Tunes on the range: The driving range of the dearly departed El Dorado Hills (Executive) Golf Course turned into a rocking benefit concert site on Saturday.
The show featured Garratt Wilkin and the Parrotheads, an acclaimed Jimmy Buffett tribute band. It was a benefit for the Marble Valley Regional Center for the Arts, a longtime sponsor of the EDH Community Services District summer concert series.
I don't know if Jimmy is a golfer. Last time I saw him in concert, back when the Earth was cooling, he was hopping around the Greek Theatre stage in Berkeley with one leg in a cast from a softball injury.
But I digress. In this golfer's mind, the concert raised the obvious question: Is anything happening on the former golf course front?
The answer, according to Wayne Lowery, general manager of the CSD, is "not much."
"I get that question all the time," Wayne said.
The much-beloved, if ultimately unprofitable, course was closed about 18 months ago by Parker Development Co. after a long, slow death march.
The county Board of Supervisors has shown no inclination to approve any non-recreational development of Bill Parker's 97 acres of land at the gateway to the north side of El Dorado Hills.
A variety of options – including residential development combined with a smaller golf operation, such as a nine-hole course or a training facility – have been discussed since long before the course closed.
Great place for a concert, though. …
Celebrating bikes: It's a ways off yet, but Folsom is planning Northern California's "most fun, family friendly weekend ever of bicycle riding and racing" on Sept. 12-14.
That's according to city spokeswoman Sue Ryan and Robert Goss, Folsom's parks and recreation director.
Cyclebration, or the Folsom Lake Bike Festival, will include serious biking events such as a Lake Natoma mountain bike time trial and a Two Bridges Circuit Race between the Lake Natoma Crossing and Rainbow bridges.
It also will include less serious, family-style events, such as a cruiser (fat tires, big seats) ride, a treasure hunt around Lake Natoma and the Historic District and a lakefront festival at Negro Bar with music, food, games and kayak rentals.
Stay tuned. …
Land grab? Nope: Back up the hill, it looked – briefly – like the El Dorado Hills CSD had annexed a major chunk of foothills between EDH and Cameron Park. At least that's how it was described by my occasional, and occasionally reliable, El Dorado correspondent Jack Sirard.
Turns out they merely moved the El Dorado Hills sign about a half-mile to the east.
CSD honcho Wayne didn't even know who moved it – Caltrans or the county Department of Transportation.
"The sign used to be right at Bass Lake Road," he said, "but the boundary between us and the Cameron Park CSD is a half-mile east of Bass Lake Road. The sign always had been in the wrong place."
The new sign, in addition to being closer to the real boundary, also has an updated population figure for EDH: 36,265, up from about 25,000. Given the state of the home business, I suspect the sign won't have to be updated again for a while.
Call The Bee's Bob Walter, (916) 608-7448. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walter.
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