Inside UDJ by Editor K.C. Meadows

Last night and today I have had several conversations about water in the Ukiah Valley and the bottom line seems to be that no one really knows how much water we have, that many people are claiming rights to have more than they do have, that a lot of the water "rights" are just "paper rights" -("Just add water!" one local quipped) and that sooner rather than later someone is going to sue the county over a development that will need water that simply isn't there. I'm guessing that could well turn out to be the DDR project at the old Masonite site.
If someone does sue, that means that the matter of what will happen to our water resources and what the best use of water is in the valley will end up in a courtroom for ten years and after that we'll probably have some court ordered water allotment no one will be happy with and which will result in a very drastic curb on growth in our area. (Can you say timber industry?)
For a lot of people in the valley that will be great news.
DDR seems pretty confident that it will be able to get water from Millview Water District , but that's not necessarily a done deal. Millview is under a state-ordered moratorium on water hookups right now. The way I understand it, DDR says it's letting Millview have the water rights from the Masonite site which Millview will then allot to DDR's 500,000 square foot mall project. But whether there's still a water right left on the Masonite site is being questioned - after five years of non-use you lose a water right and Masonite's been closed for six. There have been complaints sent to the state about the assumptions about water on the Masonite site and the state could easily decide there is none. (As for sewer, DDR has told people that it will need about 900 sewer hookups for its project. Well, the Ukiah Valley only has about 1,100 available for the forseeable future. DDR doesn't care. They apparently told one local person that if they use up all our sewer hookups, we'll just have to build a new sewer plant. Think fees are high now? Wait until we have to float another bond in a couple of years to start another big sewer project. DDR will, of course have what it wants by then and will walk away leaving anyone who hopes to build or add on to a home in the valley holding the bag.)
But back to water. The developers of a housing project at the Forks claimed to have rights to 1,400 acre feet of water annually on the Russian River with which to serve more homes and made a deal with Millview for the water. (To give you a comparison, I'm told the City of Ukiah uses 3,500 acre feet of water a year.) Again, a complaint was filed with the state and the state just recently told these developers that no, you have 15 acre feet a year, not 1,400.
The city of Ukiah says it has 15,000 acre feet of river water rights but, again I'm told, the city still buys about 800 acre feet of water each year. If they have so much unused water, why do they buy water?
These are all things I'm hearing from a variety of people who work with water issues all the time.
The Russian River Flood Control District is one of the bodies that has been raising questions about specific water rights people are claiming to have. When a water right is negated by the state, it does not revert to someone else, it simply ceases to exist. One man I talked to said that he thinks there's an agenda among some people on the RRFCD to stop growth in the Valley by reducing the water rights available through state edict. A member of the RRFCD board said he believes it's the opposite, that the RRFCD simply wants to make sure that developers are A) not blindsided by a lack of water in the middle of a project and B) that downstream users are not left without water because big developers come in claiming to have water service and later when the state inevitably limits the water they are long gone.
It seems to me that the very last thing this valley needs is to have a lawsuit filed and have all of our growth decisions being made by Superior Court judges for the next ten years.
It seems to me that we do need to figure out a way to find out really what is out there.
It seems to me that we should start moving to a valley-wide political water body rather than having all these little water districts all agreeing to serve people when they don't have the water. Already Redwood Valley, Millview and Hopland are all under state-ordered water moratoriums.
And here's another thought someone put in my head today.
Normally, when a big developer wants to come to a town and do something in an area that is zoned for something else, they ask for a zoning change and then they normally have to do an environmental impact report and show what the impacts will be and what the possible mitigations for that are. Then the town or county can look at all that and make a decision. In the case of the Ukiah Valley Area Plan, the county is paying for all these enormously expensive studies. Why? Someone suggested why not leave the Masonite land in industrial zoning for the purposes of the UVAP, pass the UVAP, and then let DDR come in and ask for the zoning change, putting the financial burden on them to do the studies.
I can see that that's not very good planning, to pass a brand new Area Plan and then immediately invite suggestions to change it. I would make the argument that in order to pass the UVAP the county ought really to decide whether it wants to change the zoning there. However, I'm still wondering why we are doing the studies instead of DDR since they are in such a hurry.
I am not among those who say that the only answer to the Masonite property is to leave it industrial. I am not automatically for DDR's mall either. Like a lot of Valley residents I have seen the complete lack of progress or even effort to find some industry to come in and use that land. I also believe that if some industry that would create even the tiniest amount of smoke, smell, waste, or an uncool product tried to come in, the same people insisting on leaving the land industrial would be demanding the county deny a permit.
I also don't know that our downtown would be destroyed by more retail in the area. I like our downtown. I like the small shops, the small town feel of it, and the shady trees. But frankly I wish a lot of these stores were open at night and on Sundays when I have time to shop at them.
Now, having said all that, I really hate the idea that DDR is convinced it has the three votes needed to do whatever it wants. And I am sure that what it wants is to put up a big mall on the Masonite site as fast and cheaply as possible before anyone has the time to object to the design or the lack thereof, or file a lawsuit over the water, require them to build their own wastewater treatment plant, or realize that they are using up much of the last of the growth resource we have in this valley. I am pretty sure that if we rezone the Masonite land without strict rules about what can go there, what the design elements must be, how much of it must be green and include how much and what kinds of housing, transportation advances and other specifics, we're going to get a freeway mall like every other and DDR will be trotting off to the bank.
I am not against growth. I believe we primarily need more housing. I believe we can use more retail. And I believe that the Masonite land is a good place to do something forward-thinking for our community. But as soon as we rezone it, we have handed over both our carrot and our stick.

Posted by K.C. at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This week on Monday I was called to jury duty in Ukiah and did not get picked for a jury or even picked for the group who were sent up to courtroom E as potential jurors. I was in the group that gets to sit around the jury room most of the day doing nothing. You are instructed to arrive for jury duty at 9 a.m. At about 9:35 a.m. a very nice woman who is charge of the office explains all the rules about jury duty, where you should be parked and where you should not be parked and what the going pittance for jury duty is and the fact that you're probably not going to see a dime of it unless you get picked for a jury. This woman has her rap down pat and is very careful to make sure that it is crystal clear that she personally has nothing to do with any of these rules and that none of us should feel that we can A) Blame her, B) Get mad at her or C) prevail upon her to change the rules.
By about 10:30 a.m. a big group picked - we are assured - randomly by the computer, are sent up to Courtroom E for what is described as a civil suit - meaning not criminal. The bad part was that it was estimated that this trial would take 5 days. Anyone with Labor Day weekend plans were in a bad way right about then.
Anyway, the rest of us were told we could leave the jury room but needed to be back at 1:30 p.m. in case the first 30 people they sent up don't make a jury of 12 plus alternates and they need more potential jurors to pick from. That's a three hour window to do any number of things. If you're from the coast, like a number of people I heard talking were, there's not much you can do but find a place to hang out.
I asked the nice lady if there was a phone number she could give me that I could call at about 12:30 p.m. to see if a jury had indeed been picked, and then I wouldn't need to come all the way back to the courthouse. She handed me a card with the phone number of the jury room.
What she didn't tell me was that the phone line she gave me would have a message on it telling me the jury room was closed until 1 p.m. and then at 1 p.m. would have a message on it telling me that whatever my question was, there was no one to help me with it at 1 p.m. or any other time.
So I trundled on back to the courthouse jury room at 1:30 p.m. and sat reading until about 3:30 p.m. when the nice lady said that the attorneys upstairs were very, very close to having a jury but the judge wanted five more people sent up.
Again, very careful to make it clear she had no idea why just five and that the five names she was about to call were from the computer and had NOTHING TO DO WITH HER, she named five people and the rest of us were free to go home and worry no more until 2009.
Was it torture? No. I had a good book to read and Mondays are my late day at the newspaper anyway so I wasn't missing anything I would normally be doing.
But here are a couple of ideas for the folks working at the courthouse - and by that I mean judges since they're the ones that decide these things - to make this easier on jurors.
1. Get more comfortable chairs. Ever see what a judge sits in all day? I'm not even suggesting something that comfy, but a chair with arms and some cushioning would be nice.
2. Have a number with a current message or a real person for jurors to call between when they're told they can leave temporarily and when they have to be back so that they can get an immediate update on the situation. When you tell people they can leave for three hours and they may or may not be needed then, why not have a phone number they can call to see if they are indeed needed? In this case there was a chance that a jury might have been picked by 11:15 a.m. and several dozen people would come back to the courthouse from all over the Ukiah Valley at 1:30 p.m. needlessly. I have had this happen in the past. And while it's always a relief to hear "You're dismissed," it's also a pain in the butt to come back to court just to be told to go away.
3. Why not get several dozen of those short range pagers busy restaurants have so that patrons waiting for tables can go shop close by while they wait, and give them to waiting jurors? Just think of the downtwon shopping or coffee drinking and snack eating I could have done in just a two or three block radius downtown between 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. With my trusty pager in hand I could wander up and down School Street and still be back in the courthouse in minutes if they needed me.
Just a thought.

Posted by K.C. at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There's a comment on a previous entry about the supervisors and the fair dinner that expresses dismay that I don't laud supervisors Jim Wattenburger and Mike Delbar whenever the topic of pay raises comes up since they voted against the pay raises and yet get lumped into the phrase "the supervisors" when I talk about it. I have had several political supports of these two say the same thing to me. Here's what I tell them:
First of all, when you know there are three votes for something, it's easy to vote against it.
But, being less cynical, let's say those two supervisors really, really feel strongly against the pay raise. I didn't hear either one of them ever say they wouldn't take it, that they would donate it back to the county's coffers. I also didn't see either one of them standing behind a petition table to help get signatures from the citizenry to overturn it. Even as a symbolic gesture that would have made an impression.
Just to vote against something you know is going to pass easily is not enough if you're looking to make political hay out of it.
And I should say that all of our news stories about this have made it clear which way they voted.

Posted by K.C. at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I still haven't talked at length to our brand new reporter Rob Burgess about how the whole day went Tuesday as he sat through hours of talk about the UVAP - yes, no honeymoons around here, you arrive from the Midwest, you get a notebook, you head to a day-long talk-fest on one of the most important development issues before us.
Anyway, among other things in Rob's story, I was struck by Supervisor Kendall Smith's notion of clearing the room if the audience doesn't behave. Smith must watch too much TV and too many cops shows where judges routinely threaten to "clear the court." Who's going to clear the room at the supervisors? I can just see a bunch of deputies being called to "clear the room" only to have at least half the folks immediately sit on the floor and wait to be carried, Vietnam era-style out to the hall. Right. Tom Allman's worst nightmare.

Now that we know which alternative the supes are going to get more study of, I say it's time for the people against the proposed development at the Masonite plant to start thinking about what they do want if it goes forward. A mixed use zoning gives a lot of leeway. If we're going to have new retail out there - and I think there's a good chance we will - then why not start planning the best, most green retail area we can think of with some affordable apartment housing upstairs, complete green construction and energy efficiency, and open spaces. Make it bus friendly and limit parking so that people are forced to use public transport to get there. DDR really wants this project and I bet will spend a lot of money to get what it wants. Now that there's a study under way, rather than just insisting that the project can't be mitigated in any way - which would be an obvious way to try to block it - why not figure out a way to get something good for our community in the long term.
Let's not forget the new state mandate on greenhouse gases. Attorney General Jerry Brown is already wielding a big bat on development in the state, citing the new law. No reason the county can't begin from a completely environmental viewpoint and demand that DDR build a state-of-the-art mixed use project from a green standpoint. It would certainly set the bar for our area. Just a thought.

Posted by K.C. at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got a call over the weekend about the Ukiah High School "U." Apparently some vandals had been up there and spray painted over the U - which is normally painted white so it can be seen from the valley. Over the weekend, the property owners allowed a local group to go up and repaint it white so it can now be seen again. However, the property owners - who years ago began prohibiting the traditional student hiking up there because of fears of vandalism and such - are a bit worried that the attention to the U will bring more vandals up there. There may well be extra surveillance in place in order to catch anyone skulking in that area and if anyone at the high school or elsewhere knows who the vandals are, it would behoove them to let the Sheriff's Department know. If the community wants to continue to have this nice tradition, it must respect the property owners' too.
By the way, the property owners are not named Hull, Piffero or Nix.

On another topic, here's the amazing thing to me: So far two letters and a couple of emails - those anonymous - from people who wish to point out that Sister Jane Kelly is not a nun anymore and therefore we should stop calling her one - and we certainly shouldn't be trying to help her in her time of need. These hard-hearted people can't stand it that this woman who whupped up on the Catholic Church and its crooked priests and bishops is still enjoying the respect of us out here who think she's extraordinary.
"But she LEFT the church," they whine. Of course she did. When she retired the church ordered her out of town - her home for 30 years. Why? Well, I think they couldn't wait to get her back behind some closed convent doors where no one would listen to her anymore.
And let's not even begin to talk about the decades of dedication to the needy in this community she has given us.
Sister Jane will always be Sister Jane (much like presidents, judges, senators and governors - many who really don't deserve it - keep the title of respect into retirement) to me and to the Daily Journal.

Posted by K.C. at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We got two calls just now telling us that the Ukiah High School "U" in the western hills is gone. Anyone know what happened to it?

Look for the supervisors to try another end run around the petition they know is coming to reverse their latest reinstatement of their 43 percent pay raise. Look for them to agree to form some kind of in-house "citizen" commitee but only if they get to keep the pay rasie they already have.
By the way, four of the five supervisors (not David Colfax) were at the Redwood Empire Fair awards barbecue. I wonder how many of them will put the mileage and the dinner ticket on the taxpayer's tab?

Posted by K.C. at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A reader passed along some interesting historical information about the Masonite site and its zoning.
According to the 1974 documents - which I have - surrounding Masonite’s original rezoning request to change the land from agricultural to industrial, the county agreed to the change as a “contract rezoning,” which meant that if the land were ever to stop being used as a Masonite plant site, it would revert to agricultural zoning.
The documents show that there was discussion both at the planning commission and the board of supervisors affirming this interpretation and that while Masonite was hesitant about it, it finally agreed when the county assured it that as long Masonite was the owner of the land and using it for a factory, the zoning was secure.
The question is, was there any zoning change since then? Or did the county at some point give permanent status to this land by some method? Perhaps in the 1980 General Plan rewrite?
If the land is still under this “contract rezoning,” then it is not industrial land now at all but agricultural.
Any ideas out there?

Posted by K.C. at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I heard from a lovely woman named Kathryn Thompson who used to be a "chimer" at the Methodist Church when they still had a chime system there. Thompson said that the chimes - or what most of us call bells - were played on an electronic attachment to the church organ. She was one of four chimers who played. They each took one week a month. Every day (except Sundays), at 5 p.m., the chimes would be played from a keyboard like a piano, only just one note at a time. The songs were chosen from the hymnal, she explained, but always it began with "Sweet Hour of Prayer" and ended with Amen. Thompson says it was sometimes a little scary to be up there all by yourself and the Methodist Church janitor would arrange his duties to make sure he was around when the ladies were chiming. Thompson says she feels very privileged to have been a chimer and guesses that it's too much of a commitment for most people these days, even if the bells were still available. She recalls that the Ukiah couthouse always closed when the chimes went off and her children always knew it was time to come home when they heard the bells.

Posted by K.C. at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Officials at the county were very concerned that our story last week about the dispute with local doctors was giving county employees the incorrect message that their health care was at risk. I agreed to do a follow up, which ran Saturday, to give the county a chance to explain that while the dispute is serious, health care will continue.
All that aside, our conversations with the county over this tell me that the county has been seriously neglecting the employees' best interests here. First of all the HR director does not deny that the county screwed up when it sent some employees to Lake County doctors not in the contract and that the county screwed up when it did not answer the docs' concerns back in March when the dispute first arose. According to the docs, they were due some fee increases during the multi-year life of the contract that didn't appear. The county says, well, that's under negotiation. Interestingly, the county was suddenly "in negotiations" with the docs, who they wouldn't talk to before we did a story saying the docs were ready to cancel the contract and start charging county employees directly. Apparently, one health care clinic in the Willits area did just that.
If I was a county employee, I'd be seriously concerned that the county was about to let the docs start requiring me to pay up front and then try to get my money out of the county later. First of all, who has the money for that? Second, how long would it take for the county to pay up? And this may happen yet if the county and the docs don't come to some agreement by Aug. 28.
Seems to me that while the county is shouting "Everything's OK, you have health care!" to its employees, they are also non-plussed abut the idea that employees may get seriously screwed in the next couple of weeks. I don't call that good health care.

Posted by K.C. at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As we often do, the Daily Journal recently ran a story we got from our sister newspaper in Fort Bragg, the Advocate-News. Since it is a once-weekly newspaper and they only post to their Web site once a week by the time we get the stories and then publish them, the news in them is sometimes dated. In the case of the story we ran recently about the county animal control department, the story had changed considerably. Events had caught up with and surpassed the Fort Bragg story and since we weren't covering what was a situation with animal control on the coast, we trusted the Fort Bragg paper's version. Coincidentally, I had gotten a call from a gentleman who said he was concerned that animal control and its new director Bliss Fisher were not getting the support they needed in the budget process and would we do some sort of coverage. He suggested we talk to Bliss since she was having a really hard time. Just then I saw the story from the Fort Bragg paper saying she had resigned. I put the animal control department on the back burner until today at Schat's when Dick Winkler of the Ukiah spay-neuter group known as SNAP came to talk to me saying that Bliss had long ago rescinded her resignation and that the Fort Bragg article was inaccurate and was strictly from the point of view of some activists in Fort Bragg that were being unreasonable. He said the inland folks loved Bliss and could we do something to correct the article.
SO... I get back to my office and I also have more phone calls from people upset that we ran the Fort Bragg story. One was from the same gentleman who called originally to ask me to do a story about Bliss very upset with me for not following his advice to begin with. I looked on the Fort Bragg site and they had another story updating the first one, but I decided I would call Bliss first. She said the coast folks' point of view was unfair and that her staff no longer shows her the articles from the coast because they are so upsetting. I asked her if she would let me interview her and she said absolutely and that she would much rather meet in person. She asked if I could see her at 2:45 p.m. today and I agreed to go down to the shelter in Ukiah and meet with her.
At 1:11 p.m. a secretary in the county Pubic Health Department called to say that the director Carmel Angelo wanted me to know that Bliss Fisher could not meet with me and that the department would be sending out a press release this afternoon.
SO... that's all I know right now. Presumably this afternoon some time Angelo will send out a press release. What it will be about I have no idea but it looks like they don't want Bliss talking to the press. I suspect they have a hornet's nest of animal activists on the coast they're trying to keep happy and guessed that maybe Bliss might say something to me they don't want aired.
Since I will be at the Redwood Empire Fair this afternoon and evening I don't know if I'll be in the office when this press release is issued. But I'll let you know as soon as I do what the next chapter here is.

Posted by K.C. at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So far three complaints about the Kramer column. The one listed here, and two on the phone. One woman complained bitterly that it was not a good thing to skewer one particular segment of the population, making the ever-popular argument that if you inserted blacks, Jews or some ethnic group where hippies are mentioned the column would have been rejected. Then she goes on to say that she actually agrees with the column's comments about how annoying (especially in the personal exposure department) the hippies can be.
Another caller called the column "spewing hate," and objected to its placement on Page 1, the forum page would have been all right.
Both felt it unfairly tainted the Sundays in the Park events.
Well, I guess I knew we'd get reaction.
Interesting that commenters expressed outrage that what they saw as nothing but negativity would make the front page.
I featured it on Page 1 first because I thought readers would notice something new there - mission accomplished I guess - and second because I thought it was pretty funny and might lighten things up on Page 1.

Posted by K.C. at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

For those of you who enjoyed Sunday's "Assignment: Ukiah "column by Tommy Wayne Kramer, there is more to come. Long time Ukiah residents will remember Mr. Kramer - or at least his well-known nom de plume - from the days of The Grapevine, which if I have it correctly (it was in the 1980s, before my time in the area) was published by the team of George Rose and his wife, Elizabeth. George later became the PR guy for Fetzer Vineyards and was always a hard-working professional photographer. Elizabeth became head of the Ukiah Chamber for awhile. They ended up splitting sometime in the 90s. Elizabeth went back to her native Texas and George moved to greener pastures in Sonoma County. I only saw a couple of editions that were in the UDJ files for one reason or another, but just the small amount I saw I thought was good - given that back then publishing was still done by hand, so to speak - very little computerization. I recall lots of pen and ink drawings and of course all the usual kinds of great alternative weekly content.

Posted by K.C. at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The folks who are circulating the petitions to reverse the supervisors' raise have asked if I would spread the word that they need the petitions back on Monday, not next Thursday, Aug. 9. Originally, Aug. 9 was the date since Aug. 10 was the deadline to get the signatures to the clerk's office for the November ballot. Now that it looks like the supervisors are going to reverse the pay raise - although they will try to bring it back the same day, their vote to reverse will render the petitions moot - the circulators hope to bring as many to the meeting Tuesday as possible. If you have signed petitions, you should return them to the organizers or call the number given to help with petitions to find out where you can bring them.
By the way I have been asked if one of my staffers is among the organizers and that is untrue. It is true that John Graff who is an ad salesman for the newspaper is involved in the effort. John does not work for me and he does not have any role in the newsroom. When the supervisors first gave themselves a 43 percent raise and tied their pay to Superior Court judges, meaning continuing raises ad infinitum, the Daily Journal immediately took the position that it should be reversed. John had nothing to do with that although in this matter we are on the same page. John is also the part-time director of the Employers Council and although this petition effort is not officially sanctioned by the EC, I assume the supervisors see their shadow behind John here.

Posted by K.C. at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to whoever the woman in the red convertible sports car is who bought my latte and croissant at Starbucks this morning! When I got to the drive-up window the fellow told me you had already paid. What a treat. I feel like I should know you but I'm drawing a blank on your car and when I raced out of the drive (sorry to anyone I cut off) to try to catch up with you, you were nowhere in sight. Thanks anyway!

Posted by K.C. at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The board of supervisors quietly added an item to the Tuesday agenda. It doesn't make it clear exactly what they'll talk about but it's actually going to be a discussion of their pay raise. Now that thousands of citizens have signed petitions demanding they reverse their pay raise, they plan to do just that on Tuesday - at least John Pinches, the third vote for the pay raise has decided they need to reverse. The ordinance granting them a pay raise also tied their pay to the Superior Court judges who get nice automatic pay raises each year. Assuming Jim Wattenburger and Mike Delbar maintain their votes against the raise, it should be reversed. However, watch for the supes to immediately turn around and order up a new ordinance letting them keep the extra $20,000.

Posted by K.C. at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here’s something that came across the list-serve for KZYX programmers (of which I am one. I host a one-hour Public Affairs show every second Thursday night.)

on 8/1/07 11:29 PM, (a fellow KZYX programmer wrote):
historical (not hysterical) footnote:
kc meadows used to call her show 'monthly media...' something or other. she'd shoot the (breeze) with jim shields (laytonville observer) and 'cover the county' informally.
personally, i'm ambivalent about using public affairs for 'exposure' promotion of local biz, so my only real point is just that a media review/public access show would still be a joy.
media covering media isn't always navel-gazing.

And my response:
I'm all for whatever ideas anyone has. I started with this radio hour in 1997 with the idea that KZYX was going to have a Ukiah studio any minute. After the first year of “Monthly Media Panel,” the majority of other media in the county seemed not to have time for what used to be a media show, (also the Press-Democrat never wanted to come on and the AVA was banned by KZYX) and the show morphed to just Jim Shields and I. That was fun and I think we talked about some interesting stuff. Then he got involved in some work in his town and didn't have time any more. Then it morphed to me interviewing people. Mary (Aigner, program manager) said she thought it could be a good show if we concentrated more on state issues and got state folks on. I said fine, but I need someone to line this stuff up for me and I'll be there to do the interview. I don't know if you're referring to Suzette's appearance (local photography teacher and UDJ columnist on how to shoot great summer photos) last week as promoting business, I'd disagree, although I would agree it's not the show's usual premise. However, Suzette called me and since I had nothing else lined up I didn't see any reason why not. I pretty much go with whatever Mary thinks would be a good idea - we've done local, and state issues, election debates and all kinds of things. I'm OK with it all, but if KZYX thinks the hour would be better spent in some other way, I can easily step aside.

Posted by K.C. at 04:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I heard today from the folks who are circulating petitions to reverse the Board of Supervisors' 43 percent pay raise that signatures are coming in fast - about 100 an hour when they have volunteers out there. They are collecting signatures at Safeway, Albertson's (which will officially become a Lucky's store this week, which is why our readers got a Lucky's supermarket sales insert in their papers this week) and Raley's with a goal of 4,000 which will give them a cushion for the 3,000 approved signatures they need to get the reversal on the November ballot. They'll be out there in force Friday, Saturday and Sunday. By the way, if they get 3,000 signatures, my understanding is they can take the petitions straight to the Board of Supervisors and the board can then vote to simply accept the reversal and do what the voters want without going to the ballot, or vote to put the measure on the ballot. My advice would be to simply reverse the raise right now and set up a citizen committee to look at the issue. I think they could find seven people who would sit on a committee which would actually give them a raise, but perhaps not such a big one. Pretty much everyone agrees that tying their raises to the judges was greedy and uncalled for. If they tie it to anything, it should be the county employees' rate of increase. And under all circumstances they should be required to vote on it.
On another superviso rtopic, I am hearing that it is fast becoming common knowledge that the travel policy that the board rewrote to give themselves both mileage and fat travel stipends is illegal under California law.

Posted by K.C. at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)