BILL ANALYSIS �
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
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As Amended August 19, 2014
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |78-0 |(August 4, |SENATE: |36-0 |(August 27, |
| | |2014) | | |2014) |
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Original Committee Reference: TRANS.
SUMMARY : Designates portions of two state highways in honor of
two deputy sheriffs who were killed in the line of duty.
Specifically, this resolution :
1)Designates a portion of State Highway Route 116 in Sonoma
County as the Deputy Sheriff Merrit W. Deeds Memorial Highway.
2)Designates a portion of State Highway Route 1 in Mendocino
County as the Deputy Sheriff Ricky Del Fiorentino Memorial
Highway.
3)Requests that the Department of Transportation (Caltrans)
determine the cost of appropriate signs showing these special
designations and, upon receiving donations from nonstate
sources covering that cost, to erect those signs.
The Senate amendments improve the descriptions of the two
highway segments being designated.
EXISTING LAW : Assigns Caltrans the responsibility of operating
and maintaining state highways, including the installation and
maintenance of highway signs.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
COMMENTS : This bill designates the five-mile portion of State
Highway Route 116 immediately south of the junction of Highway 1
in Sonoma County as the Deputy Sheriff Merrit W. Deeds Memorial
Highway. Deputy Sheriff Deeds was a graduate of Healdsburg High
School and Sacramento State University who served in Vietnam in
the 81st Airborne Infantry Division. He graduated from the
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Alaska State Trooper Academy and worked as an Alaska State
Trooper before returning to his native Sonoma County, where he
was hired by the sheriff's office as a summer deputy.
Only hours after learning he was to become a permanent full-time
deputy sheriff for Sonoma County, Deputy Sheriff Deeds was shot
and killed while patrolling State Highway Route 116 near Jenner.
He had stopped to talk with three men who were parked on the
side of the road when the driver of the vehicle fired two shots
at him, the second of which was fatal. Reserve Deputy Rex
Nance, who was off duty, stopped to assist and Deputy Sheriff
Deeds was able to warn him that the driver had a gun, possibly
saving Reserve Deputy Nance's life. Deeds was survived by his
wife and two small daughters.
This bill additionally designated the portion of Highway One in
Mendocino County between milepost markers 62.0 and 65.0 adjacent
to MacKerricher State Park as the Deputy Ricky Del Fiorentino
Memorial Highway. Del Fiorentino was a native of Napa who
attended the University of Oklahoma and the Napa Valley College
Policy Academy. He started his law enforcement career with the
Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, serving from 1988 to 1990,
and then worked for the Fort Bragg Police Department from 1990
to 2000. He returned to the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office
in 2000.
On March 19, 2014, Deputy Sheriff Del Fiorentino responded to a
shooting in Cleone, a small community a few miles north of Fort
Bragg. He spotted the suspect vehicle stopped in the roadway in
a residential area and was immediately ambushed by the suspect,
who fired numerous rifle rounds into Del Fiorentino's patrol
vehicle, killing him. Seconds later the suspect fired on a Fort
Bragg Police Lieutenant, who then killed the suspect. Del
Fiorentino was survived by his wife, five children, and three
grandchildren.
Analysis Prepared by : Anya Lawler / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093
FN: 0005129
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