Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/12317
Monday, June 21, 2010 – Daily News – 7A Death Notice Carol Jean Jayne Carol Jean Jayne died Friday, June 18, 2010, in Corning. She was 73. Red Bluff Simple Cremations and Burial Service is han- dling the arrangements. Published Monday, June 21 2010, in the Daily News, Red Bluff, Calif. SUPES Continued from page 1A tigations. • Supervisors are sched- uled to consider applying for a $600,000 grant for a Hous- ing Rehabilitation Program and a Homeownership Assistance Program. Ten percent of the grant would also be set aside for code and zoning enforcement. Norcal EMS Supervisors are sched- uled to consider finalizing an agreement with the Sierra- Sacramento Valley Emer- gency Medical Services Agency. In March, supervisors terminated the contract with NorCal EMS, an emergency services provider it helped found and which trained, accredited and set emer- gency protocol for local responders. But as the agency raised its communi- cation charges, several coun- ties switched their contracts to Sierra-Sacramento Valley and county officials, claim- ing contract issues with Nor- Cal dated back at least a year, agreed to terminate their existing contract. More information The Tehama County Board of Supervisors meets 10 a.m. every Tuesday in its chambers on 727 Oak Street, except the fifth Tues- day of the month, holidays and Tuesdays immediately following a holiday. More information is available by calling 527-4655 or visiting co.tehama.ca.us. ——— Geoff Johnson can be reached at 527-2153, exten- sion 114 or gjohnson@red- bluffdailynews.com. PLATES Continued from page 1A cell phone use and text- messaging while operat- ing a motor vehicle. The bill is scheduled to be heard by the Assembly Transportation Committee on Monday. — Lead ammunition would be banned com- pletely from state wildlife management areas under a bill by Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Bar- bara. While state law already requires hunters to use nontoxic shot to hunt waterfowl and big game, certain migratory birds and small game species are not protected. Nava’s AB2223 seeks to close that loophole. He says lead ammunition can spread through the food chain when animals ingest the casings. The bill is scheduled to be heard Tuesday in the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee. — Food stamp recipi- ents who move from one county to another would be able to transfer their benefits without reapply- ing under a bill by Assem- blywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley. Inter-county transfers already occur with MediCal and Cal- WORKS assistance, but families must reapply for food stamp benefits any time they change counties. Skinner said AB2018 will save time and money. The U.S. Department of Agri- culture estimates it costs $93 — $46.50 to the state and $46.50 to the federal government — to process a new food stamp applica- tion. AB2018 is scheduled to come before the Senate Human Services Commit- tee on Tuesday. Daily News photo by Geoff Johnson Dave Scott, Redding, races against his daughter, Crystal Scott, Redding, on Saturday at the Crawdad Eating Contest, part of the R Wild Horse Ranch Crawdad Festival. Crystal took second place, eating six scoops of crawdad. After near extinction, elk come back strong SACRAMENTO (MCT) — The sight of elk on a California landscape exerts a powerful emo- tional pull. The enormous antlers, the furry neck and sheer size of this creature, standing tall in the grass, evoke a time when wildlife outnumbered people. Thanks to intensive reintroduction efforts, it becomes easier every year to see elk in Califor- nia. The species is doing so well that the Califor- nia Fish and Game Commission this spring expanded hunting. There is irony in this, since it was hunting that nearly exterminated elk in the wake of the Gold Rush. Tule elk, a subspecies found only in Califor- nia, were reduced to as few as two animals — one male and one female — by the late 1800s, according to some accounts. Extinction doesn't get any closer than that. "It's one of the greatest wildlife success stories in California," said Joe Hobbs, a Department of Fish and Game biologist and state elk coordina- tor. "We're pretty much running out of places to put extra elk." There are now about 3,900 tule elk statewide in 22 herds. Because its historic predators — grizzly bear and wolf — did go extinct in Cali- fornia, hunting is the only way to keep elk out of conflict with farms and cities that have crept into former habitat. Hunting remains tightly controlled, but the state is loosening up somewhat. This year, it will issue a total of about 350 permits, up from 330 last year, Hobbs said. Demand for these permits is huge: In 2009, about 26,000 hunters applied. This year, the state added new hunting zones in many areas, including Lake, Colusa, Mendoci- no, Alameda, Stanislaus and Merced counties. This means each area now has a stable elk popu- lation for the first time in perhaps a century. Much of the success comes from private prop- erty owners who have let the state reintroduce elk on their land. This is important, Hobbs said, because there is little suitable public land left in the state to hold additional elk — especially tule elk, which rely mainly on open grasslands. The state's two other species — Roosevelt and Rocky Mountain elk — live mainly in forests and also have seen their populations grow. "Finding new areas that don't come with con- flicts from either agriculture or other neighbors is very difficult," Hobbs said. "Elk do eat grass, they compete with cattle, and they will break fences." David Elliott has been glad to see tule elk pop- ulate his 2,600-acre Colusa County ranch. Sever- al male elk first arrived about a decade ago by jumping the neighbor's fence. Later, he allowed the state to move some female elk onto his land SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A trip to Castro Commons on a recent Sunday afternoon yields most of the usual park vistas: the hand-holding couple on a lazy stroll, the teenager fiddling with his iPod, and, yes, the transient babbling to himself. But this is not your average park. The 140-foot-long stretch of tables, chairs and planters sits in part of the intersection of two major streets with the tracks of a heavily used streetcar line running right through the middle. ‘‘At the end of the day, it’s the same as being on the sidewalk,’’ said city planner Andres Power. Except that the sidewalk is now a park. Transportation reform advocates and municipal budget deficits here are reviving an old idea in urban planning: the micropark. City offi- cials say small parks like Castro Commons could remake traffic laden streets, which take up a quar- ter of San Francisco’s land area, into public spaces just as welcoming for pedestrians and bicyclists. The projects range from small plazas to ‘‘parklets,’’ stylized side- MCT photo Elk cows and young walk together at the Grizly Island Wildlife Area. to join them. Elliott uses the land primarily as a private hunting preserve, so conflicts with cattle are not a problem. Some of the elk can often be seen bed- ded down behind a fire station near the intersec- tion of Highways 20 and 16. He hopes to be able to hunt them one day, but for now he's content to watch. "It's a nice little pretty bunch of bulls," he said. "I try to sneak up and take pictures of them." The road to recovery has hardly been smooth. In early reintroduction efforts, a few herds went extinct because of disease or inadequate food. State officials allowed hunting to resume in the 1960s, which may have been premature. Pub- lic protests led to state and federal laws that banned hunting until 1989, and also required more reintroduction efforts. Problems still emerge today, notably with tule elk reintroduced at Point Reyes National Seashore. Confined by fences, the herd at Toma- les Point has suffered disease outbreaks, and park officials have resorted to limiting its growth with birth-control drugs. A largely unanswered question is how reintro- duced elk affect plants. Since elk nearly went extinct, California has been overrun with invasive plant species. Will elk eat those, or avoid them? Will they favor the few remaining native plants and drive those to extinc- tion? "Most people would agree reintroducing tule elk would be a good thing," said J. Hall Cush- man, a biology professor at Sonoma State Uni- walk extensions that are shoehorned into what were once parking spaces. The parks are cheap — an advantage for a city known for its commitment to open space but struggling with a gaping budget deficit and limited space. Advocates say they are good for the environ- ment, adaptable, and have the potential to revitalize neighbor- hoods. But not everyone is agog for parklets, inspired by similar spaces opened in New York City since 2006. Some projects have raised the hackles of residents and business owners who worry about traffic and parking disruptions or danger to pedestrians. Joel Panzer opposes a proposal to cordon off an intersection near his Noe Valley home and turn it into a plaza. He says the plaza would close off an arterial street, making it harder for people to drive in the area, and that the proximity of pedestrians to traffic might create a hazard. ‘‘No one’s listening to the people who own property,’’ said Panzer. ‘‘This is a make-work project.’’ versity. "What's happened is that we've shuffled the deck so much in terms of plant and animal communities that when we do one thing, it may have unintended consequences." Cushman in 2007 completed one of the few exhaustive studies on this issue. Focusing on the fenced elk at Tomales Point over a five-year peri- od, he found the effects of elk grazing were very mixed. It turns out these elk like to eat velvet grass, a problematic invasive plant. The herd also helped keep native grasslands open by eating shrubs. But the animals also caused an overall decrease in seasonal plants and an increase in annuals, which tend to be invasive. "They have a big effect on the plant commu- nity which then ripples throughout the whole ecosystem," Cushman said. He said other habitat types, such as Central Valley grasslands, are likely to see different effects. The state will study some of these potential effects before starting its next big reintroduction project, Hobbs said. In a few years, the Department of Fish and Game hopes to transplant tule elk to the Grass- lands Ecological Area, nearly 200,000 acres near Merced owned by the state, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Nature Conservancy and private duck clubs. UC Davis and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foun- dation will prepare a feasibility study and habitat analysis, and a small number of elk will be rein- troduced on a trial basis, Hobbs said. San Francisco turns to microparks with budget, space squeeze Others fear that parklets could reduce parking supply in neighbor- hoods where spots are notoriously difficult to come by. Herb Cohn, president of the San Francisco Council of District Mer- chants Associations, said customers fed up with circling the block in search of a spot often take their business elsewhere. ‘‘In a high parking need area tak- ing away three spaces would be a problem,’’ Cohn said. Yet not all business owners see the parklets as a problem. Remy Nelson, the owner of the Mojo Bicycle Cafe, said he has consis- tently seen more customers since a parklet was placed in the parking stalls in front of his cafe and bicy- cle-repair shop. The addition cost Nelson nothing, though he is responsible for the parklet’s mainte- nance. Power, who runs the city’s Pave- ment to Parks program, said that the city’s parklets have been installed only in places where the parking impact was minimal, and that they will eventually be leased out through a permitting process that is being developed. He added that parklets are no more unpleasant or dangerous than city life overall. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has announced plans for a total of 12 street parks to be built by the end of the year. Five have been opened so far. ‘‘You’ve been demanding that we begin to democratize our streets,’’ Newsom said at a park opening in February. ‘‘Who said that every single street that’s paved has to be a street that has a priority exclusively for automobiles?’’ Cities have long used microparks, like ‘‘pocket parks’’ on the land of abandoned houses, as a way to create green space in the middle of the concrete jungle. In the 1960s, the parks were built in cities including New York as a way to curb urban discord, according to Char Miller, director of the Environ- mental Analysis program at Pomona College in Claremont. Cities are also creating microparks as a way to expand green space even during the reces- sion.