Humboldt Sentinel

More Allegations of Misconduct Face DA Alexander in Federal Court

By Chris Marshall
Courthouse News Service

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – California officials shielded a child molester who contributed to a district attorney’s campaign,
and arrested a mother when she took the children to be examined
in another county, the mother claims in court.

Barry and Jennifer Brown sued Del Norte County District Attorney Jon Alexander, the county itself and five other people, in Federal Court.

Jennifer is the mother of two co-plaintiff children Jane Does 1 and 2; Barry, her father, is a former investigator for the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office.

They claim Alexander refused to investigate claims that defendant Donald Crockett – Jennifer’s Brown’s ex-husband – had molested their children.

And, the Browns claim, Alexander et al. had Barry Brown falsely charged with kidnapping when the Browns took the children to Eureka to be examined.

DA Alexander’s Woes

This lawsuit is not the only challenge facing Alexander.

The San Jose Mercury News reported in May 2012 that Alexander faces possible disbarment for professional misconduct: allegedly taking a loan from a defense attorney working on a case he later dismissed.

The newspaper reported , in an Associated Press article, that Alexander was a recovering methamphetamine addict when he was elected in campaign using the slogan “Death to Meth.”

Alexander also has been sued by Michael Riese, the former Del Norte County district attorney whom Alexander defeated in the 2010 election. Riese claimed Alexander tried to frame him for child endangerment and driving under the influence.

Allegations of the Suit

In the Browns’ lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that when Jennifer told a sheriff’s deputy in June 2009 that her 2-year-old daughter said Crockett “had hurt her vagina with his finger” and that it appeared red and irritated, the sheriff took no action.  A local hospital refused to examine the girl and neither she nor her daughter were interviewed by police about these or earlier complaints against Crockett, the Browns say.

Crockett is co-owner of a flower-growing business, which is one of the largest employers in the county, and has other business interests, according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs claim Crockett and his family contributed to Alexander’s election campaign and “have exerted their personal and political influence throughout county agencies to effectively protect Crockett from criminal and child protective investigations and also to inflict harm on plaintiffs.”

Crockett and Jennifer Brown divorced in 2009 after 4 years of marriage, after which they shared custody, with Jennifer the primary caregiver of their twin girls, born in 2007.

The Browns claim that sheriff’s deputies in November 2011 destroyed a tape of a police interview with Crockett, after Jennifer Brown reported that her children said he had showed them movies of men and women “naked belly dancing on a bed.”

When Brown asked police why they destroyed the tape, they told her that “showing pornography to children is not a criminal offense,” according to the complaint.

Alexander and his co-defendants again refused to investigate Crockett after Sutter Coast Hospital Urgent Care filed a report against him for neglect and molestation after both children alleged that Crockett had molested them, the complaint states.

The Browns claim the defendants “were made aware of the claims of Jane Doe 1 and 2 and that the defendants decided not to investigate Jane Doe 1 and 2′s claims about Crockett, whose family exerted political and personal influence over the defendants, whose careers rose and fell on the favor or disfavor of the Crockett family.”

Concerned that the officials were ignoring their claims, Barry Brown claims he contacted his former employer to obtain a Sexual Assault Response Team exam.  He was told the children could have the exam if they went to Eureka, the seat of Humboldt County.

Falsely Arrested

Barry says he wrote a letter to the defendants and told Alexander over the phone that he was temporarily removing the children from Del Norte County for their safety and under the terms of California Penal Code Section 278.5.  But Alexander and other officials had a magistrate judge issue a warrant accusing the Browns of kidnapping the girls, and said they did not know where they were, according to the complaint.

“These defendants knew that the basis for the warrant was false when it was presented to the judge for issuance,” the complaint states.

An all points bulletin was issued for Barry Brown and he was arrested the next day at the Crescent City office of the California Highway Patrol while working on a separate investigation, he says.  He works now as a licensed private investigator.

Alexander and defendant Deputy Sheriff Ed Fleshman agreed that no criminal charges would be filed, but booked and photographed Barry Brown on felony child-stealing charges, creating a felony arrest record that made its way into national criminal background databases, according to the complaint.

Barry Brown says he was released within a few hours and no charges were filed against him.  He says he suffered financial loss and personal embarrassment when the all points bulletin with an enlarged photograph was sent to police in Humboldt County.

Jennifer Brown claims that in March 2012, county sheriffs used excessive force while arresting her, though she was not resisting. They took her to the Crescent City jail and put her in a holding room with glass walls, which was brightly lit day and night and in full view of male correctional officers and the public, according to the complaint.

Jennifer claims she was held in jail there for two days while the jail staff mocked her and refused her requests for medical attention for lupus.

She claims the jail staff even threw a pizza party in front her cell, “celebrating her arrest and further humiliating her.”

After she was arrested, Child Welfare Services took her children into custody “without benefit of due process hearings,” while Crockett had unfettered access to the children, the Browns claim.

Crockett was grated custody of the children in June 2012 and Jennifer Brown was limited to 10 hours of visitation per week, according to the complaint.

Officials Turn a Blind Eye

One of the girls told defendant Child Welfare Services worker Cindy Salatnay in January this year that Crockett had molested her, according to the complaint.  Salatnay examined the other girl’s vaginal area and told court-appointed visitation monitor Arlene Kasper “there’s something there,” the Browns say in the complaint.

When Kasper asked Salatnay what she was going to do, Salatnay “said there was nothing she could do as she had been told by her supervisor, defendant [Julie] Cain, that no matter what Jane Doe 1 or 2 said, she (Salatnay) was to come back with either an inconclusive or unsubstantiated report,” according to the complaint.

Kasper said her “hands were tied,” and repeated it in front of two other witnesses, according to the complaint.  Kasper is not a party to the complaint.

Though Child Welfare Services documented the molestation allegations, they placed the children in a foster home instead of returning them to their mother, Jennifer Brown claim.

She claims the defendant claimed that she had “created stress on the children by reporting abuse and molest.”

Salatnay returned the girls to Crockett’s custody without supervision in March this year after they refused to repeat the allegations to a male detective, which was done without court authorization though a child dependency petition hearing had been held and a subsequent jurisdictional hearing was set for the next week, the Browns say in the complaint. Jennifer Brown says she was allowed to be with the girls only 5 hours per week under supervised conditions in a small room.

Salatnay then lied to and misled the court in a jurisdictional report in which she argued the girls should be left in Crockett’s custody, the Browns claim.

They claim that “only sham investigations were conducted so as to protect Crockett from scrutiny by law enforcement.”

They seek millions of dollars in damages for conspiracy, false imprisonment, false arrest, defamation, abuse of process, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, vicarious responsibility and other civil rights violations.

Del Norte County Sheriff Dean Wilson also is named as a defendant.

The Browns are represented by Thomas N. Petersen, with Black, Chapman, Webber & Stevens, of Medford, Oregon.

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Article by Chris Marshall and the Courthouse News Service

25-Year-Old Youth Last Seen March 13; May Have Been in Arcata

“Help Me Find My Son”

– UPDATE BELOW:  FOUND! –

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

We received an urgent plea yesterday from Tricia Gilbert, Buggy’s mom.

She’s worried sick.  She hopes you will forward and share this information to others via links, Facebook, Twitter, social media, and/or any other avenues as much as possible.  Tricia’s tired, exhausted, and needs the help of others:

MISSING: Our Son, Sterling “Buggy” Gilbert, age 25.

Originally from Alaska, Sterling was homeless in Springfield, Oregon, for the last 2 years and left on approximately March 1, 2013 on a Greyhound bus to Redding, California.

When he was in Oregon he had been involved with dangerous people who had shot at him and were trying to kill him.  That’s why he fled to California.

My Stepson Sterling Gilbert hasn’t been heard from by family since March 6, 2013.  We know he was homeless and hitchhiking to Arcata, California.  When he contacted family, he was in Redding.  Regardless of anything, Sterling ALWAYS phoned a family member no matter what was going on at least 2-3 times a week.

From Redding, he supposedly met Stephanie and her husband Kris Cosentino who helped him out in Redding and were hitchhiking to Los Angeles.  Sterling and the couple (Stephanie is pregnant) made it to Lodi, California, where he called the family on approximately March 6, 2013.

We made a Missing Persons Report to Lodi Police, Case # 13-1837 on 3/17/2013.

There may be connection to this Stephanie and Kristopher in Oregon.  We don’t know if they met in Oregon, or Redding.  They may know people in Oregon who wanted to hurt Sterling.  Stephanie may have been known as Stephanie Skinner.  She, according to posts on her Facebook, had a history of meth and her 2 young children were with her family, not her custody.

According to the last known number belonging to Stephanie Cosentino, we called to get information.  They
supposedly got stuck there a few days and then made their
way to Stockton.  Unfortunately they separated in Stockton
when they got bus fare the remaining way.

Sterling was last seen getting into newer white sedan, heading south towards Los Angeles.  The destination for Stephanie and Kris was El Monte or Downey, California.

The last known photo from Springfield, Lane County, Oregon, shows he had died his hair.  So it’s most likely growing out and two tone, or he has had his head shaved with short hair.  He was last seen wearing blue jeans, grey t-shirt, black jacket/or hoody with dirty white tennis shoes.  He had with him a blue beany cap, green tent, and a green floral blanket.

Anyone with information on Sterling Gilbert (he may use his brothers name Donavan or Levon) or his whereabouts, please contact:
Lodi Police 209-333-6727, or the local police regarding missing person Sterling Gilbert, Case #13-1837.

….or give him these phone numbers:  #818-554-2563 for Tricia Gilbert; or #907-322-3668 for Donald Gilbert– and please tell him to call family.

Our son’s Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Help-Me-Find-My-Son-Sterling-Gilbert/358969454219668

 Tricia adds:

“Sterling Has a spiderweb tattoo on his hand and a weed leaf growing plant on his arm.  Its Between the elbow and wrist.   He was last seen wearing dirty white tennis shoes, grey t-shirt, blue jeans and a black jacket or hoody.

 

He was last seen 3/13/2013 getting into newer white sedan near Greyhound in Stockton, CA.

 

Please go to our page for flyers and pics.

 UPDATE:  From Tricia Gilbert:

He’s been found.  Safe!  He turned himself into a rehab.  Thank you for everything
https://www.facebook.com/pages/FOUND-our-Son-Sterling-Gilbert/358969454219668

Action Alert: Protect California’s Marine Life from Violent Military Sonar and Explosives

Navy Plans on 8.8 Million ‘Takes’ of Marine Mammals

Amber Jamieson
Environmental Protection Information Center

Take action now.

Over the next five years, the United States Navy plans to conduct large scale training exercises involving intense sonar pulses and explosives off the California coast, which is expected to result in more than 9.5 million instances of harm to whales and dolphins between Dana Point and San Diego and extending more than 600 nautical miles out to sea.

Impacts to marine resources could spread as animals travel in and out of toxic debris leftover from explosives.  In addition, the Navy’s blast of high intensity noise from mid-frequency sonar pulses can impact animals far from their source.

However, before these training exercises can begin, the Navy must ask the California Coastal Commission to determine that these activities are consistent with California’s Coastal Zone Management Act, including goals to protect, preserve, and enhance the coastal environment. 

EPIC has been tracking  the Navy’s proposed warfare testing along the Pacific coast and since October of 2010.  Over the last few years, we have had over a thousand people take action online and nearly 2,000 people filled out post cards requesting Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment Committee, to hold congressional hearings to address cumulative effects to marine life and to stop the unnecessary and harmful warfare testing along the Pacific coast.

The threat has not gone away, and we still need your help to speak out against these acts of violence towards sentient marine mammals and other sea life that will be affected if the Navy does not comply with environmental standards that have been put into place to protect us and all other life that depends on a safe and clean marine environment.

On Friday, March 8^th, the California Coastal Commission will hold a hearing to determine whether the Navy’s proposed training activities are consistent with the Coastal Zone Management Act.

The Coastal Commission has already prepared a staff report and additional background materials on the Navy’s Sonar and Munitions Program, which can be found at: www.coastal.ca.gov/fedcd/hstt/hstt.html. 

Please take a moment to ask the Coastal Commission to protect our coastal waters by requiring the Navy to implement additional measures to reduce harm to marine mammals and other coastal resources. 

Click here to take action now.

* * * * * * * *

We understand the need for the Navy to be well-prepared.  We also understand the concerns of our local citizens who packed the Wharfinger Building a few years back when the Navy came to town explaining their plans.  They were courteous, prepared, and came to listen to the public’s input with seemingly deaf ears.

Looking into the 188-page staff report, we were struck by the Natural Resources Defense Council letter on page 156.  It stated in part:

The Navy’s consistency determination, along with other documents it has prepared to satisfy federal law, details extraordinary harm to California’s marine resources.  That harm includes hundreds of mortalities of marine mammals and other species; numerous cases of lung injury and permanent hearing loss in marine mammals; literally millions of instances of temporary hearing loss, a significant impact for species dependent on their hearing for survival and reproduction; and millions of additional cases of disruption of vital behaviors, such as calving and foraging.

In total, the Navy estimates that its activities – including high-intensity sonar exercises and underwater detonations – will cause more than 8 million biologically significant marine mammal impacts on its Southern California Range Complex.  This number represents a 1,300 percent increase over the harm estimated in the Navy’s prior five-year review, including much higher levels of mortality, injury, and hearing loss.

Unfortunately, the dramatic increase in impacts did not trigger a corresponding effort on the Navy’s part to identify better means of mitigation.  Indeed, the Navy has proposed virtually the same environmental mitigation as it did in 2008 for its current five-year operations period, when the Commission was obliged to set conditions to bring the Navy’s activities into consistency…

...The Navy estimates that training and testing off Southern California will result in more than 8.8 million takes of marine mammals… including nearly 1,700 instances of permanent hearing loss or other permanent injury, 130 mortalities, and millions of instances of temporary hearing loss and significant disruptions in vital behaviors.

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

Largest-Ever Margin Supports Sales– and Having the Feds Butt Out

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Californians support legalizing weed in greater numbers than ever.  Additionally, they want the federal government to
butt out and stop cracking down on medical marijuana dispensaries.

In a Field Poll released today, a greater margin of California voters, 54% to 43%, supported allowing the legal use and sale of recreational marijuana– as long as it’s treated like alcohol:  with age restrictions, consequences for driving under the influence, and licensing distributors.

The new numbers represents the highest level of support since the Field Poll began asking the question 44 years ago.  Back then, most Californians believed pot was the gateway drug to more hurtful substances.  In 1969 — the year of Woodstock– only 13% of California adults supported legalizing marijuana.

Times have changed as recent poll results show.

“We’re getting to the point where baby boomers have lived with this stuff for most of their lives now,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll.

California voters across party lines also seem to be taking issue with federal threats, raids, and prosecutions involving medical marijuana businesses.  The state’s four U.S. attorneys have brought criminal cases against some medical marijuana providers and growers and sent letters threatening seizures of properties of others.

While all marijuana use is illegal under federal law, U.S. prosecutors assert California’s medicinal cannabis industries have been “hijacked by profiteers” violating both state and federal laws. 

Californians, however, take a slightly different view.

Two-thirds of 834 registered voters said they opposed the Obama administration’s ongoing raids on medical marijuana outlets, according to the poll.  Nearly 200 dispensaries — most in California — were targeted in President Barack Obama’s first term.  Local governments have taken cues from the administration crackdown: Two hundred cities and counties have banned medical marijuana dispensaries.  The California State Supreme Court is also poised to issue a ruling on whether local governments can shut down dispensaries.

“It’s certainly not winning over the hearts and minds of Californians,” DiCamillo said of voters’ reactions to federal enforcement efforts.  “The getting tough policy by the feds is not impacting public opinion in a positive way.”

Nearly three-fourths – 72% — of Californians back the state’s existing medical marijuana law, approved by voters in 1996.  A strong majority – 58% — would support allowing medical marijuana dispensaries in their own community.

“Certainly, it’s a rebuke of the Obama administration’s tactics,” said Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group. “It should indicate that the Justice Department’s tactics are unacceptable and should be reconsidered.”

Obama once criticized President George W. Bush for his aggressive approach to shutting down medical marijuana dispensaries.  But make no mistake, Obama is on pace to exceed Bush’s
record of medical marijuana busts.

Though voters support medical marijuana, remember that just over two years ago they rejected Proposition 19, the ballot measure to legalize pot, by a 53 to 47% margin.  With only narrow support, legalization by the measure was derailed by what analysts called a lackluster campaign and a vague regulatory plan.

In contrast, heavily financed and well-run campaigns, and more detailed regulatory plans, led to marijuana legalization last November in the states of Colorado and Washington.

A coalition of Proposition 19 supporters met in December and discussed potential California legalization ballot efforts. They’ve said that they will be targeting the 2016 presidential election ballot, though they haven’t ruled out putting it on the ballot as early as 2014.

They may have a chance judging by the numbers.  A younger and more tolerant electorate is changing the political landscape:

• Among voters between the ages of 18 and 29, legalization has a 58-39% edge
• Among 30- to 39-year-olds, it has a 61-38% advantage
• Voters 65 or older are the least likely to support legalization, with only 43% in favor and 52% against
• Independent voters most strongly support legalization– at 59%, closely followed by Democrats, at 58%

Not surprisingly, only 42% of Republicans favor legalization.  Latinos are just as against it, with only 41% in favor.  But Latinos between the ages of 18 and 39 support it, 53 to 47%.

Voters living in the Bay Area are most likely to support legalizing pot, with 66% in favor.  Voters along the coast south of Los Angeles County are the least likely, at 47%.

Not everyone favors the new numbers.  Bishop Ron Allen of Sacramento’s International Faith Based Coalition, a member of Californians Against Legalizing Marijuana, said the poll results show that “we have to do a better job of educating the community about the harms of marijuana.”

The Field Poll was conducted February 5 through February 17 with 834 voters.  The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Claims Rating Agency Mislead Consumers and CalPERS

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

California State Attorney General Kamala D. Harris has filed a lawsuit against one of the nation’s major credit
rating companies for allegedly inflating its ratings of structured
finance investments, which caused California’s public pension
funds and other investors to lose billions of dollars.

The Complaint

The complaint, filed on February 5 in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. and Standard and Poor’s Financial Services violated the False Claims Act and other state laws by using a ratings process based on what senior executives described as “magic numbers” and “guesses.”

“For years, S&P placed its priority on maintaining its market share, instead of the investors who trusted in its supposedly objective ratings,” said Attorney General Harris.

“When the housing bubble burst, S&P’s house of cards collapsed and California paid the price— in billions.  S&P must be held accountable for its conduct that contributed to one of our country’s worst financial crises,” Harris said.

Investors relied on Standard and Poor’s and its competitors to rate these securities because they had access to only general descriptions of the assets backing their investments, which often included mortgages.  California’s public pension funds also relied on S&P because they are often required to buy securities that received a coveted “AAA” rating, signaling that the investment was top-tier and bore minimal risk, Harris’ office said.

Misrepresenting Investors

The complaint alleges that, from 2004 to 2007, S&P systematically misrepresented to the public, and to CalPERS and CalSTRS, that its ratings of structured finance securities were based on an independent, objective and reliable analysis, and not influenced by S&P’s economic interests.

In doing so, S&P lowered its standards for rating securities to gain market share and increase profits, and violated the False Claims Act by making false statements about the nature and risk of investments
to investors.

The complaint also describes the company’s efforts to suppress the development of new and more accurate ratings models.

In mid-2007, the housing bubble burst.  After securities that S&P had deemed the least risky began defaulting, S&P downgraded many residential mortgage-backed securities investments.  The market collapsed; of those securities issued in 2007, more than 90 percent were downgraded to junk status.

$1 Billion Dollars: Times Three

The California Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and the California State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) – two of the nation’s largest institutional investors – lost approximately $1 billion.

Attorney General Harris today joined the U.S. Department of Justice and 12 other states and the District of Columbia in announcing lawsuits in Washington, D.C.  The other lawsuits allege violations of the federal Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act and State Unfair Competition Laws.

However, California’s suit is unique because its being filed not only under California’s unfair competition laws but also under the state’s False Claims Act.  This suit includes a claim for triple damages – because when the state makes a purchase based on a false statement, the defendant is responsible for three times the amount.

20-Month Investigation into Misconduct

The lawsuit arises from a 20-month investigation into the issuance and rating of mortgage-backed securities by Attorney General Harris’s California Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, which she formed in May 2011 to comprehensively investigate misconduct in the mortgage industry.

The Attorney General’s additional efforts to investigate the mortgage crisis include securing an estimated $18 billion for California in the National Mortgage Settlement and sponsoring the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, a package of laws instituting
permanent mortgage-related reforms.

The AG’s complaint can be found here.

Standard and Poor’s replied with a press release the same day the lawsuit was filed, claiming the DOJ lawsuits in California and other states are “Untrue, unjustified, and without merit” and that the ratings the company used were based on available market information at the time.

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Christopher Dorner Takes Hostages, Flees in Stolen Vehicle, Barricades Self in Cabin

LIVE Updates in Real Time

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Christopher Dorner was engaged in a shootout with federal authorities in the Big Bear area moments ago, law enforcement source told The Los Angeles Times.

The shooting occurred after Dorner burglarized a home, tied up a couple and stole their white pickup truck, the source said.  It’s reported the couple may have been maids, a cleaning crew arriving to clean the Big Bear vacation rental.

It was not immediately clear whether Dorner was in custody.  A second source said there was an active crime scene but did not have details.

Law enforcement and SWAT officials are swarming the area and witnesses
are reporting it “is a madhouse” in the area of Highway 38 and Glass Road
in Big Bear.

UPDATES FROM OUR LIVE FEED:

1:45 pm:  California Assistant Chief Dan Sforza confirms that his officers exchanged gunfire with suspect Dorner in a white pick-up truck.

1:59:  Authorities appear to have the suspect pinned down in a cabin in the Seven Oaks area.  It’s reported, but not confirmed, that two officers have been hit by gunfire.  Schools have gone into lockdown in the area.

2:09:  Sheriff: Two law enforcement officers being airlifted to hospital with unknown injuries.

2:13:  Several reports indicate that Dorner appears to be holed up in a cabin, and police have surrounded the cabin.  Schools on lockdown in Bear Valley Unified are Big Bear High School, Chautauqua High School, Fallsvale Elementary, and North Shore Elementary.

2:15:  Dorner reportedly holed up in Angelus Oaks cabin, which is completely surrounded.  Police told media to cut their aerial video feed.

2:18:  San Bernardino Co. Fire:  All mountain access roads (18, 330, 38) closed.  The San Bernardino Sheriff asks TV choppers to pull back from cabin where Dorner is barricaded.  Shots fired.

2:19:  Two deputies wounded.  Third person may be shot, officers believe it may be Dorner.

2:22:  FCC granted San Bernardino Sheriff restrictions on media helicopters.  Must fly above 10K feet.  SB County Sheriff is cutting news feeds.  Moving SWAT in place per police scanner traffic.  Two wounded cops.  SBCSD confirm the man believed to be Dorner has barricaded himself in the cabin.

2:28:  Humboldt Sentinel crashes due to high volume of web traffic.  Will keep posting updates until our site comes back up.  If you can read this, we’re up and running.

2:31:  Ex-LAPD officer Christopher Dorner is reportedly barricaded in a cabin in Big Bear, where authorities have him surrounded.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department officials have confirmed that a man believe to be Dorner has barricaded himself in a cabin. No known hostages are believed to be in the cabin.  Dorner, a rogue police officer who claims he was unjustly fired from the police department, has been on the run for several days after allegedly killing three people last week.

He was first spotted Tuesday at about 12:30 on Highway 38 near Big Bear, where he was reportedly holding a couple hostage. One of the victims was able to escape and call authorities.  Dorner escaped in a stolen white pick-up.  A state Fish and Game Department official first spotted a man who looked like Dorner driving, turned around, and a massive shootout ensued.

2:32:  200 police have entered Big Bear area.  Authorities checking vehicles on Highway 38 at checkpoints.  The SWAT Bearcat ‘Bunker Buster’ vehicle has been called out to the scene.

2:37:  Scanner traffic:  words saying, “Don’t shoot ‘til someone comes out of the house.”  Report that the cabin has a cement-walled basement.  The site is 6 miles (as the crow flies) south of Big Bear, about 16 road miles from Big Bear by way of Highway 38.

2:47:  CBS News showing instant replay of officers throwing smoke bombs at cabin and also showing a huge rifle still in the road, presumably Dorner’s.  Cop tells ABC News ‘the whole mountain is a crime scene,’ and all cars leaving Big Bear will be checked out.

2:49:  LAPD press conference coming in about 10 minutes.

2:50:  Our live feed has been unusually quiet for the past 5 minutes.  News blackout?

2:55: CBS-LA played back audio of the gun battle…it lasted almost two minutes.

2:56:  LA Times reporting Dorner broke into cabin “days ago” to tie up a couple.  The 911 call today reported a woman was tied up, with two other people.  It’s believed the caller was one of the hostages who had escaped from the cabin.  Dorner almost made it down the highway from Big Bear but now seems to be in another  home as the manhunt moves in.  Man barricaded in the cabin has not yet been positively identified as dormer, one LAPD official says.

Christopher Dorner Manhunt: Listen to live police scanner http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_22574500

3:08:  CNN reports that the injured law enforcement personnel were wounded in separate incidents, not together.  Law enforcement officials have asked the media to stop tweeting about the incident, fearing officer safety.  Nick Chatterton, who works at Snow Valley Ski Resort, said Snow Valley was shuttling heavily armed SWAT team members and Sheriff’s deputies in the area.  LAPD reading from the SBCSD press release about the barricade situation now.

3:12:  Barricade and standoff still in progress.  Cabin owner in ‘state of shock’ when she saw her vacation cabin on TV surrounded amid reports of a shootout.  We are going to report broad, non-tactical details, as per the San Bernardino DA’s request.

3:20:  Asked if they’ve positively ID’d Dorner, LAPD’s Smith said, “until we get him in handcuffs we’re not going to be sure.’”  San Bernardino SWAT heading up Highway 38.  Numerous L.A. and LAPD satellite trucks on mountain.

3:30:  Two sources are reporting that one of the deputies has died from shootout.  Not confirmed.

3:35:  Helicopters that brought wounded deputies to hospital being sent back to mountains in case more transports are needed.

4:00:  No word on suspect presumed to be Dorner’s status.  However, it is believed he has an arsenal of weapons, including a semi-automatic rifle, in the cabin.  Watch live at : 4.nbcla.com/WZzZ1y

4:20:  Tear gas and flash bang grenades have been fired– and a tactical operation is under way at the cabin.  The cabin is on fire;  flames seen from ground and in the air.  Police standing guard.

4:34: Ammo being heard exploding inside cabin.  Unconfirmed report SWAT teams have killed Dorner.  Stand by for confirmation.  Sheriff officials at the scene have said that the smoke seen is ammunition burning, not the cabin.

“Dude, that Guy was Fucking Kooked Out!  Smash, Smash, Smash!” (VIRAL VIDEO)

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Kai is a homeless hitchhiker.  He’s being hailed as a hero after saving a woman several days ago from the clutches of
the man who was giving him a ride — who suddenly crashed
his car into a utility worker, began spouting racist invectives,
and claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus.

Kai was hitching a ride with 54-year-old Jett Simmons McBride, of Tacoma, Wash., when McBride decided to run his car into a black Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) worker in West Fresno.  With the worker was pinned against his utility truck, McBride hopped out of his vehicle and began physically pulling on the injured worker.

A local woman, Tanya Baker, witnessed the crash and tried to stop McBride from continuing his assault or leaving the scene.  That’s when McBride reportedly grabbed her in a bear hug her while claiming to be Jesus Christ and uttering racist epithets.

“The guy just went crazy and was trying to pull the guy from underneath the car and the truck.  Then he gets in his car and tries to move the car… and we weren’t going to let him do it,” Baker told local Fox News affiliate KMPH.

Kai, the hitchhiker who was sitting in the car, saw McBride assault Baker– and sprang into action.

“Like, a guy that big can snap a woman’s neck like a pencil stick,” he told KMPH.   Kai grabbed his hatchet and battered the six-foot, 300-plus pound McBride with the blunt end, reportedly saving Baker’s life.

“I fucking ran up behind him with a hatchet — smash, smash, smash!” Kai said afterwards.

When first responders arrived on the scene, the PG&E worker was rushed to the hospital with two broken legs.  McBride was also removed from the scene with non-life-threatening injuries and is now in police custody and booked into jail on suspicion of attempted murder.

Kai has become a minor internet folk hero of sorts; a person who didn’t have to get invoved– but did so only because it was the immediate and right thing to do.

Kai said he wants to spread the love:

“Before I say anything else, I want to say no matter what you’ve done, you deserve respect, even if you make mistakes.   You’re lovable and it doesn’t matter your looks, skills, or age, or size or anything.  You’re worthwhile—no one can take that away from you.”

Since his interview with Fox affiliate KMPH went viral (below), there has been next to no news about Kai’s current whereabouts.

A year-old video of the homefree celebrity strumming his ukulele on a British Columbia beach and in a music store surfaced, but that hardly provided any insight into the man behind the myth.

“He’s kind of like a superhero,” reporter Jessob Reisbeck said.   ”He’s impossible to get ahold of because he has no phone and he’s this mysterious guy, but he has this hero status.”

But Kai is still out there.  He recently said in a Facebook post:  “I’m sleeping in a hay field across I-99 from the chevron/days inn in Lathrope CA.  Do any, uh, new friends feel like sharing couchspace?”

Reisbeck managed to track Kai down yesterday not far from the site of the incident that made him a digital star.

“Shock and awe,” Kai responded when Reisbeck asked him for his thoughts on his overnight fame.

But besides feeling a bit more loved by the Universe than before, Kai remains unchanged.

“He’s just doing the exact same thing he’s always done,” Reisbeck said.  “Living a homefree
life, as he calls it.”

* * * * * * * * *

Identifying with Humboldt, Kai has spent time wandering through and living in Eureka and in Arcata.

The interesting and must-see viral KMPH interview of Kai describing the incident is here.

The original KMPH newscast is here.

UPDATE May 16, 2013:  Kai is arrested for murder.

Delbert Miller, 69, Pronounced Dead

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

CORCORAN – Investigators at Corcoran State Prison and the Kings County District Attorney’s Office said yesterday they are investigating the death of inmate Delbert Miller,
69-years-old, as a homicide.

It is believed the former Humboldt County man serving time for murder was killed in his own cell at the hands of his much younger 20-year-old cellmate.

Miller was found unresponsive in his prison cell and was pronounced dead Thursday morning, January 24, according to the press release from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

Miller was serving an 81-year-to-life sentence beginning in May of 2008 for the first-degree murder of
38-year-old Lori Ann Jones, whose decomposing body was found in Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park in 2004.  Prosecutors convinced jurors during his trial that Miller murdered Jones because he believed she was stealing from him and had accused him of rape, the Times-Standard reported.

Miller had a prior 1988 conviction from Humboldt County for rape and forced oral copulation of a child.  He had been housed at Corcoran State Prison since last July.

Miller’s cellmate, Kyle Alexander Osborn, has been identified as the only suspect.  Osborn has since been removed and placed into an Administrative Segregation Unit.  Details of the alleged killing have not been released.

Osborn, 20, was admitted to state prison from San Bernardino County in June of 2009 with a 26-year sentence for lewd and lascivious acts on a child with force and violence, and burglary and first-degree robbery.  It is unknown how long he has been at Corcoran, or sharing the same cell with the older Miller.

The Kings County Coroner will perform an autopsy.  The Office of Inspector General’s Bureau of Independent Review was notified, the CDCR said.

A small city in and of itself, California State Prison-Corcoran opened in 1988 and houses 4,595 minimum to maximum high-security level inmates.  It employs 2,300 people and is one of 32 adult facilities located throughout California.

Ms. Connie Gipson is the current warden of the all-male prison which has had as many problems as notorious inmates over the years.

San Bernardino City Attorney Makes Stunning Announcement

–Details of City’s Bankruptcy:  Runaway Pensions–

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

San Bernardino City Attorney Jim Penman is under scrutiny for telling residents to “lock their doors and load their guns” during Wednesday’s city council meeting.  The official explained the city is bankrupt and with the slashing of public safety budgets, people need to start protecting themselves.  Afterwards, he said he doesn’t regret what he said.

To note, San Bernardino had 45 murders this year– a 50% rise from last year.

So what happened?

Excerpts from Reuters: The Fall of San Bernardino:  How a Vicious Cycle of Self-Interest Sank a California City
 

When this sun-drenched exurb east of Los Angeles filed for bankruptcy protection in August, the city attorney suggested fraudulent accounting was the root of the problem.

The mayor blamed a dysfunctional city council and greedy police and fire unions. The unions blamed the mayor.  Even now, there is little agreement on how the city got into this crisis or how it can extricate itself.

“It’s total political chaos,” said John Husing, a former San Bernardino regional economist. “There’s no solution.  They’ll never fix anything.”

Yet on close examination, the city’s decades-long journey from prosperous, middle-class community to bankrupt, crime-ridden, foreclosure-blighted basket case is straightforward — and alarmingly similar to the path traveled by many municipalities around America’s largest state.  San Bernardino succumbed to a vicious circle of self-interests among city workers, local politicians and state pension overseers.

Little by little, over many years, the salaries and retirement benefits of San Bernardino’s city workers — and especially its police and firemen — grew richer and richer, even as the city lost its major employers and gradually got poorer and poorer.

Runaway Pensions at Heart of Fiscal Woes

In bankrupt San Bernardino, a third of the city’s 210,000 people live below the poverty line, making it the poorest city of its size in California.  But a police lieutenant can retire in his 50s and take home $230,000 in one-time payouts on his last day, before settling in with a guaranteed $128,000-a-year pension.  Forty-six retired city employees receive over $100,000 a year in pensions.

Almost 75 percent of the city’s general fund is now spent solely on the police and fire departments, according to a Reuters analysis of city bankruptcy documents – most of that on wages and pension costs.

San Bernardino’s biggest creditor, by far, is CalPers, the public-employee pension fund. The city says it owes CalPers $143 million; using a different calculation, CalPers says the city would have to pay $320 million if it left the plan immediately.

Second on the city’s list of creditors are holders of $46 million worth of pension bonds – money borrowed in 2005 to pay off CalPers.  The total pension-related debts are more than double the $92 million owed to the city’s next 18 largest creditors combined.

Complicating matters were obscure budgeting procedures that left residents in the dark.  The word “pension” doesn’t appear once in the most recent 642-page budget, and retiree costs are buried in detailed departmental line items.

“I’ve been asking for years for the pension costs,” said Tobin Brinker, a former council member and pension-reform advocate, who lost his seat last year to a challenger backed by nearly $100,000 in contributions from the fire and police unions.  “I still don’t know the number.”

James Penman, the longtime city attorney who critics say is closely aligned with the unions, alleged during a council meeting this summer that 13 of the past 16 city budgets had been falsified.  Penman, in office since 1987, earned $164,799 last year, according to city payroll data.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an informal inquiry into the San Bernardino situation because of the city’s bond obligations. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has provided funds to the city in the past, says it is conducting an audit of the city’s books.  Recently hired city finance officers do say they have found evidence of terrible accounting and record-keeping.

But unlike in the small Southern California cities of Bell, where eight city officials face trial on allegations that they stole from the public, and Vernon, where three officials have been convicted of corruption, San Bernardino’s problems appear to be mainly the result of back-scratching on an epic scale.

By the time San Bernardino’s council met behind closed doors on September 17, 2007, it was already clear the city was in trouble.  Yet on this day in 2007, the city raised pension benefits again, in a deal allowing non-public-safety workers to retire at age 55 with a pension equal to three-quarters of their salary.  Called “2.7 at 55,” it calculated annual pensions at 2.7 percentage points of final salary for each year worked - 81 percent for 30 years.

It wasn’t nearly as good a deal as police and firefighters enjoyed – a “3 percent at 50″ plan passed a year earlier.  That enabled the public-safety workers to retire at 50 with a pension of up to 90% of their final salary.

Meanwhile, San Bernardino continued to boost wages along with benefits. The average salary for a full-time San Bernardino firefighter in 1997 was $75,610, adjusted for inflation into 2010 dollars.  By 2010, it was nearly $147,000, according to a Reuters analysis of Census Bureau data.

City workers took advantage of compensation rules, common among public employees in California, that made retirement deals even better. Key to this was boosting an employee’s eve-of-retirement wages, which form the basis of the pension calculations.

Mike Conrad, chief of the fire department from 2006 to 2012, said he saw managers negotiate a promotion in their final year, to boost their final salary. It was not uncommon for someone to move into a position with a $30,000 annual pay rise shortly before retirement, he said.

Retiring employees are also able to extract big one-time “cash outs.” In San Bernardino, eight hours per month of unused sick time can be rolled over and saved year after year, without limit.  Come retirement, 50 percent of the total can be taken in cash.  The same goes for unused vacation time: up to 460 accrued hours of vacation – nearly three months of salary – can be cashed in at the fire department, Conrad said.

The police have a similar deal.  In 2009, patrol lieutenant Richard Taack retired at the age of 59, after 37 years of service.  He took home $389,727 that year, including $194,820 in unused sick time and $33,721 for unused vacation time, according to city payroll records.  Shortly after Taack retired – on an annual lifetime pension of $128,000 – he was hired part-time by Penman’s city attorney’s office, at $32 an hour.

City wages were a runaway train, according to the Management Partners report.  The city charter automatically calculated police and firefighter pay using a formula linked to wages offered by comparably sized cities – most of which were much wealthier than San Bernardino.  Efforts to amend the charter were strongly opposed by the safety unions and voted down by the council earlier this year.

Roads and Potholes

Taack’s 2009 income was nearly double that of the city’s entire street-sweeping department. In 2011, overtime pay alone for the police department – $2,766,175 – exceeded the total payroll of 12 other San Bernardino city departments, according to the Reuters analysis of payroll data. Taack didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“I can’t begrudge the man for receiving what he’s entitled to under the contract,” said David Green, the head road sweeper, who has seen his department cut to five people from 13 when he joined in 1995. But he said there should be a better balance between the safety forces and other departments. “Nobody wants to drive a car and have to hit a three-foot pothole.”

Indeed, potholes scar downtown San Bernardino. Many stores are shuttered. Abandoned lots sit unkempt. Since the bankruptcy filing, city finance officials have put forward proposals to close libraries, senior centers and a cemetery.

Andrea Travis-Miller, interim city manager, told the council this summer that 250 non-safety positions had been eliminated in the past three years to save money – and implied that police and fire benefits were crowding out other essential services.  “I believe that city buildings, roads, trees and parks that have begun to show neglect would deteriorate further if more cuts are made,” Travis-Miller said.

Scott Moss, head of the firefighters union, said 20 positions had already been cut from the fire department, leaving about 120 people.

“There’s been mismanagement for years,” Moss said, over coffee in a local restaurant.  “The mayor and his people are trying to make us look bad.”

Moss, 46, a fire paramedic, said he might retire at 53.  Payroll records show a base pay of $94,500, and total 2011 wages, with overtime, of about $147,000.  Moss confirmed the base figure but didn’t comment on the overtime number.

“This is a dangerous city.  It’s an old, decayed city. It burns.  There are gangs.  The pay and benefits attract the police and firefighters it needs. Without them, you
lose all the good ones. That’s the balance,” Moss said.

Miserable Company

San Bernardino and Stockton are hardly alone.  A handful of other small California cities, including Atwater, Hercules and Compton, are teetering near bankruptcy.

Big California cities that run their own pension plans also have deep problems.  San Jose, hub of Silicon Valley, and San Diego, biotech center of California, both passed pension reforms in June in the face of unmanageable retirement benefits.  They are now defending those measures in court against public-employee lawsuits.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former labor organizer, led a push to raise the retirement age and cut pensions for new, non-safety city staff.  He exempted police and fire employees.  A ballot measure sponsored by former Mayor Richard Riordan aims to include them in the cuts, too.

The chronic mismanagement in San Bernardino, though, is a common feature of local government in California and around the United States.  Much power over municipal finance lies in the hands of those with the most at stake — city employees, elected officials and others who depend directly on government for their livelihood.

* * * * * * * * *

You can read the full Reuters article here.

Let’s hope Humboldt County and the City of Eureka don’t follow suit in San Bernardino’s wake.  A look at our administrative salaries– and the number of administrative positions in departments– are shocking.  And the roads in Eureka are still a potholed mess with little improvement to show of.

We hope the incoming Eureka City Manager, paid $158,000 per year, can fix things.  Of course, we’ll also be paying the outgoing City Manager his percentage retirement of nearly the same amount, too. 

For now, however, Eureka’s Measure O shoring up safety budgets has kept the fiscal problems at bay and citizens from arming themselves for protection.  For now.

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

Police Chief’s Unique Program:  Have Permit or Leave

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

A Nevada City police chief says he’s found a one-of-a-kind way to manage a growing problem in his city, and it’s putting the homeless on the hot seat, the Nevada City News
reported.

A new law would give Nevada City the power to hand out permits to a small group of homeless, which would give them permission to sleep in public.

While the new ordinance would give some homeless a place to stay, it would tell others, mostly the troublemakers and the criminals, to stay away.

“The goal is to start managing the homeless population within our city,” said Nevada City Police Chief James Wickham.  Wickham had asked council members to pass a no-camping ordinance which was approved.

“It just basically means you can’t set up a tent.  You can’t live in your vehicle. You can’t live in the woods in Nevada City,” he said.  “That is, unless you have a permit.”

The police chief says his program is unique, making only a select few of the city’s homeless population an exception to the law– like William Peach.

“There’s some of us out there like me who try and want to blend in with the community,” said Peach, a homeless individual camping out in the rural areas of Nevada City.

For Bob Barton, another homeless man who chooses to live in Nevada City, the new ordinance is music to his ears, he said.

“I come down here every fall and don’t want no trouble,” Barton said.

The new ordinance would essentially identify law-abiding homeless and reward them with a permit and hassle-free immunity as long as they behave appropriately.

For others, however, who come to Nevada City to commit crimes or
with a criminal history, well, they won’t be so lucky.  They won’t be issued permits.

“Those are the ones we really don’t want in our city and that we’re trying to keep from camping in our city,” said Wickham.

“We’ve seen a huge upsurge in homeless people,” Teresa Mann said.  Mann, who owns a business in downtown, says it’s about time– and so do the homeless who stay out of trouble and want trouble to stay away.

“If they’re homeless and heartless, hey, we got a place for them,” said “James”, who is homeless. “It’s called County Jail.”

For now, the police chief will give out about six to 10 permits.  He’ll check back in six months to see if the program is working.  If it is, that’s when he says he’ll give out more.

Chief Wickham says he’s identified at least 60 homeless in his community, and 500 homeless countywide.

* * * * * * * *

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

All local measures pass — except Rio Dell’s road bonds

By Charles Douglas
Humboldt Sentinel

Another whirlwind set of national, state and local campaigns have come to an end as the 2012 General Election has come and gone.

Incumbent Barack Hussein Obama was re-elected President by over 2 million votes (58,331,418) over former Massachusetts Governor Willard “Mitt” Romney (56,214,017), while former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson scored over a million votes (1,087,503) as the Libertarian nominee, the best third party showing since Ralph Nader in 2000. The Green Party’s Jill Stein finished a distant fourth place with 368,324 votes.

Obama won nearly all the so-called “swing states” which play a key role in Electoral College calculations, while Florida was the only state still too close to call as of press time, with Obama hanging on to a 42,836 votes lead over Romney — a margin less than the 43,397 cast for Johnson thus far.

In Humboldt County, the nail-bitter of the night was the Eureka City Council race for the contested Second Ward seat, where incumbent Linda Atkins, the lone liberal remaining in office in the county seat, fended off a strong challenge from Republican Central Committee stalwart Joe Bonino.

Atkins received 3,935 votes (50.75%) over 3,727 (48.07%) for Bonino, while 35 write-in votes (0.45%) were cast for Charlie Bean. This was despite a nearly two-to-one fundraising advantage for Bonino, who received the unanimous endorsement of the rest of the Eureka City Council along with campaign bucks from Supervisor Rex Bohn and noteworthy developers such as Kurt Kramer and Bill Barnum.

In Eureka’s Ward Four, appointed incumbent Melinda Ciarabellini received only 67% as an unopposed candidate, while 2,486 ballots were apparently cast blank.

The race in Fortuna was no contest, as Mayor Doug Strehl cruised to re-election with 2,675 votes (47.2%), while the second at-large seat will go to newcomer Tami Gillam-Trent 1,817 (32.0%). Notably pro-big box candidate Josh Brown was a distant third at 1,141 (20.1%).

Ferndale wins the prize for the strangest result of the night — the Victorian Village is the only municipality besides Eureka to directly elect its Mayor, and Ken Weller is tied with Stu Titus in this race with 287 votes each. Unqualified write-in candidates received 22 votes, while two votes were apparently “over votes” where voters attempted to vote more than once in this race.

In local ballot measures, Fortuna citizens gave the thumbs up to a new round of school bonds; Measure D gets 4,095 (60%) support, while it needed 55% to win; 2,732 (40%) were opposed.

Arcata Elementary School District voters passed a pair of measures to fund local education. Measure E, a school parcel tax which needed to surpass two-thirds support as a property tax,  grabbed 3,811 (77.3%) against 1,118 (22.68%); Measure F, which will issue school bonds for the district, passed with 3,610 (74.8%) in favor and 1,217 (25.2%) opposed.

Trinidad will maintain its status as tied for the highest sales tax in the county — Measure G, which keeps in place the 0.75% additional sales tax rate, passed with 97 votes (55.4%) in favor and 78 votes (44.6%) against.

In a purely symbolic move, Arcata decided to declare that corporate personhood no longer existed in the city — except in cases where such a local ordinance was preempted by state law, which is essentially a permanent situation so long as corporate personhood is recognized in the California Corporations Code. Measure H, the so-called “Corps Ain’t Peeps” campaign by former Arcata Councilmember Dave Meserve, passed with 5,140 (81.6%) against 1,162 (18.4%).

Arcata might not like corporations, but small time growers are also on the hit list, as Measure I, which imposes a huge tax on “excessive” energy use, passes with 4,287 (69%) in favor and 1,930 (31%) against.

The only failed local measure? Poor Rio Dell, whose second attempt at a street repair bond falls well short of two-thirds support. Measure J garnered only 492 votes (54.9%) with 404  (45.1%) against.

In the North Coast’s new Second Congressional District, Marin-area Assemblymember Jared Huffman (Dem.-San Rafael) cruised to victory with 151,010 (69.8%) over 65,359 (30.2%) for Mill Valley investment banker Dan Roberts.

Wes Chesbro (Dem.-Arcata), who has spent 12 years in Sacramento representing the region, will have one last term in the State Assembly, as he garnered 75,164 (63.1%) votes. Sonoma County Planning Commissioner Tom Lynch made a respectable showing, for a candidate with no money, receiving 43,979 (36.9%).

Statewide, the sales and income tax increase package known as Prop. 30, which Governor Jerry Brown (Dem.-Oakland) staked his political career on, appears to be passing after trailing early on Election Night. Also passing are Prop. 35, to enhance human trafficking penalties, Prop. 36, to reform the Three Strikes law, Prop. 39, to increase taxes on out-of-state businesses, and Prop. 40, a referendum approving the State Senate maps developed by the Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Vacation Accrual Without Caps Costs California Taxpayers Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

County Employees in Similar System

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

State employees are receiving hundreds of millions of
dollars in payouts for unused vacation days upon
retiring, the San Jose Mercury News reported yesterday.

California does not allow state employees to cash in their vacation time while still employed, so workers receive their entire vacation payouts when they retire.  More than 4,000 people retired from the state over the past three years with an extra $50,000 or more for unused vacation and comp time.

The Mercury News found the state paid a total of $800 million in vacation payouts from 2009 through 2011. The total includes $293 million in vacation payouts distributed to retiring prison employees, including health care workers and corrections officers.

The state doesn’t allow employees to cash in vacation time while they are still employed. But earlier this year, several state parks employees were disciplined and one fired after auditors found a secret program that allowed more than 50 parks employees to cash in a combined $270,000 worth of unused time.

The newspaper’s analysis showed the biggest payouts go to state workers with vital jobs, like firefighters, highway patrol officers and doctors at state hospitals or prisons. But others — lawyers, researchers at obscure state commissions, traffic engineers — also got fat checks. Managers are supposed to help workers keep vacation balances under 640 hours or 80 days, and Ashford said 87 percent of current state employees are under that cap.  However, state officials said in interviews, nothing stops employees from exceeding it.

According to the Mercury News, many of the largest payouts went to state workers who have vital jobs, such as physicians in prisons or state hospitals.

The analysis found that 27 workers — including 19 prison physicians and dentists — received checks for more than $250,000 when they retired. Some of those 27 employees retired with more than 500 unused vacation days.

Topping the list was Napa State Hospital psychiatrist Dr. Gertrudis Agcaoili, who retired after 33 years with 642 days of accrued vacation and comp time.  It cost taxpayers nearly $609,000.

How did she manage to bank so much time?

“It’s none of your business,” Agcaoili said in a brief telephone interview. “I deserve all of it. I worked very hard.”

A veteran observer of government spending said six-figure payouts like Agcaoili’s can be crippling and called on the state to revise its personnel policies.

“It’s an unfunded liability and a burden on the taxpayer,” said Thomas Schatz, executive director of Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington, D.C., watchdog group.  ”California needs to look very closely at it. They have to enforce the 80-day limit.”

Payouts in state government spiked in 2010, topping $300 million, data shows.

Nancy Kincaid — a spokesperson for the state Correctional Health Care Services department — said, “You can’t force people to take time off. I’ve never been able to do that in my time as a manager.”

However, private employers can cap vacation day accruals and require workers to use days off, according to the Mercury News.  It’s an accounting liability that private companies work aggressively to avoid, but one that continues to pile up in Sacramento.  And, ironically, the problem grew even worse in recent years when the state tried to save cash by forcing workers to take unpaid furlough days as an emergency budget fix.  As a result, banks of unused vacation grew even larger.

When asked last month about vacation and comp time payouts, Gov. Jerry Brown downplayed the issue, saying the state makes employees take vacation before it piles up.

Elizabeth Ashford, spokesperson for Gov. Jerry Brown (D), said that the governor intends to address the vacation payout issue.

“The problem, like the $26 billion deficit, is a carry-over from a prior era,” Ashford said, adding, “Employees were furloughed for short-term savings, which has left a long-term debt in the form of accumulated leave.”

Identical to State workers, Humboldt County employees also accrue unused vacation and comp balances paid out at the highest rate of pay at the time of retirement or severing from employment.

Vacation and comp time for Humboldt County workers earned initially at lower rates of pay are paid out at higher, significantly increased dollar amounts later as the employee reaches higher step levels, takes promotions, receives coast of living adjustments, or transfers to more highly paid positions within the County during their employment.

Like State employees, County employees are allowed to accrue and bank their time without restriction and are not forced to cap hours or take time off which would reduce County payroll costs.

One County administrative official retiring after 29 years received a nearly six-figure retirement payout of unused vacation and comp time that doubled in value during the course of employment.  The County consequently had to make a special monetary bank transfer accomodating the final payout paycheck.

“Yeah, You’d do Some Dumb …’Stuff’ If You Knew” (VIDEO)

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

In November, Californians will vote on Proposition 37 requiring that genetically engineered (GE) foods be labeled.

Just as labels list fat, sodium and sugar, labels should tell the buyer whether or not the product includes genetically engineered ingredients (GMOs).

Unfortunately, major out-of-state corporations are pouring millions of dollars into this election in order to confuse voters, and protect their bottom line.

The largest donation, $7.1 million, is from the Missouri-based Monsanto company.  Monsanto is a major producer of genetically engineered seeds and of Roundup, which is used on crops engineered to withstand the herbicide.

Proponents of the ‘Right to Know’ Prop 37 campaign haven’t raised enough money to run this spot on television yet.

Because we have the best democracy money can buy– and following in the wake of Citizens United– we decided to even the playing field a bit.

You can level the field, too, by passing it on.

Part II: Compounding Pharmacies and Lack of FDA Oversight Led to National Meningitis Outbreak

By Marshall Allen
ProPublica, Oct. 10, 2012

Imagine my surprise when I heard about Vegas Mixx, the latest club drug being promoted in Las Vegas.  Marketing materials described it as a combination of Valium, to relax the mind, and Viagra, to stimulate the, well, you know. 
Vegas Mixx promised to make users perform “Like a Porn Star.”

I’m no medical expert, but this didn’t sound like a good idea.  Valium, a controlled substance, can have serious side effects.  And Viagra, well, warnings about erections lasting longer than four hours should give anyone pause.  Was it legal?  When I was a reporter at the Las Vegas Sun, the guys running the local compounding pharmacy that made Vegas Mixx had no problem telling me they were just trying to make a buck.  They claimed it was legal.  And indeed, the pharmacy never was disciplined by the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy.  They only stopped producing the drug because it wasn’t profitable.

Vegas Mixx turned out to be a bust.  But it highlighted an evolution in the drug compounding industry, which has come under intense scrutiny after steroids produced by a Massachusetts company were linked to 12 fungal meningitis deaths and 137 infections in 10 states.  The New England Compounding Center, which made the injectable steroids linked to the outbreak, acted more like a drug manufacturer than a traditional compounding pharmacy, said David Miller, executive vice president and CEO of the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacies.

Compounding pharmacies typically provide custom-made drugs based on individual physician prescriptions tailored to specific patients, who, for example, might be allergic to a mass-produced product. In contrast, the compounding pharmacy that made Vegas Mixx was making and marketing a drug combo before a doctor had prescribed it.  The New England Compounding Center shipped more than 17,000 doses of steroid injections to 23 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Those steroid doses, and other concoctions by compounding pharmacies, are exempt from traditional review and approval by the Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with assuring the efficacy, purity and safety of manufactured drug compounds and strict adherence to sanitary manufacturing standards.

An FDA official said in an email that state pharmacy boards are the front lines of enforcing the activities of compounding pharmacies.  The FDA can step in, but there have been conflicting court rulings about how federal law applies to compounding pharmacies, the FDA official said.

That means compounding pharmacies operating as manufacturers are below the radar of FDA oversight, Miller said, potentially putting patients at risk.

This could have been prevented.  More than a decade ago, David Kessler, former FDA commissioner, issued a warning about the future of compounded drugs at a Congressional hearing prior to passage of the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997.  He said that ambiguity in the law could allow for “large scale manufacturing under the guise of pharmacy compounding,” leading to a “shadow industry” of unapproved generic drugs.

Provisions in the act designed to clarify FDA oversight of compounding pharmacies — including restrictions on their ability to advertise drugs — were later struck down by courts.  Still, the FDA says it can act in some circumstances, such as when a drug is contaminated or mislabeled.

Miller said he believes only a few rogue compounding pharmacies are operating outside traditional boundaries.  The New England Compounding Center “appears to have been acting as a manufacturer without being registered as a manufacturer with the (Food and Drug Administration), or registering with the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy as a manufacturer,” he said.

“Something does need to change. That’s something our association is grappling with right now,” he said.  In the wake of the outbreak, officials from the academy are in contact with congressional staffers to discuss how to
increase oversight without stifling traditional pharmacy practices, Miller added.

Other cases have raised alarms.  In 2007, a Portland Tribune investigation revealed patient deaths that were linked to a bad batch of drugs, used to treat back pain, from a Texas compounding pharmacy.  A pharmacist who consults with the advocacy group Public Citizen called the compounding pharmacy industry a “shadow drug industry,” in an interview with the newspaper.  And this week the Tennessee attorney general filed a complaint against HRC Medical Center, a hormone replacement therapy company that used a compounding pharmacy to produce the testosterone pellets for women.

In the past year, I interviewed several women who were treated at HRC facilities, and they complained of testosterone treatments that led to excess facial hair, uncontrollable rage and genital growth.  One doctor who reviewed an HRC patient’s medical records on behalf of ProPublica said her testosterone levels were more than four times normal – into the range of a man. 

It’s unknown whether the alleged problems at HRC Medical were caused by the providers, by the pharmacy, or both.   Officials from HRC Medical did not return calls for comment.  But according to the attorney general’s complaint, the hormone pellets the compounding pharmacy supplied to HRC Medical could trigger an unpredictable release of hormones
in the blood stream due to their unproven method of manufacturing.
The pharmacy’s production standards, material handling practices and
operating procedures were not FDA approved, the complaint stated.

Miller said responsibility for the fungal meningitis outbreak goes beyond the compounding pharmacy involved and regulatory gaps.  Doctors and medical providers purchased the drugs and should also be held accountable for the patient harm, he said.

“What due diligence did those facilities do to assure the drugs they were purchasing were appropriate, safe and effective?” he asked.

Sagar Atre of ProPublica contributed reporting to this story.

* * * * * * * * *

This is part II of a two-part series on the national meningitis outbreak.  Readers may also want to see the Sentinel’s previous story here:

“600 Californians Received Shots Linked to National Meningitis Outbreak: Mendocino County Medical Center on Watch List for Non-FDA Regulated Drug.”

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 and 2011, ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest, according to their website.  Based in Manhattan with a newsroom of 34 working journalists, the organization is dedicated to investigative reporting on stories with “moral force” and a significant potential for major impact.

Images by Humboldt Sentinel
Posted by Skippy Massey

Part I: Mendocino County Medical Center on Watch List for Non-FDA Regulated Drug

–Cases and Deaths Rising–

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

A national fungal meningitis outbreak linked to epidural steroid injections has affected the eastern half of the
United States and is continuing to grow, according to the
Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  The CDC, which
is coordinating the investigation into the outbreak,
said the infected states include Florida, Indiana,
Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio,
Tennessee and Virginia.

State and federal officials said 75 health care facilities in 23 states received the contaminated product.  As of Monday, 105 meningitis cases and eight deaths had been reported.  On Wednesday afternoon, those numbers rose to 137 cases and 12 deaths in 10 states linked to the outbreak.  It is believed that 13,000 patients may have been exposed by injection nationwide.

No cases or deaths have occurred so far in California– but about 600 California patients were treated with steroid shots from the recalled batches of the pain medication used as an epidural injection for chronic pain.

According to CDC, four California facilities that received the recalled batches of medication are:

• Ukiah Valley Medical Center
• Cypress Surgery Center in Visalia
• Encino Outpatient Surgical Center
• Universal Pain Management in Palmdale

Health officials are continuing to monitor patients in the North Coast
region who received the steroids.  None of the facilities or patients
appear to be in Humboldt County.

The outbreak has been linked to batches of methylprednisolone acetate used to make injectable steroids and manufactured by the New England Compounding Center, which federal officials suspect was contaminated with the fungus.

Unlike drug manufacturers, which are regulated by FDA, compounding pharmacies are licensed by states and not subject to federal oversight.  California officials are now eyeing tougher restrictions and considering ways to strengthen the regulation of medical products shipped from out-of-state compounding pharmacies due to the outbreak.

The California Board of Pharmacy is responsible for licensing pharmacies in California, as well as out-of-state pharmacies that ship products into California.

Virginia Herold — executive officer of the California Board of Pharmacy — said state regulators are working on proposals that would strengthen licensing requirements for out-of-state compounding pharmacies that ship products into California.  Proposed regulations could require that accrediting agencies use California inspection standards for out-of-state manufacturers that ship to California, according to Herold.

“If we’re going to accept their accreditation, it should be to our standards,” Herold said.

New England Compounding Center located in Framingham, Mass., began a voluntary recall of the steroid drugs on Sept. 26.  Among those receiving the infected batches was the Ukiah Valley Medical Center, which last week sent out letters to patients notifying them of the issues of fungal meningitis, a swelling of the protective covering of the brain and spinal cord.

The CDC said infected patients have developed a variety of symptoms approximately one to four weeks following their injection. The symptoms include fever, new or worsening headache and nausea. Some also have suffered strokes.

The CDC investigation thus far has revealed that the meningitis linked to the steroid injections was caused by a fungus that is common in the environment but rarely causes meningitis. The source of the fungus, however, hasn’t been identified.  Officials said the fungal meningitis in this outbreak is not contagious.

Anyone who has had one of the epidural steroid injections since May 21 should talk to their doctor immediately if they experience a worsening headache, fever, sensitivity to light, stiff neck, new weakness or numbness in any part of your body or slurred speech, according to the CDC.

In a released statement earlier this week, the Ukiah Valley Medical Center said it selected the New England Compounding Center in spite of a 75 percent higher cost for the compounded medication because the center is a specialized “compounding-only pharmacy” dedicated to providing medications and services to patients and prescribers.

 “The product was selected because it contains no preservatives or buffers that other pharmaceutical manufacturers offer that may cause higher risk of infection or other complications,” a Ukiah Valley Medical Center spokesperson said on Monday.

* * * * * * * *

This is part I of a two-part Sentinel series on the national meningitis outbreak and compounding pharmacies.  Part II: “What a Failed Vegas Sex Pill and the Meningitis Outbreak Have in Common” may surprise you– and  can be found here.

City of Oakland Fights Federal Clampdown on Medical Marijuana

–Claims Statute of Limitations Has Expired

Chris Marshall
Courthouse News Service

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – Federal officials reneged on promises to let the states regulate medical marijuana shops without interference, Oakland claims in federal court.

The complaint filed on Wednesday asks to block civil forfeiture proceedings against a Northern California dispensary recently featured on the “Weed Wars” television show.

Oakland claims Harborside Medical Center complies with all state and local laws and should remain open.  The federal government filed civil forfeiture proceedings in July against the dispensary’s two locations in Oakland and San Jose, accusing them of selling marijuana in violation of the Controlled Substances Act.  While medical marijuana is legal in California, it is still illegal under federal law.

Earlier federal crackdowns had focused on dispensaries close to schools or parks, but U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag focused on Harborside because of its size.

Defending the action against Harborside, Haag had said: “I now find the need to consider actions regarding marijuana superstores such as Harborside.  The larger the operation, the greater the likelihood that there will be abuse of the state’s medical marijuana laws, and marijuana in the hands of individuals who do not have a demonstrated medical need.”

In a pair of July complaints filed against the two separate locations, Haag does not accuse the properties of selling marijuana to customers who are
not medical marijuana patients, nor does she claim
that they let nonpatients obtain marijuana.  Rather, she
quotes the Controlled Substances Act and federal forfeiture statutes that prohibit the manufacturing or sale of illegal substances.

Courthouse News had asked the prosecutor’s office at the time of the filing if it had proof Harborside allowed medical marijuana to get into the hands of nonpatients.

Spokesman Jack Gillund replied: “Other than the statement we issued yesterday, we have no comment.”

Oakland claims that Haag’s actions contradict promises
made by the federal government not to circumvent state
laws concerning medical marijuana.

The Obama administration has allegedly repeatedly stated it would not go after marijuana dispensaries operating within state law.  One spokesman told the San Francisco Chronicle that “Obama would end U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raids on medical marijuana suppliers in states with their own laws,” according to the complaint.

After being elected, Obama’s attorney general appointee, Eric Holder, said: “what the president said during the
campaign, you’ll be surprised to know, will be consistent with
what we’ll be doing here in law enforcement.”

Holder later stated that the “policy is to go after those people who violate both federal and state law.”

Oakland claims these promises led it to “further legitimize the medical cannabis industry by taxing its revenue and allocating this increased revenue to the general fund.”

The city estimates the shops will bring in over $1.4 million in business tax revenue in 2012, noting the revenue is “sufficient to pay for a dozen additional police officers
or firefighters, or even more librarians, park directors,
or other essential municipal services.”  Oakland levies a voter-approved 5 percent gross sales tax against the shops.

Though the U.S. government allegedly knew about the existence of Harborside since 2006, and even earlier for other dispensaries, it did not take action until this year, according to the complaint.

Thus, Oakland says that the five-year statute of limitations on civil forfeiture proceedings has lapsed.

“Defendants exceeded their authority by filing civil forfeiture actions more than five years after they knew or should have known that the dispensaries were operational,” the complaint
states.

“Defendants’ failure to comply with the applicable statute of limitations is an abuse of discretion, contrary to law, and in excess of defendants’ authority,” Oakland added.

Shuttering Harborside will allegedly cause the city to suffer irreparable harm in the form of the lost tax revenue, patient suffering and increased crime.

“Instead of obtaining medicine from a city-regulated dispensary located in a commercial area with ample
lighting and security, medical patients, including the elderly
and disabled, will have no option but to seek medical cannabis from street level drug dealers,” the complaint states.  ”This will increase crime and divert scarce Oakland Police Department resources from addressing the violent crime, illegal guns, and other public safety crises that are causing the loss of many lives in Oakland.”

Oakland added: “Well-regulated dispensaries provide affordable medical cannabis in a controlled setting, which decreases the market for illegal marijuana.  Closing dispensaries will not reduce the demand for medical cannabis, but will instead create a distribution vacuum that likely will precipitate price increases, crime and street violence.”

City Attorney Barbara Parker said the lawsuit “is about protecting the rights of
legitimate medical patients.”

“I am deeply dismayed that the federal government would seek to deny these rights and deprive thousands of seriously ill Californians of access to safe, affordable and effective medicine,” Parker said in a statement.

The city sued Holder and Haag for estoppel, and asked the court to declare that the civil forfeiture action falls outside the statute of limitations.  The lawsuit applies to the Oakland location only.

Oakland is being represented by Cedric Chao of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco.

Chao said that “the federal government has acted beyond its authority by initiating the forfeiture action outside the statute of limitations.”

“Moreover, the government has indicated for many years by its words and actions that so long as dispensaries and medical patients acted consistently with state laws, the dispensaries would be allowed to operate,” Chao said in a statement.  “Oakland has reasonably relied on these assurances, and the government should be prohibited from disrupting Oakland’s medical cannabis program.”

U.S. Attorney Haag’s office did not return a call for comment.

* * * * * * * * *

The suit comes as federal prosecutors have ramped up efforts to shutter dispensaries statewide, targeting those close to schools as well as operations such as Harborside, which are in compliance with local and state laws but in which prosecutors have deemed “superstores.”

Founded in 2006, Harborside now counts 108,000 collective patients and paid $3.5 million in taxes last year, $1.1 million of that to Oakland.  The dispensary is the largest in the nation.   Co-founder Steve DeAngelo, pictured above, worked closely with Oakland officials as they crafted one of the nation’s strictest regulatory models to monitor and tax the industry.

Advocates for medical marijuana said they know of no other instance in which a city has sued federal prosecutors in an attempt to protect a dispensary.

“I would definitely welcome them to the fight,” said Don Duncan, California director for Americans for Safe Access. “The symbolism of this is very important.”

Meanwhile, a preliminary federal court hearing is scheduled for Nov. 1, Harborside’s DeAngelo said.  He called Oakland’s lawsuit “the first time that any official governmental body has formally challenged the federal government’s attacks on medical cannabis laws.”

“I think the city realizes that Melinda Haag is not only attacking Harborside but attacking the entire system of regulated medical cannabis sales that the city painstakingly developed,” he said.

 
Article courtesy of Chris Marshall and the Courthouse News Service
Images by the Humboldt Sentinel

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

Timothy White to take over system in crisis

By Paul Mann
HSU Now

The California State University Board of Trustees today named Timothy P. White, chancellor of the University of California, Riverside, as the seventh chancellor to lead the 23 campus CSU system, the largest four-year public higher education system in the country.

“I am humbled to have been chosen to lead the California State University system at such a transformative time,” said White. “As Chancellor, I look forward to engaging with faculty, students, staff, campus presidents and CSU trustees, along with the communities we serve, as we advance this vital system of higher education for California’s future.”

White, 63, has served as UCR Chancellor since 2008 and was among the finalists for the position to succeed Chancellor Charles B. Reed who announced his retirement following a 14-year tenure with the system.

“Tim White’s background and experience reflect the institutional values and mission of the CSU,” said CSU Board Chair Bob Linscheid. “His demonstrated leadership and commitment to student success are the right combination for the university’s future.”

White is the eighth chancellor of UC Riverside, and has led the growth of the campus to almost 21,000 students, a record for the campus that opened in 1954. Shortly after arriving at UCR, he formed a committee of faculty, staff, students and community stakeholders to develop a 10-year strategic plan for the university’s next stage of development. He also furthered UCR’s goal for the establishment of a School of Medicine by hiring its founding dean and securing $100 million in gifts and financing for the initial years of the school’s operation. The school this week received preliminary accreditation to serve students. In addition, he recently announced the opening of the UCR School of Public Policy.

Under White’s leadership, UCR has consistently been rated well in the U.S. News and World Report’s college rankings both in academic quality and diversity. Within the UC system, UCR has proportionally more minority students than any other campus, and more than 53 percent of UCR students receive Pell Grants.

“As a long serving member of the board, we are grateful to appoint a chancellor with Tim White’s commitment to reaching out to underserved students that was initiated by Chancellor Reed,” said CSU Trustee Bill Hauck who led the search committee. “Tim has experienced firsthand the powerful impact of higher education, and has the leadership qualities to guide the system through these fiscally challenging times.”

Prior to serving at UCR, White was president of the University of Idaho from 2004 to 2008. There he established a strategic direction to further the university’s role as the state’s land-grant and flagship research university.

White also served as a dean, provost and executive vice president, and interim president at Oregon State University. He previously held positions as professor and chair of the Department of Human Biodynamics at the University of California, Berkeley, and as professor and chair of the Department of Movement Science and research scientist in the Institute of Gerontology at the University of Michigan.

White is a member of numerous national organizations, and is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. In addition, he has served on the NCAA Division I Board of Directors, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment on Sustainability, the Big West Conference Board of Directors, and the University of California systemwide Working Smarter Initiative and Rebenching Committee.

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, White immigrated to Northern California, and is a first-generation college student who has matriculated within every college system in California. After beginning at Diablo Valley Community College, he earned a bachelor’s from Fresno State, a master’s degree from Cal State Hayward (East Bay), and a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. He also spent two years as a post-doctoral scholar in physiology at the University of Michigan before starting his academic career in Ann Arbor. He is internationally recognized for his work in muscle plasticity, injury and aging.

White is expected to start in his new position at the end of December, and will receive an annual salary at the same level as the current chancellor, $421,500 plus a $30,000 supplement from CSU Foundation sources, as well as the standard benefits package for CSU employees.

White and his wife Dr. Karen White have four sons. She has been engaged with UC Riverside as a part-time assistant clinical professor for the Biomedical Sciences program, and as director of Operation Education, a scholarship program that supports veteran students with disabilities.

Big win for ALEC, transnational telecom giants

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

Despite the best efforts of consumer rights groups and universal Internet access advocates, the Goliath beat the daylights out of David this weekend with the signing of California Senate Bill 1161, which guarantees a regulation-free future for telecommunications corporations pushing to end the old land-line lifeline in favor of Internet Protocol telephones.

In his signing statement, Governor Jerry Brown (Dem. – Oakland) pointed to the weak power of the California Public Utilities Commission to compile complaints and report them to the Federal Communications Commission and the Legislature as sufficient to keep the telecoms in line.

“VoIP providers will continue to contribute to the State’s universal service programs and provide E-911 access,” Brown stated.” The bill does not affect the authority of the California Public Utilities Commission regarding the construction and maintenance of facilities and access to utility support structures, including pole attachments.”

SB 1161 was hatched by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a 50-state spanning lobby of many of the world’s largest transnational corporations, including AT&T and Verizon. It was in their interest that SB 1161 powered through the state legislature this summer, with the support of corporatist Republicans and neoliberal Democrats alike. Lobbyists Jim Hawley of TechNet and Kristine Berman of TechAmerica crowed about their victory on their respective websites:

“The Governor’s signature on this legislation will improve California’s worldwide technology leadership by establishing an Internet policy that supports innovation, investment and job creation,” Hawley and Berman stated. “Continued investment and innovation will bring California consumers more of the products, devices and services like VoIP they want and that are enhancing their lives.”

The motley crew of opponents — including The Utility Reform Network, Communications Workers of America, Media Alliance and local legislators like Assemblymembers Wes Chesbro (Dem. – Arcata) & Jared Huffman (Dem. – San Rafael) and State Senators Noreen Evans (Dem. – Santa Rosa) and Mark Leno (Dem. – San Francisco) — were simply overwhelmed by the lobbying power and campaign cash of ALEC and the telecoms.

“Governor Jerry Brown’s signing message for SB 1161 yesterday indicates that he believes the promises of private industry when their advocates say they will protect consumers, ensure public safety and secure universal access to open internet services,” Access Humboldt executive director Sean McLaughlin stated in a release. “Given the history of telecommunications market failure and the lagging status of universal access to open internet in California and across the US, we see a great need for localism, competition and diversity in the communication networks that form our marketplace of ideas.”

“These are not trivial goals that industry has failed to meet, in spite of many past promises, huge subsidies and large profits. So, we do not agree with the Governor’s assessment of SB 1161.”

McLaughlin’s warnings were echoed last month in a Wired.com op-ed by Harvard Law School professor Susan Crawford, who blasted the Legislature for caving in on open access concerns in favor of private profiteers fully exploiting public airwaves and spaces.

“Reliable, affordable, high-capacity, and neutral communications services are a vital input to the entire range of California businesses,” Crawford stated. “But the carriers want to be able to charge everyone for everything, without any oversight, and without any obligation to serve everyone; they’d like to have a two-sided market, in which the communications provider not only charges the consumer for network access but also charges service providers for access to the consumer. Big companies are fine with this, because they’ll have leverage in these negotiations. Smaller companies, poorer Californians, startups, and society as a whole will suffer.”

“Like the wildfires that are racing through Northern California, the carriers are sweeping the country with bills like SB 1161, gutting legislative and regulatory authority wherever they can. Having an unregulated monopoly over a basic input into all economic activity is a great business. California is just an example of an overall trend. But it’s a very big and important example.”

The bill’s signature may even jeopardize parts of the Telecommunications Element under consideration next month by the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors as part of its General Plan Update process.

Read on for the full text of Governor Brown’s signing statement:

“Office of the Governor
September 28, 2012

To the Members of the California State Senate:

I am signing Senate Bill 1161 that limits California Public Utilities Commission (Commission) regulatory authority of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol (IP) enabled services until January 1, 2020. This bill encourages the continued growth of these and other innovative services that have become a hallmark of our state.

The existing consumer protections safeguarded by this bill are crucial. VoIP providers will continue to contribute to the State’s universal service programs and provide E-911 access. The bill preserves enforcement of State and federal civil and criminal laws and local ordinances of general applicability, including consumer protection rules and proscriptions against unfair competition. The bill does not affect the authority of the California Public Utilities Commission regarding the construction and maintenance of facilities and access to utility support structures, including pole attachments.

Importantly, the bill emphasizes the Commission’s authority to monitor, track and report complaints from VoIP customers to the Federal Communications Commission, and empowers the Commission to report their findings annually to the Legislature. I know the Commission stands at the ready to be diligent in this effort. Likewise, I expect VoIP providers to cooperate fully and promptly to resolve consumer complaints brought to the attention of the Commission.

Sincerely,
Edmund G. Brown Jr.”

Crisis Task Force Estimate:

$167 - $335 Billion in the Red

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Pictures Show the Efforts and Devastation of the Raging Blazes

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Clicking on the pictures will enlarge and enhance their resolution.

The Scotts Fire, above, is west of Scott Valley Road on Cow Mountain, located in steep and rugged terrain 8 miles east of Ukiah.  A total of 4,618 acres have burned with 15% of the area contained.

With 300 residences and 40 outbuildings threatened, an evacuation warning has been issued for Scotts Valley Road from Highway 20 south to Hendricks Road.  A heavy commitment of aircraft, bulldozers, and fire crews will continue to build and strengthen containment lines today protecting residences, BLM lands, and critical communications infrastructure.

The North Pass Fires northeast of Covelo, above, burned 41,983 acres with containment rising to 97%.  In the picture on the right, you can see a very small tanker plane engulfed in the large smoke plume.

The Wye Fires in Lake and Colusa Counties near Highway 20, east of Highway 53 and Clearlake Oaks, burned nearly 8,000 acres– but is now extinguished with mop-up operations underway.

The Yolo County Fires, right and below, broke outside of the small community of Guinda in Yolo County.  They burned 520 acres before coming under control.

The Ponderosa Fire, below, burned 27,800 acres in Shasta and Tehama Counties, two miles east of the town of Manton.  It was 100% contained, but not before it destroyed 52 residences and 81 outbuildings in its path.

The Stafford Fire, right, is 5 miles southeast of Hayfork in Trinity County.

Consuming 4,460 acres with 45% containment, mandatory evacuations and road closures are in effect for certain areas of the region.

1,479 personnel, 126 engines, 37 fire crews, 8 helicopters, 18 bulldozers, and 25 water tenders are battling the stubborn blaze in steep and rugged terrain.

* * * * * * * * *

Our appreciation goes to CalFire Incident, Facebook, and the firefighters.

The crew picture on the left is a good one to click and biggify:  they may be tired and dirty, but they can still smile together.

To note, these are only a few of the fires currently burning in California at this time.

Photo Credits:  CalFire Facebook page and Matthew Henderson

Major Pension Reforms to be Introduced to California Legislature Soon

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

William Dotinga
Courthouse News Service

LOS ANGELES (CN) – Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday unveiled a “sweeping pension reform agreement” he claims will save taxpayers billions of dollars by capping benefits and increasing the retirement age for state workers.

Brown said the agreement with state Democratic leaders will stop abuses and require state employees to pay at least half of their pension costs.

“These reforms make fundamental changes that rein in costs and help to ensure that our public retirement system is sustainable for the long term.  These reforms require sacrifice from public employees and represent a significant step forward,” Brown said.

Brown said that if the Legislature passes the reforms, public retirement benefits would be lower than when he took office during his first go-round as governor in 1975.

Brown said the agreement includes benefit rollbacks for public employees.  It will require all current and future state employees to fund at least 50 percent of their own pensions, something Brown hopes becomes “the norm for all public workers in California,” since the agreement removes state barriers that prevent local governments from increasing employee pension contributions.

Brown’s plan also raises the retirement age for new state workers by two years and allows cities and counties to raise the retirement age of their employees as well.

The governor said the agreement bans abusive practices state workers have used to enhance pension payouts, such “spiking” and “air time.”

Spiking gives employees big raises during their last year of employment to inflate their pensions.

Air time – which allows state employees to pad their retirement benefits by buying service credits – is one of several scandals rocking California’s Parks Department.

“No more spiking, no more air time, no more pensions earned by convicted felons,” Brown said.  “We’re cleaning up a big mess and the agreement reached with legislative leaders today is historic in its far reaching implications.”

Pension reform has been on legislators’ minds this year, particularly since the state’s two main pension funds are underfunded by at least $150 billion.

Democrats seek to appear fiscally responsible as voters prepare to decide the fate of Brown’s tax hikes in November.

If the initiatives fail, another sweeping round of trigger cuts will sting the Golden State again.

It remains to be seen whether the Legislature will send a bill to Brown’s desk before the session ends Friday – especially in light of disapproval from of California’s powerful public employee unions.

“We’re upset that a Democratic legislature and Democratic governor feel obligated to take this out on working men and women in California,” SEIU spokesperson Terry Brennand told KGO-TV Monday.  “That’s going to damage the ability of working men and women to retire in dignity.”

(Article by William Dotinga and courtesy of the Courthouse News Service.  Pictures by the Humboldt Sentinel)

* * * * * * * * *

With municipalities struggling with pension costs overwhelming local budgets, it looks like Governor Brown’s pension reform is on the table a year earlier than he promised.  With the bankruptcies of Stockton, Vallejo, and San Bernardino, the Governor is promptly getting down to the brass tacks of fiscal responsibility.

It’s happening.  Voters in San Jose and San Diego Tuesday overwhelmingly approved public pension reform for their cities.  These results send a clear and unmistakable message to municipalities everywhere failing to meet pension obligations.  If pension reform can pass in major California cities, it can pass anywhere.  Cities and counties across the country will surely  follow suit putting pension reform on their ballots, too.

The subject isn’t so much about unions as it is about finance and cities struggling to remain solvent.  Public unions did put up some resistance to these measures, but they, too, appear resigned to the fact they would pass.  It’s a fiscal reality and quite the pickle we’ve found ourselves in.

San Diego, for example, currently spends 20% of their general fund budget on their retirement fund.  In San Jose, it is 27%.  Clearly, these kinds of obligations are unsustainable.  This means the cities are forced to spend money on pensions badly needed elsewhere.  Looking forward, their financial situations are even direr. Unfunded public pension obligations reach into the billions for both cities.

The reforms?  In San Jose, public employees will now pay more to keep existing pensions or accept more modest benefits.  New hires would get less comprehensive benefits.  The San Diego pension measure freezes pay levels for six years which will lead to lower costs– but can be overridden by a city council vote each year.  New hires get 401k-type plans rather than the current defined benefits packages.  Both plans are noteworthy because they address what was once untouchable:  lowering benefits for existing employees.

It’s not a pretty picture.  When times were good, no one complained.  Now it appears everyone’s leaping on the bandwagon to shrink the State’s pension envy with a cold shower.

The Humboldt Sentinel received from sources the following semi-confidential letter below, signed by the eight mayors of California’s largest cities pleading to the Legislature and Governor for help and fast tracking the issue– lest they, too, become overcome by the rising tide of their unfunded pension obligations. 

Shhh– this is for your eyes only:

Pension Reform Letter

Pension reform has arrived.  Except in Humboldt County.

How will Humboldt County, Eureka, and our other cities handle their pension obligations in their administrative top-heavy pension hierarchy?  Good question.  The figures may surprise you.  No wonder Eureka streets are crumbling while City Hall needed Measure O to pass.

The Sentinel will be having a report on the surprising sums of the city of Eureka soon.  Stay tuned.

Big Business and ALEC Wants Your Internet Access

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

Senate Bill 1161, an ALEC supported bill in California that would gut State and local regulation of broadband media services using Internet Protocol (IP-enabled), was amended Thursday, August 16, in the California Assembly, Access Humboldt Executive Director Sean McLaughlin said today in a release.

After a vote today on the Assembly floor allowing the amendments to be considered Thursday, a revised version of SB 1161 was released and made available to the public late today.  Amendments to SB 1161 made public are attached below.

Along with County of Humboldt and other local jurisdictions, dozens of consumer advocates and public interest groups across the nation are actively opposed to SB 1161.  Access Humboldt has twice testified in Sacramento in opposition to SB 1161 and has been posting testimony sharing concerns and updates on the web since April 13, 2012.

Following a review of the amendments adopted today, Sean McLaughlin, Executive Director of Access Humboldt and a Knight Media Policy Fellow with New America Foundation said:

“SB 1161 amendments offered today are woefully inadequate – they follow the pattern so far, only accommodating basic legacy protections and propping up outdated regulations.  SB 1161 still fails to address forward looking concerns for public safety, privacy, universal access, and other consumer issues.”

McLaughlin added:

“Measured against our most important policy goal for the State: universal access to open internet, SB 1161 is extremely harmful and will hinder development of community broadband and local media access.

This ALEC sponsored bill, tying the hands of State and local governments, will only benefit private telecommunications providers at the expense of consumers and the public interest. Ultimately, SB 1161 as proposed is very damaging to public safety, health care, education, and other local community interests.”

Access Humboldt recently shared an e-mail from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services to the Assembly Appropriations Committee expressing detailed concerns about the negative and costly impacts of SB 1161 on public safety and emergency response for remote rural communities.

Those public safety concerns have not been addressed in the latest amendments offered.

People who would like to register their concerns about SB 1161 are encouraged to use the Action Alert pages provided by The Utility Reform Network (TURN):

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/746/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=10157

AARP:  https://action.aarp.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2213

National Rural Assembly:  http://www.ruralassembly.org/news/action-alert-sb-1161

For more information, please contact Sean McLaughlin at 707-616-2381

~Sean McLaughlin
Knight Media Policy Fellow
New America Foundation

Executive Director
Access Humboldt
P.O. Box 157, Eureka, CA 95502
tel: 707-476-1798
dir: 707-476-2873
fcel: 707-616-2381
e: sean@accesshumboldt.net

Visit our Website:  http://accesshumboldt.net
Follow us on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/accesshumboldt
and Twitter:  http://twitter.com/accesshumboldt

* * * * * * * *

Thank you for the update, Mr. McLaughlin.

We’ve been following the issue, too, as have our readers.  The SB 1161 legislation curbing public access to the Internet is being promoted by ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), an industry-led lobbying group writing rules and regulations favoring their corporate sponsor’s interests to legislators– while sidelining citizen input.

Image credit:  Wikipedia public domain images.  ALEC logo covered under Fair Use conditions.
(Posted by Skippy Massey)

Governor’s Tax Hikes and State Excesses Won’t Erase ‘Wall of Debt’

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

The Governor means business by enacting his tough set of fiscal reforms.  He’s broken Sacramento’s legislative partisan gridlock and delivered the budget on time.  But the ink is still dripping– and curbing Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is going to be a tough sell.

The compromise tax hike initiative supported by Governor Jerry Brown won’t raise enough revenue to eliminate California’s whopping $34 billion “wall of debt” in four years, according to a report from the state Department of Finance, the Sacramento Bee reported Monday.

The Bee’s report doesn’t paint a pretty picture for the Golden State.

The Sentinel has been following the State budget and the Governor’s attempts at reigning an out of bounds roller coaster ride back into fiscal balance.

Red Ink: Details of the ‘Wall of Debt’

Last year, Brown introduced the ‘wall of debt’ concept to illustrate various forms of borrowing by the state over the past few years.  Think of it as the opposite of Winco’s ‘wall of values.’  It’s bad, very bad, and it ain’t no bargain like two boxes of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese for a buck.

According to the Department of Finance report, the wall of debt currently is at $34.2 billion and would drop to $8.9 billion by the end of fiscal year 2015-2016– that is, if voters pass the compromise tax hike plan in November.  The projection falls short of Brown’s goal to eliminate budget-based borrowing in four years with the approval of the tax hike, the Bee said. 

California’s borrowing from special fund accounts has already reached nearly $4.3 billion, more than five times the amount from June 2008.

 Details of the Compromise Tax Hike Plan

The compromise tax hike plan — developed by Brown and supporters of the “Millionaires Tax” to help balance the budget – would:

• Increase the personal income tax by one percentage point for individuals who earn $250,000 annually or couples who earn $500,000 annually; and by two percentage points for individuals who earn $300,000 annually or couples who earn $600,000 annually.
• Extend the income tax increases on wealthy residents from five to seven years.
• Increase the sales tax by a quarter of a cent.  The sales tax hike would expire in four years.

The combination of taxes would raise an estimated $9 billion over the next fiscal year.

Last month, Brown signed the fiscal year 2012-2013 budget agreement, which factors in presumed revenue coming from the compromise tax hike plan.

 More Red Ink

We still have the Governor’s multi-billion-dollar building proposals for a high speed bullet train ($4.7 billion) and the massive twin water tunnels ($14.7 billion) for the southern portion of the state to contend with.  Together, those two projects will cost nearly $20 billion—and that’s just for starters.

The good news, perhaps to many, is that the Governor has promised he’ll apply a tight tourniquet to the ever-widening costs of public pensions with his serious reforms next year, cutting some of the flow of the State’s hemorrhaging red ink.

 Red Herrings

Bruce Anderson of the Anderson Valley Advertiser brought us the following gem regarding the State Parks fiasco the Sentinel reported on last week. 

You remember the scandalous story:  $54 million dollars was ‘found’ in two hidden funds, causing longtime State Parks Director Ruth Coleman to resign and her chief deputy, Michael Harris, to be fired after the missing money was discovered.

Mr. Anderson noted:

“Manuel Lopez, former deputy director of administrative services for the Department of Parks and Recreation, told the Sacramento Bee that he informed agency Director Ruth Coleman about a $20 million surplus in the Parks and Recreation Fund ‘at least five times over approximately a five-year span.’

“Nonprofit groups and local governments helped raise money and assumed responsibility to keep the 70 state parks open past a July 1 closure deadline.  The attorney general and state finance officials are investigating the scandal.  State lawmakers also are promising oversight hearings and plan to seek an independent audit of the department.  The state Finance Department also is reviewing all the state’s 560 special funds to make sure the actual fund balances match what has been reported to the administration and the state controller.

“State officials said Friday that the department had maintained the unreported money in its accounts for at least 12 years, including the entire time Coleman was director.  She served under three governors but said in her resignation that she was ‘personally appalled’ to learn of the hidden money.”

Right.  Got that.  But hang on, folks.  Our favorite Mendocino Muckraker torments us with yet another one of his irksome pearls here:

NOW IT’S $37 BILLION?  As California State government tries to explain how State Parks misplaced millions, we now learn that the State has no way of accounting for $37 billion in “special funds” squirreled away in some 500 accounts, relying, they say, on an “honor system” to keep track of the money.

No one checks to see that the money reported as being in these accounts actually matches the money on hand.  Only last week it was revealed that State Parks had sequestered $54 million in two special-fund accounts by not reporting them over the last 12 years.

 The Governor’s take on all this hoopla?  Last week he downplayed the scandal, saying it was the first time he’s seen the government get in trouble “for saving money.”

“When somebody comes and says, ‘Hey, guess what, we have some money over here,’ that’s better than saying, ‘Whoops, we don’t have the money,’ Governor Brown said.  “More money is better than less money,” the Governor quipped at a news conference.

Right.  And please let us know when pigs can fly through the smoke and mirrors.

* * * * * * * *
Red ink and red herrings and billion-dollar projects.  We don’t know whether we’re coming or going in terms of revenue.  Money’s flying out the door.  Can it possibly get any worse—or better—for the Golden State?

If we didn’t have California as a case study of fiscal insanity, someone would have to invent it.

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Tulare Joins Multi-City Suit Against Dow, Shell

By Philip A. Janquart,
Courthouse News Service

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – The City of Tulare is the latest municipality to join the now 20-plus lawsuits filed against Dow Chemical and Shell Oil Companies on Monday, claiming the manufacturers knowingly sold fumigants consisting of toxic 1,2,3-Trichloropropane (TCP) to farmers looking to terminate a problematic species of worm.

The chemical has leached into dozens of municipal water wells, according to the Superior Court complaints.

The nematode, or roundworm, is broken into about a million different species, falling into either the “free-living’ or parasitic categories.  Farmers in California’s 22,500-square mile Central Valley have fought the pest with various products manufactured by Dow, Shell and co-defendant Occidental Chemical Corporation since the 1940′s, and extending through the 1980′s.

TCP is the byproduct of certain chemical processes used in the manufacturing of commercial soil fumigant products.

“TCP has unique characteristics that cause extensive environmental contamination and a corresponding threat to the public health and welfare,” the complaint states.  ”In particular, TCP does not readily absorb to soil particles.  Rather, once it is applied, it is readily transported through the subsurface and into groundwater.  In addition, TCP is known to be persistent;  it does not readily biodegrade or chemically degrade naturally in the subsurface.”

The toxic chemical is also very difficult and costly to remove.  It’s not something the people should have to pay for, said San Francisco attorney Todd Robins.

“This is a potent carcinogen and very expensive chemical to clean up,” Robins told Courthouse News.  ”The bottom line is that the disadvantaged communities in the Central Valley should not have to choose between clean water and affordable water.”

Wilbur Ellis and J.R. Simplot Companies, along with FMC Corporation, are also listed as defendants since they are responsible for using products containing the toxic chemical that is contaminating municipal wells and water supplies.

There are no safe levels for TCP.  It is known to cause liver and kidney damage, blood disorders and cancer in animals, according to the complaint, and is “known to the State of California to cause cancer for the purposes of the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986.”

Of particular consternation to plaintiffs is the fact that, “The TCP contained in soil fumigant products containing TCP served no beneficial purpose,” the complaint states.

“It’s the hazardous waste stream that Shell and Dow put into barrels and convinced farmers to put in the ground for them,” Robins said.

The complaint also claims the companies tried to hide the presence of the toxic chemical and that the manufacturing defendants, ‘by agreement and understanding, knowingly pursued to plan, design, and/or conspire to market and promote products they knew to be dangerous to the environment,” the complaint states.  ”In particular, these defendants engaged in joint activity for the specific purpose of suppressing, concealing and/or minimizing information regarding the toxicity and persistence of TCP.”

The California Central Valley stretches 450 miles south of Redding to Bakersfield and is 40 to 60 miles wide, sitting between the Pacific coast mountain ranges and the Sierra Nevada and Tehachapi mountain  ranges.

* * * * * * * *

You are what you eat.  And drink.

Whether or not you choose to buy and eat organic foods and/or support the organic model is a matter of personal choice.  However, agri-business practices that systemically contaminate people– or municipal water supplies— is simply intolerable and unacceptable.  Choose wisely.  Poisoning the village well was once punishable by death.

The cancer-linked substance TCP is a ‘garbage chemical,’ a leftover by-product of the plastic-making industry.  State and federal regulators are working to regulate its use.

Tulare, an agricultural growing powerhouse joining the lawsuit with 20 other plaintiffs, merits concern and pause for our chemically-laden agricultural practices taking place in the nation’s bread basket.  Other cities waiting in line with lawsuits include Kern County, Clovis, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, Visalia, Delano and Lamont.

Plenty of people in the water business are paying close attention, too.  There are two dozen public water systems suing the manufacturers and distributors.  It’s expected there could be hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements to clean up this cancer-linked toxin in the Central Valley.

Our grandparents once told us, “We didn’t know what ‘organic’ was then.  It was the 1940s and everything we ate and grew on the farm was organic.  We just didn’t happen to know it at the time.” 

They lived full, healthy, and rich lives well into their 90s.

The City of Tulare’s filed lawsuit can be viewed here.

More on the TCP suits can be found here, here, and also here.

This article is by the kind courtesy of Courthouse News Service and Philip A. Janquart.  It has been slightly abridged. 

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

Wednesday’s DEA Operation Spanned 30 States, Seizing Designer Drugs and Money

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Move over, Humboldt County.  The Drug Enforcement Agency and Department of Homeland Security have been busy elsewhere– and together they mean business when it comes to cracking down on the burgeoning synthetic drug industry sweeping across the nation.

On Wednesday, joint raids by the DEA and federal and local agencies were conducted in more than 90 cities spanning across 30 states.  Law enforcement officers busted more than 90 people, confiscated $36 million in cash, and seized 4.8 million packets of synthetic cannabinoids, authorities said. 

Agents also confiscated material to make 13.6 million more packets and 167,000 packets of synthetic cathinone hallucinogens, more commonly known as bath salts.  Materials to make 392,000 more packets of bath salts were seized.

Fifty-three weapons and $6 million in assets were also taken during the operation, DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart announced at a news conference Thursday.

Operation Log Jam

Operation Log Jam, a coordinated effort comprising multiple departments working together, took down 29 manufacturing facilities at every level of the industry across the United States, from “small-scale operations to large warehouses,” according to DEA’s Leonhart.

Leonhart said the problem of synthetic drug use is a larger problem than most people think.  Synthetic drugs, known as bath salts, K-2, Spice and Vanilla Sky among other names, have been deceptively marketed to young people, causing health problems and death.

“What’s troubling is they’re marketing to young people, young people have an outlet at these smoke shops, these retail outlets,” she said.  While the drugs may carry a disclaimer warning against human consumption, Leonhart said that’s just a way to cover up the danger they pose.

“So little is known about these substances.  Because of the dangers– you’ve seen the headlines– people have committed murders, suicide, calls to poison control.”

“The web of connections between the suppliers and the distributors and the retailers is enormous and it’s complex,” Leonhart said.  “We found a number of people involved that were new to the drug business and we were able to make connections with some of the more seasoned traffickers.  In over 70 cases the DEA brought to the table, we found connections between them at all levels,” she added.

Operation Log Jam is the first-ever nationwide law enforcement action against the synthetic designer drug industry– responsible for the production and sale of synthetic drugs that are often marketed as bath salts, spice, incense– or even plant food.

Bath Salts and Fake Weed

Over the past several years, there has been a growing use and interest in synthetic cathinones (stimulants/hallucinogens) that are sold under the guise of “bath salts” or “plant food.”  Marketed under names such as Ivory Wave, Purple Wave, Vanilla Sky, or Bliss, these products are new substances made to mimic cocaine, LSD, MDMA, and methamphetamine. 

Smoked or snorted, users have reported impaired perception, reduced motor control, disorientation, extreme paranoia, and violent episodes.  The long-term physical and psychological effects of their use are unknown.

These products have become increasingly popular among teens and young adults.  They’re sold at a variety of retail outlets, head shops, and over the Internet.  They’re not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or approved for medical use, and there’s no oversight of the manufacturing process producing them.  Their chemical components change frequently, skirting the existing laws that make them illegal.

Smokable cannabis-like herbal blends marketed as being “legal” and providing a marijuana-like high have also become increasingly popular.  They’re easily available, and in many cases, are more potent and dangerous than marijuana, the DEA claims.  These products consist of plant material that’s been coated with psychoactive chemical compounds that mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

Just as with the synthetic cathinones, these synthetic cannabinoids are also sold at a variety of retail outlets, head shops, specialty shops, and readily available over the Internet.   Brands such as Spice, K2, Blaze, and Red X Dawn are labeled as incense– to mask their intended purpose.

In 2010, poison centers nationwide responded to about 3,200 calls related to synthetic “Spice” and “bath salts.” In 2011, that number jumped over four-fold to more than 13,000 calls.  This year, authorities reported the numbers have nearly jumped twenty-fold.  Sixty percent of the cases involved patients 25 and younger.

And then there are the widely reported stories of drug-induced sky high ‘zombies’ running amok across the country.

The Raids:  Follow the Drugs, the Money, and the Mail

Wednesday’s Operation Log Jam was conducted jointly by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch (ICE), with assistance from the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, FBI, Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations, and “countless state and local law enforcement members in more than 109 U.S. cities” targeting “every level of the synthetic designer drug industry, including retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers,” according to the DEA release.  Everyone got into the act.

Head shops, smoke shops, and adult stores cooperated with the Department of Homeland Security, said James Chaparro, Acting Director of ICE’s Office of Homeland Security Investigations.  He said his agency also looked at mail facilities being used by traffickers to ship chemicals both internationally and domestically.

“Today, we struck a huge blow to the synthetic drug industry.  The criminal organizations behind the importation, distribution and selling of these synthetic drugs have scant regard for human life in their reckless pursuit of illicit profits,” Chaparro said.  “The more we can keep it out of the country, the more we can protect public safety.  ICE is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to bring this industry to its knees.”

The Postal Service certainly wasn’t left out of Wednesday’s raids, either.

“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service aggressively investigates the use of the U.S. Mail system for the distribution of illegal controlled substances and its proceeds.  Our agency uses a multi-tiered approach to these crimes:  protection against the use of the mail for illegal purposes and enforcement of laws against drug trafficking and money laundering.  This includes collaboration with other agencies,” said Chief Postal Inspector Guy J. Cottrell of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Meanwhile, criminal investigation specialists with the Internal Revenue Service followed the money trail between the parties involved. 

Richard Weber, Chief of IRS Criminal Investigation, noted, ”The major goal is to document the movement of money during the course of the crime, link between where the money comes from, and who gets this.  We work with our law enforcement partners to disrupt and ultimately dismantle the highest level drug trafficking and drug money laundering organizations that pose the greatest threat to Americans and American interests.”

To note, the DEA has used its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily place synthetic cathinones (the bath salts like Ivory Wave, etc.) and synthetic cannabinoids (the so-called incense products like K2, Spice, etc.), into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, making them illegal to possess, manufacture, or distribute.  The current raids underscore the DEA’s determination to stop their use and spread.

Humboldt County has been facing its own slew of marijuana interdiction raids by the Federal authorities lately.  Operation Log Jam, however, avoided Northern California as a whole, concentrating instead on the southern part of the state where synthetic drugs and manufacturing are more prevalent.

According to the DEA, the southern California cities raided in the joint operation include the City of Industry, Corona, Escondido, Laguna Niguel, Los Angeles, Palm Beach County, Rowland Heights, and San Juan Capistrano.

* * * * * * *

You can read Ms. Leonhart’s full DEA press release here and see which US cities were taken down in the raids here.

Secret Stash of Cash Found

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

SACRAMENTO— Oops.  Someone’s been cooking the books.  Or absent-mindedly leaving them on the stove too long and toasting the edges a bit.

The California State Parks system had $54 million stashed away and secretly hidden, state officials announced today.  The department’s director, Ruth Coleman, has resigned, and her acting chief deputy, Michael Harris, was fired after the discovery, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The action comes following newspaper and television reports about budgetary irregularities at the California Department of Parks and Recreation dating back to at least 2000.  State officials said that the Parks department underreported million of dollars over the past several years and the state Attorney General has launched an investigation into the management of the department.  Heads will roll, fat-cat bureaucrats promised.

The state Department of Finance has been ordered to do a thorough audit of the department’s fiscal controls and California Natural Resources Agency Secretary John Laird has been directed to conduct “a sweeping review” of the State Parks’ management.

Good.  $54 million is hard to sweep under the rug otherwise, so a sweeping review review ought to do the trick.

A preliminary investigation into the department’s finances revealed that for at least 12 years the department has underreported tens of millions of dollars to the state Department of Finance.  As a result, they weren’t aware that two funds under the State Parks jurisdiction, the State Parks and Recreation Fund and the Off Highway Vehicle Fund, held a whopping $20.4 million and $33.5 million respectively in slushed-away money above the official and most recently reported balances, Governor Jerry Brown’s office said.

But it wasn’t the administration’s fault.  Not exactly.  You see, the underreporting occurred over the course of two prior gubernatorial administrations, Mr. Brown’s office artfully explained.  Officials are spinning a sigh of relief.  Whew, that was a close one.

Following the sacking, California Natural Resources Agency Undersecretary Janelle Beland was appointed by Mr. Brown as acting interim director of State Parks.  The Governor has directed her to promptly report to him and Secretary Laird on further actions that should be taken to “ensure that the Department is being managed with honesty, accountability and transparency.”

That’s always a good thing to do after a proper sacking.  Otherwise, your head is next on the honesty chopping block.  That’s the beauty of the merit system.  If ”Those responsible have been sacked’ doesn’t work, then ‘Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked’ certainly will. 

According to the Los Angeles Times Blog, “The announcement means the department has plenty of cash, even though it has been threatening the closure of State Parks while soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations in what was thought to be a desperate scramble to keep parks open.”

* * * * * * * *

Finding lost money is always wonderful thing.  $54 million?  Yahoo!  The beleaguered parks system was facing $22 million in budget cuts.  Pennies from heaven!  Raises for everyone!

Alleged Harassment and Maltreatment Pit Prosecutors Against Another

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!  What’s been happening with our neighbors up North lately?

Granted, our District Attorney’s Office has its advocates and critics and irksome problems– but it’s nothing compared to the acrimonious feud shaking down the Del Norte DA’s office 80 miles away.

Former Del Norte District Attorney Michael Riese filed a lawsuit Monday claiming a slew of atrocious allegations by:  his successor, District Attorney Jon Alexander; Del Norte County, and its Sheriff’s Department; Crescent City and its Police Department; and five other people in Federal Court.

Apparently District Attorney Jon Alexander has been shouldering some burdensome baggage himself, too.

Chris Marshall of the Courthouse News Service fills us in on the skinny– and we have the legal complaint, too.

Former DA Says He Was Maliciously Prosecuted 

By Chris Marshall
Courthouse News Service 

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – A former Northern California district attorney claims in court that the man who beat him in his run for re-election tried to frame him for child endangerment and driving under the influence. 

Michael Riese sued Del Norte County, its Sheriff’s Department, District Attorney Jon Alexander, Crescent City and its Police Department and five other people in Federal Court.  Riese claims the defendants maliciously prosecuted him, fabricated evidence, and conspired to issue a warrant based on false allegations, offering to help Riese’s ex-wife avoid penalties for violating a court order if she lied to a grand jury.

The Nature of the Suit

Riese says in the complaint that he lost his 2010 re-election bid to Alexander after local newspapers, including The Del Norte Triplicate, portrayed Riese in “an unfavorable light due to Riese’s medical issues.”

The lawsuit does not elucidate the nature of the medical issues.

Riese had fired Alexander from his job as deputy district attorney years earlier, “after determining that Alexander could no longer be employed as a Deputy DA while on probation.  The Plaintiff’s act of firing Alexander began a chain of events orchestrated by Alexander to discredit, humiliate and cause injury to the Plaintiff,” according to the complaint.

Riese claims that in August 2011, more than a year after Riese’s unsuccessful run for re-election, Alexander had local newspapers, including the Triplicate, report that Riese was under criminal investigation after having a medical emergency at a Safeway in Crescent City.

Riese claims he fell asleep at the store as a side effect of medicine he had taken for an unspecified medical condition.  He claims that the responding officers and the store manager concluded that he was not under the influence of alcohol or narcotics and the condition was medically related.  Riese’s ex-wife initially indicated the same, according to the complaint.

Harassment and Wrongful Prosecution

But Riese claims that Alexander and defendant Doug Plack, of the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Department, met at Plack’s home and decided to “harass and wrongfully prosecute Riese to further a personal vendetta Alexander carried.”

Along with Detective Keith Doyle, also a defendant, the men agreed to have Crescent City police officers “pull Riese over every chance they got to try and catch him intoxicated because at the time they had no evidence to use against Riese at trial,” the complaint states.

Riese claims he was stopped more than 10 times after the newspaper reports, pulled out of restaurants and shops and “made to administer field sobriety tests in the respective parking lots.  Alexander has led many of these ‘anonymous tips’ to the Sheriff’s Department about Riese driving under the influence.  In other instances, Alexander would tell people to call in and report they had seen ‘erratic driving’ or ‘erratic behavior’ on Riese’s part.  This led to public ridicule because of Riese’s former high-profile position as DA in the County and his being a well-known personality in the community.  These tips were falsely made by Alexander, Plack and Doyle to further harass Riese,” according to the complaint.

Secret Dealings and Bad Searches

Riese claims the Del Norte District Attorney’s Office ignored his reports that his ex-wife had violated a court order granting him visitation rights with his daughters.  He claims that his ex “made a secret deal” with Alexander and defendant Deputy Attorney General Brian Newman, in which the men promised not to prosecute her “as long as she would provide damaging testimony against Riese in an upcoming February 2012 criminal trial that defendants Alexander and Newman had filed against Riese.”

Riese claims that Newman helped Officer Richard Griffin submit an affidavit for a search warrant of Riese’s house, for materials connected with illegal drug activity based on the assertion that Riese’s girlfriend, Tess Michelletti, worked in a doctor’s office and had access to prescription pads.  Riese says these allegations could have been proven false had police bothered to call the office, where Michelletti had not worked since 2001, 10 years from the date on the affidavit.

Riese claims that Griffin and other officers broke into his house without announcing themselves, refused his request to see the warrant, and questioned him for 5 hours about guns he legally owned.  He claims deputies confiscated a gun loaned to him by Sheriff Dean Wilson and did not return it.

The illegal search “exceeded the scope of the warrant and resulted in no criminal charges being filed against Riese in Del Norte County.  The search did not even result in Riese being arrested,” Riese claims.

When Riese went to trial on the DUI, child endangerment, and public intoxication charges from the Safeway incident, his ex-wife contradicted her earlier statements that Riese had been tired that night, and said that Riese was “on something the night he fell asleep at Safeway,” the complaint states.  “She continued to change her story, lie, and contradict herself while testifying,” it adds.

Riese claims that it was “for this trial that defendants had made the secret agreement with Ms. Riese for her to testify against Mr. Riese.”

He claims that experts at the trial determined he was not under the influence of anything after watching the video, that the Safeway manager agreed and the jury cleared him on all four counts.

District Attorney Woes

Riese’s lawsuit is not the only challenge Alexander faces.  The San Jose Mercury News reported on May 15 that Alexander faces possible disbarment for allegedly taking a loan from a defense attorney working on a case he later dismissed, among other charges of professional misconduct.

The newspaper reported that Alexander was a recovering methamphetamine addict when he was elected after running a campaign with the slogan “death to meth.”

Summing Up

In his own complaint, Riese alleges malicious prosecution under state and federal law, fabrication of evidence, unreasonable search and seizure, joint action or conspiracy to interfere with civil rights, supervisory liability for constitutional violations, municipal liability for unconstitutional custom and practice, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Riese is represented by Brian Claypool of Pasadena, who did not return a call seeking comment.

Del Norte District Attorney Alexander told Courthouse News he did not know the lawsuit had been filed and therefore was not prepared to respond but that he would when he knew more about it.  He said he has “always been open with the press and will continue to do so.” 

(Mr. Riese’s lawsuit can be found here)

* * * * * * * *

This article came to us by the kind courtesy of Courthouse News today.  It was slightly abridged.

There’s two side of every coin.  The Del Norte Triplicate has 384.

We hope nothing of this sort spills over into Humboldt’s backyard.  Egads.

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

Falling Short of Previous Estimates, CalPERS Reports Dismal 1% Profit

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) is the pension plan covering the vast majority of Humboldt County’s municipal employees.  It’s looking at some tough times ahead with the recent announcement of less than expected earnings and the weakest numbers seen in recent memory.

Here’s the bare bones breakdown:

CalPERS reported a 1% annual profit on its investments for the fiscal year ending June 30, a figure far short of projections that officials said will likely bring pressure on California’s state and local governments to contribute more money, the Sacramento Bee reported Tuesday.

The earnings are significantly less than the 7.5% profit that the public pension fund had previously forecasted.  Low interest rates, weak economic growth and poor stock market returns from outside managers contributed to the low earnings, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

The low earnings likely will prompt the fund to impose higher contribution rates on the state and participating municipalities.  This could create additional stress for public agencies throughout California already having financial problems, according to the Sacramento Bee.  State and local governments will have to phase in higher rates that they must pay toward pension costs.  Taxpayers may have to pick up the tab for the difference if the pension funds fail to meet their performance targets.

In addition, CalPERS is also looking at increasing its health care contract costs.  Last month, CalPERS announced that it’s seeking to reduce costs with a plan to raise health insurance premiums by an average of 9.6% next year for 1.3 million public employees, retirees and their families.

The 9.6% hike in health insurance premiums is one of the largest increases in recent years.  The rate increases will cost members an average of $30 more per month and take effect Jan. 1, 2013.

The increases are more than twice the 4.1% premium increase that took effect this year.  CalPERS likely will rebid its health insurance contracts this fall.

The largest public pension fund in the U.S., CalPERS administers retirement benefits for 1.6 million California State, local government, and public school employees on behalf of 3,000 public employers.

The average CalPERS pension benefit is $2,332 per month.  The average benefit for those who retired in the most recent fiscal year that ended June 30, 2011, is $3,065 per month.

In 2008-2009, CalPERS paid $10.88 billion in monthly allowances and $5.7 billion in health benefits to 476,252 retirees, survivors, and beneficiaries, 86% of whom live in California.  The organization has $234 billion in assets.

The California State Teachers Retirement System, the second largest U.S. public pension with $150.6 billion in assets, earned 1.8 percent in its fiscal year, the fund said July 13. It also assumed it would earn 7.5 percent.

California’s state pensions in 2010 had about 81 percent of what they needed to cover the benefits they promised, down from 87 percent in the preceding year, according to an annual study by Bloomberg Rankings.

* * * * * * * *

All is not golden in the Golden State.

Given our national economy, a nearly $16 billion state budget deficit, the municipal bankruptcies of Vallejo, Stockton, San Bernardino, and Mammoth Lakes (to note, the latter bankruptcy was primarily due to a lost lawsuit), and the cities of San Jose and San Diego drastically curtailing their pension obligations to avoid similar fiscal catastrophes, we see that CalPERS, the Big Dog on the Pension Block, is starting to buckle, too.

California taxpayers are already on the hook for billions of dollars in pension and health care benefits promised to public workers when they retire.

And you thought the cost of food was getting to be expensive.  Hold on and buckle up.  It’s gonna be a bumpy ride. 

Journalist’s Protections Upheld in Lawsuit

Berkeley Cops to Get New Training, Per Settlement

By PHILIP A. JANQUART
Courthouse News Service

OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) – A photojournalist will collect $162,000 to settle claims that police officers at University of California, Berkeley, wrongfully arrested him and illegally seized his camera after a student protest.

David Morse, 43, says he was covering an unrelated assignment at Berkely on Dec. 11, 2009, when he noticed students marching toward the residence of UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. He allegedly began following the group and taking photographs, but was later arrested by UCPD officers.

“Rather than pursue the fleeing demonstrators, many of whom had their faces covered, the police car pulled up directly in front of Morse,” his federal complaint said. “UCPD officers Manchester and Wyckoff exited the vehicle and briskly approached Morse. As they approached, Officer Wyckoff shouted, ‘I saw you take a picture of us. We want your camera. We believe your camera contains evidence of a crime.’”

Morse says informed them several times that he was a journalist and showed them his press pass, adding that he did not think they had the right to seize his camera and cellphone. The officers responded by saying, “You’re not a lawyer, so shut the fuck up,” according to the complaint.

The officers obtained a search warrant to look at the photos Morse took, but an Alameda County Superior judge invalidated the search warrant in 2010. The university was ordered to return all the photographs to their rightful owner.

Last week’s settlement requires the school to retrain its officers so illegal seizures do not happen again.

Morse was represented by Terry Gross, of Gross Belsky Alonzo, which specializes in public interest cases among other things.

“An integral part of the settlement is that all police officers must be retrained,” Gross said. “They are retraining them to understand there is protection for anyone who has documents to disseminate to the public. We agreed what the procedures will be now: all of the officers will know that whenever they see anyone with documents, or taking photographs, they will know they can’t seize those documents, get a search warrant or arrest them. They have to issue a subpoena, which gives the person an opportunity to object before the government can get hold of them. If they are a journalist, they can’t be seized at all.”

Gross said journalists are protected by the Privacy Protection Act, which was passed in 1977 after a Stanford journalist’s photographs were seized during a police raid on the school’s newspaper office.

“Some agencies want to pretend the law doesn’t exist and train their officers to seize them by any means necessary,” he said, referring to documents, cameras and cell phones. “This is a reminder that the law is there.”

Morse’s ordeal occurred around the same time that Berkeley police raided the school’s Library and Community Center in the Long Haul building. The police allegedly entered with guns drawn, seizing 13 computers, according to the Berkeley Daily Planet.

Gross said that case ended in a $100,000 settlement just a couple months ago.

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This article comes to the Humboldt Sentinel by kind courtesy of  Courthouse News Service and Philip Janquart.

Readers may also be interested in Maria Dinzeo’s article describing more of this situation back in December of 2010: “UC Berkeley Cops Don’t Get it, Photog Says.”

We’re aware of private citizens having had their cameras confiscated by police locally and told they were in ‘possession of evidence documenting a crime’ or ‘interefering in the lawful duties of a peace officer’ as they were filming from a distance or out of the way.

To note, the above incident relates to an accredited journalist having had his equipment unduly confiscated without proper cause by law enforcement officers.  Private citizens, unfortunately, may not necessarily enjoy similar shield protections.  If this has happened to you, we would suggest seeking legal counsel for advice– and we would like to hear about it with your comment below.

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

Whose body and procreative choice is it, anyway?

Staff Report
Humboldt Sentinel

We’re surprised the issue hasn’t reached the courts long before this lawsuit was filed on July 2.  Artificial insemination, done outside of intercourse, a clinic, or laboratory, is inherently illegal it turns out, and punishable by fines and jail time.

We surmise the issue could reach all the way to the Supreme Court.

Jonny Bonner of the Courthouse News Service tells us the details below.

Free the Sperm!

By Jonny Bonner
Courthouse News Service

OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) – A woman demands the right to be artificially inseminated by a willing donor, without paying and “without a medical intermediary, such as a semen bank or medical professional,” in a complaint filed against the federal government.

Jane Doe sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, in Federal Court.

“The FDA prohibits private individuals from donating semen for artificial insemination on an uncompensated basis unless these individuals comply with a panoply of costly and burdensome regulatory requirements,” the complaint states.  ”These requirements apply even if a man donates semen directly to a woman he considers to be his intimate partner.  In doing so, it violates the rights of the plaintiff, other similarly situated women, and men from whom they seek freely donated gametes.”

The complaint continues:  “These FDA regulations are unconstitutional to the extent that they operate to regulate the noncommercial and sexually intimate choices and activity protected by the rights to privacy, bodily integrity and autonomy, liberty, life, due process, and equal protection guaranteed by the First, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”

Doe claims she is “a woman in a committed, long-term, monogamous relationship with her female partner.  Ms. Doe does not have sexual intercourse with male partners.”  She wants to become pregnant, and “prefers to conceive via intracervical insemination of fresh donor sperm.”

For her own good and that of her child, she “has decided to become pregnant using fresh semen provided by an individual known to her,” so her child can “develop a relationship with his or her father if he or she wishes to do so.”  She claims she “extensively reviewed substantial medical information about this individual and his personal and medical history,” and he agreed to provide the sperm, “which he did, uncompensated, and on a mutually agreed upon date in a mutually agreed upon manner.”

Doe says she “did in fact inseminate herself with this individual’s donated fresh semen and became pregnant.  Unfortunately, the pregnancy was not carried to term.”  She says she was going to try it again, “barring doctor’s orders to the contrary.”

But Doe says the FDA prohibits it, unless she uses “a medical intermediary, such as a medical professional or a semen bank.”  She says these methods restrict her choice of donors, who are “of often anonymous,” and the procedures “very expensive.”

Doe says she “does not want to be forced to engage in sexual intercourse with a male partner to conceive a child, even though such a male partner would not be subject to FDA-required screening and testing, and other FDA-mandated donor-eligibility requirements.”

Nor does she want to use FDA-approved semen, which “is typically cryogenically quarantined for a six-month period.”

Doe wants to perform the procedure herself, via syringe.  She claims FDA regulations restrict the intimate, personal choices available to her and similarly situated women, or “would require Ms. Doe and other similarly situated women to engage in heterosexual intercourse, which would be unconscionable for Ms. Doe on the grounds that she is a lesbian who only engages in sexual intercourse with women.”

She objects, particularly, to the Public Health Service Act, of 1944, and the FDA’s implementing regulations that control “human cells, tissues, and tissue-based products.”  Violation of regulations “is a strict-liability crime that is punishable by imprisonment for up to one year and a fine of up to $1,000,” the complaint states.

Doe, of Oakland, calls the FDA’s regulations “unconstitutional,” and says they “directly prohibit her chosen method of procreation.”

“FDA regulations applying to uncompensated donations of semen by private individuals directly to other private individuals deprive Ms. Doe of access to the reproductive method of her choice and burden her procreative liberty,” the complaint states.

Doe also objects to “the sudden enforcement against private, uncompensated semen donors,” which she says began in November 2010.  On Nov. 1 that year, she says, the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research issued an order to a California man, Trent C. Arsenault, “an individual who donated semen privately and without compensation to women seeking to become pregnant via ICI (intracervical insemination).”

This was despite the fact that Arsenault subjects himself to regular medical tests, posts the results on a publicly available website, and “is personally known to all women to whom he donates semen and has entered into agreements with them regarding mutually agreed-upon obligations,” Doe says in her complaint.

The FDA Order to Arsenault stated: “FDA regulatory requirements do not vary based on whether a sperm donation is free of charge.  FDA regulates any establishment that performs any of these manufacturing steps: recovery, processing, storage, labeling, packaging, distribution, or screening of sperm,” according to Doe’s complaint.

Neither Arsenault, apparently, nor Doe’s chosen donor, complies with those FDA regulations.

Doe says she has a “fundamental right to procreative choice,” which the defendants are violating.  She claims they also violate her, and women’s and donors’, rights to equal protection, and that the rules violate the Commerce Clause.  She wants the rules enjoined as unconstitutional.  She also seeks attorney’s fees and costs.

Named as defendants are FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  Although the complaint mentions similarly situated women several times, it never explicitly states that Doe filed it as a class action suit.

Doe is represented by Amber Abbasi, with Cause of Action, of Washington, D.C.  You can view her lawsuit here.

Article courtesy of Jonny Bonner and the Courthouse News Service.

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Hands off my food– and my body, FDA.  Or do we just keep it in the closet?  Don’t rain on our rainbow.

The times they are a-changin’.  We wonder how the pro-life crowd feel about this matter–or those wishing less governmental regulation in business. 

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

Two Views: by Bruce Anderson and Skippy Massey

The View From the Top

By Bruce Anderson
Anderson Valley Advertiser

CALIFORNIA’S SWEEPING REALIGNMENT of its criminal justice system took effect nine months ago to address (in part) court-ordered reductions in overcrowding at state prisons.  When the plan to shift thousands of inmates to county jails was unveiled local governments were promised that only those convicted of nonviolent, nonsexual and “non-serious” crimes would be moved to local lock-ups.

The Associated Press first reported days after the law took effect in October that at least two dozen offenses shifting to local control could be considered serious or violent, prompting angry responses from local officials who felt blindsided.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation last week shifting 10 crimes back to state prisons.  Among them are several involving child sex offenses, selling drugs to a child in a park, seriously injuring a peace officer during an escape or while resisting arrest, and escaping from a mental hospital.

But the new law also shifts four more crimes to county jails.  They include possession of certain dangerous items, such as certain explosives, various knives, and exotic weapons like guns or swords hidden in walking canes, belt buckles, lipstick cases, wallets or writing pens.  Check fraud and defrauding the state’s food stamp program also now merit time in jail instead of prison.

State Senator Mark Leno, chairman of the Senate budget committee, said the changes merely fix drafting errors that will affect a small number of criminals who should have merited jail time all along.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation estimated that about a dozen more criminals will be affected in any given year because most of the changes were already included in previous projections.

“Taxpayers will save money by having them serve time in county jail rather than in state prison,” said Leno, D-San Francisco.  “We’re getting smarter on crime so we can better invest limited resources on education rather than corrections, which every poll shows Californians support.  And of course education is our best known crime prevention tool.”

Another new law lets sheriffs release inmates up to 30 days early to comply with population caps, up from five days previously; and release inmates on electronic monitoring immediately instead of requiring them to serve at least 30 days behind bars for a misdemeanor or 60 days for a felony.

Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, said in a statement that the changes mean “more un-rehabilitated criminals on the streets, serving only a tiny fraction of their sentences in jail.”

Lawmakers also approved giving counties more freedom to transfer prisoners between counties because of jail crowding or if inmates need specialized care.  “We’re just looking for flexibility,” California State Sheriffs’ Association lobbyist Nick Warner said in supporting changes that will let counties lower their jail populations.

The budget for the new fiscal year that began Sunday, July 1, includes $500 million for a new round of local jail construction and more than $900 million to help counties pay for their increased cost of handling the additional criminals.  Every county will get at least double the amount of state money it received in the first nine months.  Brown wants to guarantee that money in the state Constitution as part of a proposal on the November ballot that also would temporarily raise sales and income taxes.

The budget also begins carrying out a broad reorganization of the Corrections Department that was announced in April.

Officials are looking to save money, improve poor inmate medical and mental health treatment, and end years of federal court oversight as prison crowding eases because of the shifting of criminals to local control.

It includes money for three cell houses within existing prisons to house about 2,400 inmates with physical or mental disabilities or substance abuse problems.  After the three dormitory-style units are built in four years, the department will close the outdated California Rehabilitation Center in the Riverside County community of Norco.  It provides funding to complete the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, convert the neighboring Dewitt Nelson Youth Correctional Facility into an adult care facility; and to improve other prison medical and mental health units statewide.

With the prison population declining, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst had recommended that lawmakers reject some of the construction money sought by the department.  But Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate said the department needs the medical and mental health facilities to comply with court orders.

The analyst also recommended that the state continue housing some inmates in private prisons in other states indefinitely as a partial alternative to building more cells in California prisons.  However, the budget endorses the department’s plans to return all 9,400 out-of-state inmates to California prisons by 2016.

Article used by permission of Bruce Anderson, Editor and Publisher of the Mendocino County Anderson Valley Advertiser.

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The View From the Bottom

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

The Humboldt County Correctional Facility is overcrowded, requiring additional beds being placed at the facility and less serious offenders being released.

With the state’s public safety realignment plan taking effect in October, jail officials have been juggling the responsibility of holding serious criminals for longer periods of time instead of sending them to state prison.  State prisoners are being returned back to Humboldt sooner.  Consequently, larger numbers of less dangerous offenders have been released from jail.

It’s like playing a game of musical chairs.  One hopes nothing goes seriously sideways and no one gets left out after the music stops.

Acting Eureka Police Chief Murl Harpham said he’s noticed the jail has been booking and releasing felons because it simply doesn’t have the room to house them, according to the Times-Standard.  He’s not pleased with the results.

”Between the first and the 19th of June, we had three situations where we had three females taken to jail on drug felonies and they had to be released,” Harpham said.  “The jail staff told our officers that they had to do it because of realignment and the jail overcrowding.”

An example of this problem was Timothy Vivian, a Sonoma County resident on felony parole who was prematurely released from the Humboldt County jail on June 16.  Citing a ‘parole overcrowding release,’  Vivian was released to himself without supervision by his parole agent on a Saturday night at 9 p.m.  Mr. Mr. Vivian, as you recall, went on a high-speed reckless chase in Phillipsville a week later.  Crashing the stolen truck he was driving, Vivian was pursued into the brush, batoned and Tasered, and rearrested by HCSO deputies and relodged into the county jail on June 25.

The jail has a 391-person capacity level.  Sheriff Downey said the jail was over capacity about a month and a half ago that required extra beds to be brought in.  Downey said the jail is especially crowded in regard to certain inmate populations, noting the jail has too many maximum-security men who have to be housed in a cell by themselves.

“Our rate of capacity is 32, and today we’re at 44,” Downey said last week.  “For our protective custody males that need to be protected from the general population, our rate of capacity is 35.  Today we’re at 43,” he told the Times-Standard.

Downey said the jail is trying to keep its numbers under control by working with the county Probation Department to enroll offenders of a non-violent and non-sexual nature in alternative jail and work programs.  Instead of doing time in their jail cell, offenders can participate in the Sheriff’s Work Alternative Program (SWAP) by doing manual labor tasks around the county.

Downey said early releases and ankle monitors are other tools the jail and Probation Department can use to keep overcrowding under control. He said the measures aren’t 100 percent foolproof and that there are lingering concerns about public safety.

“We’re going into uncharted territory,” Downey said.  Well, not exactly.  We’ve been around this block before.

Humboldt County went through a similar period of jail overcrowding in the 1990s.  The above measures were put into place and the Probation Department screened and released inmates through the Own Recognizance (OR) program prior to, and after, court sentencing, reducing jail bed space as needed.

One difference between then and now is the Probation Department currently has a shortage of officers.  Due to budget cuts necessitating five positions going vacant, burgeoning caseload levels are already busting at the seams, according to Chief Probation Officer William Damiano.  They can barely supervise what they have now.

Another quirk in the whole mix is the District Attorney’s Office losing its share of available prosecuting attorneys.  District Attorney Paul Gallegos has threatened not to prosecute certain misdemeanors altogether unless his budget is bolstered.  We can imagine that will free up bed space in ways we never dreamed of as criminal accountability gets thrown out the window.

The new jail addition—a monstrosity referred to by some as the Humboldt Hilton or the Salmon Slammer—was shortly built during the jail overcrowding of the 1990s after state funding was made available for its construction.  A large interior portion of the old jail, dank and dark, still sits unused and vacant, out-of-code and below required standards for current inmate housing and used for storage purposes.  It could, with enough engineering money shoveled into it, be retrofitted for additional housing.

To note, Humboldt County is replacing its aging 40 year-old Juvenile Hall for a spanking new $16 million facility built with state grant funding requiring a $3 million county match of hard money.  They are close to inking the deal and starting construction soon.

This isn’t our first rodeo.  With $1.4 billion in additional State funds kicking down to California’s 58 counties for a new round of construction costs housing criminals, combined with our overcrowded jail and local scoundrels being released before their time is up only to wantonly reoffend in highly publicized escapades, don’t be surprised to see Humboldt County reposition itself for yet another round of hirings and newer Salmon Slammer construction.

Bankruptcy Would Be Largest Municipal Failure in the Nation

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Like a goldfish taking its final gasps of air, one of California’s largest cities may soon be floating on the surface of insolvency.  The difference is, at least you can eat the goldfish.

As the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors approved their fiscal year budget today and Governor Brown lends his pen to signing California’s later this week, a black hole underscoring the Golden State’s money woes is set to unravel as early as tomorrow:  the City of Stockton.

According to City Manager Bob Deis, Stockton could file for bankruptcy as early as Wednesday.  If that happens, the town of 300,000 people on the San Joaquin River will become the largest U.S. municipality to go belly-up—dripping in red ink and defaulting on its bonds, creditors, and fiscal obligations.

Vallejo, encompassing half the population of Stockton, was previously the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy to date in 2008.

The Stockton City Council will meet tonight to decide the city’s fate.  With the proceedings broadcast live on Stockton’s public access website, citizens are unsure what will happen or even what to expect for their failing city.  We’ll give you a hint:  the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

City administrators have been closely eyeing bankruptcy as the easier route out of crippling debts, even if its creditors are left holding the bag.

The city said in a June 20 statement that to make further cuts meeting their fiscal obligations would be to invite chaos:  “Continued service reductions will harm the health and safety of (Stockton) citizens,” the statement reads.  Stockton Mayor Ann Johnston added:  “We cannot sacrifice the health, safety and welfare of our community.”  Translation:  too big to fail, someone’s gotta pay our salaries and pensions.

Stockton administrators believe a bankruptcy filing would be an advantageous move, buying time for the city to renegotiate its debts on terms that are more favorable.  It would remove, at least temporarily, the need for Stockton to make even more drastic budget cuts than those already made.

Stockton got into its sticky wicket dilemma by amply spending on itself, riding the cusp of rising home values and constructing new housing developments as the economy boomed.  The city, before seeing the bursting of its real estate bubble in 2007, had been riding high for quite some time.  Between 2000 and 2006, housing prices rose from a median of slightly more than $110,000 to almost $400,000.  In 2007, the crashing economy, foreclosures, and depressed sales led property values to diminish to a fraction of their former worth.

The city spent generously on projects to rehabilitate and beautify its downtown and develop a downtown marina.  They got grandiose dreams and overspent more than they had on the Stockton Arena Project in 2010.   To pay for the arena’s cost overruns, then-City manager Mark Lewis took money from all of Stockton’s redevelopment districts, leaving them broke.   To placate neighborhood critics who had been waiting for years for their redevelopment districts to produce money, then-Mayor Ed Chavez created the Strong Neighborhood Initiative.  The city went in hock for $100 million in bond debt to finance neighborhood improvements which redevelopment could have paid.  The former manager and mayor left, but the problems they left behind stuck.  In other words:  Stockton overspent what it had and created a back-breaking debt as the rats were fleeing the sinking ship.

They also augmented the salary and benefits of city workers beyond its means.  California Common Sense (CCS), a nonpartisan, nonprofit group advocating financial transparency, prepared an analysis report entitled, “How Stockton Went Bust,” detailing how the city got into its current dilemma.  What they’ve got to say doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

The generous employment agreements, to which the city committed in the mid-2000s, now comprise the bulk of the city’s budget. “The city now faces more than $800 million in unfunded liabilities for pensions and other retirement benefits,” the CCS report notes.  Translation:  Yowza, Holy Cow, and Heavens to Betsy, that’s a lot of padding and payola hay to pay.

Stockton has made attempts towards fiscal cuts.  The City Council addressed about $90 million in deficits over the past three years, eliminating 25 percent of the city’s police force, 30 percent of its firefighters, and 43 percent of all other employees, according to the city’s news release.  Translation: we’re now known as one of the lousiest crime-ridden communities in the Golden State.

Stockton attempted to boost revenue through fines and parking citations, eliminating payments of bonds, modifications to terms of its labor agreements, and making salary and benefit reductions.  Despite such efforts, the city now faces a $26 million deficit in the fiscal year July 1.  California’s state Constitution requires cities to adopt a balanced budget by July 1 of each year.

Stockton is the first financially troubled city in California to be subject to a AB 506, new state statute that requires cities and their creditors to submit to mediation in an effort to avoid bankruptcy.  The last day of the required mediation period ended Monday.  Confidentiality requirements prohibit the city, its unions or its creditors from commenting publicly on the outcome of the mediation/arbitration negotiations.  Translation:  we don’t need no stinkin’ badges– and we’re not telling you.

Mayor Johnston said in a prepared statement last week, “We have to be prepared for any potential outcome of the confidential mediation.  If we don’t reach agreements with our creditors that help us avoid insolvency, we have to be prepared with alternatives that we have worked so hard to avoid.”   Translation:  she means bankruptcy.

City Manager Bob Deis added, “This is not where any of us wanted to be.  But, absent restructuring agreements with our creditors, any other options would decimate the city of Stockton.”

If the city files for bankruptcy protection, Deis said, “the citizens of Stockton will not see any measurable change in service levels, come July 1.”  Translation:  We’ll still be a miserable place to live in.

Stockton is teetering on the verge of insolvency—a financial basket case– and at least one reporter believes it compares to the woes of Greece and Spain.  The town’s finances are so bad that the journalist from Barcelona, Spain, arrived to report on the city’s situation and hopes his coverage will offer readers back home in Europe pointers of what not to do.  We hope he didn’t travel here on Spain’s dime.

“I am doing a couple of stories, trying to understand what the parallels and differences are between California and the Spanish and Greek debt crises– and what lessons can be learned,” Marc Bassets, correspondent for the newspaper La Vanguardia, told the Stockton Record.

“The question is how exactly is California dealing with the issue?” he asked.  Translation:  OMG-WTF?

Stocktonians will be seeing what unfolds for them as the City Council convenes tonight, as will the weight of the Golden State and the Nation watching at large.

We hope the City of Stockton has some answers come Wednesday– for what looks like the worst municipal failure ever to occur in the United States.

UPDATE JUNE 26, 2012 9:25 P.M:  It’s a done deal– and the Sentinel told you first.

(CBS News) “Officials in Stockton said Tuesday that mediation with creditors has failed, meaning the Central California city is set to become the largest American city ever to declare bankruptcy.  A source confirmed with CBS prior to the City Council meeting that Stockton will indeed file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection.

“City Manager Bob Deis said officials were unable to reach a deal to restructure hundreds of millions of dollars of debt under a new state law designed to help municipalities avoid bankruptcy.  The City Council is expected to vote on a special bankruptcy budget to plug next year’s anticipated $26 million deficit, and city lawyers could file for Chapter 9 protection in court as soon as Wednesday…”

Read more:  CBS News’ “Stockton, Calif., To Become Largest City to Declare Bankruptcy”

* * * * * * * *

Yes, folks, the good news is that the surgery was a success.  The bad news is the patient has died.

New Budget Agreement Cuts Children’s Health Care

Three Tax Measures Make November Ballot

Tobacco Tax Goes Up in Smoke

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Governor Brown is slowly steering a sinking ship afloat, wringing fiscal reforms from the State’s budget using an equal measure of cuts and tax hikes to reign in a $15.7 billion deficit.  Here’s the snapshot synopsis of where we’re at now.

On Thursday, Governor Jerry Brown and Democratic legislators announced a fiscal year 2012-2013 budget deal that would shift children out of the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program and reduce spending on its welfare-to-work program, the Sacramento Bee reported.  On Wednesday, three tax measures qualified for the November ballot taking aim at the State’s wealthiest residents.

The deal comes about a week after legislative Democrats sent Brown a $92.1 billion state spending plan that aimed to avoid deep cuts to safety-net programs for low-income residents.

Details of the New Budget

The new budget deal would:

• Eliminate Healthy Families — California’s CHIP —  and move the 880,000 children enrolled in the program to Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program;
• Reduce state child care assistance by 8.7%, which would reduce the number of slots available to low-income families by 10,600;
• Phase in a two-year time limit for new beneficiaries to find work under CalWORKs, the state’s welfare-to-work program; and
• Require higher graduation rates for colleges and universities to qualify for state college aid and reduce financial aid to college students.

Brown dropped his proposal to cut In-Home Supportive Services workers’ hours by 7%.  Instead, lawmakers agreed to keep a 3.6% cut that is already in place.

Overall, the new budget agreement involves a slightly lower spending level than the $92.1 billion general fund plan that legislators approved last week.

The deal relies on voters approving a compromise tax hike initiative supported by Brown that would raise sales and income taxes on high-income residents.  If the ballot measure is not approved, deeper budget cuts could be triggered and the public school year could be cut by as much as three weeks.

Legislator’s Comments

Governor Brown in a statement said, “This agreement strongly positions the state to withstand the economic challenges and uncertainties ahead.” He added, “We have restructured and downsized our prison system, moved government closer to the people, and made billions in difficult cuts.  Now the legislature is poised to make even more difficult cuts and permanently reform welfare.”

Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said Democratic legislators “were able to find middle ground with the governor that we believe minimizes the impact on people in need, while at the same time assures significant ongoing savings.  If we pass those taxes in November we will be in a new chapter.”

Republican lawmakers expressed frustration that they were not included in the budget negotiations and that there will not be much time to evaluate the plan before lawmakers vote on it next week.  Assembly member Martin Garrick (R-Solana Beach) said, “I am outraged that I am not able to effectively review the details of the budget plan that I am expected to vote on,” adding, “The lack of transparency with this budget is embarrassing to our state and our democracy.”

Welfare reform advocates praised the Governor’s position to make health care more efficient.  Doctors and advocates for families in the Healthy Families program, however, believe the move would limit access to care.  Currently, a family of four can make up to $30,000 a year and qualify for Medi-Cal while the same family could qualify for Healthy Families having an income of up to $56,000.  Doctors and health providers receive a higher reimbursement rate from Healthy Families than than they do from Medi-Cal.

The Next Step

The Senate and Assembly are scheduled to hold votes on the budget deal next week.

Brown is expected to sign the set of budget bills in time for the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.

Three Competing Tax Measures Qualify for November Ballot

On Wednesday, three tax measures officially qualified for the November ballot.

The tax ballot measures include:

• A compromise tax hike plan — developed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and supporters of the “Millionaires Tax;”
• A tax increase proposal by attorney Molly Munger; and
• A tax initiative by hedge fund manager Tom Steyer.

Details of Brown’s Compromise Tax Hike Plan

The compromise tax hike plan would:

• Increase the personal income tax by one percentage point for individuals who earn $250,000 annually or couples who earn $500,000 annually, and by two percentage points for individuals who earn $300,000 annually or couples who earn $600,000 annually;
• Extend the income tax increases on wealthy residents from five to seven years; and
• Increase the sales tax by a quarter of a cent.

The sales tax hike would expire in four years.

The proposal would raise an estimated $9 billion over the next fiscal year.

The compromise tax hike measure has been incorporated into a fiscal year 2012-2013 budget plan currently being negotiated by Brown and Democratic legislators.

Details of Munger’s Tax Hike Proposal

Munger’s tax hike proposal, called “Our Children, Our Future,” aims to raise income tax for all residents, with highest earners seeing the largest hike.  Most of the revenue would support schools and education programs.

Details of Steyer’s Plan

Steyer’s plan would raise about $1 billion annually by changing California’s corporate tax formula.

About half of the funds would go to California’s general fund.

Tobacco Tax Fails

Smokers rejoice.  Proposition 29, the initiative to increase the tax on tobacco to pay for cancer research, failed by less than a percentage point after remaining too close to call for more than two weeks.

Legislator Pay Docked if Deadline Missed

Other News:  CalPERS Employees May See 9.6% Hike in Health Premiums

Skippy Massey

Humboldt Sentinel

When then-Attorney General Jerry Brown made his campaign whistle stop for Governor at the Samoa Cookhouse saying the party was over and painful choices need to be made for our previous excesses and arrears, he wasn’t kidding.  Those choices are here and now.

Facing a nearly $16 billion deficit, California is grappling with painful measures to balance the fiscal books.

On Tuesday, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) indicated he and Democratic lawmakers remain divided on how to close the state’s $15.7 billion budget deficit, and he criticized legislators for resisting health and human services cuts, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

On Monday, Assembly Democrats released a budget proposal for fiscal year 2012-2013 that includes about $700 million less in cuts to health and welfare programs than Brown’s revised fiscal year 2012-2013 budget plan.

The budget is due Friday, June 15.  If it’s late or not approved, legislators will be docked in pay for every day it’s tardy.  Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), however, assures us it will be on time.  We heard that last year, too.

One thing is for certain.  California is tightening up its money belt.  The party’s over and it’s time to go home.

And County or State employees covered under CalPERS’ health plans may see nearly a double-digit premium increase next year.

Details of Brown’s Revised Budget Plan

Brown’s $91.4 billion revised budget plan calls for cutting:

• $1.2 billion from Medi-Cal — California’s Medicaid program — by merging services for beneficiaries eligible for both Medi-Cal and Medicare and reducing payments to hospitals and nursing homes;
• $946.2 million from CalWORKs — the state’s welfare-to-work program — by limiting the amount of time most adults could be in the program from four years to two years;
• $225 million from In-Home Supportive Services — which provides services for the elderly and people who are blind or have disabilities — by eliminating domestic assistance for beneficiaries in shared living environments and reducing worker payments by 7%; and
• $64 million from Healthy Families, California’s Children’s Health Insurance Program, by moving children out of the program.

Assembly Democrats’ Plan

The Assembly Democrats’ proposal would:

• Maintain Brown’s proposal to reduce hours to IHSS beneficiaries by 3.6% but reject an additional 3.4 percentage point cut sought by the governor;
• Reject Brown’s proposal to eliminate pay to IHSS providers for performing domestic services such as laundry and house cleaning; and
• Reject Brown’s CalWORKs overhaul and instead seek $327 million in savings by providing fewer job training and child care services to parents of young children.

In addition, the plan calls for a $614 million state budget reserve, which is $434 million less than the $1.048 billion reserve included in Brown’s revised budget plan.

Brown’s Position

Governor Brown means business– and he’s playing hardball.  As Democratic legislators presented their budget proposals in the Assembly and Senate Tuesday, Brown released a statement, saying, “We’re not there yet.”

He said, “The Legislature has agreed to some tough cuts, but the budget before the committees today is not structurally balanced and puts us into a hole in succeeding years.”

He added, “We need additional structural reforms to cut spending on an ongoing basis.”

Action in the Legislature

The Senate budget committee voted 9-3 to reject Brown’s budget proposal and voted in favor of its own plan.

The Assembly budget committee held informational hearings on its proposal and did not vote on the budget plan.

Assembly member Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills), chair of the Assembly budget committee, said that “as close as we are in lock step with the governor, we’re still working with him to try and achieve consensus.”

He added that Democratic legislators are pushing for “softer, more compassionate” alternatives to Brown’s proposed cuts to IHSS, CalWORKs, health care and child care.

Timeline and Pay Penalties for Legislators

Lawmakers face a June 15 state constitutional deadline to pass a balanced budget plan.

In 2010, voters passed a law that calls for legislators’ pay to be docked every day after that deadline until a budget is approved.

Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), chair of the Senate budget committee, said, “We are really on track, and I can assure you that the Legislature will pass not only an on-time budget on Friday, but it will be balanced and it will be honest.”

Protest, 10 Arrested

On Monday, police arrested 10 people who obstructed Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) office while they protested a proposal to cut spending on In-Home Supportive Services, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Brown has proposed saving $225 million from the In-Home Supportive Services program through cuts that include a 7% reduction in hours of care.  The cut would have a ripple effect because counties and the federal government would withdraw matching funds, leading to a total reduction of about $800 million.

CalPERS Panel Approves Plan to Hike Premiums by an Average of 9.6%

In other news, CalPERS’ pension and health benefits committee approved a plan to raise health insurance premiums by an average of 9.6% next year for 1.3 million public employees, retirees and their families, the Sacramento Bee reported on Tuesday.

The full CalPERS governing board will consider the proposal on Wednesday.

Details of the CalPERS Increase

The proposed 9.6% hike in health insurance premiums is one of the largest increases in recent years and more than twice the 4.1% premium increase that took effect this year.

The proposal would increase health insurance premiums by:

• 13.9% for PPO plans; and
• 8.7% for HMO plans.

Rates would decrease by an average of 10.5% for Medicare plans, according to CalPERS.

If approved, the rate increases would cost members an average of $30 more per month, or $360 yearly.

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At least we have a Wal-Mart in Humboldt County that will help stretch those precious dollars further.

Democrats See $2 Billion Divide Over State Budget Cuts

Republicans Say They’re Left Out of Discussions

Skippy Massey

Humboldt Sentinel

With a balanced budget due by Friday, Governor Brown is taking the hard fiscal realities affecting the State’s most vulnerable residents to the forefront.  The proposed cuts land squarely on all 58 California counties, and Humboldt County’s Department of Health and Human Services under Phil Crandall is no exception– and likely to see the brunt of the measures.

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and Democratic lawmakers have been meeting privately to negotiate disagreements over about $2 billion in cuts proposed in Brown’s revised fiscal year 2012-2013 budget plan, the Sacramento Bee reports.

Lawmakers face a June 15 constitutional deadline to pass a balanced budget. The state currently faces a $15.7 billion budget deficit.

Background on Budget

Brown’s $91.4 billion revised budget plan calls for cutting:

• $1.2 billion from Medi-Cal — California’s Medicaid program — by merging services for beneficiaries eligible for both Medi-Cal and Medicare and reducing payments to hospitals and nursing homes;

• $946.2 million from CalWORKs — the state’s welfare-to-work program — by limiting the amount of time most adults could be in the program from four years to two years;

• $225 million from In-Home Supportive Services — which provides services for the elderly and people who are blind or have disabilities — by eliminating domestic assistance for beneficiaries in shared living environments and reducing worker payments by 7%; and

• $64 million from Healthy Families, California’s Children’s Health Insurance Program, by moving children out of the program.

Where Brown, Democratic Legislators Disagree

Democratic legislators mostly agree with Brown’s budget plan, but they argue that about $2 billion in proposed cuts would hurt California’s most vulnerable residents.

The lawmakers said they oppose Brown’s proposed cuts to:

• Cal Grants, which provides financial aid to college students;

• CalWORKs;

• IHSS; and

• Child care assistance for low-income families.

Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said he and Assembly Speaker John Pérez (D-Los Angeles) want to reach “middle ground” with Brown.  The lawmakers have not indicated where they would find funding to avoid the proposed cuts.

Welfare Recipients Pushed to Work

The governor is proposing a major overhaul of the state’s welfare-to-work program with the strategy of slashing people’s benefits to motivate them to get jobs faster.  The move, if approved by the state Legislature as part of the 2012-13 budget package, would save $880 million, according to the Associated Press.

California is the national leader in welfare recipients. About 3.8 percent of state residents were on welfare in 2010, the highest percentage in the country.  In fact, California houses about a third of the nation’s welfare recipients, while only housing one-eighth of the national population.  Most of the recipients are children.  The rest are mostly single mothers who must work or participate in job training and related activities to receive cash assistance.

For the next fiscal year, the governor is proposing sweeping cutbacks, including a 27 percent cut in cash assistance to children with ineligible parents and further slashing the time limit for full benefits from four years to two years.

Brown’s reforms aim to get parents off welfare before they become entrenched. The plan calls for parents to be hired or employable within two years of entering the program by providing job training and counseling, mental health, substance abuse and domestic violence support services, and child care.  They must either work or participate in those activities to get the cash aid.

Republicans say it’s about time California pushed harder to get people to self-sufficiency, and say more is needed in terms of regulatory reform and job stimulation. Halving the time limit is a good move, but continuing to give parents cash for children with no strings attached defeats the purpose of welfare-to-work, they argue.

GOP Criticizes Democrats Over Meetings

Republican lawmakers have criticized Democrats for not holding traditional committee hearings so that both parties can weigh in on the budget before it is presented to the full Legislature.

Since voters passed a proposition allowing lawmakers to pass the budget using a simple majority vote in 2010, Republicans have been left out of budget talks.

Field Poll Finds Low Voter Confidence in Lawmakers

A Field Poll released Friday found that 65% of registered California voters say they have little confidence in the Legislature’s ability to resolve the state’s budget deficit, while 43% say they have little confidence in Brown’s ability to address the budget.

In addition, the poll found that by a 41% to 26% margin, voters would side with Brown over the Legislature if there was a dispute about the budget.

The poll also found that:

• 9% of voters said they had a great deal of confidence in Brown’s ability to resolve the budget deficit; and

• 3% of voters said they had a great deal of confidence in the Legislature’s ability to resolve the budget deficit.

The Ugly Big Picture

It’s not looking very pretty.  With San Jose and San Diego’s voter-approved pension reforms and the recent Scott Walker/Wisconsin union labor setbacks blowing in the wind, everyone is tightening their money belts with leaner and meaner fiscal reforms wherever they can be found.  It’s the new normal.

When then-Attorney General Jerry Brown made his campaign whistle stop at the Samoa Cookhouse saying the party was over and painful choices need to be made for our previous excesses and fiscal arrears, he wasn’t kidding.  Those choices are here and now.

Facing a $16 billion deficit, California is following suit with painful measures in hand to balance the books.  The Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services will do more with less for those unfortunates who happen to be down on their luck and out of work under the Governor’s proposal.

Good luck, Phil.  We wish you the best.

But Wary; Concerned by Use of Funding

By Skippy Massey

Humboldt Sentinel

Lavish Perk for Court Bureaucrats Attacked by Senate Committee

By Maria Dinzeo
Courthouse News Service

SACRAMENTO (CN) – California’s Senate budget committee on Tuesday recommended the elimination of a top-loaded pension system that gives 30 high court bureaucrats a lavish 22 percent pension payment, all at taxpayer expense.

The budget committee strongly recommended that the top 30 executives of the Administrative Office of the Courts start contributing to their retirement like all other state employees instead of having the taxpayers pay the entire pension contribution.

“Certainly those who are now getting a hundred percent, who may be among the higher paid employees, ought to be contributing the same as the average court workers,” said Senator Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley).

The committee put off a decision on the governor’s controversial proposal to wipe out the reserve funds held by individual trial courts to manage their bills.  But it directed the governing body of the courts, the Judicial Council, to find $4 million in savings and gave the council a strong suggestion that the money should come through the elimination of the 22%, full-ride pension perk for the highly paid bureaucrats.

The lavish perk was put into jeopardy in Governor Jerry Brown’s May revised budget, where he recommended that all court employees contribute to their pensions.

Federal law does not allow employers to top load pension plans and discriminate in favor of the most powerful and best paid employees.  However, state government employees in California are exempted from that law.

Referring to the full-ride pensions for the top 30, Anita Lee from the Legislative Analyst’s Office told the budget committee, “Our understanding is that for a small group of executives that is currently being paid, the proposal that is being put forward by The Department of Finance is that this will no longer be the case.”

Hancock from Berkeley answered, “I think that part of the proposal would be very good.”

On the separate issue of Brown’s proposal to sweep local trial court fund balances to help offset a $544 million budget cut to the judiciary, a number of judges urged the senators to reject that idea.

“The elimination of reserves, while it sounds like a good and convenient way to get money, is really a Trojan horse for a much more significant change to the way the branch is structured and operates,” testified Judge David Rubin, president of the California Judges Association.

Judges from all over the state see the taking of their fund balances and creating one big statewide reserve pot as a frightening move toward stripping them of their ability to independently manage their local court finances.  Judges are also wary of having to beg for emergency funds from the Judicial Council, the body that would be put in charge of administering the statewide reserve.

Michael Cohen, the chief deputy director of the state’s Department of Finance hinted in his testimony that control of the statewide reserve would actually rest with the Administrative Office of the Courts, a proposal that is anathema to many trial judges.   The same office, the Administrative Office of the Courts, was responsible for an IT project that wasted a half-billion dollars before the project was terminated last month.

“We think at a time when we’re making many difficult budget cut proposals, it makes sense to spend down the local reserve amounts,” said Cohen. “Replace it with a statewide reserve equal to three percent of expenditures, roughly 80 percent, and the Administrative Office of the Courts will have the ability to allocate and take care of any unexpected needs.”

Presiding Judge Laurie Earl of Sacramento urged the legislators not to deprive the courts of the ability to manage their reserves — funds that most courts have already committed in order to see them through the year.

“Having an emergency fund rest in the control of the Judicial Council, in which every court must run hat in hand when seeking permission to pay workman’s compensation claims or local infrastructure needs will hardly be productive or equitable,” Earl said.  “Those funds must be left with individual trial courts who have demonstrated fiscal responsibility in accumulating these funds to begin with. Anything less would cripple us.”

Lee from the Legislative Analyst’s Office also urged the committee to reject the proposal to sweep the reserves.

“It is a significant policy change that raises a number of questions about the role of the state and the Judicial Council versus the local trial courts in making fiscal and programmatic priority decisions,” she said.

Cohen from the governor’s Department of Finance was pressed by Senator Hancock to defend his department’s recommendation in favor of a statewide reserve controlled by the central bureaucracy.

“How do you see a situation in which the courts that worked hard to be creative, to streamline operations to keep a reserve, will lose their reserves, and the other piece of that, are there efficiencies in establishing a statewide reserve really, or does it add another layer of bureaucracy?” asked Hancock.

Cohen replied, “Right now you’ve got 58 different court systems in 58 different places and moving to a statewide reserve would help create a more standard approach to dealing with these types of reductions.”   But he then added, “There certainly will be some challenge in a transition, no doubt.”

Though the committee decided to hold open the issue for a couple of weeks, the senators showed skepticism regarding the effectiveness of requiring courts to spend down their fund balances.

“I too have concerns about this recommendation involving the reserves,” said Senator Lois Wolk (D-Stockton).  “The use it or lose it mentality is not a good management strategy.”

In a press release Tuesday evening, the reform group Alliance of California Judges said, “We believe it is important that all trial judges understand that it was the AOC that provided the governor with the information concerning the status of trial court reserves.  You can access that report here.”

“We all know that many of these ‘reserves’ are encumbered or otherwise spent.  We hope that the highly paid staff in the AOC Office of Governmental Affairs clearly explained the encumbered status of these reserves to the Governor’s Office,” said the statement, betraying a hint of sarcasm.  “You may recall that this same staff drafted a bill just a couple of years ago that would have eliminated our right to elect our presiding judges.”

The Alliance statement also pointed out that California statutes gives the Judicial Council and the administrative office the ability to put in receivership any court that spends beyond its allocation.

“In light of the fact that our reserves will be swept,” said the statement, “this potential should concern every judge who believes that the council and AOC already wield too much power.”

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Article by Maria Dinzeo  courtesy of the Courthouse News Service.

This is the third of a series focusing on the State judiciary, the runaway expenses of the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), and your tax paying dollars at work in Sacramento– a story that one judge referred to as being “a nuclear bomb.”

You may also see Ms. Dinzeo’s previous articles at the Humboldt Sentinel here and here.

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

Tribal Concerns of Traditional Ceremony Falls Upon Deaf USFS Ears

War Dance and Mass Protest by Hundreds Expected to Begin Thursday

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

Each summer, the Winnemem Wintu, whose home is the McCloud River watershed in northern California, hold a four-day Coming of Age ceremony on the river for the tribe’s young women.

The traditional ritual in recent years has been threatened by the presence of outsiders drinking alcohol, shouting threats, and making racial slurs as they travel on the river deliberately interfering and disrupting the Winnemem Wintu’s sacred ceremony, tribal members say.

Since 2005, the Winnemem have repeatedly asked the U.S. Forest Service to temporarily close a 400-yard stretch of the river that empties into Lake Shasta to boating and general access, protecting the sanctity of the ceremony as well as the safety of the young female initiates as they swim across the river.  The Forest Service has not granted the tribe’s request this year.

The four-day mandatory closure the tribe is asking for would allow them to carry out the native ceremony where teenage girls spend four days in prayer and communion with elder women before swimming across the lake and symbolically entering adulthood.

Instead, the Forest Service has chosen to institute a “voluntary” closure that has been largely ignored and made the tribe and the Coming of Age ceremony itself an unfortunate target of ongoing heckling, harassment, and disruption by others, tribal members maintain.  The tribe believes stronger measures are necessary bringing wider attention to the issue and their concerns.

Tribal leader Caleen Sisk said this year’s ceremony is important because Marisa Sisk is expected to go through the ceremony. The 16-year-old niece of Caleen Sisk is expected to become the tribe’s next chief.

This Thursday through Sunday, May 24-27, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe are planning to blockade and close the 400-yard stretch of the McCloud River in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, north of Redding, hoping the Forest Service will reconsider the matter before the traditional ceremony happens in late June during the full moon.

Expecting 400 tribal members, volunteers, media, videographers, legal observers, and lawyers, the Wintu Tribe is asking for the public’s help to attend and participate in the closure of the river.

The tribe has paid for camping areas, but did not receive a permit from the Forest Service to conduct the ceremony or close down a section of the lake, Sisk said. The tribe’s website says there could be arrests.

Shasta County sheriff’s Sgt. Troy Clegg said he hadn’t heard about the tribe’s war dance plans, but said he was concerned the event was being held on one of the busiest days of the year for the lake.   The Sheriff’s Office will have 15 deputies patrolling the lake, and there will be officers from numerous other agencies, including the state Department of Fish and Game, Forest Service and U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, he said.

John Heil, the Forest Service’s spokesman, said no decision has been made on whether to allow the tribe to hold its coming-of-age ceremony from June 30 to July 3.  Heil said he wasn’t sure what the Forest Service planned to do if the tribe blockaded the lake.

Below is the Winnemem Wintu Tribe press release describing the War Dance and planned river blockade:

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For Immediate Release: May 21, 2012

WINNEMEM WINTU Tribe to Hold War Dance May 24-27 to Convince U.S. Forest Service to Protect Coming of Age Ceremony from Disruptions and Heckling

Winnemem Wintu Tribe needs 4-day closure of 400-yard section of McCloud River to Perform Girls’ Traditional Coming of Age Ceremony

Redding, Ca–  The Winnemem Wintu Tribe will hold a four-day War Dance (‘H’up Chonas’ in Winnemem) May 24-27 at the McCloud River site where they hold their Coming of Age ceremonies.

The War Dance signifies the tribe’s spiritual commitment to defend at all costs the ceremony from heckling, flashing and violating disruptions by recreational boaters that have occurred in previous years.

“We have been backed into a corner with no other choice.  We should be preparing for Marisa’s ceremony, setting down prayers, making regalia, getting the dance grounds ready, making sure it happens in a good way,” said Caleen Sisk, spiritual leader and chief.  “But instead we have to fight simply to protect our young women from drunken harassment.”

The actual Coming of Age Ceremony for Marisa Sisk will be held at the end of June, during the full moon.

More than 400 volunteers from throughout the country, native and non-native, are expected to converge upon the sacred sites to help the tribe close the river and protect the War Dance from interference by boaters.

The ceremony will begin Thursday with the light of the sacred fire and an opening dance.  On Friday and Saturday, the Tribe and volunteers will blockade a 400-yard stretch of the river.  These will be the best days for media to attend.

“We hope the blockade will let the Forest Service know that boats don’t belong in ceremony and that we will do it ourselves if they won’t take the appropriate measures to protect our young women’s ceremonies,” said Sisk.

The tribe has contacted the U.S. Forest Service to arrange a discussion with officials to let them know what to expect and to ensure that everyone will be safe and have their rights respected.

The tribe will have lawyers, legal observers, videographers, and the media present at all times during the War Dance and other activities.  The Tribe hopes the War Dance will convince the U.S. Forest Service to implement a mandatory river closure for 16-year-old Marisa Sisk’s Coming of Age ceremony, a traditional rite that is vital to the tribe’s social fabric.

The ceremony lasts four days, and takes place at the McCloud Bridge campground, which is within the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.  The site was once a Winnemem village, Kaibai, and is home to numerous sacred sites vital to the ceremony.

At the tribe’s ceremonies in 2006 and 2010, the Forest Service enforced only a voluntary river closure, which led to drunken recreational boaters heckling the young Winnemem women and other tribal members with shouts of “It’s our river too, dude!” or “Fat Indians.”  One woman flashed her naked breasts at the Tribe, and another boater dumped cremated ashes into the river shortly before a ceremonial swim.

For six years, the tribe has unsuccessfully worked with Shasta-Trinity Forest officials to secure a mandatory closure of the 400 yards river necessary for the ceremony.  It is not a thoroughfare.  Access for the general public dead-ends at the north end of the site, which is private property.

On April 16, the Winnemem Wintu held a direct action event at the Vallejo office of Regional Forester Randy Moore, asking him to take action and close the river using his professional discretion.  The tribe gave Moore a May 1 deadline to respond to their request, but he has never contacted the tribe.

U.S. Forest Service officials say that laws that would allow for a mandatory river closure for American Indian ceremonies – the 2008 Farm Bill and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act – do not apply to the Winnemem because they are not federally recognized.

The Winnemem were federally recognized up until the 1980s when they lost recognition due to Bureau of Indian Affairs clerical error.  Today, they are state recognized.  The California Native American Heritage Commission has asserted that the Winnemem Wintu should be federally recognized.  The California State Assembly also passed Assembly Join Resolution 39, which urges Congress to restore the Winnemem’s federal recognition.

The Winnemem Wintu are a traditional tribe of 125 who still practices their ceremonies and traditional healings within our ancestral territory from Mt. Shasta down the McCloud River watershed.  When the Shasta Dam was constructed during World War II, it flooded their home and blocked the salmon runs.  It also flooded all the other Puberty Rocks that could be used for Coming of Age ceremonies.

For more information:

Caleen Sisk, Spiritual Leader and Tribal Chief: 530-710-4817

Michael Preston: 510-926-1513

Jeanne France: 530-472-1050

For directions to the War Dance, a cultural guide for the ceremony and more info, visit http://www.saveourceremony.com/wardance.

Learn more about the Winnemem Wintu at http://www.winnememwintu.us/

Learn more about the ceremony at http://www.saveourceremony.com.

A video of motorboats speeding past the ceremony and flashing the participants can be seen at: http://vimeo.com/39867112

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Governor Brown Slashes Half Billion Dollars From State Judiciary On Monday

State Finance Director Proposes Change in Court Funding Structure During Thursday’s Emergency Session

By Maria Dinzeo
Courthouse News Service

SACRAMENTO (CN) – At an emergency meeting of the Judicial Council Thursday, California’s finance director proposed a further centralization of court funding along with immediate layoffs and local budget cuts, proposals that judges viewed with great alarm.

“We’re getting to the point where we are going to have to say ‘Uncle,’” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in an interview after the meeting. “The judicial branch has been really, really good, but we’re not that good.” 

To offset a $544 million budget cut, Governor Brown’s plan will sweep the tenuous reserve funds set aside to keep courts operating from day to day, State Finance Director Ana Matosantos told the judges. Her department now expects the courts to contribute $402 million out of their reserves to make up for the cut, and will direct the Judicial Council to set up a statewide emergency fund of $80 million.

That reserve fund will be administered by the council and local trial courts will be expected to apply for money as the need arises.

However, the judiciary has not been told where this $80 million will come from, and there was strong concern among judges Thursday that the money will ultimately come from the local courts themselves.

“There is a profound structural change suggested in this budget. And it really changes and shapes the relationship of the courts to the council and the council to the executive branch,” said Judge David Rubin of San Diego in an interview.

Rubin, who is both a member of the council and president of the California Judges Association, added, “The Governor and the Legislature are faced with impossible circumstances.  They have a different philosophy than the courts have had. In a statewide branch, individual courts don’t keep reserves. What I heard today was an effort to create uniformity, but these county courts are unique. The branch doesn’t lend itself to one size fits all.”

For the local courts clinging to precious little resources for daily survival, the idea of giving up their reserves for a central pool of emergency money is staggering.

“There is going to be some push back,” said Judge Mary Ann O’Malley of Contra Costa Superior Court in an interview. She said some courts have saved for years to build up their reserves by cutting their operations and laying off staff, only to see those reserves swept away.

“They feel they are being penalized,” she continued. “Courts that have worked hard to get ready for reductions basically did so for naught. It’s really devastating. This really came out of nowhere.”

Cantil-Sakauye added, “Because of the current structure, courts are responsive to the needs of their communities. This change in the funding structure is startling, harsh, immediate and shocking.”

The chief justice said that she agrees with the principle of more equal funding for all the courts, but not in the way the Governor has outlined.

“What this structure is going to ask is if equal access to justice has been delivered,” she said. “I know the Governor sees this as bringing parity across the branch. I have no disagreement about that, but I have a disagreement with the means of getting there.”

“And we have 45 days to get there,” Justice Douglas Miller added.

During the council meeting, Presiding Judge Laurie Earl of Sacramento also took issue with the tight schedule imposed by the Governor’s proposal, which could lead to the court laying off an additional 140 employees. The court has already lost 193 employees since 2008.

“The magnitude of the Governor’s proposal is so huge that I am not sure we have truly digested it yet. One thing I do know is it will be impossible for us to accomplish this mass reduction in less than a year, let alone 45 days,” she said.

Earl noted that the court had planned to use its reserves to get it through the next three years. “We are nearing the end of the first year of our budget plan. We have imposed layoffs, reduced expenditures and held our hiring freeze and we have spent reserves in doing so. Year two of our plan is to begin on July 1 of this year and it calls for a reduction of $14 million from our budget.”

“In pure staff costs that is 140 employees,” Earl continued. “Realizing that we could ill afford to lose 140 employees at once, our plan calls for the additional use of reserve funds as much as $8 million to offset the layoffs until the final year of our plan. However, on Monday we were advised that we would not have the reserve money to do so,” she said. “I am somewhat taken aback by the comment by Ms. Matosantos and she said it more than once and that is that this restructuring, the use of reserves, would allow courts to maintain operations. That will do anything but allow us to maintain operations.”

At a public comment period before the meeting, Judge Steve White of Sacramento called on the council to cut back on the court’s administrative office (AOC), a focus of anger and opposition from many trial judges around the state. He said the council has long served as “the handmaiden” to the bureaucracy and the time has come for that to change.

White pointed to the council’s recent decision to pull the plug on the Court Case Management System, a $500 million IT project run by the AOC whose total cost was projected hit $2 billion upon completion.

“Over a half a billion dollars was put into CCMS and other millions of dollars were put into other priorities that were not the courts,” said White. “Regardless of the errant ways of the past and regardless of the mistakes that have been made by this council historically and simply being the hand maiden to the AOC, simply doing the AOC’s bidding, the time has come to stop and change that.”

“The time has come to cut the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) to its core essential functions, whatever those are, at least a 75%, at least freeing up $75 million to keep courts running, eliminate the regional offices and focus on the real courts,” White added. “There’s no more money coming. We must find the best way to spend and allocate the money we have.”

No action was taken by the council Thursday, but the Chief Justice said she will put together a small group of judges and court officials by Friday to negotiate the budget.

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Article by Maria Dinzeo reprinted by permission and courtesy of the Courthouse News Service.

See also Ms. Dinzeo’s previous article at the Humboldt Sentinel.

‘Legislative Action on Courts Now Needed‘ by Kern County Superior Court Judge David R. Lampe details more of the fiscal reforms targeting the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC).

Additional news on the Governor’s proposed May revise budget cutbacks may be found in William Dotinga’s ‘California’s Revised Budget Confronts Grim Realities.’

(Posted by Skippy Massey)

California in Fiscal Crisis: Half a Billion Dollars Removed From State Judiciary On Monday

‘Day of Reckoning’ for California Courts

By Maria Dinzeo
Courthouse News Service

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) – In what he termed a “day of reckoning” for California, Governor Jerry Brown slashed the state’s court budget by more than a half-billion dollars on Monday. Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye reacted, “The proposed cuts to the judicial branch are both devastating and disheartening.”

An immediate target for the ax was the central administrative office for the California courts which has been criticized as wasteful, bloated and arrogant.

“The Administrative Office of the Courts must immediately slash its own budget to free up any available monies for the trial courts,” said Sacramento trial judge Steve White.

Governor Brown’s May revised budget cuts a total of $544 million from the state court budget but also comes on top of huge, cumulative cuts over the last two years.

Brown calls for the courts to use $300 million of their reserves instead of getting money from the state. The rest of the $544 million will be offset by taking $240 million out of the courts’ construction fund and $4 million will be gained by increasing court employees’ retirement contributions.

In addressing reporters Monday, Brown indicated that funding for the courts is not the state’s top priority.

“The money is not in a piggy bank,” said Brown. “It comes from the people. Just like everybody else, nothing in government is an absolute, unconditioned good. Every good is relative to all the other goods, in the context of what’s available.”

“As the courts make their arguments,” he added, “the Legislature will listen and weigh that against childcare, against CalWORKs, against a lot of other things. We’ve got three branches of government and they’re all going to have some of their branches trimmed.”

California Department of Finance Director Ana Matosantos said Monday that a fundamental reorganization of the court structure carried out under former chief justice Ron George had exacerbated the financial difficulty for the courts.

“Before, we used to have local funding for the courts,” said Matosantos. “The state has now transitioned it to a state-funded court system. The May revision is asking should the state be making reductions to child care, to CalWORKs?  It basically changes the structure and uses those available reserves to avoid cuts to other areas.”

“The state will direct the Judicial Council to offset the allocation that the courts would otherwise receive with the available reserves,” she said with authority.

“The general fund share for the courts has gone down about 20 percent,” added Matosantos. “What’s happened in the past is the Legislature, the Governor and the Judicial Council have looked at other funds to backfill those reductions,” she said.

 ”Last year, trial courts had roughly $562 million in available reserves,” Matosantos explained. “The May revision says $300 million in reserves will be used to offset the allocation that the state would otherwise be providing for the courts. $240 million in additional savings come from delaying and suspending projects that were going to be moving forward next year.”

After the budget was unveiled, some trial judges said the courts’ reserves should not be used as the solution to the judiciary’s budget crisis, calling instead for severe cuts to the central bureaucracy of the Administrative Office of the Courts.

In the last nine years, the AOC lost a half-billion dollars on an IT project called the Court Case Management System, that was recently shut down. The project was widely criticized for its lack of cost controls.

 ”What the AOC needs to do is cut its staff and spending. That is what the really significant cut has to be,” said Judge Susan Lopez-Giss in Los Angeles. “It’s been clear for a while that the Legislature wasn’t going to be giving us money, not because they don’t recognize the courts but because the AOC has misspent so much of the money.”

Lopez-Giss said Los Angeles still plans to cut 300 jobs in June, and its $27 million in reserves will not even keep the court open for a month.

In Sacramento, Judge White said the AOC should cut its own budget before looking to the courts’ reserves, and was not surprised by the staggering cuts to the judiciary in the May revised budget.

“There’s no question that the judicial branch performs a critical function, and it has to continue to function. At the same time, when budget straits are as desperate as they are overall, the branch itself has to make all conceivable cuts and reductions in non court functions that it can in order to keep the courts open,” said White.

White added that the courts’ reserves were not meant to backfill funding reductions from the state, but are intended to keep courts going.

“The reserves are what the courts are living on day to day right now,” he said. “When I was presiding judge, we set aside about $14 million in reserves that we were spending every single day to keep our courthouse open. It is part of the budget that supports the court. If the AOC were to reach into the reserves rather than shutting down its own marginal operations and reducing its own staffing, it would be doing a great disservice to the courts of California. Certainly the courts would fight any effort to take those funds.”     

The Chief Justice said the burden of the cuts will fall heaviest on people trying to use court services. “They will seriously compromise the public’s access to their courts and our ability to provide equal access to justice throughout the state.” She has called for an emergency Judicial Council meeting Thursday to deliberate over how to best implement them.

The Alliance of California Judges, a reform group calling for legislation to increase local court funding issued a statement Monday saying, “Quite frankly, the day of reckoning has come to the judiciary. Years of mismanagement and misplaced priorities by the Judicial Council and the Administrative Office of the Courts have caused not only a budget crisis, but a crisis in confidence.”

The Alliance is sponsoring a bill, AB 1208, that is intended to give a hundred percent of the money allocated for the courts by the Legislature, directly to the courts. It currently goes to the Judicial Council, which decides how the money is distributed among the courts.

“The money allocated to the courts should be spent on the courts,” said Lopez-Giss in Los Angeles. “Unfortunately I think AB 1208 was justified before the May revise, when we had furloughs, when they said there would be cuts initially to the courts.”

White said, “There isn’t a single court in California that isn’t suffering mightily. Courts have made cuts right and left. The Administrative Office of the Courts has not, and simply has to now.”

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Article by Maria Dinzeo courtesy of the Courthouse News Service

‘Legislative Action on Courts Now Needed‘ by Kern County Superior Court Judge David R. Lampe details more about the fiscal reforms targeting the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC)

Additional news on the Governor’s proposed May revise budget cutbacks can be found in William Dotinga’s ‘California’s Revised Budget Confronts Grim Realities‘

(Posted by Skippy Massey for the Humboldt Sentinel)

Humboldt County’s astounding beauty and apparent serenity disguise some truly disturbing health numbers

By Richard Kipling
California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting
University of Southern California

I don’t want to beat up on Humboldt County. I’ve driven through it a few times and it’s quintessential far northern California — beautiful, alluring, with Redwoods everywhere (the county motto is The Home of the Redwoods), a scenic coastline, pretty towns, friendly folk. The kind of place that sets an urban mind to wondering:  Could I live in this lush green paradise?

I’d like to spend more time there, for sure. But after a close look at the latest California Department of Public Health statistics, I might want to remain a visitor and not a resident. The county’s astounding beauty and apparent serenity disguise some truly disturbing health numbers.

The department recently released its County Health Status Profiles 2012, which provides a fascinating look at the leading causes of death for the years 2008-2010 for each of the state’s 58 counties. I just slalomed through 19 categories of death rates and Humboldt was a blinking neon sign. Let me take you on a tour.

In its overall death rate from all causes, Humboldt ranked next to worst, 57^th, with 865 deaths per 100,000 people. That compares to, say, Santa Clara County, with 509 deaths/100,000, or Marin County with 527. Quite a spread.

Or try the next category, deaths from all cancers. Humboldt ranked 56^th, with 185 per 100,000. I looked for another California county with a similar population number and poor, rural Imperial County fit the bill. Its numbers? 126 per 100,000, about a third lower.

Comb through the categories and there’s hardly any relief in the rankings for Humboldt County: deaths from colorectal cancer – 51^st; lung cancer – 40^th; female breast cancer – 51^st; prostate cancer – 52^nd; diabetes – 49^th; Alzheimer’s – 41^st; coronary heart disease – 39^th . Some of these constitute the county’s not-so-bad health outcomes – as if being ranked 41^st out of 58 is something to celebrate. I don’t pretend that they do.

But back to reality. For stroke, the county ranks dead last, 58^th, and is the only county in the state that failed to meet the “healthy people 2010 national objective” for that category.

The numbers are numbing. In deaths from chronic lower respiratory, it ranks 54^th; liver disease, 50^th; accidents, meaning unintentional injuries, 56^th; suicides, 55^th; firearm deaths, 52^nd; and drug-induced deaths, 57^th.

Overall, it ranks 50^th or lower in 13 of the 19 categories.

What could possibly explain this? Many of these categories line up with the characteristics explored in a 2008 study of suicide by the mental health branch of Humboldt County’s Department of Health and Human Services. It concluded that counties with high suicide rates “are largely rural, have lower median household income and 85 percent of counties had a higher proportion of people living in poverty as compared to the national percentage.”

A number of rural California counties fit this profile, Humboldt among them. The Census Bureau shows that Humboldt County’s poverty level is substantially higher than the state average, and its household income is one-third lower.  But other California counties have income and poverty profiles just as bad – in some cases considerably worse – without the widespread health problems.

Perhaps the mix of poverty and rural character is a factor, creating a physical and socio-cultural isolation that could be affecting health.  The physical isolation is made emphatically clear by Census figures: Humboldt’s density is 38 persons per square mile; the state’s average is 239.

In Humboldt County, the isolation we outsiders perceive as beauty may affect locals differently. Just think about the weather and the land. With rainfall averaging from 40 to 100 inches a year, perhaps there is a psychological dimension these statistics only hint at. The county encompasses 2.3 million acres, 80 percent of which, according to the county, “is forestlands, protected redwoods and recreation areas.” Eighty percent unsettled. Now that’s isolation.

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Reprinted by permission of the author, Mr. Richard Kipling and the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting, University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

The California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting partners with news organizations across the state to produce in-depth reporting on health-care issues of importance to consumers and policymakers.  Mr. Richard Kipling is Managing Editor.

Original article by Mr. Richard Kipling and information about the California HealthCare Foundation Center for Health Reporting can be found here.

(Posted by Skippy Massey for the Humboldt Sentinel)