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Mother’s Day craft ideas Special, Page 5
Community celebrates Hall of Fame honorees Features, Page 1
Volume 140, Number 15 — Locally-owned since 1884
Winters, Yolo County, California, Wednesday, May 10, 2023
The hometown paper of Don Hayman
Council approves city fee increases Trustees approve new middle By Jacob Hoffman Express staff writer The Winters City Council approved proposed fee increases for a number of city-provided services at its May 2 meeting. City Manager Kathleen Trepa laid out the affected fees, scheduled A–F, and how much each will increase. Schedules A–building permits fees, B–planning fees, D–Police, E–Fire, and F–recreation, will be increased by 6.5 percent, while Schedule C–Engineering and Public Works, will increase by 5.3 percent. Regarding the history of this change, in 2017 the city contracted Matrix Consulting to ana-
lyze the city’s fees, coming back with,“a comprehensive study of user fees, and these are fees that are used to cover the cost of Winters’ staff providing services to either applicants or the community.” “According to previous council action and authorization,” Trepa explained. “Most of these fees we recommend are updated annually, and that would be updated using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all consumers from December to December, year over year. So the year-overyear change for CPI was 6.5 percent, and that 6.5 percent has been applied to the majority of fees from Schedules A, B, D, E,
and F.” Regarding Schedule C, Trepa said that fee was updated “using the annual Engineering News Record Construction Cost Index for the San Francisco area…and those are tied to the construction industry, and that adjustment for December to December was 5.3 percent.” Trepa also noted that swim fees are adjusted by SASO, and are not subject to any changes by the city. “Probably the biggest change that we’re recommending this evening,” Trepa continued, “is to convert the Planning fees from a fixed fee to
See FEES, Page 3
school principal, staff promotions By Crystal Apilado Editor-in-Chief The Board of Trustees approved a new principal for Winters Middle School at its May 4 meeting. Lisa Dennis, human resources director, broke down details of the search at the Winters Joint Unified School Board meeting, noting that of the eight applications received, two candidates were selected to interview in front of a panel of WMS teachers, parents, and Winters JUSD classified staff and leadership as well as with the Winters JUSD Cabinet Team. Of the two finalists, Jose Bermudez was selected. Bermudez is a Winters High School graduate from the Class of 2001. He has 17 years of experience in education, with eight of them in school administration. “Mr. Bermudez is
Crystal Apilado/Winters Express
Jose Bermudez will serve as the new Winters Middle School principal for the upcoming school year. a student-centered leader who prides himself on building relationships with staff, students, parents and the community. An engaged Winters resident, Mr. Bermudez understands the Winters community and is committed to ensuring that every student is afforded the opportunity to succeed,” Dennis said. “The Winters Middle School team wanted someone who was
supportive of teachers and students, collaborative, and invested in the community. We are confident that Mr. Bermudez will be a great fit at Winters Middle School and a tremendous asset to Winters JUSD.” Superintendent Rody Boonchouy said they “were thoroughly impressed with the leadership and the background” as well
See HIRES, Page 3
City Council sets priorities, seeks to keep key employee By Jacob Hoffman Express staff writer Courtesy photo
Luca Navarrete, Jesus Cruz, Kiana Miller, Madeline Archibeque, Julian Garcia, Ben Nelson (back) Miles Mariani and Jack Tuel represented Winters Robotics Club Team 39599A in the VEX Robotics World Championships in Dallas in April.
Robotics team finishes top 3 percent worldwide By Aaron Geerts Express staff writer
EXPRESS
Team 39599A of the Winters Robotics Club recently returned from their trip to the 2023 VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas, Texas. Although they didn’t win, this smalltown team proved they’re more than
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worthy of battling it out with the best of the best on a global stage. The team’s championship week began when it touched down in Dallas on Monday, April 24. Regardless of the butterflies in their stomachs, the team woke up bright and early the following day and stepped into the lion’s den of competition. “We checked in Monday and our nerves definitely started up then. Tuesday was our
skills challenge day and our robot would run autonomously, but we also had some troubles then which definitely rattled us a little. It was just a warm-up round for the real competition the next day,” said Kiana Miller, team member and Winters High School senior. “Wednesday was our first round of competition and qualifying matches. We won four matches and lost three that day. Then we came back
See WORLDS, Page 3
Index Features ........................ B-1 Classifieds ................... B-4 Community .................. A-2
Date
Rain
High
Low
May 03
.10”
65˚
46˚
May 04
.00
66˚
46˚
68˚
47˚
May 06
.29”
67˚
50˚
Eventos hispanos ....... A-2
May 07
.06”
66˚
43˚
May 08 TRACE
71˚
46˚
Opinion ......................... B-3
May 09 TRACE
72˚
47˚
Real Estate ................... B-2
Rain for week: 0.45 in. Season’s total: 37.62 in. Last sn. to date: 18.29 in.
Sports ........................... A-2
Winters rainfall season began 7/1/22. Weather readings are taken at 9 a.m. daily by local weatherman Joe Bristow.
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By Jacob Hoffman Express staff writer Steady Eddy’s Coffee House will be providing Winters with a taste of Hawaii in the form of the newly stocked Kona coffee bean, which will be launched on May 13. Owner Carla Wroten spoke to the Winters Express to tell us about Kona coffee, why Steady Eddy’s has decided to sell it, and what customers can
See GOALS, Page 3
expect. Wroten explained that Steady Eddy’s will be getting its Kona coffee from Greg and Susy Stille of Monarch Coffee, which she said “is located on the cool slopes of Hualalai, in the Kona District of the Big Island of Hawaii” the “famous, 20mile stretch of land is the only place in the United States where authentic, gourmet 100 percent Kona coffee is grown and culti-
vated.” Wroten says that getting to this decision to sell Kona coffee “all started by chance” when her husband Jamell (Mel) met the Stille’s son Josh outside Ficelle three years ago, as the Stille family are Yolo County natives. “Mel told me later that it was definitely a surprise to hear a young kid know so
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city of Winters website at https://tinyurl. com/3md97esc. Mayor Bill Biasi summarized the work the council had done in arranging this project list, saying “we went through all these items (Trepa) mentioned tonight and the council voted on ranking them either priority 1, priority 2 or priority 3, and that’s where that priority ranking came from, so we’re going to focus on all the priority 1s as much as we can first.” Trepa noted that if grant funding presents itself for a priority 2 or 3 the city may take it, but otherwise “we will be focusing in order of priority.” Biasi noted that the list is “ambitious” and the city likely won’t
Coffee partnership brings Hawaii to town
We at he r
May 05 TRACE
The Winters City Council took two strides towards ensuring city projects get closer to completion by approving the city’s list of priorities as well as making a request for a key employee to continue working with the city at its May 2 meeting. City Manager Kathleen Trepa recapped that council members previously met in March to discuss and identify goals and priorities, which were then compiled by city staff into the list presented to the council for their approval. “During that goal setting,” Trepa explained, “staff presented information from the major functional areas, police,
fire, community development and public works. The council reviewed the six focus areas that had been previously adopted earlier in 2021” with the focus areas being “fiscal stability, community development and placemaking, community engagement and transparency, economic development, organizational excellence, and environmental sustainability.” Trepa presented to the council all the active projects on the city’s docket related to these focus areas and based on their priority to the council members, the full list of which can be found on the city council May 2 meeting agenda packet (beginning on page 54) which can be accessed on the
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