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July 21, 2005
SCOPAC AVOIDS BANKRUPTCY:
On Monday, the Maxxam Corp. informed
the Securities and Exchange Commission that one of its subsidiaries,
Scotia Pacific -- the legal entity that owns and manages most
of the company's local timber holdings -- would be able to meet
a $27.9 million payment to bondholders that came due this week.
Previously, the company had warned that it might not have enough
cash to make the payment and that bankruptcy could be imminent;
in the event, a $2.2 million loan from Pacific Lumber -- the
legal entity that manages milling and marketing of timber --
was enough to keep Scotia Pacific out of bankruptcy court. Still,
as Maxxam noted in its SEC filing, the company's long-term cash
flow problems are far from solved. Some of the company's opponents
stated that bankruptcy might not be an entirely negative outcome,
all in all. "The Maxxam-created debt crisis will eventually
trigger a shift in ownership that will reduce or eliminate [Maxxam
CEO and majority stockholder] Charles Hurwitz's control over
Scotia Pacific and Pacific Lumber," wrote Larry Evans, president
of the board of directors of the Environmental Protection Information
Center, in a letter to local newspapers Tuesday. "This presents
an important opportunity to influence a new management and create
an agenda for stability and balance of nature and economy."
Meanwhile, the company has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn
a recent ruling by the State Water Resources Control Board that
severely limited logging in the Freshwater and Elk River watersheds
on the grounds that harvesting would further damage those impaired
streams.
CHESBRO CHAT: Sen. Wes Chesbro (D-Arcata), chair of the California
Senate's Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, was back home this
week to take a breather and talk about what he's been doing in
Sacramento. He said the state passed a "responsible and
fair budget" last week, but complained that Gov. Schwarzenegger
"continues to engage in partisan and polarized politics."
Chesbro noted triumphs: protecting wages of in-home care workers,
repaying the vehicle license fee loan, fully funding transportation
projects including improvements on Highway 101 and maintaining
rural Sheriffs' funding. He said the state has whittled the deficit
down to $5 billion-$7 billion. "The single biggest frustration
in the budget is that we continue to underfund schools,"
he said. He had supported a proposal to engage more tax dollars
to bring per-pupil spending above the national average, he said,
but it was postponed in interest of not delaying the budget.
He hopes to see the education funding go to a vote this fall.
Another bitter disappointment, he said, was the governor's vetoing
of $150 million in projects, including $24 million for salmon
restoration, game warden and state park ranger positions and
a heritage trout program. "California has a long history
of funding these programs" from resource extraction revenues
(including oil), he said, "and this governor has departed
from that long-standing tradition."
ALGAE ICKY, DEADLY: These days it's hard to tell if algae is good for
your health or bad. Ask your natural food grocer more about the
specifics, but in the meantime stay away from the blue-green
variety that is floating in rivers, particularly the South Fork
of the Eel, and in Big Lagoon. In past summers, the killer algae
has bloomed in both locations. Keep in mind, however, that blue-green
algae comes in a variety of colors -- green, brown or red, according
to the County Department of Health -- and normally forms large
scummy mats on the water's surface, where flows are low and temperatures
are high. The toxins from decaying algae are potent enough to
kill dogs -- nine have died in area waters since 2001 -- and
can harm small children. People are advised to wash themselves
and their pets with clean water after swimming to avoid rashes
and sickness. The Department of Health also advises owners of
private water systems to check for algae near water intakes.
Filter water first to remove algae cells and then disinfect the
water without boiling, otherwise toxins will be released.
DIRT DILEMMA: DANCO Builders are close-mouthed about a recent
report in the July 5 Arcata Eye that said LACO & Associates
--their engineering consultants on a Bayside Road development
-- had severely underestimated the cost of removing contaminated
dirt from the site. The article said LACO made a "tenfold
error" when it recorded its estimate of the cleanup cost
as "$150,000," when the estimate was $1.5 million.
Last week, DANCO spokeswoman Lindsey Myers said she was "not
at liberty to talk about the project." She said the Eye
article was "inaccurate about the contaminated soil and
about the numbers. We don't know exactly what the error was at
this point." She said she'd have more information after
a July 26 meeting. The development includes plans for Humboldt
Educare, which has been plagued with problems in finding a building
site and is operating in temporary digs. If the estimate error
is as grave as reported, and the project is held up, it could
mean more delays for the school site. "It's been so long
since we started fundraising," said the school's head supervisory
teacher Christina Oneal. "It's been, `We're gonna build,
we're not gonna build.' It goes back and forth, and so it's kind
of hard, because I don't know what to tell the parents."
AW, THE HUMANITY: While it was temporarily moored at the McKinleyville
Airport due to wind and low clouds last week, the sponsors of
a nationally touring multicolored blimp took the poor flying
weather as an opportunity to blitz local media about the airship's
presence. But the first, and favorite call that came in to the
Journal was from a concerned citizen who alerted reporters
to the "big-ass dirigible" floating above Arcata. Turns
out the colorful, Haring-esque aircraft is owned by Ameriquest
Mortgage Co. and was painted by kids. It stopped at ACV en route
to Seattle during a nationwide tour as an "inspirational
symbol of achievement, encouraging kids everywhere to set their
goals high and accomplish their dreams." Sounds good to
us. According to Ameriquest, more than 5,000 children painted
40,000 sq. ft. of canvas that encases the blimp.
BIGBUCKS: And why not? Why shouldn't the premiere Bigfoot
researcher make some money from his efforts? "I've been
doing this for 33 years," rants Tom Biscardi on the phone,
adding he and his "24-7" team of investigators have
recorded more Bigfoot sightings than anyone. He's miffed at anyone
who raises her eyebrows at his charging journalists, along with
everyone else, $5,000 a head to go along on his planned Aug.
21 expedition into the Bigfoot Caverns near Happy Camp to roust
out a Bigfoot. His team has spent weeks setting up cameras and
other recording equipment at the site. "I'm tired of the
ridicule, and I'm tired of the baloney. What happens here is,
all these scholars, all these PhDs, they go on TV, and where
do you think they get their material? From me. And they're the
ones who get the lecture tours, who get to write their books,
and they're the ones getting paid, and then they refute my work.
Let me ask you this, do you work for free? Do you get a paycheck?
Well, I think it's about time I did, too. So, now I've had it,
and I'm tired of it, and I'm gonna hang up my spurs after this."
Biscardi hopes his blockbuster expedition will finally shut up
the hoo-hawing skeptics and wink-winking media. A Canadian team
is going to provide a pay-per-view live webcast to 65 countries.
Biscardi shies from naming the cost of the expedition. But he
is confident they'll capture a Bigfoot. There've been frequent
sightings in the caverns area, including three last week, he
says, and he knows where the lair is. "Right now there are
two male adults there," he says. "They know something
is up because of all of our activity around there." So,
what happens when they catch one? "We're out to seek, search,
capture, detain and transport it to a facility" where "the
PhDs" will study the animal and test its DNA, Biscardi says.
"And after, we'll release it."
Play
dead
War and
dress-up in Sequoia Park
story and
photos by JOHN
DOOLEY
Unbeknownst
to most, there has been a killing spree right under our noses.
Deep in the redwood forest of Eureka's Sequoia Park, young men
and women have been wounding and slaughtering each other, and
if 21-year-old Lance Christian Lorenzen has his say, the mayhem
will continue.
Lorenzen, 21 [photo at left] ,
is a local construction worker who moves houses for a living
during the week and masterminds this virtual killing spree
every Sunday behind the Eureka Zoo, leading groups of 20 or more
willing combatants into battles of wits and warfare in so-called
Boffer Wars, or Live Action Role Playing (LARP) games.
Park visitors
are often surprised when a roaring army rampages out of the trees
at full gallop, but Lorenzen does his best to respect the park's
other users. The group keeps to the woods for the most part,
though they do field battles in the grassy area at the park's
entrance too.
"Doing
it every single week for going on a year and a half now, nobody
has ever complained, except for the time we had a heavy metal
band to fight to, Cycle of Violence," he says. "Everybody
totally loved it. It was perfect, because we're all slaying each
other and in the background there was live heavy metal playing.
It was cool because they played on the center ridge behind everything,
so at either base you could fully hear the music."
Lorenzen says
the largest turnout had more than 60 people running amok through
Sequoia Park, killing each other with foam-padded weaponry. As
a general and soldier, Lorenzen insists there's more to it than
a battle rush.
"There
are all aspects of war in it," he says, "hunting people
by yourself, line fighting, defending an outpost where there's
three of you and 20 of them, knowing when to run and when to
stand your ground. You can't really describe it as a singular
feeling. It's an incredible experience for everybody. I've never
had anybody tell me that it sucked after they played."
Live Action
Role Playing games are a global phenomenon, with countless official
and amateur chapters that practice variant styles of simulated
battle-play.
Gamers of 10
dress in themed costumery ranging from medieval sword and sorcery
to vampirism, zombie garb, Star Wars regalia and other genres
too numerous to mention. There are already differently themed
orgs here in the county, and more are coming.
Jennifer Cootware,
who recently moved here from San Diego, has formed her own local
faction, Humboldt LARP, and is currently working on a detailed
rulebook.
"What [Lorenzen
is] doing is based on the old rules of Imperium," she says,
talking about one of the oldest LARP networks. "I don't
think they create characters, and don't use magic. My intent
is to create something similar with magic to give people a choice,
and to have something that doesn't compete with what he does,
but to give an additional place to play."
Lorenzen's army
may look ragtag, wearing padded street clothes and carrying hand-made
weapons heavily padded with foam and blobs of duct tape, but
as some of the players will attest, it's not for the weak-kneed.
His is the down and dirty LARP variety. Think Magnificient
Seven combined with Lord of the Flies. The battles
are physical and demanding, yet kids as young as ten take up
weapons, hunt their prey and fight it out.
"When I
first started doing this," Lorenzen says, "I was calling
up every person I could possibly think of and having them come
out." In order to get people to play, he paid for their
gas out of his own pocket. Now he and his friends cart them in
by the vanload.
Things do get
rough out there, especially with younger children going head
to head against adults. Lorenzen defends his group's tactics,
even though some kids are taking some rough punishment.
"We tell
the kids that will happen and they've got to be ready. There's
no real age limit -- I will look at the kid, and if I can tell
he can obviously stand up and probably take a hit, then I'll
let him play.
"I don't
hit the little kids hard, because I understand. Most of our people
are nice, but when we were out there last Sunday, there were
a couple assholes out there. But the thing is, when you're fighting
multiples by yourself, you tend to swing wildly because it's
easier to keep people at bay like that. But you know, when you're
doing a backhand swing and a little kid comes up behind you,
which is generally their tactic, they may get popped with a wild
swing. It happens. They just get a stinger, and they're fine.
They don't get all bruised up, they're all right. And they come
back."
So how brutal
is it out there?
"You only
have to touch with your blade," he insists. "You don't
have to hit any harder than is necessary. That's why we let little
kids play. We're not trying to blast anybody. It's not like the
SCA [Society of Creative Anachronism] where it has to be a solid
hit. They're like, a worldwide club. They use rattan weapons
and they're weighted like real swords, they use heavy armor,
and that gets really expensive. I don't have that kind of money."
As far as any
kind of referee action, Lorenzen says basically gamers come to
him, but that others have taken responsibility. "Last year,
people came to me when they have disputes. Since then, everyone
got to know each other, so everyone pretty much follows the rules.
They're really nice. I'm surprised at how well everyone gets
along"
And why might
things be better this year? Fewer adult beverages, perhaps?
"Well,
last year there was a lot of alcohol involved -- like kids would
come up to me and basically say my lasting legacy was underage
drinking on Sundays. The kids would go out there and get all
plastered, but after a while it got really annoying because people
... they wouldn't get into fights, but they couldn't fight."
Lorenzen invites
anyone in the mood for a little killing to show up at noon, any
Sunday until winter hits. Gamers can bring their own weapons,
or choose from the dozens he's got in the armory.
"You can
make any kind of armor and weapon you want, as long as it doesn't
hurt people and goes along with the rules. Just show up at the
park, that's all you have to do. Nothing more than that, and
bring everybody you can." l
For those
interested in Humboldt LARP, .
Credit
card commotion
Disgruntled coffeehouse
customer
calls business' bluff, goes to Starbucks
by
HELEN SANDERSON
Businesses are not supposed
to set a minimum purchase price for customers using credit cards.
Who knew? Jonathan Speaker kind of did. That's why he put up
a fuss in an Arcata coffeehouse after he was told that he needed
to make a bigger purchase if he wanted to use his credit card.
Speaker, the co-owner of Streamguys,
a local provider of Internet audio streaming services, was meeting
a job applicant last week for an interview at Sacred Grounds,
a popular Arcata, wi-fi-rigged café. He ordered two mochas
before realizing he had no cash. So, like many of the plastic-carrying
masses would do, he went to swipe his credit card. But not so
fast, the barista told him -- if he wanted to pay with his Visa
he had to buy $10 worth of something.
A steamed Speaker thought that
was baloney, told more than one employee as much and eventually
left, sans mochas.
"I did not want anything
other than two mochas and I told them that they, in fact, could
not place a minimum purchase for using Visa," Speaker said
in an e-mail. "Of course I got nowhere and was forced to
go to another coffee establishment."
He later wrote to Visa Corporate
and was told that he was right: Merchants are not allowed to
establish a low dollar amount for purchases.
Apparently, this question comes
up a lot. In the company's Frequently Asked Question web page
it says: "Q: Can merchants set a minimum purchase or charge
a fee for using my Visa card? A: Visa merchants are not permitted
to establish minimum transaction amounts, even on sale items.
If you run into a problem like this with a merchant, please notify
your Visa card-issuing bank."
The problem for businesses that
sell not-so-expensive items, like coffee drinks, is that when
people use credit cards for low-priced items, the merchant loses
out.
Beth Dominick, president of
Sacred Grounds, said that credit card transactions cost her a
minimum of 20 cents.
"It's an additional few
pennies depending on how big the sale is. So, for someone like
Plaza Design, it makes sense because a $1,000 couch is not going
to cost them proportionately what it costs us for a dollar cup
of coffee."
Sacred Grounds had reservations
about installing the credit card machine three or four years
ago, figuring that it might be more hassle than it was worth.
When Dominick told Humboldt Bank -- who sold the café
their credit card machine -- that they were going to set a minimum
limit, the bank warned them that it was illegal.
"But it was like, `Everyone
in town is doing it,'" Dominick said.
Not everyone is doing it, but
some other coffee shops do set minimum transaction prices --
like Jitter Bean, which requests a $3 limit, and Ramone's on
Harrison Street in Eureka, which draws the line at $3.50.
Sacred Grounds' $10 minimum
is sort of loose, Dominick said.
"What the employees are
supposed to say is that [a] purchase be at least $5 to use the
machine," she said. "So they are not supposed to tell
them `No, you can't.' We just explain to them that if a significant
portion of the purchase is being eaten up by the credit card
fees we're going to have to raise our prices."
Until last week, Sacred Grounds
had a piece of paper taped near the register that cited the $10
minimum rule and suggested that customers facing the only-got-credit
dilemma purchase a $10 coffee card, which buys $12 worth of drinks.
"That way it makes sense
for us to run the card and they're getting more for their money,"
Dominick said. "But that guy [Speaker] didn't want to hear
about that."
The sign has since been removed.
From now on, Speaker said that
he will get his coffee at Starbucks, which has no minimum limit.
"I would prefer to support
my local coffee establishments," Speaker said. "But
if they are not going to accommodate me why should I give them
my business?"
Speaker has since filed an official
complaint with his bank.
Other local cafes like Hank's
Coffeehouse in Bayside, Has Beans in Eureka, Old Town Coffee
and Chocolates in Eureka and Muddy Waters in Arcata take cards
and do not set a minimum transaction fee. Others, like Gold Rush
in Eureka and 321 Coffee also in Eureka, only take cash and local
checks.
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