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ByScottSmith The Associated Press FRESNO Salmon caught off the Pacific Coast may be harder to find in stores this summer and cost more with tight restrictions im- posed on fishermen who anticipate pulling fewer of the prized catch into their boats, officials said Friday. Four years of bruis- ing drought in the West has strained inland rivers where salmon spawn, put- ting the fish in sharp de- cline. Restrictions announced this week leave fisherman nearly half of the opportu- nity to catch salmon com- pared to last year, under the recommendations of an industry oversight body. "If you like the good stuff, it's going to be harder to find this year," said Dave Bitts, a Eureka, California, fisherman and adviser to the Pacific Fishery Man- agement Council. The council oversees commercial and recre- ational salmon fishing off the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington. It is made up of industry representatives, scientists and government officials. The National Marine Fisheries Service is ex- pected to adopt the coun- cil's recommendations on May 1. Salmon depend for sur- vival on cold and abun- dant water flowing down rivers, such as the Sacra- mento and Klamath, where the fish migrate and spawn in three-year cycles. Cali- fornia has endured the dri- est four-year period on re- cord before this winter's El Niño delivered some relief with a near-average snow- pack. The salmon industry in California and Oregon alone is valued at $2 bil- lion annually. It supports 23,000 jobs in California, according to the Golden Gate Salmon Association. "While fishermen are not happy to have re- stricted seasons, they re- alize their responsibility to be good stewards," said John McManus, the asso- ciation's executive director. The fishing industry and farmers in California's fer- tile Central Valley are in a constant struggle over the same river water to sustain their livelihoods. The last two years have been di- sastrous for salmon in the Sacramento River. Just 3 percent of Cali- fornia's juvenile winter- run salmon survived in 2015 compared to 5 per- cent survival the previous year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin- istration's fisheries agency has reported. It is too soon to say how high the price of wild- caught salmon could be for consumers until fish- erman return to the docks with their catch. Wildlife officials, however, estimate low numbers swimming in the Pacific. "As a fisherman, you always expect a mira- cle, that there's all kinds of fish in the ocean," said Larry Collins, a San Fran- cisco commercial fisher- man and seafood buyer. "I just don't expect that this year." OCEAN FISHING Pacificsalmonmaybescarceinstoresthissummer The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO Placing your bag on a seat on Bay Area Rapid Transit could land you with a fine as BART cracks down on so-called "seat hogs." The San Francisco Chronicle reports that BART directors on Thursday approved a new rule that makes us- ing more than one seat a ticket-able offense. People who take up more than a single seat during commute hours will first be given a warning. After that, the first ticket will cost them $100. The penalty will increase to $200 for a second violation and to $500 after that. People who need two seats due to size or med- ical conditions are ex- empt from the rule. BART Director Joel Keller says the ordinance is not about collecting fines, but about encour- aging people to share the trains. TRANSIT BA RT t o fine 'seat hogs' due to crowding By Brian Melley and Amanda Lee Myers The Associated Press LOS ANGELES Teachers across California may have breathed a sigh of relief when an appellate court up- held job protection that has long been considered sacro- sanct. But the court's unan- imous ruling that found teacher tenure is constitu- tional and doesn't deprive students of a fair education may not be settled if the state's highest court decides to review the case, which has ramifications for more than 6 million students and hundreds of thousands of teachers. A lawyer representing nine students who sued the state — and won at the trial court — vowed Friday to ap- peal to the California Su- preme Court and expressed confidence they have what's needed to prevail. "We knew there would be three rounds to this fight," attorney Theodore Bou- trous Jr. said. "We think we will win the third and final round because we know we are on the right side of this case and the right side of history." Attorney Michael Ru- bin, who defended teachers unions in the case, said he doesn't think the California Supreme Court will take up the issue, saying it broke no new ground in its analysis of constitutional principles. "It puts to rest — we be- lieve forever — the consti- tutional attacks on job se- curity for teachers," Rubin said Thursday. If the California Supreme Court takes up the case, the attorneys representing the students who filed the lawsuit are facing an up- hill battle because the ap- pellate court's opinion is "very soundly and tightly reasoned," said Bill Koski, a Stanford Law professor who directs the school's Youth and Education Law Project. "The appellate court made it pretty clear: This might not be the wisest set of statutes but it's not our job to say what's wise or smart, it's our job to de- cide what's constitutional," he said. In Thursday's ruling, the 2nd District Court of Ap- peal acknowledged that the case did reveal problems with tenure and layoff stat- utes, and showed the "dele- terious impact" of staffing decisions on poor and mi- nority students. But it said state law wasn't to blame. "Some principals rid their schools of highly ineffective teachers by transferring them to other schools, of- ten to low-income schools," Boren wrote. "This phe- nomenon is extremely trou- bling and should not be al- lowed to occur, but it does not inevitably flow from the challenged statutes." The ruling reverses a Los Angeles Superior Court judge who found evidence to "shock the conscience" that incompetent teachers were almost impossible to fire because of tenure laws and that schools in poor neigh- borhoods were dumping grounds for bad teachers. The closely watched case highlighted tensions between teacher unions, school leaders, lawmakers and well-funded education reform groups over whether policies like tenure and fir- ing teachers with the least seniority keep ineffective in- structors in the classroom, particularly in already low- performing schools. Stuart Biegel, a law and education professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the Cal- ifornia Supreme Court is likely to take up the case be- cause it has state and na- tional implications. But, he said the high court is likely to side with the appellate court deci- sion, which he described as "much more sophisticated in its reasoning" than the trial judge's. He said the proper venue for the fight is at the Leg- islature, as opposed to the courts. Even if the plain- tiffs end up being success- ful in getting the state's ten- ure statutes thrown out, the Legislature would need to craft new law as a result. "Litigation can be a very powerful vehicle and often- times it's the correct vehi- cle," he said. "But in this case I felt from the begin- ning that it was the wrong direction for plaintiffs to take." Boutrous, the plaintiff's lawyer, said there are a number of "strong avenues" he has to appeal the appel- late court's ruling. He said the court erred by not relying on the trial judge's factual findings and incorrectly blamed school administrators for the failures of the educa- tion system. He also said he thought the court was in- correct in finding that the plaintiffs didn't prove the state's tenure laws violate students' right to a quality education. Regardless of the result of an appeal, the case has escalated the national con- versation around teacher tenure and its potential unintended consequences, and that's a good thing, said Katharine Strunk, an edu- cation and policy professor at the University of South- ern California. She pointed to similar lawsuits in New York and Minnesota. "What this case has done is highlight the fact that the laws in place enable the un- equal distribution of teach- ers across schools and kids," she said. EDUCATION High court's turn in fight over California teacher tenure NICKUT—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Raylene Monterroza speaks as she is joined by eight other California public school students who are suing to abolish its laws on teacher tenure, during a news conference outside the Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles. By Barbara Ortutay The Associated Press NEW YORK Messy party photos, offensive tweets, pepper spraying student protesters ... sometimes, you just want a do-over when it comes to your online pres- ence. And for a hefty price tag, you can. The University of Califor- nia, Davis is under fire for contracting consultants for at least $175,000 to clean up its online reputation af- ter a November 2011 inci- dent in which campus po- lice pepper-sprayed peace- ful protesters, according to a report in the Sacra- mento Bee. If that PR cam- paign worked at all, it's now backfired. Here's how this sort of reputation scrub- bing is supposed to help — and some ways in which it might have the opposite ef- fect. Callthepros Services such as Rep- utationdefender.com and Naymz.com offer to clean up your name, or, as the latter advertises, achieve your "professional and personal aspirations." A company called ICMedia- Direct advertises reputa- tion control for $6,300, in which the service will try to "push down" your un- desirable search results by populating Google with friendly links instead. These companies didn't return messages seeking information about their services. Instead of lawsuits, for example, the companies promise that search results will turn up your LinkedIn profile, business website or other sites that portray you in a more positive light. Of course, there's no guaran- tee any of this will work; it's awfully hard to de- lete anything permanently from the Internet. Or just ask, if you're continental If you happen to be in Eu- rope, you can also exercise your "right to be forgotten." Thisentailsfillingoutaform that asks search engines like Google to remove certain links when people look up your name. Of course, this means nothing if someone Googles you in the U.S. Some things just don't erase Just ask Justine Sacco, the former IAC media re- lations representative who lost her job after an un- fortunate tweet — one widely seen as racist, al- though Sacco said she was aiming for irony — raised the hackles of the Twitter- verse. Three years later, the incident still turns up first when you search for her name on Google. You also have to consider the possible blowback when and if your cleanup at- tempts see the light of day. That's the pickle UC Da- vis is in now. Some Califor- nia legislators have called for the resignation of uni- versity chancellor Linda Katehi, who approved the PR campaign. Get old-fashioned, if you can have clout For companies and pub- lic figures like celebrities and politicians, putting a positive spin on the nega- tive can be as simple — or as complicated — as getting a friendly story in the news. Being proactive is key. Terry Corbell, a business performance consultant, recommends "shameless self-promotion" as a way to build a positive online reputation before disasters happen. Be active on Face- book, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you have a strong reputa- tion to begin with, it's easier to deal with the bad stuff if and when it happens. And if it does? "If an organization is at fault, they need to come clean," he says. "First is ad- mission of guilt." Katehi did apologize for the orig- inal pepper spraying — but so far hasn't followed suit in the current controversy. HISTORY SCRUBBING How to clean up your online reputation WAYNE TILCOCK — THE ENTERPRISE, FILE University of California, Davis, Police Lt. John Pike uses pepper spray to move Occupy UC Davis protesters while blocking their exit from the school's quad in Davis. The school reportedly paid image consultants to try to clean up the online image of the university a er the 2011incident. | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2016 10 A