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September 27, 2001
Bills
move to governor's desk
Assemblymember Virginia Strom-Martin
had a rough time of it the last week of the legislative session,
Sept. 10-14.
"We worked until midnight
on Monday, Tuesday was the tragedy, Wednesday and Thursday we
were there past midnight. Then on Friday we didn't get finished
until 3 in the morning. By the end of the week we'd had it,"
she said.
Caught in the annual last-minute
rush to pass bills before the session closed, Strom-Martin, along
with Sen. Wesley Chesbro, were denied the luxury of time for
contemplation or quiet grief after the terrorists' attacks on
the nation. Some battles were set aside to be addressed in next
session. Both Strom-Martin and Chesbro are interested, for example,
in putting a bond measure on the November 2002 ballot that would
provide $11.4 million for school facilities. But both of the
North Coast's state legislators saw a number of their own bills
advance to the governor's desk.
To comment on any of the following
bills, write directly to Gov. Gray Davis, State Capitol, Sacramento,
CA 95814. You can also send e-mail to governor@governor.ca.gov.
Assemblymember Virginia Strom-Martin:
AB671 -- Timber exemption regulations.
Current law allows landowners to convert up to three acres of
timberland to other uses without a timber harvest plan. That
legal provision, often called the three-acre loophole, has been
used by logging operators to skirt timber harvesting regulations.
This bill would limit such conversions to one per six years.
AB140 -- Rural telephone grants.
AB140 uses money from the Public Utilities High Cost Fund to
provide grants to communities that still need service, including
several in Humboldt County. This bill was vetoed last year.
AB26XX -- Energy efficiency
loans. Originally a separate bill, Strom-Martin folded this legislation
into a larger bill at the last minute to ensure its passage.
It extends a program that provides loans to businesses retrofitting
for energy efficiency.
AB466 -- Training for teachers.
As academic standards are introduced in California schools, it
becomes increasingly important that teachers know what those
standards are and how to teach them. This bill provides $80 million
for teacher training in standards-based math and language arts.
AB295 -- Broadening the API.
The Academic Performance Index is used to make decisions about
how well a school is performing and can affect how much funding
it gets. Right now, it's based on the STAR tests alone. Strom-Martin
proposes bringing other measures into the index. "It's a
very important bill, but I am not very hopeful the governor will
sign it," she said.
Sen. Wesley Chesbro:
SB311 -- College fees for children
of heroes. This bill extends for two years a waiver on college
fees for children of state employees killed in the line of duty.
"I'm hoping that I can make the waiver permanent next year,"
Chesbro said.
SB908 -- Completing the Coastal
Trail. The California Coastal Trail was identified as a part
of the state's plan for the coast in 1975, but it has yet to
be completed. Passage of this bill would direct the California
Coastal Conservancy to write a plan for the completion of the
1,200-mile long trail.
AB1673 -- Delays the Marine
Life Protection Act. The act includes a provision to set aside
areas as marine preserves. That has North Coast fishermen up
in arms, as the preserves happen to be their most productive
fishing grounds. Chesbro amended this bill to extend the public
comment period for another year.
SB573 -- Dentists for rural
areas. Many rural areas are suffering a shortage of quality dental
care. This bill would ease the red tape for out-of-state dentists
wishing to relocate to underserved areas in California.
AB1602 -- $2.6 billion park
bond authored by Chesbro will be on the March ballot. This bond
is particularly good for rural areas like Humboldt County because
the funds are not allocated on a strictly per-capita basis. "Under
that system, towns like Trinidad get a tiny amount of funds,"
Chesbro said. This bond measure has a much higher level of minimum
funding. Each county will get at least $1.2 million, and each
city at least $250,000.
Gatherings
in wake of crisis
The Redwood Peace Coalition
and some religious and environmental groups have scheduled open
meetings to formulate a response to the terrorism of Sept. 11
and to discuss a response to possible U.S. retaliation.
There is an open forum Tuesday,
Sept. 25, at 321 Coffee in Eureka and Wednesday, Sept. 26, at
the Bayside Grange in Bayside.
"We have the Quakers, the
Unitarians, Earth First, Veterans for Peace, the Interfaith Council
and the H.O.P.E. Coalition," said the Bayside event organizer
Kathleen Lowder.
What group is she representing?
"I'm a mom with a kid,"
she said. "There are about 15 moms like me. I guess we could
call ourselves moms for peace," she said.
Saturday, Sept. 29, the Garberville
Veterans for Peace are taking a bus to a peace demonstration
in San Francisco. The bus will leave the VFW Hall in Garberville
at 6 a.m. Call 722-4669 for information.
Business
lobbyist for Eureka?
When decisions on highway spending,
port development or land use are made in Sacramento, they can
have a profound effect on Humboldt County. Some in the business
community feel they need to find a way to more closely monitor
that decision-making process.
"We're soliciting and evaluating
proposals from various lobbyists now," said J Warren Hockaday,
executive director of the Eureka Chamber of Commerce.
The idea came up when the Eureka
Chamber started asking other area chambers to help create a legislative
agenda to present to representatives in state government.
"In those meetings we talked
about where we could go to achieve our goals. One of the things
that came out was: `Should we have a professional advocate in
Sacramento?'"
The answer, said Hockaday, was
that an interest and need existed for local businesses to be
better represented than they are now.
But the hiring of a lobbyist
to press the North Coast's agenda in Sacramento is still just
a proposal. Hockaday said the Eureka Chamber is exploring how
much one would cost and he said it was clear Eureka would need
the help of other chambers.
"We're attempting to bring
other chambers together in a more collective sense," he
said, not only in assessing interest in hiring a lobbyist but
"creating a more regional perspective" that also includes
Del Norte.
"The more we can speak
with a regional voice, the stronger we will be," Hockaday
said.
Rail operations
terminated
A financial dispute between
the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Co. and the government agency
that oversees the rail line has temporarily stopped what little
traffic there was on the North Coast's railroad line.
Northwestern Pacific, the company
employed by the North Coast Railroad Authority, ceased operations
as of Sept. 14. The company claims the NCRA owes it approximately
$320,000 for extraordinary maintenance costs.
The railroad authority, a state
agency formed in 1990 to oversee the line, rebutted that it could
not verify that those costs are legitimate. The authority's board
voted Sept. 19 to hold Northwestern Pacific in default and terminate
the contract.
The authority is looking for
a new operator and is seeking arbitration on the disputed debts.
It isn't the first time Northwestern
Pacific's owner, John Darling, has had problems with the track.
He also owns Rail-Ways Inc., which had been contracted to operate
the railroad in 1998. That contract became moot when storms made
the track impassable that winter. Rail-Ways Inc. has since filed
for bankruptcy.
The dispute is a further setback
for the troubled rail line, which has been closed frequently
since it was purchased by the NCRA in 1991. The southernmost
portion of the track, from Schellville to Petaluma, was reopened
in February. There had been hopes the track would be reopened
to Willits by the end of the year.
It will not, however, affect
the $60 million included in last year's state budget for repairs
on the railroad. The bulk of that money has yet to be disbursed.
The eventual goal is to reopen
the line along its entire 286-mile length, from Schellville,
near Sonoma, to Eureka.
Animal cruelty
in Eureka
A Eureka man charged with poisoning
five cats is facing a sharply reduced jail sentence following
a hearing last week.
Dan Evans, a resident of the
2500 block of Summer Street, is alleged to have fed cats tuna
that had been laced with antifreeze. He was charged with five
felony counts of animal cruelty by the Humboldt County District
Attorney's office, but those counts were reduced to misdemeanors
by Judge J. Michael Brown at a Sept. 21 preliminary hearing.
"This is a penal code section
that can be charged either as a felony or a misdemeanor,"
said Deputy District Attorney Allison Jackson. "The defense
made the motion to have it reduced to a misdemeanor. We vigorously
objected."
It isn't the first case of animal
cruelty in Eureka this year. Dale Morton was sentenced to 10
years and two months in prison after he was discovered killing
and mutilating animals in January.
"It's very troubling to
our office when people hurt and abuse animals like this,"
Jackson said. "If you find someone who is hurting animals
like this, they often have the capacity to do the same to humans."
New bank
president named
Paul Ziegler, a Fortuna native
and 20-year veteran of the banking industry, has been appointed
to the presidency of Humboldt Bank.
Ziegler had been serving as
executive vice president of Humboldt Bank's parent company, Humboldt
Bancorp. He graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin
Graduate School of Banking and has served as vice chairman of
the California Bankers' Association Region 1. He replaces John
Dalby, who will now concentrate on commercial lending.
Humboldt Bank, established in
1989, has more than $516 million in assets and is the biggest
subsidiary of Humboldt Bancorp. Other banks owned by Humboldt
Bancorp include Capitol Valley Thrift, Capitol Thrift and Loan,
and Tehama Bank.
Sterns pleads
not guilty
John Sterns, the former Humboldt
State University administrator accused of defrauding the institution
of more than $50,000, pleaded not guilty in Humboldt Superior
Court Sept. 20.
Sterns' alleged misdeeds, detailed
in a California State University audit, include doctoring expense
accounts, falsifying donation records and dismantling financial
security measures. (See "The
Case Against John Sterns and HSU," Aug. 16.)
The most serious accusations
involve manipulations of donation data. Estimates are that Sterns
booked more than $15 million in nonexistent donations to the
university.
The criminal charges against
Sterns include forgery, theft and falsifying records. A preliminary
hearing is scheduled for Nov. 15.
Fishery
closed early
The North Coast fishing industry
received another setback Sept. 14 when the Pacific Fishery Management
Council announced the early closure of two species of deepwater
fish and one rockfish.
Deepwater fish like Dover sole
are caught using trawl nets. Too many of them were caught early
this season, and in an effort to protect the fishery, the council
voted to close the season.
Groundfish harvests have fallen
by roughly half over the last 20 years. Regulatory solutions,
including a buyout for half of the fleet, have been discussed.
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