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The Governor participated in the discussion California’s Competitiveness at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group’s 7th Annual CEO Business Climate Summit.
Tags: ca, California, Governor, Humboldt, Sacramento, schwartzenegger
Posted in State News | No Comments »
Fishermen are waiting anxiously to find out what this year’s salmon season will look like, as federal fisheries managers meeting in Portland, Ore., this week weigh potential effects of fishing on depleted Sacramento River salmon stocks.
Tags: ca, coast, fishing, fishing season, Humboldt, Humboldt County, Humboldt County News, Local, pot, Sacramento, Salmon
Posted in Times-Standard | Comments Off
DUNSMUIR – Babe Ruth played an exhibition game at its ballpark in 1924, trains brought swagger and jobs, but the flowering dogwood may give Dunsmuir its most enduring legacy.
That’s not what Cindy Foreman had in mind last spring when she planted four dogwood trees across the street from her Brown Trout Cafe and Gallery.
She wanted only to create a living memorial to her mother, Mary Kingsford, who had recently died.
After Foreman bought the cafe five years ago her mother often visited and critiqued Foreman’s view of the drab fence line separating the railroad tracks from Sacramento Avenue.
“She would say to me, ‘Honey, you need something planted over there.’ She loved flowering trees, and so I planted dogwoods to honor her,” Foreman said.
Her friends were so moved by the gesture that they wanted to expand the project. “Some community efforts are slow getting started, but this one just caught fire in the town,” said Barbara Cross.
She joined Foreman, Cheryl Petty of Window Box Nursery and Linda Price of Boxcar Gallery on a committee overseeing the plantings.
“We sold over 50 trees in a matter of months,” said Cross, president of the Dunsmuir Chamber of Commerce. “Most are planted in memory of a loved one.”
The seven varieties – with blossoms in shades of white, pink, deep rose, peach and even an uncommon yellow – will bloom from mid-April through early summer.
The majority of the dogwoods spruce up a section of Sacramento Street that extends to the town’s Amtrak station. Another grouping is in Hedge Creek Park near a waterfall. A few will shed their delicate butterfly-like petals in private yards and through other parts of town.
The dogwood, indigenous to the area, blooms amid fir trees covering the mountains around Dunsmuir. In 1985 it became the town’s official tree.
This year the committee hopes to plant another 50 trees down Dunsmuir Avenue, the main thoroughfare.
Dunsmuir will celebrate its blooming season Saturday, May 29, with a Dogwood Daze festival.
With Kingsford’s living memorial about to bloom for the first time, how does Foreman think her mother would feel about all those blossoms across the street from her daughter’s cafe? “She’d be thrilled,” Foreman said.
DOGWOOD DAZE
For more information about Dogwood Daze, call the Dunsmuir Chamber of Commerce at (530) 235-2177 or go to http://dunsmuir.com
Tags: ca, California, festival, Humboldt, job, meth, Northern California, railroad, Sacramento
Posted in State News | Comments Off
Obituaries: Dennis Kay (McGrath) Benson (Nov. 21, 1937 – Apr. 02, 2010) [Daily Triplicate]
Dennis was born November 21, 1937, in Des Moines, Iowa, and passed away peacefully on April 2, 2010, with her family at her side.
Dennis and her family moved to Modesto, when she was in the 6th grade. She graduated from Modesto High School in 1955. She received her AA degree from Modesto Junior College and later earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Sacramento State College. She began her teaching career in Modesto and then went on to teach in Crescent City. Dennis taught for 35 years in Crescent City and spent 33 of those years at Joe Hamilton Elementary School in room 9.
Tags: ca, Crescent City, Humboldt, Sacramento
Posted in Del Norte County | Comments Off
Did you hear Supervisor Bonnie Neely is holding a fundraiser for her re-election campaign in Sacramento? It’s true. And now the anti-Bonnies are making like Joe Biden and saying hey, this is a BFD.
Feathers have been so ruffled over the affair that a group of locals are going all tea party on the Bonster and following her to California’s capitol to protest the festivities.
In a flurry of emails announcing the protest, one would-be protester compared the fundraiser to the failed campaign by Massachusetts Democrat Martha Coakley who lost a US Senate race to Republican Scott Brown. Kinda underscores the widespread notion that Neely challenger Virginia Bass is the Republican favorite in Dem clothing.
“It didn’t work too well for her and we need to make sure Neely has the same results,” spits the email.
The protest is being organized by Board of Supervisors gadfly Chuck Ciancio, Cutten resident.
Tags: Bonnie Neely, ca, California, CAMP, Cutten, Humboldt, Local, Northern California, Republican, Sacramento, Virginia Bass
Posted in Humboldt Blogs, Opinion | Comments Off
Two popular local psych rock bands, Vampire Hands and Daughters of the Sun, are preparing to leave on a massive month and a half tour of the US.
Tags: ca, Eureka, Humboldt, Humboldt County, Humboldt County News, Sacramento, San Francisco
Posted in Featured Articles | Comments Off
Fishing down south [Daily Triplicate]
DN still holds out hope for season here
From staff and wire reports
Recreational salmon fishermen will again plunk their lines in the waters off much of the California coast this year after a two-year break because of a decline in the number of fish returning to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
But not in Del Norte County, although there’s still hope for some fishing here later in the year.
The short sport season that begins Saturday south of Humboldt Bay is currently scheduled to last only through the month of April, a short respite for a struggling industry.
Tags: ca, California, coast, Del Norte County, Delta, fishing, Humboldt, Humboldt Bay, Sacramento, Salmon
Posted in Del Norte County | Comments Off
Attorneys representing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have asked an appellate court to block the order that ended “Furlough Fridays” for tens of thousands of state workers, but leaves others taking off three unpaid days each month.
The governor’s move came just four days before the government is scheduled to shut down again. The court will probably act quickly, legal experts said, given that informal deadline.
But some state workers, who just a week ago were celebrating a furlough lawsuit win that they hoped would return regular schedules and full pay to at least some colleagues, were feeling whipsawed by the governor’s latest move.
“People were happy,” said Renee Lee, an activist with Service Employees International Union Local 1000. “Now they’re mad again. They want this to end. People just want to get on with their lives.”
The uncertainty also comes as state workers and their families are trying to plan for a holiday weekend. State offices are closed Wednesday for Cesar Chavez Day, and many workers made Easter weekend plans thinking Friday was a furlough day. Until the judge rules, they won’t know for sure.
The governor’s appeal seeks to delay Alameda County Judge Frank Roesch’s order to end furloughs for employees in about 70 departments that get a significant slice of their budgets from sources outside the state’s deficit-ridden general fund. Those departments employ roughly a third of the 200,000 employees on furlough.
Roesch agreed to postpone his ruling ordering back pay for the furlough days until Schwarzenegger’s appeal can be heard. But he refused to postpone the order on furloughs themselves, saying state employees should head back to work while lawyers fight it out in the appellate court.
Now Schwarzenegger has appealed that decision.
Roesch’s decision threatens to irreparably damage the government and “has created confusion and disparity,” Schwarzenegger’s lawyers said in Monday’s court filings.
“For example, if (Roesch’s) rulings and judgment are not stayed, the state will be faced with a situation in which state employees performing like work will or will not be furloughed depending upon the funding source,” the governor’s lawyers argued. That breaks with the concept of equal pay for equal jobs in state civil service.
When presented with that argument in Roesch’s courtroom last year, the unions successfully argued that state law requires the governor to take into account things like a department’s funding source before furloughing workers.
The law, union attorney Adam Zapala said at the time, “requires the government to use a scalpel” and perform “an individualized analysis” of department needs when cutting employee hours.
That wasn’t done, the unions said, so the furloughs are irrational.
Look for the appellate court to move quickly on Schwarzenegger’s request, said Sacramento attorney Wendy York.
“The more significant the legal issues, the more attention these cases receive from the appellate courts,” York said.
A deadline seems to help. In January, after Roesch ordered the state to end furloughs for roughly 35,000 correctional officers, Schwarzenegger asked the 1st Distict Court of Appeal to block the mandate while the governor appealed the decision behind it.
The governor’s attorneys filed the petition for writ of supersedeas on Jan. 13. The court granted it on Jan. 15. The two sides are still battling at the appellate level – and correctional officers are still on furlough.
Tags: attorney, ca, California, court, Governor, Humboldt, job, law, lawsuit, lawyer, Local, Northern California, Sacramento
Posted in State News | Comments Off
Governor Schwarzenegger held a press conference where he signed AB 183 by Assemblymember Anna Caballero and Senator Roy Ashburn to provide a tax credit of up to $10,000 to Californians who are buying their first home or purchasing a brand new home.
Tags: ca, California, Governor, Humboldt, Sacramento, schwartzenegger
Posted in State News | No Comments »
The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) is suffering a second loss this month to the California Coastal Commission.
After a blistering defeat three weeks ago, the San Francisco First District Court of Appeal found sea birds have rights when faced with 4th-of-July yahoos. And like the PLF’s recent Balloon Track lawsuit, the argument was over jurisdiction.
From the Press Democrat:
The case pitted those supporting a July 4 pyrotechnic show in Gualala against those trying to protect sea birds on a island near the Sonoma and Mendocino county line.
The display was halted after two years following complaints that it disturbed sea birds on Gualala Point Island. A study in 2007 indicated sea birds fled their nests at about the time of the fireworks show.
The Coastal Commission said the Gualala Festivals Committee would need to apply for a coastal permit to continue the show. To obtain a permit, the group would need to demonstrate it could avoid upsetting the birds.
Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation sued the commission on behalf of fireworks supporters, contending the commission does not have jurisdiction over fireworks.
Complaints followed the first fireworks show in 2006 when birds fled Gualala Point Island. The island is protected by the federal Bureau of Land Management and part of the California Coastal National Monument Program.
In Eureka, PLF sued the Coastal Commission over the Balloon Track last month, claiming the state agency doesn’t have jurisdiction over any half-baked “clean-up” plans for the contaminated property.
Tags: Balloon Track, ca, California, coast, court, Eureka, festival, Humboldt, law, lawsuit, Mendocino, Mendocino County, Northern California, Sacramento, San Francisco
Posted in Humboldt Blogs, Opinion | Comments Off
The Governor joined U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and deliver remarks at the groundbreaking of the Fish Passage Improvement Project at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam.
Tags: ca, California, Governor, Humboldt, Sacramento, schwartzenegger
Posted in State News | No Comments »
Eric Clawson knocked out a bar patron, and witnesses say a racial epithet preceded the Chico attack.
A San Francisco man is facing prison after being found guilty Wednesday of punching an African American man because of his race and the fact he was enjoying himself at a Chico bar.
A jury of six women and six men deliberated 2½ hours at the conclusion of a three-day trial in Sacramento federal court before finding Eric Loren Clawson guilty of a hate-based violation of Carl Whitfield’s civil rights.
Clawson, 28, was taken into custody following the verdict. He was handcuffed and escorted out of the courtroom by deputy U.S. marshals as distraught family members, including his parents and sister, looked on.
Once an amateur mixed martial arts champion in the light heavyweight division, Clawson knocked the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Whitfield down and out with one punch. Witnesses said he was out for 20 to 30 seconds, and in a daze for a while.
Clawson testified he approached a group that included Whitfield and inquired why they were looking across the room at him and “seemed disturbed.” When he asked, “What’s the problem?” Whitfield stood up and faced Clawson, looking angry and “ready to fight,” so Clawson went on the offensive, he said.
The element of surprise is a bar fighter’s best friend, and Clawson testified he’s been in dozens of them.
He acknowledged that earlier, in ordering and paying for drinks, he made two remarks to the bartender that included a racial epithet generally applied to African Americans.
But, Clawson testified, he was not describing Whitfield but meant it as a euphemism for “cheap.” He said he saw Whitfield only later when he and others around him began staring and acting as if they were unhappy with Clawson.
Whitfield, his girlfriend and bartender James Kellon Thompson testified that as Clawson and friend Joe Grivette entered Riley’s Bar & Grill on the night of July 6, 2008, somebody said, “I’m not sitting here with that n—–,” and it came from their direction.
The three prosecution witnesses said Clawson, without provocation, wordlessly walked up behind Whitfield, tapped him on the shoulder and, when Whitfield turned, hit him.
Clawson denied using the epithet in reference to Whitfield, insisting he didn’t even see Whitfield when he came into Riley’s that Sunday night.
“That’s nonsense,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Carlberg told the jury in a rebuttal argument.
“He saw Carl Whitfield. Everybody knows it. He picked him out and attacked him.”
Defense lawyer Emily Doringer told the jury in her closing argument that, while her client is a brawler, he bears no racial animus and only one other of his many altercations involved an African American man.
“He has no problems interacting, socializing and otherwise dealing with African Americans,” she said. “There’s just no history here.”
She noted that Whitfield and girlfriend Noelle Keese testified they heard a racially derogatory comment when Clawson and Grivette came in, but did not tell that to Chico police officers who took their statements shortly after the incident.
“That means there is doubt,” Doringer argued.
She also said that, if Clawson were going to direct an epithet at Whitfield, he would have done it when he approached him, but he said nothing.
“That is serious doubt about what was going through Mr. Clawson’s mind,” she told the jury.
“He let his fist do the talking,” was Carlsberg’s rejoinder.
Clawson and Grivette were both charged with the hate crime.
Grivette, 29, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge a week ago and validated the prosecution’s version of the incident.
Grivette was outside when Clawson felled Whitfield. But minutes before the punch, as he left Riley’s, he assured his friend, “Whatever you do, I’ve got your back.”
Under the terms of a plea bargain, Grivette’s lawyer is free to argue for as little as two months behind bars.
Clawson’s sentencing is set for June 10. His crime carries a maximum 10 years in prison.
Tags: attorney, ca, California, court, Humboldt, law, lawyer, marsh, Northern California, Sacramento, San Francisco, Trial
Posted in State News | Comments Off
Two bus loads of Mendocino College students joined thousands of others on Monday, rallying in Sacramento to protest slashed budgets and rising fees at California’s community colleges.
Tags: ca, California, Humboldt, Mendocino, Northern California, Sacramento, Ukiah
Posted in Mendocino-Lake Counties | Comments Off
Horizon Air today announced several changes to its summer schedule. The new schedule increases service in several markets while refining others to meet shifting summer demand.
The summer schedule focuses on increased service in the states of Montana, California and Idaho as well as the cities of Reno, Nevada and Portland, Ore. Below is a market-by-market listing. All changes take effect on June 6, unless noted otherwise.
Increased Service
Reduced Service
Horizon serves 48 cities throughout Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Baja California Sur (Mexico), and British Columbia and Alberta (Canada). Together, Horizon Air and Alaska Airlines serve more than 90 cities and are subsidiaries of Alaska Air Group, Inc. (NYSE:ALK).
Tags: ca, California, Eureka, Humboldt, Oregon, Sacramento, San Francisco
Posted in Humboldt County News | No Comments »
Area lovers of the Isleton Crawdad Festival may need to put a little more gas in the tank to enjoy the annual Father’s Day weekend event.
It’s likely moving to Red Bluff.
The 2008 festival left the Isleton Chamber of Commerce $100,000 in the hole, prompting the insolvent group to sell the festival to a Red Bluff horse owners association, hoping to move the event there.
The annual festival, which began in 1986, used to draw thousands of people to the tiny town of 800 residents in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, about 40 miles south of Sacramento.
The horse group is reportedly close to finalizing a deal with the Tehama County fairground and has been talking up its version of the Crawdad Festival to Red Bluff civic leaders and officials as a “red neck Mardi Gras.”
“It will be hot crawfish and hot times in Red Bluff,” said Cindi Hand, former president of the Isleton chamber. The defunct chamber will help the Wild Horse Owners Association the first year.
In exchange for a small cash payment and a cut of the proceeds for the first five years of operation, Hand said the horse owners association bought the rights to the event’s name, the vendor lists, dance floors, tents and cooking equipment.
Hand said her group was open to keeping the event closer to its Delta roots, but the horse owners made the best offer. Association manager Brian Craig did not return calls for comment.
Mark Eidman, chief executive officer of the Tehama District Fair, said he isn’t sure what the new festival organizers will call the event, but fair officials are happy to have the business.
“Anytime we can bring people in it’s a good thing,” Eidman said.
The Tehama County fairground are 130 miles north of Sacramento, off Interstate 5. Hand said festivalgoers will no longer have to navigate the twisty levee roads to Isleton that would back up during the event.
Kristen Behrens, president of the Red Bluff Chamber of Commerce, said bringing the fair north fits into a chamber effort to attract more tourists to Red Bluff – which is primarily known for the Red Bluff Round-Up rodeo event.
“We eat anything,” said Behrens, marketing manager of a local bank. “We are not just a beef-eating town.”
Isleton City Manager Bruce Pope said he’d like to see the festival remain in Isleton, but he’s not going back to the days where the city was running it at a loss.
“Cities are not set up to be in business,” Pope said. “I love the Crawdad Festival, but we all have our proper roles.”
Tags: ca, California, Delta, festival, Humboldt, Local, Northern California, Sacramento
Posted in State News | Comments Off
