Balfour appointed county court commissioner post

Mountain Democrat staff

The El Dorado County Superior Court has appointed Hana Balfour as court commissioner. After an extensive search and vetting by the entire bench, Balfour was appointed by Presiding Judge Vicki Ashworth. Balfour will be based in Placerville but will serve in all the courts in El Dorado County, according to a news release from court officials. She will specialize in cases involving juvenile dependency and delinquency, guardianships, child support, domestic violence and civil harassment and Traffic, as well as overflow matters as assigned by the presiding judge.

Balfour was most recently employed as the managing attorney with the Parent Advocates of Sacramento, where she represented parents and children in all aspects of dependency proceedings for more than 20 years, states the news release. Balfour served on many committees contributing to court improvement, most significantly, participating in the establishment of the Sacramento Family Treatment Court and serving on its steering committee.

Sacramento’s Family Treatment Court is a model drug treatment court in the nation and Balfour was a speaker at multiple presentations for courts from around the country toward their efforts to establish a treatment court, continues the release.

Balfour has organized and presented numerous continuing legal education programs for dependency practitioners. She has also testified before the legislature regarding dependencyrelated legislation.

Court officials note that in addition to her court-appointed work, Balfour’s legal practice included probate guardianships, adoptions, family law and appellate work via appointment by the Central California Appellate Project. Prior to this employment, Balfour served in the Public Defender’s Office for Sacramento County.

Balfour received her juris doctorate from McGeorge School of Law and is a member of the Traynor Society having graduated with honors. She received her bachelor of arts in political science from the University of California, Davis, where she was also an All-American gymnast.

Snowpack Continued from A1 snow is absorbed into the snowpack rather than into the ground, which increases the snowpack. As of Jan. 19, the snowpack is at 195% of the average for this time of year, according to information from the CSSL.

The last big snow year was 2017, which saw an average of 54.7 inches of water collected in the basin’s snowpack; the record set in 1983 is 60.9 inches, according to Anderson.

“If we look at the average of (SNOTEL sites around the basin) there’s 32 inches of water content in the snowpack,” Anderson said. “The thing that’s really impressive to me is that we are about 8.5 inches of snowwater ahead of where we were on this date in 2017.”

Even though the skies are expected to stay clear for a few weeks, the cold temperatures mean the snow that has already fallen is expected to stick around. With the basin already more than halfway to breaking the 1983 snowfall record, storm patterns just have to continue as they have for this to be one of the snowiest years on record for Tahoe.

La Niña seasons are typically “bookend” seasons, according to Anderson, meaning that big storms come in at the beginning and end of the snow season. Anderson noted that snowpack levels may fall to below average for February, but he expects more large storms on the horizon. Even if this isn’t a record year, there’s still good news for Californians worrying about water in the state during the years-long drought.

“The other data point that’s pretty cool is that right now if it wasn’t to snow another flake or rain another drop for the rest of the winter, we’re already 111% of the median peak that happens in the spring, so we already have an above-normal winter,” Anderson said.

Tahoe Daily Tribune reporter Laney Griffo contributed to this report.