State and local officials gathered in Auburn on Tuesday morning to celebrate the signing of the new Managing Partner Agreement for the Folsom and Auburn State Recreation Areas.
The agreement is between the federal Bureau of Reclamation and the State Parks Department for the next 25 years.
It means that state parks will continue to manage the Folsom and Auburn State Recreation Areas. These areas consist of Folsom Lake, Lake Natoma and the Auburn Project Lands, including Lake Clementine.
The area covered represents 50,000 acres of land and waterways.
An arrest has been made in the killing of a woman whose burned body was found Tuesday in Discovery Park.
Sacramento police said today they have arrested Robert Thompson, 36, on suspicion of homicide in the killing of the still-unidentified female.
It will take several days to make a positive identification of the severely burned body that was found by a passing bicyclist. Police say the body was burned beyond recognition.
Race and age are not known, police said. While the cause of death has yet to be determined, the woman suffered upper body trauma, according to a press release from the police department.
Police said that since the woman has not been identified, they cannot yet release the relationship between the victim and Thompson.
Camp Pollock, the historic Sacramento campground where generations of Northern California boys have practiced their Scouting skills, is soon to be on the sales block, officials have confirmed.
One potential buyer? SafeGround, the nonprofit group that is seeking to establish a place in Sacramento where homeless people can live in small cottages with basic services.
“The executive board has made a decision to sell the camp,” said Paul Helman, president of the Golden Empire Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
He said the council, which oversees the activities of 20,000 Scouts from Vacaville to Redding, has outgrown the Sacramento property, which stretches over 10 acres off Northgate Boulevard along the American River. Members, he said, are concerned about encroaching development and traffic.
A dead body was found at Discovery Park early Tuesday morning.
Police said a cyclist was riding through the park when they noticed burning leaves. The cyclist called the fire department who came out and extinguished the fire. After putting out the flames, firefighters discovered the burned body of what they believed to be a female.
Sacramento Metro fire crews had to use their skills and training to rescue a helpless deer trapped Tuesday in the frigid waters of a canal near the American River.
Just before noon, the deer somehow became trapped in the drainage canal in the area of White Rock and International Drive. The powerful current forced the deer north down the canal.
When fire crews arrived at the scene, they found the deer unsuccessfully making an effort to get out of the canal. The deer — believed to be a couple of years old — kept sliding back into the water because of the slippery slopes of the canal.It was unknown how long the deer was trapped in the canal before fire crews arrived at the scene.
Firefighters decided to make a rescue attempt and got a raft into the canal. A crew in the raft was able to lasso the animal and pull it ashore.
The Placer County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Office has identified the man found in the American River Tuesday morning as Peter Matthew Wynters, 30, from Newport Oregon.
An autopsy revealed that Wynters died from injuries consistent with jumping from the Foresthill Bridge. His body was found by a hiker in the water at 11 a.m. Tuesday morning, directly under the span. The man’s body was recovered with the assistance of the sheriff’s dive team and helicopter.
A man whose body was found in the American River below Foresthill Bridge near Auburn remained unidentified Thursday.
The Placer County coroner said the man’s body was spotted by a hiker late Tuesday morning floating in the North Fork of the American River. The location was just below the 730-foot-high bridge.
Lt. Mark Reed said Thursday that despite a call out to the public for help in identifying the body, no information had been received to match a name to the corpse.
An autopsy was being performed to determine the cause of death, Reed added.
The man is described as a white male, in his late 20s to early 40s. He is 5-feet, 5-inches tall and weighs 169 pounds. He has brown hair with a receding hairline, hazel eyes and a full beard.
Despite budget cuts and reductions in the number of park rangers, crime along the American River Parkway dropped dramatically last year, new figures from Sacramento County indicate.
Car break-ins, violent crime and misdemeanors all dropped in 2011 compared to the previous year, according to a ranger report released this week.
The only segment that saw an appreciable increase in activity was in the number of citations issued for illegal camping, an outgrowth of efforts by officials to stem the influx of homeless camping along the lower end of the parkway near Discovery Park.
Some attribute the decrease to the overall drop in the crime rate, a phenomenon that has been seen in jurisdictions nationwide.
The Placer County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Office is seeking the public’s help in identifying a man whose body was found in the American River Tuesday morning directly underneath the Foresthill Bridge.
A hiker called the sheriff’s office Tuesday at around 11 a.m. to report that she saw a body floating in the water. The man’s body was recovered with the assistance of the sheriff’s dive team and helicopter.
Sacramento County sheriff’s detectives have arrested a 47-year-old man they suspect in Monday’s shooting death of a Rancho Cordova parks district supervisor, according to authorities.
The suspect, whose name has not been released, was arrested this morning on suspicion of murder and is being questioned by homicide detectives, said sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Jason Ramos.
Ramos said he will release the suspect’s name after he is booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail. However, Ramos did confirm that the suspect is a former employee of the parks district.
The man is suspected of fatally shooting 59-year-old Steve Ebert, superintendent of the Cordova Recreation & Parks District, as he arrived for work at the district offices in Hagan Community Park early Monday.
