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Salmon Festival details News, Page 2
Museum presents new scenes of Winters past Features, Page 1
Volume 140, Number 39 — Locally-owned since 1884
Winters, Yolo County, California, Wednesday, October 25, 2023
The hometown paper of Georgiana Jackson
Superintendent unveils graduate profile, Girl Scouts address bullying at schools By Amelia Biscardi Express staff writer
Crystal Apilado/Winters Express
Firefighters work to connect a hose from a fire hydrant outside of the Winters Joint Unified School District office building. The fire was isolated to the warehouse area.
Cause of school district office fire under investigation By Crystal Apilado Editor-in-Chief
EXPRESS
Firefighters worked quickly to isolate a fire that started in the warehouse of the Winters Joint Unified School District office building on Monday morning. On Monday, Oct. 23, at 8:40 a.m., a Winters Fire crew on Engine 26 responded to a report of a building fire at the Winters JUSD office building at 909 W. Grant Ave. Fire Chief Jack S. Snyder III said that while en route, the dispatch gathered more information and upgraded the incident to a firstalarm structure fire. Upon arrival, the fire crew elevated it to a two-alarm commercial fire status and requested assistance from nearby agencies. “The fire created high heat conditions and very limited visibility inside the warehouse portion of the structure,” Snyder said. “The extent of the fire growth upon arrival of the first units drove the need for additional manpower and units
Courtesy photo
Fire Chief Jack S. Snyder III gives Superintendent Rody Boonchouy an update on the status of the fire. such as the ladder truck from Dixon to be needed at the scene.” According to Snyder, there were 38 firefighters on the scene and an additional engine arrived to provide fire station coverage for the city of Winters during the incident. The fire was officially declared out at 11 a.m. Agencies that responded for assisting and station coverage included West Plainfield Fire, Yocha Dehe Fire, city of Vacaville Fire, UC Davis Fire, Dixon Fire, CalFire, an American Medical Response crew, and the Yolo Fire and Vacaville Fire Protection Districts. “The response from all the responders aided in keeping the damage to just the warehouse. A big thank you to all of our mutual aid partners for assisting us,” Sny-
der said. School district staff alerted the fire early which helped reduce the spread, according to Snyder. The fire was contained to the warehouse area of the building and the office area was impacted with smoke and water damage. Snyder said there were no injuries to Winters JUSD staff in the building or firefighters. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
School district operations
See FIRE, Page3
Features ........................ B-1
We at he r Date
Rain
High
Oct. 18
.00
85˚
51˚
Oct. 19
.00
86˚
52˚
Oct. 20
.00
89˚
54˚
Oct. 21
.00
88˚
59˚
Eventos hispanos ....... A-2
Oct. 22
.00
77˚
56˚
Oct. 23
.70”
68˚
52˚
Opinion ......................... B-3
Oct. 24
.01”
79˚
51˚
Real Estate ................... B-2
Rain for week: 0.71 in. Season’s total: 0.79 in. Last sn. to date: 0.99 in.
Classifieds ................... B-4 Community .................. A-2
Sports ........................... B-5
Low
Winters rainfall season began 7/1/23. Weather readings are taken at 9 a.m. daily by local weatherman Joe Bristow.
Courtesy photo
Isabella Banuelos and Sophia Bermudez, middle school students and Girl Scout Troop members, ask Trustees to take a stance on bullying during the public input session. and school district as a whole have a huge undertaking, but one that they are ready to take on. “I’m really excited that creativity is on there,” Davis said. “It’s really hard to tell which one is more important than the other. But the last slide, our steps forward, that’s where the work is.” As Winters JUSD looks to adopt this, the plan is to use it to shape how they provide programs and
curriculums. One of those being a course on ethnic studies, which will likely be at the high school level and according to Boonchouy could be offered as soon as next year.
Anti-bullying
Winters Girl Scout Troop 1125 cadette members came to the board meeting and utilized the public comments time
See STUDENTS, Page 3
City, County discuss road project, local unhoused population By Crystal Apilado Editor-in-Chief
Superintendent Rody Boonchouy said the fire compromised some of the school district’s files and records stored in the building. “Staff are beginning the process of identifying what documents were
Index
After six months of work, Superintendent Rody Boonchouy unveiled to the public the graduate profile on Oct. 19, at the Winter Joint Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting. The eight skills decided on to guide the school district in the coming years are Critical thinking, Creativity, Cultural awareness, Collaboration, Communication, Community engagement, Content knowledge and Resilience. The graduate profile will be available to be adopted by the board of trustees at the next board meeting on Thursday, Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. Boonchouy provided insights as to why they surveyed 935 participants, 630 of those being students, to come up with this information. “We know that the world is rapidly changing, with advances to technology, communication, an inner connected society economy,” Boonchouy said. “We know that many of our students will enter jobs that don’t yet exist.” Trustee Sterling Davis especially noted that the trustees
Local leadership convened to discuss a number of agenda items at the Yolo County/city of Winters 2x2 meeting on Oct. 18.
Road projects Mayor Bill Biasi requested an update on the County Road 31 repair project. Supervisor Lucas Frerichs said the updates thus far is temporary fixes and more in-depth work will come as soon as the county can identify funding for the about $10 million price point. Vin Cay, Yolo County public works director, confirmed that “a more permanent fix” is being planned and staff is working to develop ways to “rescope the project” to make it more competitive. According to Cay, combining county road projects between the cities of Davis and Winters could help.
“That whole area is not ideal for anyone — vehicular or bicycle traffic. We think that a roundabout or oblong-shaped roundabout would be very beneficial to all of the users there. And building a connection going northward on (County Road) 95A to tie into Road 31 will make it more competitive,” Cay said. Frerichs said the striping on CR 31 is next on the list of work to be done. However, according to Cay the CR 31 striping is not a priority for contractors due to a high volume of regional construction projects. “Unfortunately, we are too small in terms of priorities to the striping subcontractors. There’s so much construction going on in the region — interstate rehab — we’ve been trying to utilize other resources to line up contractors to do work throughout the county,” Cay said.
Additionally, contractors are still feeling the impacts of staff shortages and supply delays. Cay said the situation is similar to “the supply chain issues that crept up through the pandemic” and that the contracting crews do not have the staff causing projects to be delayed a month or two. Winters City Councilwoman Jesse Loren encouraged county staff to reach out to the city for letters or support to bring importance to the projects since residents rely on the county road to get to work, access services and to go shopping for necessities they’re unable to get locally. “Winters is in isolation without those roads,” Loren said.
Unhoused population
Frerichs reported that officials from Yolo and Solano
See CITY, Page 3
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Contact David DeLeon at David@WintersExpress.com