9-6-09

 
9-6-09
Fresno Bee
Banks continue to drop like flies across the U.S...Tim Sheehan, News Blog
http://fresnobeehive.com/news/2009/09/banks_continue_to_drop_
like_fl.html
It's been an ugly summer for banks in the United States. Of 88 banks that have failed this year, 47 collapsed since the first day of summer in mid-June.
As the banking industry prepares for yet another bank holiday on Monday, the blood-letting continued as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced the closure of four banks today in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri.
Given that California is the most populous state in the nation, it's remarkable that only seven of banks to fail so far in 2009 have been based in the state. Yet some of the toppling financial dominoes have fallen here in the central San Joaquin Valley -- most notably Merced-based County Bank, which was shut down in February and its branches taken over by Westamerica Bank, and Guaranty Bank, based in Texas but with branches in Fresno, Clovis, Merced and Atwater.
The pace at which banks are being shut down by federal or state banking regulators is breathtaking if you consider that the FDIC reported 52 bank failures for the preceeding eight years -- including 26 last year as the wheels appeared to be on the verge of falling off the country's financial wagon.
Bank customers are only at risk if they have more than $250,000 -- the FDIC's insurance limit -- in their account. But each bank failure digs deeper into the pot from which FDIC covers that risk.
So here's the $250,000 question: How worried are you about your bank and your money? With all the headlines over the past year about bank bailouts, bank failures and the continuing recession, are you getting nervous? Tempted to move your accounts somewhere else? Or content to sit tight and ride out the storm? Use the comment link below to give us your two cents worth (maybe a nickel now, adjusted for inflation). Thanks.
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Update, 6:22 p.m.: About 10 minutes after I filed this, the FDIC sent out a notice about a fifth bank closure today, in Arizona. That raises the year's tally to 89 banks and counting. Yikes! -- ts
Sacramento Bee
Drought-stricken streams threaten Calif. salmon...JASON DEAREN...Associated Press Writer
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/v-print/story/2164167.html
SAN GERONIMO, Calif. -- California's third year of drought has worsened the already dire outlook for endangered coho salmon, as coastal creeks used for spawning dwindle into disconnected pools where fish get trapped and die.
On a hot summer afternoon about 40 miles north of San Francisco, a group armed with fishing nets and buckets was on a rescue mission. They slogged through muddy pools, the last vestiges of once-flowing Arroyo Creek, trying to find stranded coho and threatened steelhead trout.
So far this summer, these fish rescuers in Marin County have found no coho, an ominous sign for a species struggling to survive on the West Coast.
"Every year it's like ahhh! Where are they?," said biologist Chris Pincetich, who organizes the rescues for the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, or SPAWN.
California's drought has increased wildfires, caused an economic crisis in the state's agriculture industry and a shrinking water supply. But experts say three years of arid weather may also be the final blow for coho, already reeling from pollution and population growth.
Federal fisheries regulators say the disappearance of coho salmon in Marin County is not an isolated incident, and that studies find they are vanishing along the state's central and northern coast. Coho live in coastal streams where they mature before moving to the ocean, and then back to freshwater to reproduce.
"There are definitely alarmingly low numbers of adult returns and spawning decreases," National Marine Fisheries Service fishery biologist Jeffrey Jahn said. "And the fish that are produced by the few coho who do make it back have to deal with these drought conditions, which is affecting the status of the species."
In 2004, SPAWN fish rescuers saved 120 coho from the small tributaries that feed Marin County's Lagunitas Creek. The numbers rescued have been declining ever since to zero.
Coho salmon, known for their hooked mouths and bright red sides, usually live for a year or two in these coastal creeks and streams before moving out to sea.
But Pincetich and other biologists who study coho say scale samples taken from the salmon returning to the ocean from Lagunitas Creek in recent years tell a startling tale. The scales aged the coho at two-and-a-half years old.
"It means the coho didn't go out after that first year, and instead resided in freshwater for another year," said Jahn. "When the fish wanted to leave, they couldn't because the creek wasn't connected."
Because coho are endangered, federal regulators are tasked with devising a plan to help the fish rebound. The recovery plan for coho is overdue, but the Fisheries Service said it should be completed by the end of September. The coho "draft recovery plan" will show how overdevelopment, a warming ocean, pollution and other factors all play a part in the decline of coho, steelhead and other fish that for centuries were a mainstay in coastal waters.
Meanwhile, the fish rescuers at SPAWN continue trying to save as many fish as they can.
One recent afternoon men, women and children volunteers used nets to gently snatch steelhead smolts out of disconnected pools created by drying creeks and streams. They moved the fish down to a freely flowing waterway to give them a better chance at survival.
Ayden and Rachel Nathan of San Jose brought their sons, Michael, 11, and Benjamin, 8, to help. The boys waded in the cool, shin-deep water, swaying their nets back and forth.
"I got one!" an excited Benjamin exclaimed.
It was a steelhead. Paola Bouley, SPAWN's conservation director, palmed the small fish and set it into a bucket with a buzzing air pump clipped to the side.
While no coho were found, the group netted about 20 young steelheads, which also spawn in these waters and are a federally threatened species.
They released the small fish into San Geronimo Creek, which flows to the sea
Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless...JUDY LIN, The Associated Press
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/v-print/story/2163928.html
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- On this Labor Day weekend, many Californians find themselves more in need of work than a holiday.
A report to be released publicly on Sunday found that two of five working-age Californians do not have a job, underscoring the challenges in one of the toughest job markets in decades. The last time employment levels among this group were this low was February 1977, according to a study by the California Budget Project, a Sacramento-based nonprofit research group that advocates for lower- and middle-income families.
"The recession has been so severe that California now has approximately the same number of jobs as it did nine years ago, when the state was home to 3.3 million fewer working-age individuals," the report said.
In just two years, the recession has wiped out job gains from the previous four years, the report said. State employment data from July shows California had 952,800 fewer nonfarm jobs than in July 2007. That's more than the 854,600 nonfarm jobs gained between July 2003 and July 2007.
Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, recommended Congress adopt a second extension of unemployment insurance benefits.
Those checks, which pay between $200 and $1,800 a month depending on a worker's previous earnings, are "the best way to keep dollars flowing to the local community," she said.
"The unemployment checks - you spend it at the grocery store, you pay your rent, you buy a pair of shoes," Ross said. "It keeps roofs over their heads, food on their tables and small businesses going."
On Friday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the nation's jobless rate had climbed to 9.7 percent, the highest since 1983.
The Obama administration's $787 billion economic stimulus program extended unemployment benefits for up to 79 weeks, but more than 1.3 million Americans are expected to run out of those benefits by the end of the year.
Congress could provide a second extension after it returns in September. Legislation has been introduced to provide an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits in states with high jobless rates.
Ross also urged California lawmakers not to make deeper budget cuts that could exacerbate the recession. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration has projected the state will face a $7 billion to $8 billion deficit for the 2010-11 budget, but analysts have projected that it could be double that amount.
Asked to explain the difference between her unemployment figure and the government's, Ross said the government's official jobless rate does not factor in working-age Californians who stay out of the work force by choice, such as stay-at-home parents, or those who have simply given up searching for work.
Taking those people into account, she said, translates to a 57.5 percent employment rate for the state, which is slightly less than the 57.6 percent recorded in 1977. The California Budget Project used figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Stephen Levy, director and senior economist for the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, said what's different this Labor Day is that it's not just the unemployed who are worried. There also is widespread fear and unease among those who still have jobs.
"It's a very disappointing Labor Day weekend," said Levy, who is not connected to the report by the California Budget Project. "We have record unemployment. But
more than that, people who still have a job have seen their home values and retirement savings decrease."
Lobbyists for the business community have been urging California lawmakers to make job creation a top priority by removing what they consider to be tax barriers for businesses.
"Restoring California's economic health and creating high-wage jobs should be priorities 1, 2 and 3 of this Legislature," California Chamber of Commerce President Allan Zaremberg said in a statement.
Under a two-year budget package passed in February, Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers included a long list of corporate tax breaks and credits that are expected to cost California's treasury an estimated $2.5 billion over five years. The tax breaks were included so the Legislature could get enough Republican support for a budget deal that also included temporary increases in the sales, personal income and vehicle taxes.
The report by the California Budget Project also found that many California workers are making less money and have lost purchasing power. The inflation-adjusted hourly wage of the typical California worker fell by 0.5 percent between the first half of 2008 and the same time this year, the report said.
In addition to the high level of joblessness, the Budget Project report says about 20 percent of working-age Californians were "underutilized" during the 12 months ending in July. That includes those who were not working but wanted jobs or were working part-time but wanted to work full-time, according to the report.
A separate report issued Friday by the state Employment Development Department contained a sliver of positive news.
It noted that the pace at which unemployment has been rising is slowing and that the state's housing market showed "signs of revival." The state report noted that education and health services are growing industries and that new jobs are likely to emerge in fields related to alternative energy and conservation, such as workers employed in weatherization projects.
"As of Labor Day 2009, there was a growing consensus among economists that the worst economic recession of the last six decades was nearing a conclusion," the state said in its brief report.
Backlash against banks growing over mortgage modifications...Jim Wasserman
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/v-print/story/2163510.html
James Seeley, a machine shop supervisor at the University of California, Davis, just wants a modified mortgage that he and his wife, Sandi, can better afford.
It's a common quest in this economy. Seeley's wages are being cut. His house in Natomas has lost almost half its value. And he owes more than it's worth, even with a $125,000 down payment in 2006.
"We want to get payments down to 31 percent of our income," said Seeley.
In Curtis Park, Hilary Egan is trying to do the same. Her contractor husband has seen a considerable drop in business. She wants a modification before their interest-only loan resets next year to higher payments.
The Seeleys and Egans, both current with their mortgages, have something else in common: Both their modification requests were denied.
Their rejections have aligned them with a broad and growing swath of public opinion: sore that a U.S. banking industry that has received billions of dollars in taxpayer support in the past year hasn't reciprocated on their behalf.
"I don't know a single person who has benefited from the money that was given to lenders," said Egan.
Added Seeley, "The taxpayers are the largest investor in these companies, so I would think they would be taking care of us first."
Banks and financial institutions aren't usually adored even in best of times. But after absorbing much blame for exuberant lending that created the housing bubble, they are increasingly absorbing a backlash for their response to the subsequent foreclosure crisis.
It's not hard to see why. While banks and loan servicers have promised for almost three years to better address rising stresses on their home loan borrowers, foreclosures and defaults still haven't seriously slowed.
The eight-county Sacramento region has counted more than 42,000 foreclosures since the start of 2007. Many area neighborhoods are scarred by vacant repos and dead lawns that pull down property values of other homeowners. Statewide, the foreclosure tally has passed 410,000, and it's believed thousands more are inevitable.
As a result, it's not just borrowers griping about the inability of banks to contain the crisis. Elected officials, besieged by complaints from constituents, are increasingly applying pressure as well.
This month, the League of California Cities, convening in San Jose, will consider a resolution urging 480 cities to yank deposits from banks that "fail to cooperate with foreclosure prevention efforts."
"If you count up the money cities have in banks, that's an amazing amount of power," said Los Angeles City Council member Richard Alarcon, a former state lawmaker. "We have never tried to seize it. I'm trying to seize it. If you're not a good player on the foreclosure front, we're not going to put our money in your bank."
Last week, the Elk Grove City Council voted 4-0 to back the notion and lobby for it at this month's convention. The city of 141,000, one of the fastest growing in California during the housing boom, in the bust became an epicenter of defaults and foreclosures.
"It's time. It's past due. We should have done this some time ago," said Vice Mayor Sophia Scherman, who lives next to a foreclosed home. "It's going to send a very strong message to these institutions."
Others aren't so sure. Tony Cherin, professor of finance at San Diego State University, said, "I can understand the frustration."
But he said cities would have fewer choices for investing because of bank failures and mergers during the meltdown. He said cities' options "may be limited even though they would like to divest themselves."
Two weeks ago, U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, and more than a dozen other California House members applied their own pressure. They wrote Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, urging him to turn up the heat on mortgage lenders to modify more loans. Matsui and others wrote that homeowners who use HUD-approved counselors to contact loan servicers are often "rebuffed or told they couldn't be helped until they were behind on their payments."
Said Matsui, "The economy will not come back the way it can until we take care of these foreclosures, and this is the way to do it. There are no excuses at this time, and that's why the letter went out."
Last month, the U.S. Treasury Department likewise issued a so-called "name and shame" list of lender performances. The report revealed that banking giants like Bank of America had modified only 4 percent of its loans that qualified for President Barack Obama's Making Home Affordable Program. (That program provides financial incentives to lenders to lower interest rates or stretch out loan payment times to make payments more affordable to borrowers.) The government said Wells Fargo had modified just 6 percent of its eligible loans.
Banking officials are quick to acknowledge they can do better. But they also contend that they are dealing with a crisis that keeps growing beyond efforts to staff for it.
"Unfortunately, our member banks, as committed as they are to working with their customers, still haven't found a big enough magic wand to wave over this thing," said Rod Brown, president and chief executive officer of the California Bankers Association. Brown noted that Wells Fargo hired 4,000 staffers in the first half of 2009 to deal with mortgages. He also cited U.S. Senate testimony by Bank of America that it handles 1.8 million calls a month about residential foreclosure issues.
In a statement last month, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Co-President Mike Heid acknowledged frustration. He said, "While the majority of our customers who request help are getting through to us and receiving the help they need, we know we've fallen short of our customer service goals in some cases."
Banks, meanwhile, are also dogged by a widespread and often-mistaken perception that the purpose of so-called bailout funds – hundreds of billions of dollars in the past year – was specifically to help banks modify mortgages.
While the Obama administration budgeted $75 billion this year to help prod loan modifications, the much larger sums were designed to "better equip banks to make loans to help them get this economy out of the downturn," said Brown. "It was also to help banks, strong banks, to give them more capital, and to work with the regulatory entities to acquire weaker or failing banks." In other words, to prop up a banking sector reeling from losses as more Americans defaulted on residential mortgages, credit cards and commercial real estate.
"Those dollars had nothing to do with residential mortgages. They weren't directed to banks for that purpose," Brown said. He and others note that banks are paying back billions of dollars, with interest, to the government.
In the short run, that doesn't spell relief for James and Sandi Seeley. Their Aug. 19 letter from Wells Fargo said the investor who owns their loan balked at modifying it. The big bank suggested the Seeleys consider a short sale – in which the bank would accept less than it's owed to avoid foreclosing. The Egans received the same option from a Wells Fargo subsidiary.
Neither couple wants to leave their houses. Both said they're reapplying for modifications. Said Egan, in a plea to banks, "I don't want you to bail me out. I don't want you to make my payment for me. Can you just play ball?"
Calif. to return foreign food amid backlash...The Associated Press
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/v-print/story/2162804.html
FRESNO, Calif. -- The state of California is returning macaroni from Mexico and carrots from China in response to a foreign food flap.
The California Department of Social Services began distributing emergency rations earlier this week in response to a Central Valley water shortage.
Local leaders began protesting after they noticed the state was giving away foreign-produced food. U.S. Rep. Jim Costa of Fresno fired off a letter accusing the department of not supporting local farms and farmworkers.
Lizelda Lopez, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services, blamed a contractor for not following instructions to buy food from the United States.
Lopez says about four percent of more than $3 million worth of food came from foreign countries.
Tour buses vanishing from Sacramento-area casinos...Dale Kasler
http://www.sacbee.com/business/v-print/story/2161950.html
The charter buses that deliver customers to Sacramento-area Indian casinos may be starting to disappear from their parking lots, victims of the weak economy and new marketing philosophies.
Jackson Rancheria Casino & Hotel ended its charter bus promotions last week, while Thunder Valley Casino has scaled back its program considerably. To drive home the point, the Jackson casino hired daredevil motorcylist Robbie Knievel to leap over three buses at the rancheria's RV park in a publicity stunt set for Thursday.
Tour buses have been as much a part of the gaming scene as slot machines and the prime-rib buffet. In return for a per-head commission, the buses bring customers from the Bay Area and other points distant. The casino provides the bus riders with food and gambling coupons.
Many Northern California casinos have consistently targeted bus patrons, particularly in the Asian community. Jackson Rancheria acknowledges the tradition in a new television ad in which casino Chief Executive Rich Hoffman says ending bus service "may seem a bit crazy."
But analysts say casinos are realizing that the spending by patrons arriving on charter buses doesn't justify the cost of attracting them, particularly in a weak economy. Most are seniors with relatively little disposable income, not big spenders, said Reno consultant Ken Adams.
"When times get tough, you get more critical," Adams said. "For every dollar they spend (on tour buses), they may only get 50 cents in return."
He said many casinos in markets such as Lake Tahoe, Reno and Atlantic City, N.J., cut back or eliminated bus promotions years ago.
"Busing built Tahoe," Adams said, but bus promotions are now considered examples of "old marketing."
Some California tribes, to be sure, are standing pat with their charter bus operations. The region's newest venue, Red Hawk Casino in Shingle Springs, said in a statement that "we are very pleased with the performance of the charter buses. … Business continues to grow across the many service lines."
Red Hawk brings in charter buses from as far as San Jose. The casino's management company, Lakes Entertainment Inc. of Minnesota, has pledged to ramp up marketing to the Bay Area as part of its response to a disappointing first year of operations.
All casinos are scrambling to cope with the recession. Red Hawk, owned by the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, has trimmed employment by at least 15 percent in recent months. Thunder Valley, owned by the United Auburn Indian Community, laid off nearly 100 workers and halted construction on a hotel for several months. The hotel, about a third smaller than originally planned, is scheduled to open next summer.
The Jackson casino, owned by the Jackson Rancheria Band of Miwuk Indians, is doing "a little bit better" than most but hasn't been immune to the weak economy, said spokesman Doug Elmets.
Earlier this year, the Jackson casino actually increased its charter bus service to counter the recession. As many as 15 buses a day were bringing in hundreds of patrons from the San Francisco area, Modesto, Stockton and Manteca.
But Elmets said the casino realized the system wasn't making sense financially. Jackson was spending $20 on each bus visitor – $15 in food and gambling coupons, plus a $5 commission to the bus operator – but wasn't getting much gambling revenue as a result.
"If we're going to drive people to the casino, we want to make sure they're going to gamble," he said. "In the current economic environment, casinos are looking for ways to control costs but also to market in a way in which you get good return for your investment."
Jackson plans to reinvest the money into rewards programs targeted at the casino's core customers, who were feeling neglected amid the flood of bus patrons, he said.
Elmets, who also speaks for Thunder Valley, said the Lincoln casino has cut roughly in half the volume of charter buses arriving from San Francisco and San Jose. Instead, Thunder Valley is ramping up service from points in Sacramento using the casino's own shuttle buses.
By using its own buses, "we don't have to pay a commission," Elmets said.
And, unlike most charter buses, the casino's shuttles carry the Thunder Valley logo. "To have a moving billboard throughout the region is one more example of creative marketing," he said.
Case of Abramoff protege puts lobbying on trial...NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/v-print/story/2164061.html
WASHINGTON -- Years into the scandal, a protege of Jack Abramoff is the first member of the imprisoned lobbyist's team going before a jury to fight federal corruption charges that will put their very profession on trial.
Prosecutors argue the lavish meals and box seats that Kevin Ring provided government officials were an illegal pay-to-play scheme. Ring says he merely used traditional tools of his trade to build influence.
Ring is making a rare and bold move in putting his case before a jury, considering the public's distaste for the influence of lobbyists and the cache of Ring's often sarcastic and chummy e-mails that prosecutors plan to use against him.
Ring is only the second person in the Abramoff investigation to go to trial, which begins Tuesday with jury selection. The other was David Safavian, the government's former chief procurement officer, who was found guilty of lying to investigators by two separate juries after winning a second trial on appeal. Sixteen other lobbyists and federal officials charged in the influence-trading scandal, including Abramoff and former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, have pleaded guilty in deals with the government rather than take their chance in court.
"How this all works out in front of a jury will be interesting," said Washington attorney Stan Brand, who has defended other bribery cases. "The e-mails are embarrassing. But the question I have is: Are they as evidence persuasive that somebody committed a crime? It's one thing to take officials on a golf trip to Scotland (as Abramoff did). A meal or a ticket to an event isn't a trip to Scotland."
Ring, a 38-year-old father of two from suburban Kensington, Md., is charged with 10 felonies, including several with penalties up to 20 years in prison. The prosecutors charge Ring conspired with other Abramoff lobbyists to secretly give "a stream of things of value" to federal officials in return for favorable treatment. The charges include lying about his knowledge that Abramoff arranged a $5,000-a-month consulting job for the wife of former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif.
In exchange, the prosecutors charge, the officials Ring cultivated helped advance his professional interests - reclaiming a piece of New Mexico land for an Indian tribe he was working for, securing federal grants for his clients and getting expedited review of Abramoff's application to admit foreigners to a school he was trying to start.
Ring initially cooperated with investigators. He sat for more than 100 hours of interviews. But his attorneys say that ended when prosecutors insisted he plead guilty and implicate others. Instead, Ring insisted he did nothing illegal and decided to fight.
A former aide to two powerful Republican lawmakers, Doolittle and Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri, Ring in 1999 joined more than a dozen former Capitol Hill aides whom Abramoff lured to work with him.
The prosecutors plan to introduce e-mails that show Ring shared the Abramoff team's zeal to bring in clients and build government contacts who would help them.
Ring helped spread their firm's perks to officials helped or might in the future. Ring and other Abramoff lobbyists hosted fundraisers for lawmakers seeking re-election. They gave staffers tickets to take their friends to watch professional sports, in-demand concerts featuring Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and family events such as the Wiggles and Disney on Ice. They bought them expensive meals, at times spending more than $2,000 on a feast for an entire Capitol Hill office at Signatures, an Abramoff-owned restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and the White House.
"You are going to eat free off our clients," Ring wrote in March 2002 to former Oklahoma Rep. Ernest Istook's chief of staff, John Albaugh, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the House.
In October 2000, Ring wrote Abramoff an e-mail describing Doolittle as "such a good soldier, doing everything we asked of him. ... I know you are great about making sure he gets his fair share of contributions, but if (client) is feeling generous, this would be a very opportune time to get something" to him, according to the indictment.
However lucrative the entertaining and donations were, Ring argues there was nothing illegal about them. His actions came before Congress passed a 2007 law, partially in response to the Abramoff scandal, that strengthened lobbyist disclosure requirements and further restricted gift-giving to lawmakers and their staffs.
In court documents, Ring's lawyers argue that he never made any agreement to provide gifts in exchange for their official action.
"All the indictment does is list drinks, meals, and entertainment over a four-year period and issues relevant to Mr. Ring's clients upon which he lobbied federal officials and sought official actions," they wrote.
Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who has represented lobbyists and has written a handbook on gift rules, said the Supreme Court has found that gift-giving shouldn't be a crime unless it can be directly connected to an official action.
"It's just how business is done in the world, not just in Washington, but the world," she said. "Getting to know people in a social setting - not just a business setting - that's how the world works in real life."
But she acknowledged Ring is taking a risk.
Fred Wertheimer, president of the nonprofit group Democracy21 that tries to counter the influence of money in politics, added, "Claiming that you are doing the normal lobbying practices in Washington may or may not be true, depending on the facts, but in any event don't justify the legitimacy of the activities."
San Francisco Chronicle
3 questions on the delta for Sen. Lois Wolk...Wyatt Buchanan
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/06/BAAI19IEPD.DTL&type=printable
State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, represents four of the five counties that make up the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. But last week, when legislative leaders named members to a committee that will map out the future of the delta and California's water supply, Wolk was not on the list.
She has major concerns about the package of water-related bills that could win approval from the Legislature this week, even as she is sponsoring one of the pieces of legislation.
She spoke with Chronicle reporter Wyatt Buchanan in her Sacramento office.
Q: Many people in Sacramento were surprised you weren't named to the committee. State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who picked the Senate members, said he wanted to ensure the package won enough votes. What was your reaction?
A: I was surprised, too, and very disappointed. There are many major decisions being made about the delta and I should be part of that. ... It means he is already proposing something that will harm the delta, and I regret that's the direction we are going. ... Right now, there is nobody (on the committee) whose primary concern is the health of the delta. Everyone wants something from it: If you're from Southern California you only see it as plumbing; if you're a fisherman the only thing you see is the fish. But it's more complex than that.
Q: What do you think the prospects are of the package winning approval from the Legislature this week?
A: There are many major problems with this package. I'm not saying these problems won't be solved, but they can't be solved in six days. ... I think it will be very difficult (to win approval). It might, but it will be litigated forever.
Q: What's your favorite spot in the delta?
A: The place I know best is Clarksburg and the sugar mill. I think that's a really wonderful place to sit outside and enjoy. My favorite is to be out on a boat. It's amazing - you might not see another boat or another person for several hours. It's not unusual and you're only 20 minutes outside a major metropolitan area. It really is a gift.
Indybay
Steinberg’s Push for Canal Ignites Grassroots Uprising...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/09/05/18620933.php
Over 40 people from the Sacramento area and Delta held a lively protest in front of the office of Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg in Sacramento on Friday, September 4 to protest the dangerous Delta water legislation that Steinberg is trying to ram through the State Capitol.
The protesters, the majority of whom reside in Steinberg’s Senate District 6, have started a grassroots uprising to stop Steinberg’s mad rush to build a peripheral canal without regard for the concerns of his constituents.
The Delta advocates held multi-colored signs featuring a number of slogans including "Stop Steinberg's Peripheral Canal," "Steinberg's Water Package Hurts Californians," "No Peripheral Canal” and “No Legislation Without Representation.”
"We are alarmed at how the current package of five water bills is being pushed through the Legislature without consideration for the many concerns of Delta and northern California residents," said Barbara Daly, Delta farmland owner, of Save the Delta. "We are protesting the legislation's ceding of control of our water to only 7 political appointees on a governance committee that could approve the building of a peripheral canal."
They are outraged that not one of the 14 members of the Conference Committee selected this week by Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass represent the heart of the Delta or are committed to protecting the West Coast's largest estuary.
“Steinberg purposely kept Senator Lois Wolk, Assemblymember Mariko Yamada and other Delta legislators off the Committee,” said David Kopp, who owns land near the Sacramento River. “Steinberg is preaching that he is the voice of the Delta on the committee when he has said nothing in favor of protecting us and the Delta.”
Daly, Kopp and other Delta advocates are urging Steinberg to delay action on the bills until the next legislative session so that the concerns of his constituents and other Delta residents are properly addressed.
Delta advocates characterize the water deal as “backdoor attack” on 130 years of California water law and legal precedent and the Public Trust Doctrine. They believe the bill package aims to take water from senior water rights holders in the California Delta and northern California to be delivered to junior water rights holders irrigating selenium-filled soil on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side.
The protest took place as Central Valley salmon, green sturgeon, delta smelt, Sacramento splittail, striped bass, American shad and other Delta fish populations have declined to record low population levels, due to increased water exports out of the Delta in recent years. Peripheral canal opponents believe that a canal will only exacerbate the fish population collapse and threaten Delta farms by increasing water exports from the Delta.
“Fish mean jobs to many of us,” said Mali Currington of Sacramento, who brought his two daughters, Layla and Mali, and his cousin, Tracie Murphy of Sacramento, to the protest. “Fish create thousands of jobs on the Delta, including the jobs of those working in bait shops, sporting good stores, on charter boats and at resorts and marinas throughout the region. When you manufacture a drought by emptying northern California lakes and reservoirs for water exports like the state and federal governments did over the past two years, you cause jobs to be lost.”
The collapse of Central Valley Chinook salmon has devastated fishing communities up and down the northern California and Oregon coast that depend upon recreational and commercial salmon fishing for their economic livelihood. Commercial and recreational fishing for Chinooks was completely closed this year and last, with the exception of a 10 day recreational season off the North Coast this year. Salmon fishing on the Sacramento River and its tributaries has been completely closed this year, with the exception of a November 16 to December 31 season from Knights Landing to Red Bluff.
Steinberg’s constituents also oppose the peripheral canal because of its enormous cost at a time of severe economic crisis. A draft economic report written by Steven Kasower of the Strategic Economic Applications Company, released to the California Legislature on August 25, reveals that the costs for the construction of a peripheral canal around the California Delta or a tunnel under the estuary would range from $23 billion to $53.8 billion depending upon the conveyance facility.
“How can the Legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger support a project that costs that much when California is slashing the budgets for healthcare for children, teachers and state parks?” asked Kim Glazzard, director of Organic Sacramento.
Not only is Steinberg acting against the needs of his constituents and Delta residents, but he is pushing a project that is opposed by the majority of Californians. A poll of 800 registered voters throughout California by EMC Research in Oakland, CA indicates all segments of voters are strongly opposed to a Peripheral Canal and nearly half oppose a bond for new dams, reservoirs or other water infrastructure projects.
Mercury News
Internal Affairs: A snub for Simitian?...By the Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/valley/ci_13274538?nclick_check=1
'Wise' move or snub? Which one doesn't hold water?
He's spent four years trying to craft a solution for California's water woes. But with lawmakers making one final push this month for a breakthrough on the decades-long delta stalemate, Sen. Joe Simitian was left off the bring-it-home committee.
So was it a snub for the Palo Alto Democrat? Not quite, he tells IA.
"It is wise to expand the group of folks who are engaged on a daily basis," he told IA last week, the day after the joint Senate-Assembly committee was announced. "Bringing some more folks along is going to be essential to getting a yes" in time for Sept. 11, the end of the current legislative session.
In reality, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg didn't need Simitian on the panel, which will be tasked with crafting a unified plan for water reform, from conservation measures to controversial plans for diverting water south around the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Simitian, after all, has written one of the five bills under consideration — a proposal to establish an independent governing board for the delta, the source of two-thirds of California's drinking water. "I'll still be pitching, I can assure you," he said.
And he supports some of the more controversial components of the package, including so-called "conveyance" measures (read: a tunnel, canal or aqueduct, any of which would cost the state billions of dollars).
More interesting was the omission from the committee of a Senate Democrat fighting on behalf of the delta: Lois Wolk of Davis, a staunch opponent of plans to move water around the area's fragile system of levees.
For Steinberg, it came down to a simple calculation. He could have both poles on the aqueduct debate represented on the panel — he called Simitian and Wolk "friendly rivals" — or neither. And with Simitian a safer bet to vote with Steinberg, well, you can understand why he went with the latter.
Last call? No way, keep 'em coming...
Internal Affairs is compiled by Mercury News staff. This week's items were written by Scott Herhold, Sal Pizarro, Denis C. Theriault and Tracey Kaplan. Send tips to internalaffairs@mercurynews.com, or call 408-271-3638.
hERE"S THE PITCH
Folks hoping to see Major League Baseball in San Jose were heartened by a city economic impact study that said an A"s park would add millions to the public coffers.
running dry
Just two months into the fiscal year, cash-strapped California has spent well over half of its $182 million emergency firefighting fund.
um, we told you
A fast-moving grass fire erupts on San Jose"s Communications Hill "” home of a fire station the city manager had proposed closing to save money.