7-16-09

 
7-16-09
Badlands Journal
brace of choirboys: God and Water in California...Badlands Journal editorial board
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/2009-07-15/007321
The situation is desperate. By formally requesting the Obama administration to convene the God Squad, the governor would be following through on his promise to fight on behalf of California farmers, farmworkers, businesses and all water consumers.…”Arnold should call in the God Squad,” By Brandon M. Middleton and Damien M. Schiff, Vacaville Reporter-7/12/09
No sooner had Badlands Editorial board members clarified for a grateful readership that the phenomena known to all Californians as the “water wars” was in fact a theological schism, than the next day God is invoked as the only solution in the by two young Christian mouthpieces for Pacific Legal Foundation. The article advises the Hun, our governor, to focus his rusted star power on the Obama administration to convene a “God Squad” to exempt the Delta environmental crisis from the Endangered Species Act.  
The restrictions on the Delta pumps, according to last year’s federal court decision on the Delta Smelt, were removed on July 1. But this was only a secular decision. Equally secular is contemporary natural history of California: We have a drought.
We are delighted to find fine young Christians at the Pacific Legal Foundation, which some consider a profane lion’s den of private-property-rights materialism. Middleton and Schiff elevate the tone of PLF propaganda. The article itself is well-written, verbs agree in number and tense, the nouns are nicely done, adjectives and adverbs are limited, no errant ravings about “death taxes,” etc.
Schiff defines himself as a discipulus legum, Latin for a disciple of the law. In many years of consorting with attorneys at law, we’ve never met one so self-described. At first we thought the “legum” might have been “legume,” and we briefly imagined a latter-day penitent lashing himself with pea vines or something.
Who are these discipuli legum Fundamentis legitimis pacificis? Why have they issued this decurio deo appellationem proconsulo austrino?
Damien M. Schiff
Discipulus legum 
http://omniaomnibus.typepad.com/about.html
Brandon M. Middleton
Fellow, College of Public Interest Law, National Litigation Center
bmm@pacificlegal.org (916) 419-7111
Schiff attended Georgetown University, which describes itself as the oldest Jesuit university in America, and counts as his undergraduate intellectual mentor Reverend James V. Schall, S.J., of Georgetown, a prolific writer on Christian political theory. Schiff describes his fully-armored Crusader orthodoxy as: “Thomist, in philosophy a Neo-Scholastic, in law a formalist/textualist/originalist, and in politics a republican with due respect for executive power.”
Middleton, less forthcoming about his received orthodoxy, got his undergraduate degree at University of St. Louis, Jesuit citadel of one of America’s most Catholic cities.
Both these out-of-state choir boys are youngsters to the water wars of California, probably still in high school when the state Department of Water Resources began publishing the daily Water News. Therefore, they were unable to avail themselves of that vital source of information which, over a decade or so, has provided some of us with enlightenment on the inner nature of the human heart, at least in California. Nope. They came West to seek the gold in these here hills and found it composing beautiful little sophistries for Pacific Legal Foundation, published in a Media News Group outlet. Media News Group denied two weeks ago that it was on the brink of bankruptcy.
It is wonderful to see such fine parochial scholars join in the grand debate over California water, freely invoking Deity, and from the depths of their rock-solid Christian political orthodoxy, telling no less a figure than the Hun Himself, to do the same. These young Christian sophists have not built their houses upon the sands of the empty San Joaquin River or on the Public Trust. No. They’ve constructed their private homes (no doubt worth something less than when they bought them) on the holy sanctity of private property rights, as taught by the learned friars and abbesses at Pacific Legal Foundation. Clearly men of faith, they no doubt await the miracle of the multiplication of fish in the Delta and off the Pacific Coast so that those who still fish for fish on the coast can make a living again.
The Badlands Journal editorial board welcomes Schiff and Middleton to the water wars and asks them to join us in this simple invocation: “God help endangered species in California!”
Meanwhile...
On, ye Christian lawyers
To the Western water wars
With the Golden Calfie
Going on before.
Hydraulic Brotherhood leads against the foe
Forward into battle, where legal fees will flow.
7-13-09
The Vacaville Reporter
Arnold should call in the God Squad...Brandon M. Middleton and Damien M. Schiff. The authors are attorneys with Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, a legal watchdog for property rights and a balanced approach to environmental regulations. Visit www.pacificlegal.org
http://www.thereporter.com/ci_12820503?IADID=Search-www.thereporter.com-www.thereporter.com
Thousands of Californians are suffering from a severe water shortage, and the Obama administration has added insult to injury.
In June, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued an Endangered Species Act "biological opinion" on the effects that state and federal water projects have on Chinook salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon and killer whales.
The service's action puts these species well above humans on the totem pole and threatens to impose new and drastic cuts in water deliveries to municipalities and farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
The administration's decision could not come at a worse time. A number of San Joaquin Valley communities are already experiencing staggering unemployment rates -- as high as 40 percent in some cases.
Some farmers have been forced to idle farmland as a result of receiving only 10 percent of their historic contracted water supplies. Water deliveries will be cut back even further under the new biological opinion -- the fisheries service projects a total water loss of 330,000 acre-feet per year (enough to meet the annual water needs of nearly 1 million people), but other agencies, such as the California Department of Water Resources, consider that a low estimate.
The latest federal biological opinion comes on top of a December 2008 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that resulted in cutting water deliveries to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, as part of regulatory efforts to help a small fish, the delta smelt. In other words, federal environmental restrictions and regulations are jeopardizing the livelihoods of thousands throughout California, and food for millions of American consumers.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger clearly understands the absurd nature of the Endangered Species Act water cutbacks. "This federal biological opinion puts fish above the needs of millions of Californians and the health and security of the world's eighth largest economy," he said, noting further that the federal government's fish-before-people policy is "killing our economy and undermining the integrity of the Endangered Species Act."
In April, the governor took time to join farmworkers, farmers and community leaders in a march for water, and he was quick to point out at the march that Washington needs to listen more carefully to the concerns of California. Indeed, he concluded by stating, "I will not quit until we get water, because we need water."
The governor can and should put powerful action behind those words, by appealing to the Obama Administration for immediate relief. The longer this latest biological opinion is allowed to stand, the more likely some of the world's most productive farmland will become a government-created wasteland.
Fortunately, the Endangered Species Act allows for such an appeal. State governors have authority to ask the Secretary of the Interior to convene a special committee. This Endangered Species Committee, also known as the "God Squad," can determine whether to exempt a project from the burdens of the Endangered Species Act. The God Squad would be able to exempt California's water projects from newly proposed restrictions.
The situation is desperate. By formally requesting the Obama administration to convene the God Squad, the governor would be following through on his promise to fight on behalf of California farmers, farmworkers, businesses and all water consumers.
7-1-09
Editor&Publisher
MediaNews Group: We're Not On Brink of Bankruptcy…Mark Fitzgerald
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003990062
CHICAGO MediaNews Group late Wednesday denied a report in an investors newsletter that it is arranging a pre-packaged bankruptcy -- or readying any change in ownership of the Denver-based publisher controlled by William Dean Singleton and Richard B. Scudder.
Merced Sun-Star
Parched Valley farms to get help from House
Bill expected to include $10 million for water projects...MICHAEL DOYLE, Sun-Star Washington Bureau
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/268/v-print/story/953251.html
WASHINGTON -- The House is scheduled to approve a $33 billion energy and water bill today that includes some modest new help for parched San Joaquin Valley farms.
Urged on by two Valley Democrats, the House amended the massive bill to include $10 million for several Valley-related water projects designed to boost irrigation deliveries. The revised bill also is supposed to make it easier to transfer California water from one district to another.
"They're part of an effort to deal with the third year of a drought in California," Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, said of the provisions.
Costa and Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, authored the two California water amendments adopted by the House on voice votes as part of the fiscal 2010 energy and water appropriations package. The bill funds Army Corps of Engineers projects like Pine Flat Dam, Bureau of Reclamation projects like Friant Dam and energy-related work at places like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
One amendment steers $10 million toward California's so-called "Intertie" and "Two-Gates" projects. The Intertie would connect the federal Delta-Mendota Canal with state canals, making it easier to shift water around. Two-Gates would prevent fish from being sucked into Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta pumps, thereby allowing more irrigation deliveries south of the Delta.
Additional approvals are still needed before either project proceeds.
The second amendment approved Wednesday is supposed to streamline water transfers across county lines among various irrigation and water districts throughout the San Joaquin Valley.
"There's an incredibly significant crisis we have in the Valley," Cardoza said, adding that "these amendments are not a panacea, (and) they will not cure every problem." Westlands Water District General Manager Thomas Birmingham called the water transfers a "critical tool" for the district's farmers on the west side of Fresno County.
The amendments authored by the two Democrats did not go as far as several sought by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia. Nunes wanted to shut off funding for several federal water decisions designed to protect the delta and endangered species such as the Chinook salmon.
Denied a chance to offer his latest water-delivery amendments on the House floor, Nunes dismissed Costa's and Cardoza's efforts as well-meaning but ineffectual.
"There are a lot of people in public office searching for a public relations victory and they hope this will buy them time," Nunes said in a statement, adding that "the truth is that this action will not ease our region's suffering." Cardoza, in turn, says Nunes' proposals are unrealistic.
The energy and water bill is one of a dozen appropriations measures needed to fund the federal government each year. This year's 348-page committee report is packed with earmarks steering funds to favored local projects.
Cardoza, for instance, secured $460,000 to continue an ongoing study of flood control along Orestimba Creek in western Stanislaus County. Some Republicans including Nunes and Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, though, have sworn off requesting congressional earmarks this year.
Many of the bill's projects were requested by President Barack Obama's proposed budget and are not controversial, including $10 million provided for safety improvements at Success Dam near Porterville. The bill likewise includes the $31 million that Obama sought for restoration of San Francisco Bay and the Delta.
Years away, but Merced-Atwater Expressway project in the works
Officials moving on with plan to connect Hwys. 99, 59 and 140...CORINNE REILLY
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/953242.html
Though it could be years before the project breaks ground and decades before it's finished, local transportation officials are moving forward with plans to designate land for a new expressway that would connect highways 99, 59 and 140.
Funding for the $311 million roadway, dubbed the Merced-Atwater Expressway, has largely dried up because of the recession and housing bust. The small pot of money already in hand isn't even enough to pay for design and engineering costs, let alone construction.
Even so, local transportation officials are pushing ahead to gain the approvals needed to build.
The Merced County Planning Commission will vote July 22 whether to recommend adding the expressway to the county's long-term growth plan, which would discourage new development in the expressway's envisioned path.
The Board of Supervisors will have the final say on the matter in the coming months.
"Once we get through these approvals, all we can do is sit and wait for the economic circumstances to change," said Jesse Brown, executive director of the Merced County Association of Governments, the agency in charge of the expressway project. "But that doesn't mean we should stop planning for the future."
First proposed in 1997, the four-lane divided expressway would run about seven miles from Highway 140 to 59, with major interchanges at Highway 99 and Santa Fe Drive.
It also would provide direct access from 99 to Castle Commerce Center, an addition that county leaders say is essential to redeveloping the former U.S. Air Force base.
With one of the longest runways in the state and access to an active rail line, Castle has the potential to become a hub for major companies moving goods across California, said Mark Hendrickson, the county's economic development director. All that's missing, he said, is a quick route from Castle to 99.
"The Merced-Atwater Expressway would be that vital link," Hendrickson said. "The goal is to make it as easy as possible for businesses to set up here and bring jobs to our county."
Brown said his agency was counting on fees paid by developers to cover a big portion of the expressway's cost. Since the county's building boom ended two years ago, however, those projections have changed dramatically. Hopes of squeezing funding for the expressway from the state also have largely been put on hold.
"We've kind of reached the economic bottom, and sometimes that makes it hard to imagine that things are ever going to turn around," Brown said. "But they will, and we need to be planning for more prosperous times."
Two other major road projects are in line ahead of the expressway to receive local funding: a road that would connect 99 to UC Merced and a bypass that would re-route Highway 152 around the city of Los Banos, county planner James Holland told the Planning Commission last month.
As it's envisioned, the Merced-Atwater Expressway would be built in three phases. The first phase, which would stretch from 99 to Santa Fe Drive, could be ready for drivers by 2015. The remaining phases, which would connect Santa Fe to 59 and 140 to 99, could take more than a decade longer.
Tip List: City of Merced, owner of a dilapidated house, gets a blight award nomination
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/953253.html
Usually dumpy, abandoned houses in Merced County are owned by individuals who live far away, have died or just can't afford to fix up their property.
But in this case, the city of Merced is the proud owner of one such house. Well, it's a house if four walls and a roof count, but not one many people would want to live in.
The house in question, at 2824 N. Highway 59, is a washed-out orange one-story facing the highway at Willowbrook Drive.
If the place were human, I'd describe it as rundown, old and crazy with missing teeth, a limp and smelly clothes.
Parts of the roof are falling in. Dead, dried-out bushes run along its yard. Windows lay wide open. The electric meter is missing. The side yard has no gate and garbage is strewn across the yard.
Inside isn't much better.
Graffiti mars the walls. A couple of mattresses lean against a wall in the front room. And a putrid stench emanates from somewhere in or near the house.
In other words, it's a dump.
Tip List was notified of the property after a tipster e-mailed the Sun-Star.
According to the county, the property is owned by the city of Merced's Redevelopment Agency.
So why is it in such bad shape?
Well, according to Daniel Ainslie, the city's development coordinator in charge of the property, the city just bought the house for $95,000 in March.
The city plans to build affordable housing on the site, said Ainslie. The property will be torn down, he added, but first the fire department wants to use it for training purposes. The house will probably be demolished in the next couple months, he said.
Until that happens, Tip List doesn't have any compunction with nominating the city of Merced, and more specifically Frank Quintero, who oversees the city's Redevelopment Agency, as an applicant in the "King of Blight" contest. The city will keep its nomination until the place is torn down.
Congratulations, Frank.
What is wrong: An abandoned house at the corner of Highway 59 and Willowbrook Drive is more than an eyesore, it literally stinks.
Who is at fault: The city of Merced owns the property.
UC regents approve plan that means furloughs for employees
The plan is equal to a 4 to 10 percent salary reduction...DANIELLE GAINES
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/953241.html
The University of California Regents Committee on Finance approved on Wednesday a budget reduction plan that will furlough UC employees at levels equal to a 4 to 10 percent salary reduction.
The goal of the furlough plan is to save $181.4 million in salary expenditures between Sept. 1, 2009 and Sept. 1, 2010.
The university is trying to offset an anticipated $813 million reduction in support from the state general fund.
About 860 UC Merced employees would be hurt by the cuts, according to a staffing snapshot from last November. Student workers are not subject to the cut.
Employees will be subject to 11 to 26 unpaid days next year, with higher-paid employees taking larger cuts.
Chancellor Steve Kang addressed members of the Regents finance and compensation committees before the vote.
"The UC Merced operation has been very bare bones with no room to juggle and planning for this new campus has been very challenging due to the budget uncertainty," Kang said. "It has been like trying to build a house in a hurricane."
Kang said the furlough plan would mean that many offices on the Merced campus that have only one employee will have to close down several days during the year.
He added that student services like housing and security would also be "severely hampered."
A 9.3 percent increase in student fees that has already been passed will produce an additional $211 million to cover one-fourth of the shortfall.
The full Board of Regents is expected to approve the committee's plan today.
UC Merced med school momentum
Listening tour on July 30 gives supporters a chance to hear and comment on the plans...Our View
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/181/v-print/story/953252.html
If you have tried to get into a doctor recently, especially if you need to be seen by a specialist, you know it's not always easy to get a timely appointment.
A key reason is the shortage of doctors in the Valley. The region has 31 percent fewer primary care physicians and 51 percent fewer specialists than the rest of the state. It's time to attack that problem by "growing our own" doctors.
Establishing a medical school at UC Merced will help ease the shortage because studies show that a high percentage of medical students end up practicing in the areas where they got their medical education.
Valley leaders are pushing for the UC Merced medical school but also utilizing the hospitals and other medical facilities in the Valley. The medical school could be ready as early as 2011, and it could be a permanent facility by 2020.
But this aggressive timetable needs community support to keep public dollars flowing.
The current economic downturn would be an easy excuse for the University of California Board of Regents or state lawmakers to back away from a UC Merced medical school. That would be foolish, of course, because the medical school will be for the long-term and should not fall victim to the politics of the moment.
If you have anything you want to say about the new medical school, the listening tour is coming to Merced at 6 p.m. July 30 in the council chambers at Merced City Hall, 678 W. 18th St. The public can help by attending the listening tour session and contacting legislators and regents to keep the pressure on them for the medical school.
The Valley Coalition for UC Merced Medical School is using a $147,000 grant from the California Endowment to reach out to residents throughout the Valley to explain the medical school and seek their support for it.
About 300 elected officials, health care professionals and community groups have joined the coalition. It is co-chaired by Bryn Forhan of Fresno and Bill Lyons of Modesto. Staff members for Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, and Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, are taking part in the tour.
Part of the outreach is explaining the innovative concept for the medical school. It won't be a big and expensive teaching hospital built on the UC Merced campus. Instead, planners are utilizing a "distributive" in which medical students will spend their third and fourth years learning in existing hospitals and clinics throughout the Valley.
Modesto Bee
TANC officially pulls plug on power line project...Bee Staff Reports
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/783324.html
A plan to build a 600-mile high-voltage power line from Lassen County to Stanislaus County and into the Bay Area is dead, officials from the Transmission Agency of Northern California said Wednesday.
The announcement, made after a special meeting of 15 power providers who make up TANC, was anticipated because utility districts in Modesto, Turlock and Sacramento recently had pulled out of a $1.5 billion plan that had been on the drawing board since 2007.
The agency hoped to build the power line by 2014 to connect renewable energy sources proposed in northeastern California to the electrical grid.
The plan angered property owners, including some in Escalon, Del Rio, Riverbank and Oakdale, who did not want 150-foot-tall towers in their back yards.
Activists in Redding threatened to file a lawsuit to stop the project after proposed routes were unveiled this spring.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District and Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts had pledged 70 percent of the funding for the project, so it was doomed with their departure. Other partners were the city of Santa Clara and the Redding Utility District.
In a prepared statement, TANC officials said the lack of financial support from key partners prompted the agency to terminate an environmental review process that was under way.
Alternative routes for the power line are not being considered, officials said, but the agency will look for other ways to connect renewable energy to the power grid.
Fresno Bee
Conflicted CSU wants it both ways...Bill McEwen
http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/mcewen/v-print/story/1538843.html
This is how shameless the California State University system and Fresno State has become: It tried to win a court case involving the controversial Campus Pointe project with an argument a third-grader could shoot down faster than you can spell w-h-o-p-p-e-r.
Even worse for the CSU, it has been caught red-handed saying one thing to a judge in Fresno and the complete opposite to the state Legislature.
The CSU's inability to keep its stories straight -- much less avoid a string of scandals -- has put it in the cross hairs of state Sen. Leeland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat.
Lee is co-author of Senate Bill 218, which would require CSU and University of California auxiliary groups statewide to hold open meetings and share their records with the public.
While operating in virtual secrecy, auxiliaries and foundations joined at the hip with public universities have grown in power and stature.
An example is the California State University, Fresno Association. It is teaming with developer Ed Kashian on Campus Pointe, a mixed-used project going up on the eastern edge of the campus.
Fresno Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Y. Hamilton recently tossed out a movie-theater deal at Campus Pointe. The arrangement smelled from the start. It called for Moctesuma Esparza -- a CSU trustee when the deal was consummated -- to operate the cinema.
Even a third-grader could see the conflict of interest. But the CSU argued that there was no conflict because the deal was struck by Kashian, the auxiliary and Esparza -- not Fresno State.
Don't you love it when educators -- purported molders of discipline and virtue -- try to skate on a technicality?
Hamilton didn't buy it, ruling that Esparza violated a state law forbidding government officials from having a financial interest in contracts they approve.
Yee isn't buying it, either. In fact, the senator says that a CSU lobbyist argued during a recent hearing that SB 218 isn't needed because all of its foundations and auxiliary groups adhere to conflict-of-interest laws.
"Unfortunately, the hypocrisy continues at CSU," Yee said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon. "On one hand, the CSU argues in court that auxiliary organizations do not have to adhere to conflict-of-interest laws and then in opposing SB 218, they tell legislators they do. If they are willing to lie to the Legislature and cut these unethical development deals, what other wrongdoing is happening at these campus foundations?"
Good question, senator.
We already know that questionable deals struck in secret are draining CSU campuses of money, scholarships and credibility.
Two weeks ago, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported that an academic foundation at Sonoma State University stood to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars on a loan it made to a former foundation board member.
The loan to the prominent Sonoma County businessman was among two dozen by the nonprofit college foundation -- which apparently thought it also was a bank. The financial hit is forcing the university to reduce scholarships for the 2010-2011 academic year.
A few years back, there was a proposed $350 million retail-housing development at San Diego State. The project originally was controlled by the San Diego State University Research Foundation, but it fell $25 million into debt and was taken over by the university. Last year, the project was renamed and scaled back.
Who can forget that a Fresno State foundation misdirected matching funds designated for academic scholarships to athletics -- a fact that didn't become public until nearly five years later?
And there's this, from the CSU Chancellor's Office: one-fifth of the system's $6.7 billion budget is held in auxiliaries, shielded from public scrutiny.
Yee is right when he says: "It is imperative that we pass SB 218 to stop the UC and CSU from evading the public records act by simply shifting responsibilities to foundations and other auxiliary organizations. Taxpayers and students deserve to know how their public universities are run."
End secrecy for campus nonprofits
Public should have access to how money is spent...Editorial
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/v-print/story/1538605.html
A bill is working its way through the Legislature that would give the public more oversight over how foundations affiliated with public universities receive and spend millions in gifts, property and funds.
We support Sen. Leland Yee's Senate Bill 218, which would close a major loophole under which these "auxiliary organizations" are not subject to California's Public Records Act.
In 2001, The Fresno Bee was denied information concerning the identity of individuals and companies that purchased luxury suites at the Save Mart Center arena at Fresno State.
The denial resulted in CSU v. Superior Court (McClatchy Company), in which the Court opined that although it recognized university auxiliaries ought to be covered by the CPRA and that its ruling was counter to the obvious legislative intent of the CPRA, the rewriting of the statute was a legislative responsibility.
Now Yee's bill would fix that.
This issue has also come up regarding a foundation at CSU Sacramento. University Enterprises spent $27,000 on a kitchen remodel for a house that Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez purchased. And it gave him $233,000 in personal loans at an attractive 1.697% interest rate.
And news reports this month have revealed that a Sonoma State University foundation made personal loans to a former foundation board member -- and might be out more than $1 million because he can't repay.
In all three of these cases, the money didn't come from the university directly. And that means the public is shut out from getting details on the public's business -- where did the money come from and who decided to use it that way?
Currently, these nonprofits operate in a netherworld, outside of the normal rules for public accountability. They are separate legal and financial entities but are supposed to contribute to the educational mission of the public campuses. All of their activities are under the direct control of the colleges and universities, with oversight by the campus president and boards.
For the most part, they dole out scholarships and grants and fund student and faculty programs. But when it comes to details about how the money is being spent, these nonprofits often deny public requests for information. They say they are not part of the university and are not state agencies subject to the public records act.
Under SB 218, public college and university auxiliary organizations would be subject to the California Public Records Act -- exempting anonymous donations, commercial enterprises on campus (like Taco Bell) and any trade secrets and proprietary information.
The bill passed the Senate 35-1. It has received unanimous support in Assembly committees and awaits a vote on the floor.
But the battle isn't over. The colleges and universities are mightily opposing the bill.
The issue will land at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk. Those who believe that the public should have access to vital information about the conduct of the people's business on public college and university campuses will have to weigh in.
Secrecy lends itself to abuses; access allows checks to ensure that public purposes truly are being served.
Central Valley Business Times
Ease up on endangered speciaes rules says Poizner
FIREBAUGH ...July 15, 2009 12:05pm  
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/templates/print.cfm?ID=12540
•  Offers plan to solve Central Valley’s water problems
•  ‘Our state must protect its citizens in this emergency’
More reservoirs, some sort of peripheral canal to shunt fresh water around or through the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta, looser enforcement of the endangered species law and more power to the governor to act on water shortage problems are part of a package of reforms urged Wednesday by Steve Poizner, the state insurance commissioner who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor.
“We cannot continue to ignore the substantial economic toll that the reduced water supply has taken on the livelihoods of so many Californians," says Mr. Poizner. "Our state must protect its citizens in this emergency.”
His suggestions include:
• Encourage more flexible application of the Endangered Species Act during times of drought emergency
• Utilize the Governor's executive power to get water to where it is needed
• Build the "Two Gates" Project
• Invest in other short-term infrastructure projects that increase the reliability of California's water supply
• Increase reservoir and groundwater storage to provide stability during sustained dry periods
• Build a “conveyance system,” which some are calling a peripheral canal, a concept rejected by voters in the 1980s.
• Manage Delta ecology for a reliable water supply and a sustainable environment
• Promote conservation and efficiency to reduce waste and increase water savings
• Promote water recycling and desalination by local agencies
• Empower local water agencies to implement diverse water management strategies
Sacramento Bee
Drexel officials meet and greet Sacramento business leaders
http://www.sacbee.com/roseville/v-print/story/2026620.html
As leaders of Philadelphia's Drexel University visited Sacramento this week, there was no missing the stylized golden dragon that is the school's mascot.
It was on banners hung along Capitol Mall, where Drexel opened a graduate studies center in January. It was emblazoned on mugs and tote bags handed out to business leaders who visited the center. And it was woven into silky neckties and pinned on jacket lapels worn by the school's top brass, who were in town for two days of schmoozing.
You could say Drexel knows something about branding.
The school has been open in Sacramento for just six months and serves only 53 students. But it's aggressively marketing itself in the region, reaching out to business leaders who can refer potential students for the downtown graduate program and politicians who could be influential in the university's long-term plan to open an undergraduate campus in Placer County.
A who's-who crowd attended a Monday night reception for the Philadelphia visitors, Richard Greenawalt, chairman of the Drexel board of trustees, and C.R. "Chuck" Pennoni, interim president of the university: Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, Placer and Sacramento county supervisors, Roseville City Council members, state legislators and numerous business executives.
The reception was co-hosted by developer Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, who owns land in Placer County where Drexel may build a traditional college campus, and the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce, which has worked closely with the university since it arrived in Sacramento last year.
Because Drexel is trying to attract working adults, the university sees businesses as its conduit to students. Businesses, in turn, see the university as the way to build a better-trained work force, said Linda Cutler, a GenCorp vice president who chairs the board of the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce.
"What Drexel brings to the table is really significant for the region," Cutler said. "We do have really great higher education options in town – the community colleges, Sac State, UC Davis, they are really very strong – but what Drexel is trying to do is provide after-hours high-level graduate programs for working professionals in very unique areas."
Drexel now offers four master's programs – including hard-to-find degrees like engineering management and library science – and will offer 11 different degrees this fall. It hopes to enroll more than 500 graduate students in four years.
Within five years, Drexel leaders must decide if they want to take Tsakopoulos up on the offer to develop a campus on his land.
Placer County officials approved the university project in December. Under the plan, Tsakopoulos and his partners would give Drexel 1,150 acres of farmland west of Roseville. The university would build a campus on 600 acres and sell the remainder to developers to build homes, shopping centers and parks, raising money for the school. Eventually the school would serve 6,000 students.
On Tuesday, Tsakopoulos said progress had slowed.
"Right now the economy is in such a shambles that we cannot sell the property for enough money to build the university," he said. "So now we have to wait until the cycle changes – improves – and hopefully at that time a sufficient amount of money will be realized to build the university."
Tsakopoulos said he is in negotiations with the Sierra Club to settle a lawsuit the group filed that alleges the university project would promote sprawl and create traffic and air quality problems.
Placer County Planning Director Michael J. Johnson said it would be at least a couple of years before any construction could begin.
"Until the litigation is resolved and until they get through their federal permitting process, no development will occur on the land," Johnson said.
Drexel's Greenawalt said the university is in no hurry to decide whether to proceed in Placer County – it's concentrating on the Sacramento graduate program right now.
"The measure of success will be attracting students," Greenawalt said. "We're playing this a year at a time."
On Tuesday, the last day of their networking whirlwind, Greenawalt and Pennoni attended a breakfast meeting with members of the Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization.
Placer County Supervisor Jim Holmes addressed the Drexel officials.
"You're name is out there," he said. "It's a great product and we're very happy to have you out here."
Capital Press
Rangeland Trust preserves ranch
Organization buys easement on property near Merced...Tim Hearden
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=52881&TM=42185.25
Like many ranchers would be, Paul Ichord was hesitant to let any government or quasi-government agency have a piece of his land.
But his 2,900-acre ranch is just a couple of miles from the new University of California-Merced campus, and he grew wary of the pressures to subdivide such a prime lot.
And sharing his concerns was the California Rangeland Trust, a nonprofit organization that preserves open space, natural habitat and stewardship provided by the state's ranches.
So the Rangeland Trust used funding from the California Wildlife Conservation Board to purchase a conservation easement on the property, enabling it to conserve the land's rolling grasslands and high-density vernal pools.
The $4 million agreement will allow Ichord and his family to continue their stocker cattle ranching operation without a hitch, said Erin Davis, the trust's director of communications.
"I was always pretty hesitant to do something with it or get tied up with a government thing, but I've got three boys," Ichord said. "My dad bought that ranch back in the '50s and we've ranched there for 50 years. We wanted to keep on ranching.
"After the college went in, we thought we'd have to sell out and go somewhere else," he said. "The price got to the point that it (the conservation easement) was worthwhile to do."
The easement is one of some 30 such projects the Rangeland Trust is undertaking on ranches covering some 186,000 acres in California.
Under the easements, the property owner still owns the land and maintains all of his property rights, except for the right to subdivide or further develop the land, Davis said.
The Rangeland Trust uses a variety of funding sources, including state and federal grants as well as money from foundations and private donors, to purchase easements from property owners.
The easements help maintain viable ranchland and wildlife habitat even as a growing population increases pressures to convert farmland to housing and other uses. For ranchers, they provide valuable income in a time of recession.
"I think maybe the obvious benefit is (the land) isn't converted into subdivisions, a strip mall or shopping mall," Davis said. "What's really unique about a conservation easement like we do is the private owner remains on the land and continues to manage the land."
The organization sees the Ichord ranch as a "stunning example of vernal pool grasslands," and is amazed by the species that migrate there "largely because of the cattle operation," Davis said.
Eleven state or federally listed threatened or endangered species are known to be on the ranch, including owl's clover, San Joaquin Valley Orcutt grass, Colusa grass, the California tiger salamander, the San Joaquin kit fox and the Swanson's hawk, according to the Trust.
The Trust has a long waiting list of landowners committed to allowing such conservation easements, but state and federal funding has been limited of late. The organization is ramping up its fund-raising efforts from other sources, Davis said.
For Ichord, the five-year effort to secure the project on his land was worth the wait.
"It's a win for us, and a win for that country, too," he said. "We want to keep ranching, and this is a way that we can certainly do that."
Lodi Sentinel
Low rainfall has local farmers digging deeper for water...Ross Farrow
http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2009/07/16/news/3_water_
090716.prt
A year ago, the water on Jon Tecklenburg's property was 80 feet below the surface. This year, it's 103 feet deep.
That increased Tecklenburg's electrical bill to irrigate his older winegrapes from $585 last year to $823.
"The grapes are still growing," Tecklenburg said. "Fortunately, they're old grapes, so the roots are way down there."
The spring rains that hit the Lodi area in April and May weren't enough to raise the water level in the groundwater basin or the Mokelumne River. Farmers must go deeper in their wells to pump out irrigation water, and the North San Joaquin Water Conservation District had to rent two extra diesel pumps because its own pumps can't reach down far enough to suck up water from the Mokelumne River.
For Tecklenburg, it meant taking more time to irrigate his grapes.
"I could irrigate 20 acres last year in seven days in furrow irrigation," he said. "This year, it took me 16 days. It takes longer to get the same amount of water."
So what happens if we don't get a monsoon next winter and the water level is even lower?
Groundwater a bigger problem in southern San Joaquin Valley
A study by the U.S. Geological Survey shows that groundwater levels are generally stable in the northern San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento Valley, but it's a big problem in places to the south like the Tulare Basin.
The study shows that groundwater levels in the Central Valley have lost 60 million acre-feet of groundwater since 1961. The study covers the entire Central Valley from Redding to Bakersfield, according to hydrologist Claudia Faunt, the lead scientist for the study.
The Central Valley contains one-fifth of all groundwater pumped in the nation.
Source; U.S. Geological Survey
"I'm going to have to put in a bigger pump and dig it even more," Tecklenburg said. "You have to survive. You have to do what you have to do."
There is a way to save water on Tecklenburg's younger crops, he said. That would be drip irrigation, which requires a lot less water. The water goes right to where the roots are and nurtures far fewer weeds, Tecklenburg said.
Along the Mokelumne River, the North San Joaquin Water Conservation District, trying to collect 6,000 acre-feet of water to serve farmers south of the river, rented two pumps from a Stockton firm to reach Victor-area farmers.
The pumps, rented from a firm called "Rain for Rent," lift Mokelumne River water about 12 feet up and transports it to a level ditch that takes the water to the North San Joaquin pump a short distance away, according to Rain for Rent foreman Terry Baca.
"In normal (rainfall) years, we've never had this problem," Watermaster Pete Weinzheimer said. "If I had another foot or two (of water), we could do away with the diesel pumps."
The city of Lodi, which has 26 wells, hasn't had the problems that some rural areas have encountered. Within the city limits, the water table goes down about four inches per year over a 20- to 25-year period, city spokesman Jeff Hood said.
A possible reason that city workers haven't had to dig deeper in the wells, Hood said, is that water consumption is down about 10 percent over last year.
Stockton Record
Foreclosures rise 15 percent in first half of 2009 (8:02 a.m.)
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090716/A_NEWS/90716001
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes soared by nearly 15 percent in the first half of the year as more people lost their jobs and were unable to pay their monthly mortgage bills.
The mushrooming foreclosure crisis affected more than 1.5 million homes in the first six months of the year, according to a report released Thursday by foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc.
The data show that, despite the Obama administration's plan to encourage the lending industry to prevent foreclosures by handing out $50 billion in subsidies, the nation's housing woes continue to spread. Experts don't expect foreclosures to peak until the middle of next year.
Foreclosure filings rose more than 33 percent in June compared with the same month last year and were up nearly 5 percent from May, RealtyTrac said.
"Despite all the efforts to date, we clearly haven't got a handle on how to address the situation," said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's senior vice president for marketing.
More than 336,000 households received at least one foreclosure-related notice in June, according to the foreclosure listing firm's report. That works out to one in every 380 U.S. homes.
It was the fourth-straight month in which more than 300,000 households receiving a foreclosure filing, which includes default notices and several other legal notices that homeowners receive before they finally lose their homes. Banks repossessed more than 79,000 homes in June, up from about 65,000 a month earlier.
On a state-by-state basis, Nevada had the nation's highest foreclosure rate in the first half of the year, with more than 6 percent of all households receiving a filing. Arizona was No. 2, followed by Florida, California and Utah. Rounding out the top 10 were Georgia, Michigan, Illinois, Idaho and Colorado.
The Obama administration in March launched a $50 billion plan to give the lending industry financial incentives to modify mortgages to lower payments, but it's off to a slow start.
As of early July, about 130,000 borrowers were enrolled in three-month trial modifications under the plan, and 25 mortgage companies have signed up to receive potential payments of up to $18.6 billion, according to the Treasury Department. But analysts and housing counselors say it isn't having much of an impact.
"The plan isn't going well, at least not yet," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. "It's a creative plan with lots of incentives, but it's very complex."
In testimony prepared for delivery at a Senate hearing on Thursday, Bank of America executive Allen Jones said the company has about 80,000 loan modifications in the works under the new government guidelines, including some that aren't in the three-month trial phase yet.
"We have achieved this level of success by devoting substantial resources to this effort," Jones said, noting that the company has more than 7,000 employees handling calls and working on modifications. Industry experts, however, say the response from most mortgage companies has been lackluster.
"They've been slow to make sure they understand it and put all the processes and people in place," said Joel Lewis, vice president of financial services at Convergys Corp., which runs call centers for the financial industry and other companies.
A week ago, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan sought to ramp up pressure on the industry, saying in a letter to participating mortgage companies that the industry needs to "devote substantially more resources to this program for it to fully succeed." They also summoned mortgage executives to a July 28 meeting with top government officials.
Though the program was launched months ago, few companies are upgrading their computer systems to process loans rapidly, said Bill Kelvie, chairman of Overture Technologies in Bethesda, Md.
"They need to automate the process, and they need better technology, and they need to do this quickly," he said.
$1.5 billion power line proposal killed...Reed Fujii
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090716/A_BIZ/907160317
Efforts to string roughly 600 miles of high-voltage power lines across Northern California, a project that drew vehement public opposition, ended Wednesday morning when municipal utilities financing the project voted to terminate environmental work.
That vote came during a special telephone conference meeting of the Transmission Agency of Northern California, called after three member utilities formally withdrew further funding.
"Without the financial support of key TANC utility members to proceed with this process, TANC cannot undertake a detailed environmental analysis of the proposed alternative routes. As such, the (transmission project) and the proposed alternative routes are no longer being considered," the agency said in a statement after the decision.
In San Joaquin County, about 90 miles of transmission lines on 100- to 150-foot-tall towers would have run from Elk Grove south and southwest to a substation near Tracy, and another segment would have run east to Oakdale.
News of the project termination cheered Jon Tremayne, a Ripon resident whose 10-acre property lay along one proposed transmission route and who helped organize an ad hoc citizens committee opposed to the effort.
"It's great news. It shows common sense trumps misguided delusion," he said, arguing that the ambitious plan was fundamentally flawed.
"It was very costly, over ambitious, and didn't deliver on its stated goals," Tremayne said.
State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, also applauded the termination, saying, "This was the right decision. The TANC project wasn't sufficiently vetted to the public. It lacked oversight, and it wasn't required to coordinate with other utilities."
She vowed to continue to pursue legislation, drafted over concern about the project, that would subject public utilities planning high-voltage transmission lines to the same oversight given investor-owned utilities.
Transmission agency officials said the project, which they roughly priced at $1.5 billion, would have tapped potential renewable resources - such as wind or solar electric projects - in northeast California and carried it to member utilities in the Central Valley and the Bay Area.
The plans attracted little public attention until the agency held a series of meetings in late March and April to solicit public opinion, then part way through the hearing process published maps online that gave residents and landowners a clear view of where the proposed power lines might run. One alternative route, for example, ran right through new development in the Spanos Park West development in Stockton.
"The lines went right over our house," said Sharon Stokes, whose family operates vineyards and other business concerns in the Thornton area.
She applauded Wednesday's decision but remained concerned.
"The action today gives us a bigger comfort feeling," Stokes said. But, she added, "We're not going to let it go until it's good and done."
The U.S. Western Area Power Administration, the agency whose primary focus is on transmission lines for federal hydroelectric projects, is helping conduct the environmental review of the TANC project, although it has not committed to joining in its construction.
"We were the lead agency on the environmental impact statement, and our actual participation in the project or non-participation in the project would have been influenced by that," administration spokeswoman Theresa Williams said.
She said federal officials had no immediate reaction to the transmission agency terminating its part of the project.
"We need to take a couple of days to consider how this impacts us and what we do next," Williams said.
TANC is a partnership of 15 municipal utilities that secures electric transmission capacity for its members, but just five had agreed to underwrite the new high-voltage lines.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which had committed to pay 35 percent of its costs, said earlier this month it was withdrawing from the project. The Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts both followed suit Tuesday.
The final dominoes fell Wednesday when representatives of Redding and Santa Clara city electric utilities - the last two financial participants - voted to terminate the current environmental review.
Lodi OKs staggered 73% sewer rate hike...Keith Reid
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090716/A_COMM05/907160322/-1/A_NEWS
LODI - The Lodi City Council on Wednesday night approved a staggered sewer rate hike that will increase homeowner bills 73 percent by 2012, but not before firing off its displeasure at a water regulation official.
Council members sent harsh criticism toward Central Valley Water Quality Control Board Director Pamela Creedon, who spoke to the council about how her agency enforces laws and wastewater regulations that have become so costly for cities such as Lodi to adhere to, prompting rate increases.
Creedon warned that violations could add up to hefty penalties that could "potentially bankrupt some communities if it gets too out of hand."
"I think we're regulated to death," council member JoAnne Mounce told Creedon. "I wonder sometimes if these regulations are being made so water officials like you, no offense, can substantiate their jobs."
Mayor Larry Hansen said he believed penalties levied by the regional board are "designed to raise revenue." He also said it bothers him that state officials pass the burden of increased regulations onto cities without funding their mandates.
The City Council's approved rate increase begins today with a 25 percent hike. Another 20 percent increase is due in 2010, an additional 10 percent in 2011 and a final 5 percent hike in 2012.
For a three-bedroom home, that means a previous $27.74 bill now will be $34.68. By 2012, it will be $48 for the same house.
The increase is needed to pay for the cost of new regulations, a $60 million upgrade to Lodi's 43-year-old White Slough wastewater plant five years ago and to bridge what has been a $1.5 million annual operations deficit.
Community members spoke out against the rate hike.
Resident Cecil Kramer said the rates could be crippling to a person struggling in a down economy.
"What you are doing is putting a burden on people who have lost jobs and have had hours cut back, and are struggling to pay for their homes," Kramer said.
Robin Rushing said he already pays a premium for sewer rates in his trailer park because the amount of wastewater he uses is low, so a higher rate would be exorbitant for him and his neighbors.
Despite the heated discourse, city officials said the rates had to be raised.
"We really have no other best option. We can't shut down the plant. We can't use another city's plant, and we can't refuse to comply with regulations," Public Works Director Wally Sandelin said.
Delta drilling planned for canal
State officials to search for possible intake sites...Alex Breitler
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090716/A_NEWS14/907160324/-1/A_NEWS
SACRAMENTO - State water officials plan to drill into Delta river bottoms starting next month as they explore possible intake sites for a peripheral canal.
The drilling is further evidence that the canal is no longer just a concept on paper as officials move toward on-the-ground analyses and surveys.
The California Department of Water Resources said it needs data about channel soils to help plan where a canal should begin, as well as identify locations for tunnels, siphons and barriers.
The drilling also explores infrastructure for "through-Delta conveyance," that is, the concept that some water will continue to flow through the estuary toward the export pumps near Tracy.
The plan is to use anchored barges or ships to drill at 16 locations throughout the Delta, including three major rivers: the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Mokelumne. Much of the drilling will take place on the Sacramento River between Walnut Grove and Freeport, roughly the area in which a proposed canal would begin.
"We're trying to hit so many different options," said Mark Pagenkopp, a senior engineering geologist with Water Resources.
The state has been surveying private lands for some time, a Water Resources spokesman said Wednesday, but this stage of the project requires a public comment period, which ends July 26.
The work is part of a massive environmental review for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, an effort to improve the state's water supply while also restoring Delta habitat. The canal is a key part of that plan, though foes say it will destroy, not restore, the estuary by robbing it of fresh Sacramento River water to boost water exports to other parts of California.
Dante Nomellini, a Stockton attorney representing farmers who have sued over the conservation plan process, said private landowners continue to resist state efforts to access their land.
He was not surprised that the state intends to drill.
"The fact that they've gone out into the field and contacted owners for entry, I don't know how much more of an awakening we need," he said.
State officials also said this week that they expect to release details soon about how a canal could be operated while still allowing some fresh water to flow into and through the Delta. Canal opponents have long insisted that the state should not be pushing forward with a canal when questions about how it would operate have not been answered.
Comments accepted
To comment on the state's drilling plan, e-mail mbeachle@water.ca.gov or call (916) 376-9826. The deadline is July 26. To read the report, visit http://tiny.cc/yUwvq.
Delta infrastructure options
River drilling planned...Image
http://images.recordnet.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=SR&Date=20090716&Category=A_NEWS14&ArtNo=
907160324&Ref=AR&border=0&Q=80&maxW=600
The state Department of Water Resources wants to bore into the channel bottom in 15 Delta locations as it explores ways to move water around and through the Delta. The drilling, up for public comment is being done in part to find the best location for the start of a proposed peripheral canal.
The Delta on SportsCenter?...Alex Brietler's Blog
http://blogs.recordnet.com/sr-abreitler
Well, not really, but an espn.com columnist covered the anti-peripheral canal rally outside the state Capitol last week.
Here's his take.
ESPN.COM
The Panama Canal North...James Swan
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=4330412&type=story
On July 7, about 300 passionate conservationists — sportsmen; representatives of numerous conservation, fishing, farming organizations, Indian tribes and business and tourism groups — assembled on the steps of the California State Capitol Building to express their outrage about the declining state of the Sacramento Delta, and a proposed water diversion canal as long as the Panama Canal.
As if pollution and water shortage problems in the Delta weren't bad enough, the rally came together to also protest a "secret bill" quietly moving through the Legislature that would result in a $20-$40 billion bond issue to build a Peripheral Canal, as long as the Panama Canal and 500 to 700 feet wide with a 1,300 feet right of way.
It would draw water from the Sacramento River upstream from the Delta and channel it to farming communities in the Central Valley south of the Delta, and water-starved southern California cities. (For details see: Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP).
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California's Central Valley encompasses 1,300 square miles, including 700 miles of waterways, 400,000 acres of tidal marsh, 1,100 sloughs and around 60 reclaimed islands offering incredibly rich agricultural soil. Approximately 500,000 people reside in the Delta.
From a fish and wildlife point of view, the Delta should be paradise, but on the 2009 list of America's most endangered rivers, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River System comes in as No. 1. From a fisherman's standpoint, the Delta is, or was, heaven. It's the place where "flippin" began as a way to get your lure into the tules. And it's still one of the nation's top bass fishing sites, where stripers, largemouth and smallmouths co-exist. Aside from regular pro bass tournaments, it's also the site of a flyfishing-only bass tournament that gets bigger every year, and a haven where catfish abound and the white sturgeon get up to 9 feet long.
As the emcee for the rally, Sen. Lois Woik said that the rally's purpose was to "Give the Delta a voice. And many voices were heard, beginning with Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who has lived and farmed the Delta for 32 years.
"Thirty-two years ago the river was full of fishing boats alternating between the salmon runs and the stripped bass runs," Garamendi said. "It was once a rich aquatic habitat. It still is the largest and most important estuary on the West Coast of the Western Hemisphere; but today it is a very sick estuary.
"I have watched the decline over the years. The fishing boats are mostly gone. The great thirst of a growing state's population, industry and agricultural enterprises has drained the life out of our Delta. The ecosystem is collapsing and the reverberations will be felt along the entire Pacific coast as the marine environment declines. The fishing industry is in full retreat with economic losses of over $200 million last year. The problem has grown to even threaten those that drain the water from the Delta."
A number of things are causing this dramatic decline: 2,000-3,000 largely unscreened and unregulated water diversions take freshwater from the Delta for agriculture; federal and state regulated pumps that deliver water to 25 million Californians and thousands of farms and export up to 11,000 cubic feet per second; runoff from farms and urban areas carrying herbicides, pesticides and other toxins.
The state already has given out permits to draw more water than the river can provide. Withdrawals mean increasing salinity in the Delta, which compounds other water quality and quantity problems. In addition, two major power plants dump cooling water into the Delta; exotic plants like the water hyacinth are proliferating, choking out native plants and wildlife, and over one billion gallons of municipal wastewaters are discharged daily into the Delta system.
Steve Evans, Conservation Director of Friends of the River, said that the Canal "will be used to suck most of the fresh water out of the Sacramento River for export to southern Central Valley agribusiness and southern California developers. It was a bad idea in 1982 (when it was defeated), and it's an even worse idea today."
Bill Jennings of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance declared that the Delta is " ... on the road to the worst environmental disaster in American history — Arnold's folly."
Jennings said that if the proposed canal and associated dams went through, it would send fisheries into extinction, turn the estuary into a cesspool, wreck havoc on the Delta economy, deliver less water than presently exported, and lead to increased litigation because of legal flaws and bad science.
Delta farmer Rudy Mussi farmer told stories of the good old days, 50 years ago, when he saw so many fish in irrigation ditches he was afraid that if he fell in they would eat him. He says over the last several years he does not see any fish in the same ditches. Mussi said that he now has to treat water to remove salts to use it for irrigation.
Kent Brown, host of Ultimate Bass radio show in Sacramento, pointed out that alternatives — recycling, conservation, ground water treatment — can provide up to 10 million acre feet of water a year, more than what the Peripheral Canal will draw away.
Representing commercial fishermen was Zeke Grader, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. He declared, "The Delta is an ecosystem, not a reservoir," and added a voice of the ocean, saying: "The Coast is in solidarity with the Delta. The lifeblood of the living ecosystem is being drained out of it."
"The Delta is on the brink of environmental collapse as the result of a failed water system that does nothing more than move water from north to south," said Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, campaign director for Restore the Delta. "We want real solutions — programs and project that will capture, recycle and treat water — programs that are cost effective and environmentally sound."
The rally ended with teams of five people going inside to meet with their legislators, to let them hear the voices of the delta and to give them the rally signs as a reminder.
The Opposition
The participants in the July 7 rally were spirited, but they're in for a real battle. On July 1, in Fresno, which is located in the heart of the water-thirsty Central Valley, as many as 4,000 pro-diversion and canal advocates marched. They chanted, "People, not fish," and carried signs declaring "Fish Don't Vote," and "Turn Up the Pumps."
Mostly representing the farming community, the pro-canal group challenged the recent court decisions to curb water diversions from the Delta to save the endangered Delta smelt and green sturgeon. The rally coincided with the visit of Interior Secretary Salazar.
Some anti-diversion people maintain that many of the marchers were paid farm workers.
In addition to supporting the canal, which many Central Valley farmers believe will bring more water to the eastern Central Valley (one of the most productive farming areas of North America), they also support a bill currently in the assembly that calls for removing all protections for striped bass as a game fish. This would allow people to fish for stripers as a trash fish, reducing numbers drastically.
The 1980s canal proposal pitted north vs. south. The north won with a rallying cry "Policy Before Plumbing." Today the situation is even more confusing as there are three potential routes for a peripheral canal: western, eastern and through the Delta — none that the Delta supporters like.
Confused?
I think even the fish are, which is why the Delta needs a voice, and public hearings to let it be heard.
If you want to understand the logic of those supporting the canal, check out a study by the Public Policy of California.
More details about the Delta's sorry state are available from the Coalition for A Sustainable Delta web site.
Delta is the concern of all...Editorial
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090716/A_OPINION01/907160313/-1/A_OPINION
We've all seen the signs on the curb near storm drains warning against allowing toxins into the drain. Those signs probably should be larger and in bright red letters.
A new study led by a UC Berkeley toxicologist found that pyrethroid pesticides - common in household pesticides - in the American River are strong enough to kill tiny shrimp called Hyalella azteca. And those shrimp are a vital first link in the food chain of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem.
Researchers have hunted the cause of the collapse of the Delta's ecosystem for five years. That collapse is thought to be behind the decline in nine fish species, including the tiny Delta smelt.
Researcher Donald Weston said studies support the theory that there is no one cause of the problem, but pesticides reaching the American River through storm drains is putting huge amounts of pesticides in the system. The American River twists through a 30 mile, highly urbanized region that is home to some 1.4 million people. From there the pesticides enter the Sacramento River, thence to the Delta, the state's largest estuary and the water supply for some 23 million Californians.
The largest single source of pyrethroid pollution is the Sacramento regional wastewater treatment plant, which discharges treated sewage into the Sacramento River at Freeport.
Researchers found almost no pyrethroids in Stockton's treated wastewater, probably because rather than being discharged directly into the river, the city holds it in giant ponds up to 30 days before it is discharged into the Delta. In that time, the pesticides may settle or degrade, researchers said.
But Stocktonians should not look on this as Sacramento's problem, a reason not to exercise extreme care in the use and disposal of pesticides and other toxic substances. Runoff from treated lawns, liquids dripping from cars, toxin-carrying paints and chlorine-treated swimming pool water all can get into the storm drain system and into the Delta.
Weston's study is just another warning that we all must exercise care, that we all share a responsibility, to guard the precious natural resource that is the Delta.
AgricultureOnline
Alleged unlawful seed wheat deal spawns lawsuit...Gil Gullickson, Successful Farming magazine Crops Technology Editor
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/printableStory.jhtml;jsessionid=
QL45KSBBT3ANECQCEARSCZQstoryid=/templatedata/ag/story/
data/1247675494943.xml&catref=ag1016
The next time you think about selling wheat seed without the proper authority, beware. You could wind up in federal court.
That's what five farmers found out this week. The South Dakota Board of Regents -- the governing body for South Dakota State University (SDSU) and the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station -- filed five federal lawsuits against these farmers to enforce laws governing wheat varieties using the Plant Variety Protection Act.
The lawsuits focus on the SDSU-owned spring wheat varieties Traverse and Briggs This federally protected seed can only be sold legally as a class of certified seed. The lawsuits allege that five particular producers knowingly sold or offered the seed for sale without legal authority, without proper seed certification, or without legitimate seed dealer licenses.
SDSU officials say the lawsuits were filed to protect South Dakota and Upper Midwest farmers.
"Our principal goal is to support farmers who rely on the continued development of better wheat varieties for their farming success," stated Kevin Kephart, SDSU vice president for research, in a news release.
Lawsuits led by public sector
The SDSU example is the latest one of several lawsuits filed by land-grant universities like Kansas State University, Colorado State University and Oklahoma State University. All have filed and won lawsuits against farmers. A recent case in Kansas resulted in a $150,000 judgment against a farmer who was accused of infringing on a KSU-developed variety.
Universities say protecting intellectual property helps spur further research efforts in wheat
What is interesting is this is being led by the public sector, rather than the private sector," says Carl Casale, executive vice president of global strategy and operations for Monsanto. "In last 30 days, two land-grant institutions instituted intellectual property rights on university germplasm against brownbagging. The industry clearly understands it needs innovation to be successful. It has come to understand there is no innovation unless there is reward."
This week, Monsanto got back in the wheat business by buying the assets of WestBred, a Montana-based company that specializes in wheat germplasm. Monsanto may explore future collaboration with public sources in wheat as well.
"Currently, the vast majority of genetics planted are coming out of the public sector," says Casale. "Unless there is a reward, they can't continue to make an investment on behalf of farmers."
San Francisco Chronicle
UC regents panel recommends major budget cuts...Nanette Asimov
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/16/BACA18PA83.DTL&type=printable
The University of California's Board of Regents should adopt a plan today to cut $813 million from UC's budget, a regents committee recommended Wednesday, even as professors, researchers, nurses and other UC employees argued strongly and loudly at the regents meeting in San Francisco that doing so would destroy the world-class university.
"Disinvesting in the University of California is like eating our seed corn," astronomy Professor Sandra Faber of UC Santa Cruz told the regents. "The university is the most powerful economic engine in the state," but its future is in jeopardy because UC is already having trouble attracting and retaining the top-flight academics the university depends on, she said.
One after another, UC's 10 campus chancellors told the regents about brilliant professors being lured away by more lucrative salaries from other prestigious universities, while they've been forced to lay off or eliminate the positions of hundreds of employees.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said it will take students an extra half year to graduate, the result of courses being eliminated. Others echoed that problem and said they've already reduced library hours, barred access to qualified students, shrunk research budgets and quit recruiting faculty.
"How many vaccines or ways to protect our planet from climate change won't be had because of these cuts?" asked Chancellor George Blumenthal of UC Santa Cruz.
The spending reductions have been made necessary by a loss of $813 million in funding from the state, which is grappling with a $26.3 billion budget deficit.
Cost-cutting plan
The regents' committee recommended a cost-cutting plan by UC President Mark Yudof that closes the university system's budget gap in four ways: faculty furloughs, increased tuition (approved by the regents in May), debt restructuring and campus-by-campus cuts intended to address about 40 percent of the shortfall.
Yudof vigorously defended his plan as the only way to address a steady decline in state support for the university, but he borrowed a line from a speaker and said it was, in fact, "an anti-stimulus plan."
"We have a plan that is fair, but no one is happy with it," he said.
Earlier in the day, UC employees marched loudly outside the Mission Bay campus where the regents met, shouting "Layoff! Yudof!" and "Chop from the top!" The protesters were joined by UC critic Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, who evoked the Berlin Wall and People's Park and even Vietnam as he vowed shifting more control of UC finances to the state. (His bill to do so is stalled in the Legislature.)
Challenge to regents
But Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a regent, upstaged some of the drama by challenging the regents and each chancellor to "stand up and fight" instead of passively accepting the cuts. He urged them to endorse AB656 by Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, D-Fremont, a bill making its way through the Legislature that would tax oil companies and direct the money to California's colleges and universities.
"We can fight fiercely in retreat, or we can stop and fight fiercely for the university," Garamendi told his colleagues, winning applause from the professors and other employees in the audience.
Regent Monica Lozano, chair of the Finance Committee, said it was inappropriate to put the chancellors on the spot, and they didn't respond to Garamendi. But the lieutenant governor succeeded in firing up enough of the regents that they agreed to consider the bill - or at least do a better job of presenting UC's woes to state lawmakers and the public.
In the end, the regents committee voted 11-1 to recommend that the full Board of Regents adopt Yudof's plan when their meeting resumes today. Only Garamendi voted no.
Contra Costa Times
UC regents panel approves employee furloughs lasting 11 to 26 days...Matt Krupnick
http://www.contracostatimes.com/localnews/ci_12844143?nclick_check=1
SAN FRANCISCO — A University of California panel on Wednesday voted to force employees to take time off from work as one response to $813 million in state cuts.
Despite rancorous opposition from employees and students who have seen deep cuts at UC campuses, the Board of Regents committee agreed to implement furloughs of 11 to 26 days over the next year beginning Sept. 1.
During the unusually bleak meeting, campus chancellors ticked off other results of budget cuts: fewer student jobs and teaching assistants, loss of prominent faculty, risks to accreditation.
At UC Berkeley, campus libraries will no longer be open Saturdays, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said, and they will no longer stay open 24 hours during final examinations.
But the furloughs will save Berkeley from having to lay off 450 employees, he said.
UC San Francisco can no longer train dental hygienists, said Chancellor Michael Bishop. UC Davis will not fill 200 faculty positions, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef said. UCLA's classes will average 60 students, noted Chancellor Gene Block.
Workers picketed outside before the vote and chanted inside the meeting room at UC San Francisco. Nearly all the protesters left the meeting before the vote.
The full board will take on the issue today. Several employee unions will need to approve the furloughs before they can take effect.
University leaders warned that the plan would make up for only a quarter of the state cuts; each of the 10 campuses would be forced to make additional budget reductions.
"These are going to be serious and they're going to have lasting impacts," said Russell Gould, the board's chairman.
Each campus will determine how furloughs are implemented. Academic departments will be expected to minimize the effects on students by trying to schedule professors' furloughs on days they do not teach, said UC President Mark Yudof.
The vote came after several employee and student leaders bemoaned the decline of the UC system. A recession is the time when research funding is most needed, said Sandra Faber, a UC Santa Cruz astronomy professor who represented a group of UC researchers.
"Disinvesting in the University of California at this time is like eating our seed corn," she told the regents. "Our professors are going to bolt and we will enter (an irreversible) slide."
UC Berkeley art historian Tim Clark asked how he could face a German scholar he had recruited a year ago and who was just arriving at the East Bay campus as it was cutting back dramatically.
"How am I supposed to look her in the eye?" Clark asked. "Here's one thing I'll say: 'Welcome to California,' and here's the name of a good lawyer who specializes in breach of contract.'"
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a UC regent, used the meeting to lobby for an oil tax to raise money for higher education. Other regents criticized his attempts to prod chancellors into supporting the bill.
UC leaders said they believe the economic crisis will last at least through next year, and noted that federal stimulus funds will not soften the financial blows in 2010.
"I don't really see a light at the end of the tunnel," Yudof told reporters. "What I do see is an opportunity to rethink how we do business."
Editorial: Contra Costa judge's pension ruling is a huge victory for the public...MediaNews editorial
http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_12826747
CONTRA COSTA Superior Court Judge Barry Baskin got it right in a ruling that will make it easier for the public to monitor government employee pension abuse.
Unfortunately, it probably won't be the last time citizens will have to fight for the right to inspect pension records that should be made public. For now, however, Baskin's ruling should provide encouragement to those across the state who want to understand how taxpayer money is being spent and serve as a warning to public officials, as well as current and retired government employees, who seek to hide behind secrecy.
At issue was a taxpayer group's attempt to learn the names and amounts of Contra Costa pensioners who receive more than $100,000 a year. Before the Contra Costa County Employees' Retirement Association provided the data, it sent out a notice to its pensioners. Retired Contra Costa Sheriff's Capt. Donna Irwin asked the court to block release of the information.
At issue was her claim of privacy balanced against the public's right to know how its money was being spent. This fight might sound familiar to East Bay residents. In 2007, in a case involving the Contra Costa Times, the state Supreme Court rejected a claim by Oakland workers that disclosure of their names and salaries was an unwarranted invasion of privacy.
Irwin claimed that her situation was different because the taxpayer group was seeking pension records rather than data about active employee salaries. Judge Baskin was not persuaded. Irwin, he wrote in his ruling this month, had "not shown why access to pension information is any different from access to salaried information."
Citing the Oakland case, he correctly concluded, "Access to that information makes it possible for members of the public 'to expose corruption, incompetence, inefficiency, prejudice and favoritism.' Moreover, the 'broadly based and widely accepted community norm' applicable to government employee compensation is public disclosure."
In claims similar to those lodged by employees in the Oakland case, Irwin had argued that her name should not be made public. But as the Supreme Court ruling and Judge Baskin's decision make clear, government employees need to understand that they cannot hide behind anonymity, that they work for taxpayers and they are accountable to taxpayers.
Without names, it's nearly impossible to track cases of excess, and to explain to taxpayers just how generous they are being in the funding of some public-employee pensions.
In recent months, for example, we have reported that Craig Bowen, the retired chief of the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District, had converted his $221,000 annual salary into a yearly pension starting at $284,000. That Peter Nowicki, the chief of the Moraga Orinda Fire District, converted a $185,000 annual salary into a $241,000 yearly pension. That if Berkeley City Manager Phil Kamlarz retires at the end of 2011, his $260,000 annual salary will be converted to a $280,000 yearly pension. Names are critical to connect the dots.
At a time when public employee pensions are becoming financially unsustainable, the public right to know the names and amounts of recipients is more critical than ever. To his credit, Judge Baskin understood that.
Los Angeles Times
UC system: layoffs, not pay cuts
Rather than across-the-board salary cuts, getting rid of unproductive people makes more sense.
By Robert Cooter and Aaron Edlin. Robert Cooter is a professor of law and Aaron Edlin is a professor of law and of economics, both at UC Berkeley.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cooter16-2009jul16,0,822363,print.story
The University of California remains outstanding. By some rankings, three of its schools are among the top 20 universities in the world. But for how long?
The budget has been cut by 20%. The Board of Regents votes today on UC President Mark Yudof's plan to deal with the shortfall.
Yudof's original proposal included salary cuts across the board of 8% or furloughs leading to an equivalent reduction. This at a time when UC salaries are already 10% or more below those at peer institutions. The current proposal is more nuanced, with cuts ranging from 4% for low earners to 10% for high earners.
The basic choice, though, is to cut employee salaries rather than lay off employees.
Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau has thanked his faculty and staff for agreeing to this shared sacrifice. He says the alternative would have been to immediately eliminate hundreds of staff positions, which would have made some units dysfunctional.
A colleague at dinner the other night quipped that some units are already dysfunctional.
We don't doubt the chancellor's arithmetic, but we wonder whether Birgeneau and Yudof are ducking even more difficult, but more effective, options.
Across-the-board salary cuts are the simplest way to balance the budget, but they are rarely the best. In the corporate world, smart organizations more often choose layoffs than salary cuts. And with good reason.
A crisis is a time to rethink what we do, how we do it and who does it.
Consider what the proposed salary cuts would mean. With employees paid up to 20% below what peer institutions pay, the best will leave. Yes, even in this recession, the best people will leave for other jobs or retire or switch professions. And those who remain will suffer from low morale.
Growth has led to bloat at UC. The bloat and bureaucracy stifle creativity and productivity. The bloat is in unproductive workers and unproductive jobs. Many jobs have little to do with our core missions of teaching and research. Within jobs, there is task bloat -- mission creep creates too many assignments of little import.
These problems are endemic to most large organizations, but they are particular problems for one like UC, where it is almost impossible to fire an unproductive worker, whether staff or tenured professor, and always easier to hire a new one.
Our plan would be simple. To meet Yudof's savings targets, a number of employees would be laid off sufficient to save 8% of the payroll. The choices in staff cuts would be difficult, but they are necessary if the regents are unwilling to raise tuition further. Specific decisions on whom to lay off would be decentralized to campuses, and within campuses to schools or departments.
In the case of tenured faculty, for better or worse, they have a good measure of protection. But if an entire unit is eliminated, tenured faculty within it can be fired. Thus, while tenure means that we cannot be fired for writing this Op-Ed article, the university can decide that it does not have the resources to have a law school.
Those who remain would get full pay but be asked to pick up much of the slack by cutting out their least productive 8% to 10% of activities. Together, these two steps would make UC stronger and more efficient, and we might get done nearly as much as before.
The budget cut is enormous, and if people and units are cut, mistakes will surely be made. But sometimes the only way to find out if you really need something is to have it gone and feel the pain. If the pain is severe, you rebuild it. If not, the organization is more streamlined.
Perhaps there is now only time to cut salaries and not people or units. In that case, the regents could cut salaries for only six months and demand employee reductions to start in January.
Then, those like our dinner colleague who are frustrated by UC bureaucracy might even come to view the current crisis as an opportunity. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
Washington Post
Obama administration scraps Bush logging plan...JEFF BARNARD, The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071602472_pf.html
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The Obama administration is withdrawing the Bush administration's last attempt at increasing logging in Northwest forests occupied by northern spotted owls and salmon.
Assistant Interior Secretary Ned Farquhar told a conference call of attorneys Thursday that they had determined the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's decision not to consult federal biologists over the logging's effects on spotted owls and salmon violated the Endangered Species Act.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was scheduled to discuss the decision in a teleconference with reporters.
BLM had sought to increase timber production in Western Oregon and increase revenues for rural Oregon counties still hurting from logging cutbacks in the 1990s to protect fish and wildlife.
The plan depended on scaled-back protections for the spotted owl. Interior lawyers told a federal judge last April they will not defend the Bush administration's plan for taking the owl off the threatened species list.
The BLM plan called for logging five times the timber it sold last year, which amounts to about half of what was logged before the previous Northwest Forest Plan dramatically cut logging.
The Northwest Forest Plan came after lawsuits from conservation groups shut down logging in old growth forests of Oregon, Washington and Northern California to protect habitat for the spotted owl.
The Bush administration agreed to produce a new spotted owl recovery plan and review the critical habitat designation under terms of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the timber industry.
Andy Stahl, director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, said Thursday's decision reverses President George W. Bush's "backward step in protection of Oregon fish and wildlife habitat." Stahl is a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits challenging the BLM's Western Oregon Plan Revision.
"This restores the situation before Bush embarked upon this silly exercise," he said.
Parties to the conference call said the Department of Interior will seek dismissal of the four lawsuits challenging the BLM's Western Oregon Plan Revision.
Global Research
The Democrats Abandon the Environment...Shamus Cooke
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14391
“As a banker, I also welcome the fact that the 'cap-and-trade' system is becoming the dominant methodology for [carbon dioxide] control.”Simon Linnett, Executive Vice Chairman of Rothschild Bank.
Can the looming environmental catastrophe be solved by environmentalists working side by side with Wall Street Bankers? Such a question doesn’t deserve a serious answer. The Democrats, however, are attempting to address the issue of global warming by developing a “partnership” between those who love the earth, and those who love only profits.
Such a marriage must surely end in divorce. But the Obama administration is enjoying maximum political gain from the blissful honeymoon period, while in reality the honest environmentalists have already left in disgust, even those previously committed to supporting the Democrats: Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen, etc. They rightfully feel betrayed and point to the Democrats’ “Cap-and-Trade” environmental bill as proof the same bill that Obama and the media claim to be a “historic” step forward.
Cap-and-Trade is itself an absurdity of logic, for it assumes that the economic mechanisms responsible for the destruction of the environment, capitalism, should be the centerpiece of any potential solution. Any solution to global warming that isn't market-based (capitalistic) has been explicitly rejected by the two-party system.
But this immediately presents a new problem: how to create a “profitable market” out of pollution reduction? Such a question can only expect blank stares in return, but the titans of Wall Street are well known for sleight of hand tricks that conjure up billions.
When it comes to Cap-and-Trade, the government has become Wall Street’s vehicle for quick cash. What will be “traded” in Cap-and-Trade is the ability to pollute, called “allowances,” a commodity that promises to be sold and speculated by the really big banks — Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, etc — who already have eco-trading houses in the U.S., and are simply waiting for the Senate to pass them a tidal wave of cash. And although Obama originally promised that corporations would bid for these allowances from the government, the bill passed by the House demands that only 15 percent be bought, while the rest is given away at taxpayer expense.
The bill also sets a pollution limit or “cap” on designated types of pollutants, with the companies that exceed the cap having to buy more “allowances,” while those that easily meet the cap may sell their allowances to the more polluting company. Thus, the intention is for the worst polluters to have a financial incentive to “go green.”
In reality, however, giant corporations dominate not only the market, but Congressmen, exerting maximum influence at the slightest chance their profits might be threatened. Cap-and-Trade was therefore inbuilt with easily exploitable loopholes, to the great benefit of Wall Street and polluters.
The more obvious loopholes are three-fold: the generous size of the pollution cap, the gigantic amount of free allowances, and the obscure concept of the “offset” — companies may skirt the already-generous cap by being “green” elsewhere, such as by starting a coke bottle recycling program in San Diego or simply purchasing offsets from elsewhere. The ability to regulate this offset loophole is all but impossible, and Wall Street has big plans to trade and speculate the device (commodity) for heavy profit.
Here's what Greenpeace says about the above loopholes: "[Cap-and-Trade] sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions."
The key beneficiaries to these loop holes are the especially polluting corporations, such as the giant agri-corporations, big coal, big oil, and nuclear power. If you combine the billions in allowance giveaways with the low cap, you have A LOT of extra allowances to sell on the market, while also having a free-lease to continue polluting for years.
And the pollution may be initially worse than what exists currently, since the new law dismantles portions of the Clean Air Act, specifically the EPA's ability to regulate carbon emissions. A company, therefore, with a heavy allotment of allowances and offsets could legally pollute worse than they could today.
Perhaps the biggest danger the bill presents is the illusion of progress. The scientific consensus around global warming is extremely clear: either we make far-reaching changes in our environmental policy now or face incredible environmental and social devastation in the not-too-distant future.
This means not simply “moving away” from the use of fossil fuels and stricter regulation, but immediately building an alternative energy infrastructure — the mass production of solar panels, windmills, high speed trains, electric buses and cars, bikes, etc. An amazing opportunity to accomplish this was missed with the bankruptcy of General Motors. Instead of using GM's many factories to build for the future while saving jobs, the Democrats opted for the same broken system, building gas-guzzling individual cars, while many factories are to be demolished and the machinery sold for scrap.
This path was chosen because of the threat that the commonsense, environmental option posed: the status quo represented by the ultra-rich do not like actual change (which is why many of them endorsed Barack Obama). Instead, they would like society to stay exactly as it is, since they benefit enormously from it. If there are immense profits to be made in heavy polluting industries, this money will remain a much higher priority than the environment ever will under the two-party system. Loopholes, exceptions, allowances, and offsets will thus maul any attempt to address environmental issues.
To actually address the daunting issue of the environment, a wider perspective is needed, one that transcends both political parties and the broken economic system they are slavishly dedicated to. If society's resources are not used for the betterment of society, the search for profits is destined to destroy the planet.
CNN Money
1.5 million homes in foreclosure in '09
Homeowners fell behind on mortgage payments in record numbers during the first six months of 2009. The future doesn't look much better...Les Christie
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/16/real_estate/RealtyTrac_
foreclosure_report/index.htm?postversion=2009071614
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The foreclosure plague is not going away -- it's only getting worse.
A record 1.53 million properties were in the foreclosure process -- default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions -- during the first six months of 2009. That was 9% more than the previous six months and 15% more than the same period of 2008, according to a report released Thursday by RealtyTrac.
There were a total of 1.91 million filings resulting in 1 out of every 84 U.S. properties receiving at least one filing in the first half of the year. Banks repossessed 386,800 properties.
"What this means is, despite the intensity of the efforts on the part of government and lenders we don't have a handle on foreclosures yet," said Rick Sharga, a spokesman for RealtyTrac.
And, in a bad sign for a housing recovery, there was no recorded improvement in June, the last month of the cycle. More than 336,000 homes reported foreclosure filings, the fourth straight 300,000-plus month. Filings were up 33% over last June and nearly 5% compared with May.
"Foreclosure activity continues to increase to record levels," said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac in a prepared statement. "Unemployment-related foreclosures account for much of this increased activity, and the high number of borrowers who find themselves owing more on their mortgages than their homes' are now worth represent a potentially significant future risk."
It's the economy
The biggest problem affecting foreclosure figures is the recession. As job losses mount, more out-of-work borrowers are falling behind on payments. And home prices are still falling, albeit at a slower rate, which by itself is enough to drive more homeowners into default.
The home-price drop means more homeowners are underwater on their mortgages, owing more than their home is worth. That discourages some borrowers from repaying loans because they see it as a poor financial decision to keep paying on a declining asset.
Homeowners are apt to walk away from their mortgages once their home values fall 15% below their mortgage balances, according to recent research reported by Paola Sapienza of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
They claim that at least 25% of all mortgage defaults may be "strategic," borrowers walking away from their homes because they've lost so much value. And in many of the areas hardest hit by foreclosure, home prices have fallen by 40% or more.
Others, however, are working with their lenders, trying to get the terms of their loans modified so they can stay in their homes. But that process has been slow and infuriating to many borrowers and community activists.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government watchdog created to manage Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500), reported Wednesday that only 13,800 mortgages had been modified by Fannie/Freddie lenders in April. That is down 12% from March.
The stats did not include workouts arranged through the Home Affordable Modification Program, the administration's foreclosure prevention effort that seems to be making very slow progress.
The program, which got up to speed in April, has resulted in 43,000 refinances and more than 325,000 offers to modify loans. Another 160,000 have borrowers accepted and are currently in the process of restructuring. But before these modifications can be recorded as final, the borrowers must make three months of on-time payments.
Another reason for the slow progress, according to a research paper released by the Federal Reserve of Boston, is that some banks have some sound financial reasons to drag their heels.
Many delinquent homeowners, for example, "self-cure," that is, start paying again without assistance. In a report issued last week, the Fed found that an estimated 30% of all borrowers who miss two payments start repaying on their own.
If the lenders had modified these loans, the would have lost money unnecessarily.
A second reason, according to the report, is that so many modified loans re-default, with up to 50% of all modified mortgages succumbing.That costs the banks twice: They bear the expenses of the initial workouts and they pay again to finish the foreclosures, including any additional missed payments.
And by postponing foreclosures, lenders absorb any subsequent housing value losses. If the final repossessions are delayed a year, the lenders could be getting houses worth 10%, 20% or even 50% less than they were at the point of the original default. The banks would have been better off foreclosing then.
"We think these are very powerful forces [acting against modification]," said Manuel Adelino, one of the authors of the report.
Where the pain is
The Sun Belt suffered more foreclosures than other region during the last six months.
California, with 391,611 filings, one for every 34 households, recorded more than any other state. Nevada had the highest foreclosure rate with one for every 16 households. Arizona, one for every 30, and Florida, one for every 33, were next. Utah had the fifth highest rate at one for every 69.
Midwestern industrial states did little better with Michigan recording one foreclosure for every 74 households, seventh among the states. Illinois came in eighth with one for every 76; and Ohio, with one for every 86, was twelfth.
Georgia, at one for every 70 households, and Idaho, one for every 79, were sixth and ninth respectively. Colorado, with one for every 80, rounded out the top 10.
Financial Times
Wall Street: Back to the old school...Julie MacIntosh in New York
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc0a66c6-70ad-11de-9717-00144feabdc0.html
Published: July 14 2009 22:41 | Last updated: July 14 2009 22:41
Joseph Perella remembers the era on Wall Street in which a $100m bond deal for Gulf Oil commanded the full attention of First Boston, then his employer.
Back in the 1970s, “the firm turned itself inside out for that,” says the founder of Perella Weinberg, settling into his chair over dinner at the timeworn Italian cultural club on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where he and Peter Weinberg first discussed building a boutique bank. “It’s a different world today.”
Banks’ stock and bond trading businesses swelled so much in recent decades that, by the turn of the millennium, a $100m (€71m, £61m) bond deal would not have lured today’s influential “rainmakers” out of bed. As those revenues overpowered fees generated by traditional advisory work, old-school bankers who had to compete harder for their share of the pie grew increasingly focused on mega-deals.
In response, a handful of high-profile bankers who built their reputations at Wall Street’s biggest institutions have turned to “boutique banking”, based on the belief that big banks are alienating clients who need strategic advice.
And now, as some of the big banks’ higher-margin businesses lie in shambles, the boutiques’ efforts are bearing fruit – suggesting companies are, indeed, willing to pay for old-fashioned independent advice. Boutiques captured 14 per cent of global merger and acquisition fees so far this year, according to Dealogic – the highest number ever – and are vacuuming up talented staffers at record rates.
RECRUITMENT
Touchy-feely partnerships benefit from hard times
Boutiques tend to attract bankers looking for partnership- oriented cultures – not just outsized pay packages – making them traditionally a good fit for wealthy veteran bankers craving more independence.
However, distress at big banks over the past year has driven a broader swath of professionals towards these independent investment firms, which are now able to afford to recruit the best people without offering hefty salary guarantees.
But once Wall Street’s giants get back on to their feet, a key factor in determining each boutique’s success will be its ability to retain important staff – and to avoid acting as a way- station where bankers sit out the crisis before returning to big companies. Since most boutiques do not loan money to clients or underwrite debt and equity offerings, their calling card is intellectual strength, discretion and experience. They need to offer better, more independent advice to stay relevant, and a few bad hires at high levels can deplete their value to clients.
Founders say their collegiate cultures will keep the best staff on board when the market improves. To promote transparency, for example, Greenhill tells each of its managing directors how much every other one earns. When Centerview made its first private equity investment, it gave a slice of ownership to every employee – including office assistants.
“A boutique culture first and foremost depends on a spirit of partnership and ownership,” said Blair Effron, a founder of Centerview. “Retaining the best talent is always a priority. If you are doing a good job as a senior banker, you will be doing very well at a boutique and you won’t want to leave.”
But with some young firms hiring rapidly, preserving the boutique culture could be more challenging than usual. And with big banks getting smaller, the boutiques’ monopoly on touchy-feeliness may not last.
Still, some boutique chiefs say their large rivals could remain in purgatory for years, too distressed to foment friendly cultures but lacking funds to pay bankers for the stressful atmosphere .
“Nobody is focused on the business model at the big banks and how they can possibly pay for the infrastructure they have,” one top boutique banker says. “I don’t think they can. Why would you park at a boutique and then go back if there’s not going to be a bonus pool? That’s going to be a massive awakening.”
Bankers including Mr Perella, Ken Moelis and Blair Effron, former UBS rainmakers , launched independent firms when Wall Street’s cracks were only just starting to show in 2006 and 2007, joining a club led by Robert Greenhill, founder of Greenhill & Co, Roger Altman, the founder of Evercore, and Lazard’s Bruce Wasserstein.
Opinions are mixed on whether these firms will flourish or whether today’s aggressive land-grab mentality will lure some to sow the seeds of their demise through rapid growth
It would not be the first time. A slew of independent banks has sprouted up over the past century and a half – including Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, Kidder Peabody, Dillon Read, Brown Brothers Harriman and Hambrecht & Quist. All but one sold themselves to larger institutions to satiate their rising capital needs and ambitions and many eventually unravelled – at least in name.
The sector depends on M&A fees, which are notoriously uneven. Those brought in by big deals can be interspersed with dry spells. Evercore, for example, came a formidable second in Dealogic’s boutique ranking for the first half of 2009. But of the $77.5bn worth of deals on which it advised, one transaction accounted for $68.1bn – Pfizer’s takeover of Wyeth.
Can boutiques compete without compromising their independence and avoid the pitfalls that trapped their predecessors? Or will history repeat itself, forcing some to succumb to the lack of M&A activity, the eventual resurgence of Wall Street, or the sheer force of their own ambitions?
That is likely to depend on what their founders aim to create and whether there is sufficient demand to support a growing number of boutiques that provide advisory services without the bells and whistles that big banks offer. “I try not to measure this firm against other boutiques because I don’t see it as a death match between us,” says Mr Moelis. “There’s plenty of room.”
Boutiques have begun fanning out into different areas – some targeting Fortune 500 clients, others smaller companies or certain industries. However they split the market, though, proliferation will make it harder for each to have an impact. Growth is vital for those seeking longevity.
But there is a catch. Each bank aims to expand while maintaining a small, client-oriented feel, harking back to an era in which conflicts were minimal and bureaucracy did not define the business model, even at larger banks. Peter J. Solomon, founder of his eponymous firm, says: “When I set up this business in 1989, I wanted to create a 1960s Lehman Brothers. I think that’s possible. I don’t want my reputation, no less my money, to depend on people I don’t know well, trading securities I really don’t understand in time zones I rarely visit.”
Terry Meguid, who runs Perella Weinberg’s asset management business, recalls meetings at Morgan Stanley – which had $150m in capital when he joined in 1978 – in which the firm’s senior partners even discussed the office supply budget. “We’d all been at really big firms that had changed a lot from the day we joined them,” Mr Meguid says in reference to his Perella Weinberg partners. “We wanted to create a culture here that was more like those of the early seventies or even earlier, when banking meant something very different.”
Senior bankers at Wall Street’s largest firms, however, see boutiques as naive for thinking that they can be at once small, independent and powerful without putting their own capital on the line to snare clients. “We’d love to be in that business, where we’d be a top adviser on big deals and capital raisings but never have to commit a dime from our balance sheet,” says one high-ranking M&A banker at a large firm. “The only problem is that it doesn’t exist.”
It may be hard for boutique bankers’ romanticised views to translate into growth unless they expand into other lines of business. “The M&A business has been cyclical my whole 34-year career, and I suspect it will be long past my dying day,” says Hal Ritch, founder of Sagent Partners. “Diversification is, therefore, a good thing to contemplate.”
Yet while many expansion opportunities lie between the plain-vanilla advisory model and the big investment banks, no two boutiques have followed the same path – and nearly every avenue for growth poses a conflict. “I think its hard to build beyond a certain size without corrupting the model, either by hiring people who are less productive or entering product lines that are lower value-added,” says Robert Pruzan, a founder of Centerview.
The simplest add-on is to offer other types of advice, on matters such as restructuring, which can offset an M&A slump. But the expansion argument grows significantly more complicated from there.
To some, including Evercore and Perella Weinberg, the next step is adding an asset management arm to handle investment portfolios. Consistent asset management fees can smooth out the peaks and valleys in M&A.
But Mr Greenhill says asset management can compromise the integrity of a boutique. “What happens if you know something about a situation in which you have an advisory role and an investment position?” he says. “The conflicts are inescapable.”
Greenhill and Centerview, however, have private equity arms that invest in businesses on their behalf. Greenhill’s private equity unit buys small companies that lie beneath the radar of its advisory business, while Centerview’s strategy allows it to co-invest in large deals that involve its clients.
Greenhill is also publicly traded, as is Evercore – the division, some bankers say, between true “boutiques” and more complex entities. Public investors provide permanent capital, but they also tend to demand consistent, predictable earnings growth – which does not mesh easily with the cyclical advisory business.
“There’s an inevitability about being public,” says Mr Solomon. “It means you have to get bigger to build more earnings per share. When you go public, you cross over a line that is antithetical to some of our views. I don’t know why anybody would want to be public if they didn’t have a need for capital.” Few boutique bankers, however, are willing to rule out a public listing, and the model has worked well for Greenhill, whose richly valued shares have stayed strong during the banking crisis.
More controversial still is the idea of building a capital markets business, through which a boutique would not only advise companies on how to raise capital – which many already do – but also underwrite the effort and trade in their clients’ securities. Eric Gleacher, founder of Gleacher Partners advisers, recently sold his firm to Broadpoint Securities, merging it with an established capital markets operation. “The M&A boutique – I think that’s an idea from the old world,” Mr Gleacher says. “They’re going to be severely constrained because they’re one-product businesses.”
Boutiques that lack sales and trading functions can also find it tough to compete against giant banks with access to oceans of data. “Good luck if people want to start it from scratch – it’s very difficult,” says Mr Gleacher, who says offering capital-raising advice without sales and trading capabilities is “like kissing your sister”. “That’s the reason I did this deal. Those platforms are hard to find.”
Sales, trading and lending represent a bridge too far for some, however. “I think it all changes the day banks put up their balance sheet and bid securities,” says Mr Moelis. “All of a sudden, you’re conflicted. The minute you make a bid on your clients’ securities, you are not totally aligned.”
“The question is whether the unconflicted model is going to be successful,” says Mr Greenhill. “If you think it is, it is hard to argue that adding trading and proprietary investing capability does anything positive.”
Regardless of how they expand, few boutique bankers expect to displace Wall Street’s behemoths – or even that their sector will grow to account for more than a quarter of the advisory market. “I’m not sure that the aspiration should be to be the next big firm,” said Ralph Schlosstein, the new chief executive of Evercore, in a recent interview. “I really believe it’s to be as large as you can be and still be excellent and conflict-free.”
If anything, the remaining global banks may grow more powerful, now that corporate loans are tough to get.
“Anyone who thinks boutiques are going to push the big guys out is smoking something,” Mr Perella says. “The big banks will always be there because clients need to go to them when they need capital, and they’re never going to want to alienate them to the point where they fear a backlash. These firms have leverage.”
 
7-16-09
Meetings
7-20-09 Merced City Council/Redevelopment Agency agenda...7:00 p.m.
http://www.cityofmerced.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=7619
 
7-21-09 Merced County Board of Supervisor meeting...10:00 a.m.
http://www.co.merced.ca.us/index.asp?nid=61
Agendas Posted 72 Hours Prior To Meeting
 
7-22-09 Merced County Planning Commission agenda...9:00 a.m.
http://www.co.merced.ca.us/pdfs/commissionarchive/2009/7-22-2009/PC%20Agenda%20072209.pdf
Item A - CUP08-015 - Jim Brisco Enterprises
--CUP08-015 - Initial Study and Proposed Mitigated Declaration
Item B - MM09-004 to AA07-074 - Growers Transplanting Inc
Item C - GPTA09-002 - County of Merced
--GPTA09-002 - Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report
--GPTA09-002 - Final Environmental Impact Report
--GPTA09-002 - Findings and Statement of Overriding Considerations
--GPTA09-002 - Merced Atwater Expressway Exhibit Map
Item C - GPTA09-002 - County of Merced - Supplemental Staff Report
 
7-22-09 Merced City Planning Commission meeting...7:00 p.m.
http://www.cityofmerced.org/depts/cityclerk/boards_n_commissions/
planning_commission/2009_planning_commission/2009_planning_
commission_agendas.asp
Agendas are posted the Monday before a Wednesday Planning Commission Meeting.
 
7-23-09 LAFCo agenda...10:00 a.m.
http://www.lafcomerced.org/pdfs/Meetings/2009/7-23-2009/072309ka.pdf