Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/40544
Monday, August 29, 2011 – Daily News 7A SIGNS Continued from page 1A the sign was something that could be started right away, said Planning Director John Stoufer. A person wanting to build a sign would first need to get an encroachment per- mit if it is in the city's right of way. "I have six request right here," said Dewey Lucero of Lucero Olive Oil, who has been spearheading the Corning branding effort. Lucero Olive Oil will be joined on the signs by Corning Olive Oil, Nash's Olive Oil, Olive Pit, Olive Hut and New Clairvaux Vineyards. That leaves four spots for other busi- nesses. Several City Council members thanked Lucero for his efforts both with the branding, which included the new logo Lucero Olive Oil paid to have designed for the city, and the signs. "It just takes young bucks like you to get it started," Councilman John Leach said. Any business interested in being on the sign can call Lucero at 824-2190. Lucero updated the council on the branding effort wearing a T-shirt and hat with the new logo. Hats and T-shirts will be for sale for $12 each at the Lucero booth at the Olive Festival, 7 a.m.to 3 p.m. FOAM Continued from page 1A 2007, but the city's ingrained emphasis on conservation made the switch relatively easy, said Rob Black, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Associa- tion. ''I do know that many of the restaurants had already started a transition to compostable or biodegradable containers, so it was actually not as big of a transition as peo- ple might think because it was already something that was happening within the culture here,'' he said. Other jurisdictions across the country have banned Styrofoam, includ- ing Suffolk County in New York and the coastal city of Freeport, Maine. Opponents of the bill say it fails to address the root cause of litter — the litterers themselves. Lit- terbugs will toss out the containers whether they're made of polystyrene or biodegradable cardboard, today at Woodson Park, at the corner of South and Pear streets. The council authorized money for Fire Chief Mar- tin Spannaus to use as a match for a Volunteer Fire Assistance Grant to pur- chase turnouts for the vol- unteer firefighters. "This is the second out of the last three years that we've qualified for this grant," Spannaus said. "We have new members who are wearing hand- me-down gear. This is a chance to get them into properly fitting gear and we're getting it at half price." The city is putting up $7,465 as a match for a total of $14,930 that the fire department will receive. The money from the city comes from the general fund. Normally protective equipment is a part of the adopted annual capital improvement program, but it was not funded for this fiscal year, according to the staff report. The Corning City Council meets the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at City Hall, 794 Third St. Meeting minutes and agendas are available at www.corning.org. ——— Julie Zeeb can be reached at 527-2153, extension 115 or jzeeb@redbluffdailynews. com. said Michael Westerfield, corporate director of recy- cling for Dart Container. ''At the end of the day, people that litter don't care what type of product they're littering,'' he said. Dart, one of two com- panies in California that make the Styrofoam prod- ucts, employs about 600 people in the state. The company already makes the biodegradable alterna- tive, but the two California plants are incapable of producing anything other than the Styrofoam mater- ial. ''If you get rid of man- ufacturers like Dart, how do you know all the alter- native materials will come from California? The real- ity is, they won't,'' he said. The California Cham- ber of Commerce has labeled the measure as one of its ''job-killer bills,'' saying it threatens manu- facturing jobs while increasing costs for restau- rants that will have to spend more on alternative containers. Honeycutt estimates he will have to spend more than twice as much on LOS ANGELES (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown is a quirky Democrat known to break from convention, but in one way his young administration looks all too predictable: He is seeding state government with fellow Democ- rats, political supporters and appointees linked to powerful labor groups that helped install him in office, an Associated Press review found. Public employee unions represent- ing nurses, teachers, firefighters and other workers spent millions of dollars in the 2010 campaign to put Brown in charge in California, fearing Republi- can Meg Whitman would make good on her promise to shrink the state pay- roll and collar the soaring cost of gov- ernment pensions. So far, Brown has placed a string of appointees with ties to those unions in prominent jobs that intersect with labor: The state agency that negotiates worker contracts is now headed by a former champion of the prison guards union, and the chief lawyer for the agency that settles disputes between workers and state managers has ties to the powerful California Nurses Asso- ciation. Brown's office says there is no con- nection between the union support he received in 2010 and his job picks, but it has opened him to criticism that he is stacking the deck in favor of labor interests as the state struggles with an ongoing financial crisis. ''If you look at who funded his gubernatorial campaign, they are get- ting one hell of a return on their investment. It's paying off in spades through these appointments,'' said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a low- OLIVE Continued from page 1A part of the day was the booths, she said. There was such a variety of things to see, and snow cones and hot dogs are great on a hot day, Jameson said. After living in Cottonwood for two years, Cathy Kitchen decided it was time to see what the Olive Fes- tival was all about. She brought her daughter and other family members to browse through booths. "The music's not bad either," she said. Another Chico family, Trevor and Claire Taylor, brought their 4- year-old son to the festival. He had a snow cone in his hand and balloons tied to his wrist. The Olive Festival seemed very kid friendly, Claire Taylor said. Her husband enjoyed the event too. The event brings the community out and helps diversity, Trevor Tay- lor said. This was the 22nd annual Olive Festival, which kicked off with the annual crowning of Miss Corning Aug. 13. It also included a parade Friday evening along with "Corning does it bedder" bed races and a youth dance. The newly crowned Miss Corn- ing 2011, Kyli Delgado, accompa- nied by Miss Hometown Christmas, first alternate Jennifer Devers, and Miss Tehama County 2011, Kerry DeFonte, participated in hosting various parts of the festivities. The annual event is put together by the Corning Chamber of Com- merce. For more information, visit www.corningchamber.org. biodegradable containers if he is forced to switch. Because hot food melts through the cardboard, he said his Fresno restaurant will have to use two card- board packages for every order, driving costs up even further. ''That doesn't seem too smart,'' he said. The hot food in Styro- foam containers is just one of the reasons Clean Water Action, a national environ- mental advocacy group based in Washington D.C., decided to sponsor the bill, said Miriam Gordon, the group's California state director. While the group is wor- ried about litter's impact on the environment, the chemicals used to manu- facture the foam products also are dangerous to con- sumers. ''We're concerned about the public health threat. A typical foam container leaches styrene when it's in contact with heat, fats, grease or acids,'' Gordon said. Styrene, a chemical used to make the foam containers, was listed as tax advocacy group that supported Whitman in 2010. The choices provide a window into how Brown has exercised power since taking office, and his appointments could affect issues ranging from fund- ing unemployment benefits to promot- ing green energy in a state infamous for smog. According to administration state- ments, Brown has named 190 people to high-level positions since he took office in January. Of those, 18 — about 9 percent — are Republicans, 11 of whom are new appointees. The rest were reappointed to jobs they already held. Former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's inner circle was thick with Republicans but, overall, his appointments were fairly balanced. The overwhelming majority of appointments announced by Brown's office — about eight in 10 — have been Democrats, the review found. At least six appointees were plucked from his days in the state Justice Depart- ment, where Brown served as attorney general before returning to the gover- nor's office. One, senior adviser Julie Henderson, earlier worked at Gap Inc., where Brown's wife was once execu- tive vice president. His wife, Anne Gust Brown, also serves in the admin- istration as an unpaid adviser. Records show appointees with ties to unions are laced throughout the administration. They include: — Ronald Yank, a retired labor lawyer and Democratic donor who has represented bargaining units for state prison guards and firefighters, is mak- ing $143,000 as director of the Depart- ment of Personnel Administration, Daily News photo by Andrea Wagner The Olive Hut was one of several olive businesses offering their goods Saturday at the Corning Olive Festival at Woodson City Park. ''reasonably anticipated'' to be a human carcinogen in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Ser- vices' Report on Carcino- gens, issued in June. The report lists substances that are reasonably anticipated or known to put people at risk for cancer. Yet the danger of styrene leaching out is low, said John Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Pro- gram, a division of the federal agency. ''The risks, in my esti- mation, from polystyrene are not very great,'' he said. ''It's not worth being concerned about.'' Tim Shestek, senior director of state affairs at the American Chemistry Council, agreed and said concern about negative health effects ''is not sup- ported by scientific infor- mation.'' The group, based in Washington, D.C., is lobbying against the bill. SB568 was approved in June by the state Senate and is being considered in the Assembly. Brown appointments favor Democrats which negotiates contracts with state employee unions. His appointment also made him a board member at the California Public Employees' Retire- ment System, which oversees state worker pensions and its $226 billion in assets. — Howard Schwartz, special legal counsel from 1984 to 1999 for the Ser- vice Employees International Union Local 1000, the state's largest public employee union, joined Yank as chief deputy director at the Department of Personnel Administration, where he makes $132,396. — Marty Morgenstern, whose union ties include consulting for labor organizations and serving as a former area director at the American Federa- tion of State, County and Municipal Employees, is making $175,000 as head of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, which oversees an array of labor and business panels. He was director of the state Depart- ment of Personnel Administration from 1999 to 2003 in the administra- tion of former Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat. Pension benefits were sweetened for many state workers dur- ing that period. — A. Eugene Huguenin, staff counsel at the California Teachers Association from 1979 to 2000 and husband of longtime Democratic activist and donor Aleita Huguenin, was appointed to a $128,109 position on the Public Employment Relations Board. — M. Suzanne Murphy, legal counsel for the California Nurses Association from 2006 to 2007, was named general counsel of the Public Employment Relations Board. Fort Bragg City Councilman shot and killed in woods FORT BRAGG (AP) — Authorities are searching for a gunman in the woods of Mendocino County after a Fort Bragg City councilman was shot and killed. Sheriff's officials say Jere Melo was shot around 10 a.m. Saturday as he and another man walked through a rugged area of timber company land about four miles outside of Fort Bragg. The man walking with Melo was able to escape unhurt and called for help on his cell phone. His name has not been released. Sheriff's deputies, California Highway Patrol offi- cers, Fort Bragg police and a SWAT team all responded to the area. Officials have identified the suspected gunman as Aaron Bassler, a man they're describing as a ''tran- sient.'' Investigators have not released any additional information about the suspect, or a possible motive for the shooting. At least 2 hurt when plane ends up on Napa highway NAPA (AP) — Authorities say at least two peo- ple were hurt when a small plane ended up on a highway near Napa County Airport. California Highway Patrol spokesman Trent Cross says the plane hit a car as it made a crash landing on Highway 29 at 12:37 p.m. Sunday. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mike Fergus had said earlier that the single-engine Beech aircraft lost power, made a ''gear-up'' land- ing at the airport and skidded onto highway, hitting the back of a car. Two people were in the car and two people were on board the plane. The FAA says the two people in the car suffered minor injuries, but the CHP says four people were hurt. The CHP did not know the extent of their injuries. The plane suffered what was described as ''sub- stantial damage.'' The incident is being investigated by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board. Assembly sends pet microchip bill to governor SACRAMENTO (AP) — A bill requiring that cats and dogs released from California animal shel- ters be implanted with microchips to identify their owners is on its way to the governor. The state Assembly voted 45-21 Thursday to approve the measure by Sen. Ted Lieu, a Torrance Democrat. It requires that owners of pets retrieved from shelters or who adopt them implant the chips. Supporters of SB720 say it will reduce the $300 million-a-year taxpayer costs for euthanizing stray animals and will greatly increase the chances of reuniting lost pets with their owners. Opponents say the microchips can cause medical problems and that the issue should be decided locally. Democratic Assemblyman Ben Hueso of San Diego said a microchip helped reunite his family with a lost dog found hundreds of miles away in Fresno.