team scores another first place win By Aaron Geerts
We at he r Date
Classifieds ................... B-4
Courtesy photo
Winters Robotics Team 39599A show off their awards. Team members are Ben Nelson, Coach Dianne Halsey, Kianna Miller, Madeline Archibeque and Jesus Cruz.
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See VEX, Page 3
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