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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2024
VOLUME 173 • ISSUE 12 | $1.00
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Lawsuit claims AIDS death caused by mistreatment in jail Odin Rasco Staff writer
El Dorado County is the target of another lawsuit alleging an El Dorado County Jail inmate died as a direct result of improper medical care while in custody. Lifelong El Dorado County resident Nicholas Overfield developed AIDS and died at the age of 38 shortly after a twomonth stay in the county jail. Nicholas had been arrested in February 2022 for failure to appear in court; his condition rapidly deteriorated while in custody, leading to his transfer to medical facilities in the Bay Area and later South Lake Tahoe before his death on June 21, 2022. A civil rights lawsuit filed in federal court Jan. 12, 2024, by Oakland-based law firm
Courtesy photo
Nicholas Overfield is pictured with his mother Lesley, who is suing El Dorado County and Wellpath Community Care for the death of her son. Nicholas was allegedly not given HIV medication for two months while in custody. Pointer and Buelna LLP alleges Nicholas’s death was the result of substandard treatment provided by the company contracted to provide medical services in the jail, Wellpath
Community Care. “Nick’s case is a harrowing example of Wellpath’s failure to provide basic human rights and medical care to detainees,” Patrick Buelna, civil rights
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attorney with Pointer & Buelna states in a press release. “His unnecessary suffering and death highlight a disturbing pattern by Wellpath, the largest provider of jail medical services in the nation, of disregard for the health and well-being of those in the custody of our justice system. This lawsuit aims not only to seek justice for Nick and his family but to ensure that such inhumane treatment is never repeated in California or anywhere else.” Nicholas had been diagnosed as HIV positive years prior to his stay in jail and had been prescribed an antiretroviral medication to keep his condition from deteriorating. When he was arrested by South Lake Tahoe police, his medication was one of the first things on his
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Reorganization aims to relieve Planning and Building Eric Jaramishian Staff writer
The latest conversation in improving El Dorado County’s Planning and Building Department and its processes resulted in both approved and conceptual organization changes. In a single stroke during the Jan. 23 Board of Supervisors meeting, county leaders unanimously approved reassigning both the Airports and Cemeteries divisions from Planning and Building to the Chief Administrative Office, and directed county staff to look into improving Planning and Building’s Tahoe office. Additionally, supervisors authorized the board chair to sign a resolution that instructs county staff to look into improvements in Planning and Building’s development review process. These changes and directive are the latest in the county’s efforts to improve Planning and Building operations, which became a topic of investigation in the county’s 2022-23 Grand Jury report.
■ See OVERFIELD, page A9
Chilean woman spends a night trapped in Heavenly Gondola Ashleigh Goodwin Tahoe Daily Tribune
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Monica Laso spent the night in a gondola dangling above the mountain face of Heavenly Mountain Resort all alone, with no phone and no way to get a hold of anyone on the ground. Five friends from different countries traveled to South Lake Tahoe to ski and enjoy Heavenly. They all
went up the hill in the morning and only four came back down the evening of Thursday, Jan. 25, leaving one unaccounted and the rest of them scrambling for answers. “She was a little bit slow and she was exhausted at one point and couldn’t continue,” Momo Shternhel, a friend of Laso told the Tahoe Daily Tribune. “Her boyfriend contacted ski patrol and they took her down on a red bed to the gondola, but they lost her boyfriend so he kept going down to the California base lodge.” Reportedly the woman from Chile waited for a few minutes for her boyfriend and when she didn’t see him she got on the gondola. As she began her descent, the gondola came to a halt, keeping her suspended in the air. Laso could see workers but failed to get their attention despite pounding on the windows and screaming.
Moving Airports and Cemeteries
telling them she was at the gondola between 3:50-4:10 p.m.” While officials searched camera feeds, the four friends continued to search for
The Chief Administrative Office oversaw the Airports and Cemeteries divisions before they were reassigned to Planning and Building in 2020. Now that Airports and Cemeteries will fall back to the CAO’s responsibility, supervisors questioned how they will be better managed this time around. “Having it in the CAO’s Office never really set a true course for those two areas, so what is going to be different this time?” District 1 Supervisor John Hidahl asked. Chief Administrative Officer Tiffany Schmid commented that the CAO’s Office would address policy issues in both areas. Schmid noted previous deputy chief administrative officer Creighton Avila was in charge of both programs. Avila was reassigned to the Planning and Building Department in 2020 and his duties followed. He left almost as soon as his transfer occurred, Schmid said. “I think the intent was good but it just didn’t materialize the way it was intended,” Schmid said. The county currently oversees 17 cemeteries, all funded through the county’s General Fund. The county has two airports that are supposed to be enterprise-funded services, meaning they are supposed to be self-funded, which Schmid said has not been the case. Deputy CAO Jennifer Franich will take on the duties of overseeing both departments. She said staff would return to the board with a staffing plan and a setup for Cemeteries and Airports when the county’s recommended 2024-25 budget comes into discussion later this year. On the topic of the county’s cemeteries, Franich said while the Facilities Division of the CAO provides some maintenance for cemeteries, the division has “continually constrained resources,” and recommended maximizing its internal resources as much as possible. The supes all seemed to be in agreement that a change was needed.
■ See GONDOLA, page A8
■ See REORGANIZATION, page A8
Courtesy photo
A snowboarder spent the night in a gondola at Heavenly Mountain Resort in South Lake Tahoe. Time passed, the sunlight faded and a full moon became her only companion. “We were going crazy,” Laso’s friend said. “No one knew anything between the police and security. (We) kept
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