RoguePundit

California's Voters Say Time to Cut Something

Yesterday, Californians resoundingly thumped the various propositions related to the state's budgetary nightmares.   

- 1A:  A rainy day fund that would have also extended the income, sales, and vehicle tax increases for two years.  65.8% against.

- 1B:  Increase and set a floor under education funding.  62.5% against.

- 1C:  Borrow from the lottery and try to boost its revenues.  64.6% against.

- 1D:  Divert $1.7 billion from child services over the next five years.  65.7% against. 

- 1E:  Divert $460 million from mental health programs for two years, and add 1 percent to the income tax on folks earning over $1 million a year.  66.4% against.

Not a single county voted in favor of propositions 1A, C, D, and E, and only three counties voted for 1B:  San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz.  Hmmm. 

Thus, I checked proposition 1A to see what counties came closer to voting yes.  All but one of the counties topping 40 percent for 1A are in/near the Bay Area:  Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterrey, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Yolo Counties.  The outlier was Imperial County, in the southeastern corner of the state.  The results were similar for propositions 1C, 1D, and 1E.

The overall vote on 1B was a bit closer.  The additional counties topping 40 percent were Humboldt, Mendocino, Napa, San Benito, San Joaquin, Solano, Sonoma, and Stanislaus Counties.  All are in/near the Bay Area or extend up the North Coast.  Imperial County was again the lone outlier.

Meanwhile, every county voted for proposition 1F, which prevents pay raises for legislators and statewide officials in years with budget deficits.  The only counties in which less than 70 percent voted for the measure are in/near Southern California:  Fresno, Inyo, Kings, Los Angeles, Orange, Tulare, San Bernardino, and San Diego. 

Fascinating lack of overlap. 

Casino Plans in Yreka

The Yreka area is the ancestral home of the Shasta Indian Nation.  However other tribes have been trying to build a casino there (previous blog here).  Quoting that October 2005 post on reservation shopping...

Neither the Karuk Tribe nor the Shasta Indian Nation have a casino.  The Alturas Rancheria (Pit River Indians who are not affiliated with the Pit River Tribe) in neighboring Modoc County does have a small casino--the 5,000 square foot Desert Rose Casino.  There is little hope that it will grow much, because Alturas is so far off the beaten track.  Note, because the Desert Rose Casino has less than 350 slots, the Alturas Rancheria is designated as a non-gaming tribe...which earns the 9-member Rancheria (four of whom are children) $1.1 million annually via revenue-sharing from the gaming tribes.  The Karuk Tribe also benefits from the revenue sharing, but not the Shasta Nation [because it lacks federal recognition].

The compact that former Governor Gray Davis signed with the Alturas Rancheria allows them to build two casinos, so they've been looking for a second location in a busier market.  They tried without success to gain approval to build a casino in Oakland.  So now they're trying Yreka, and they have some money to splash to make it happen.  According to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, casinos can only be built on aboriginal tribal territory.

Enter Darren Rose of Anderson CA (a few miles south of Redding), who is part of the Karuk Tribe.  He bought several million dollars worth of land just south of Yreka, including a 160-acre site that had been held in patent trust for the Shasta Indian Nation.  However, the Karuk turned down proposals from several Indian gaming companies because they were only offered 10 percent of the take.  Soon, Rose was listed by the Alturas Rancheria as vice chairman, and the Rancheria signed a turn-key contract with Tribal Consultants of Ohio to design and build a gaming facility on Rose's 160 acres.

The Karuk cried foul about an outside tribe trying to develop a casino on the 160 acres, and the Shasta Nation has fought both of them on the same grounds.

At best, the Shasta Indian Nation is years from gaining federal recognition (previous blog here).  Meanwhile, the Alturas Indian Rancheria's proposed gaming facility in Yreka--the Shasta Mountain Casino--has been on hold for some time.  Then finally last week...

The Alturas Indian Rancheria announced in a news release that it is ceasing all efforts to build a casino in Yreka.

“After careful consideration, we realized that many legal challenges prevented us from this goal. The Bureau of Indians Affairs, the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC), the State of California and the Karuk Tribe all identify the allotment lands owned by Darren Rose as under Karuk jurisdiction. Therefore, we are unable to build a casino owned and operated by the Alturas Indian Rancheria,” Tribal Chairman Phillip Del Rosa stated in the release. “We would like to thank John Hay of the NIGC; Carmen Facio of Pacific Regional Office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs; and Dr. Virgil Akins, superintendent of the Northern California Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for giving a fair and balanced look at our project. Further, we respect the stance of the Karuk Tribe and wish to respect their sovereign jurisdiction. We wish Darren Rose all the best in his future endeavors.”

Hmmm...it will be interesting to see what the Karuk Tribe does next.

Nestlé's Thirst

The Arkansas River begins in the high country of central Colorado, flowing generally southeast for awhile before carving its way eastward into the Great Plains and eventually joining the Mississippi.  Nestlé is having some of the same problems in the upper portion of the Arkansas River that it is near Mt. Shasta in McCloud CA.

Nestlé--with 12 U.S. brands of bottled water and almost $4.3 billion in North American sales in 2007--came calling for Arkansas Valley spring water about two years ago. The company wants to draw 65 million gallons a year from an aquifer feeding two freshwater springs near Nathrop, pipe it 5 miles to a truck stop and ship it 100 miles to a Denver bottling facility. It would be sold under the company's Arrowhead brand.

Nestlé has promised to replace all the water it takes from the valley and spend $1 million to restore riverside habitat where a dilapidated fishery sits. It has installed 10 monitoring wells to gauge the health of the underground aquifer that supplies the springs and will monitor wetlands near them.

Nestlé hydrogeologist Bruce Lauerman calls the plan a "sustainable, surgical extraction" of water and describes preserving the pristine water supply by taking only a fraction of its flows.

"We are one of the best things that could happen to these springs," he said. "Our involvement affords a level of protection that other owners and users of this property could never offer."

Maybe.  And is Nestlé really going to replace 65 million gallons of water--about 125 gallons per minute 24/7--with water (that it doesn't want to bottle) from somewhere else?  Actually, yes. 

Colorado is rather like California in that a community can buy up water rights in areas far away.  A good example is Denver, which is in the South Platte River Basin (eventually feeds the Missouri River).  Despite losing a recent lawsuit, Denver still owns significant water rights 100 miles west in the Vail Valley, which across the continental divide in the Colorado River Basin.  And that's only a small piece of Denver's complex water puzzle. 

Aurora, an ambitious suburb on the east side of Denver, has 26 percent of its water rights in the Arkansas River Basin.  That's an average annual yield of 22,700 acre-feet, which is 7.4 billion gallons of water.  Nestlé needs 0.88% of that.  So, it's negotiating a 10-year lease with the city of Aurora for a source that's near the headwaters of the Arkansas River.  That water is roughly 40 miles (and a county) north of where Nestlé wants to drill its Arrowhead Water wells.  Such an energy-efficient plan this is. 

Needless to say, some local residents and environmentalists are a wee bit concerned about the proposal.  Thus, Nestlé has been promoting the economic benefits and sending in an array of experts to help persuade folks.

To help change that attitude, Nestlé is working with county residents to start a community foundation. There is also the lure of jobs and tax money. Construction of the $4 million underground pipeline from the springs to proposed water silos at a truck stop on U.S. 285 would require about 50 workers. County officials also envision millions of dollars from property taxes and from the taxes truckers pay as they gas up.

...

The county's planning and zoning board last month unanimously recommended approval — with about 10 conditions — of Nestlé's special land use plan to build the pipeline and twin-silo loading station. The county must also approve a land-use permit application that allows it to weigh resource and wildlife protection, traffic issues and the county's general well-being. 

The article included a listing of other locations where some folks are battling Nestlé.

Last April, residents of Enumclaw, Wash., rallied to repel Nestlé's plan to annually bottle 100 million gallons of local spring water. Residents of McCloud, Calif., are in a five-year legal battle to stop Nestlé's plans for a water-bottling plant. Residents in Maine, Michigan and New Hampshire also are challenging Nestle's plans to bottle their spring water.

These battles are sometimes more like sieges.  

Still Not Wet Enough

Here in the Grants Pass area, this year is running even drier than the last couple (previous blog here).  At least the snowpack isn't in a tragic state--knock on wood.

While snowpack in the mountains is 86 percent of average in the Rogue and Umpqua basins, lack of rain at lower elevations continued.

Grants Pass has measured below average precipitation for nine consecutive months. The wet season total as of Monday of 14.02 inches was just 57 percent of the average to that date of 24.45 inches.

Here a few miles northwest of town and several hundred feet higher, I've had precip at or below average for 13 straight months--the tie being June.  At the end of February, I was at about 62 percent of average for the rain year.  The biggest culprits were what are supposed to be the wettest months...I average over 16 inches total in December and January but only got about 8 inches. 

March is off to a nice start (1.36")...I'm already more than a third of the way to the monthly average, and it's raining nicely at the moment.  But I'd need to get more than double the average rainfall for the rest of the rain year just to get back to normal.  We could use a repeat of 2005, when March, April, and May each provided over 5 inches of precip.

On Friday, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest's Steve Johnson said that the Ski Bowl Road site at 6,000 feet on Mount Ashland measured 12.5 inches of snow-water, about 59 percent of average, according to the Medford Mail Tribune. The depth was 42 inches, or 62 percent of normal.

The snow water at the Mount Ashland Switchback, 6,500 feet elevation, was 56 percent of average at 15.2 inches. There were 52 inches of snow for 63 percent of normal.

We keep missing the bullseye of the incoming storms.  Lately they've been centered south of us, which has been good for South Jefferson.  As the following 30-day precip map shows, not many parts of the West had a juicy February.

My sister, who lives a few miles east of Redding, had 11.57" for the month of February.  Lake Shasta could use some more gushers like that.  It's now 102.3 feet below crest, which is almost 50 feet better than when I last checked in late January.  That's not a bad thing.

Yreka Still Without a Dutch Bros.

It's been over a year, and the proposed Dutch Bros. in Yreka (previous blog here) still isn't up and running.  Obviously the economy has weakened, and Dutch Bros. recently increased prices (yes, I'm a regular customer).  But, management isn't talking on why there's a delay. 

In March of this year, Alan Harper, an attorney for Dutch Bros, stated that the planning process was completed and that the groundbreaking would take place, with construction to be completed in three months’ time.

Now, eight months later, the lot is still empty and some residents have been wondering why the chain has not followed through with the building.

Crews have removed the old building on the Main Street lot purchased by Dutch Bros., but no new construction has been started. Another espresso drive-though used to occupy the location.

Gina Keough, a public relations spokeswoman for Dutch Bros, said the plans are not moving forward, but further information is not currently available.

I wonder what the point of the secrecy is.  There are still Dutch Bros. opening in other locations.

Bad Santa Could Soon be Released

Over four years ago, I blogged about a 69-year-old gentleman who tried to lure and then yank a young girl into his white Cadillac near the town of Mt. Shasta.  My how time flies...he's paid his dues and could soon be released from prison.

James Harry Milmar Schreiber, the Medford, Ore. man who four years ago tried to lure three small Mount Shasta girls into his car by telling them he was Santa Claus, is scheduled to be released from prison on Nov. 29 in Redding.

The original Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office report stated deputies received a call the evening of June 1, 2004, reporting Schreiber approached three girls, two age 11 and one age 8, near their driveway in Mount Shasta. They said the man tried to give them a jump rope, but they didn’t take it. They said the man then grabbed the 8-year-old girl by her arm and told her to get in his car because he wanted to show her something, and that it was all right because he was Santa Claus.

The girl testified that she screamed and struck at the man, and he let go of her. The three girls ran home to tell their parents. Schreiber was found a block away and was taken into custody. In March of 2005, Schreiber was sentenced by Judge Roger Kosel to 48 months in prison for attempted kidnapping. He received an additional 48 months for false imprisonment of the girl by force or violence, which was to be waived if he successfully served the first 48 months. He also received a concurrent six-month sentence for annoying/molesting a child. He will spend three years on parole and will register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

The Department of Corrections issued a notice stating the release date is subject to change, and that the Nov. 29 date is the earliest projected release date for Schreiber.

It's still curious that the man stayed nearby, seemingly waiting to be caught.  Let's hope that during his prison stay, he's learned to control his destructive urges.  Wonder if his parole will have him staying in the North State? 

Murder Near A Border

Back in mid-July, Michelle Ashlee Dickson of Crescent City CA disappeared.

Her Honda was found burning at 5:30 a.m. July 16 off Highway 101 near South Beach about a mile south of Crescent City, said Del Norte Sheriff's Department Cmdr. Bill Steven. Investigators determined that Dickson, who hadn't been seen since leaving work July 15 and didn't show up for her shift the next day, had planned to meet Miller to sell him 3 ounces of marijuana, valued at about $1,000. The two grew up together in Crescent City.

A search for her was launched, and investigators served warrants at Miller's home that day, seizing a computer, clothing and his 1989 Isuzu truck, which recently had been scrubbed and had pieces cut out of the seat.

Hikers discovered Dickson's body beneath the 345-foot-tall Thomas Creek Bridge at about 7 p.m. Wednesday. Oregon State Police worked on that scene, confirming Dickson's identity and determining that she apparently had been killed, Steven said.

The autopsy showed that she'd been stabbed to death.  But in which state did that occur?  While authorities in both states were working on that question, there was one charge that could be levied against Miller.

At an Aug. 1 hearing, Miller refused to be willingly extradited to Curry County, Ore., to answer to a felony charge of abusing a corpse, stemming from allegations he dropped Dickson's body 345 feet off the Thomas Creek Bridge near Brookings.

That's the highest bridge in Oregon.  Flash forward to this past weekend...   

Miller was transported to a Curry County jail on Sunday from his cell at the Del Norte County jail, where he has been since his July 24 arrest. He was arrested the same day authorities removed Dickson's body from underneath the 345-foot-tall Thomas Creek Bridge.

... 

Miller was extradited on the abuse of a corpse charge. Oregon State Police Detective Blain Allen said the murder charge was filed in Oregon since no similar charge has been issued against Miller in California.

Oh, so she was killed in Oregon?  Not necessarily.

California Department of Justice crime labs to process evidence, and according to Del Norte County District Attorney Michael Riese, investigators still are not certain whether Dickson died in California or Oregon. The state in which she died is important in determining which state has jurisdiction to try Miller for murder.

Allen said Oregon law allows prosecutors to file murder charges against Miller because the body was found within their jurisdiction.

Miller denies he killed Dickson.  If he did, his silence is certainly helping to make the prosecution difficult.

Smoky Agricultural Disaster

Trinity County--in the mountains between Redding and Eureka--has been hit hard by fire this year.  Fortunately, most of the burning has been in relatively remote areas.  Nevertheless, the smoke has been the cause of much whining and fretting in nearby regions.  Have to admit, it was impressively smoky in Redding when I visited there about three weeks ago.   

Sadly last week, we learned that a helicopter went down near the Buckhorn Fire in western Trinity County, killing nine and injuring four. 

The Sikorsky S-61N helicopter had just been refueled when it lifted off more slowly than normal before, struck a tree and plummeted into a hillside, according to National Transportation Safety Board officials.

...

The helicopter was ferrying ten firefighters, two pilots and a U.S. Forest Service employee back to base camp when it fell out of the sky.  

It was" the second-deadliest wildland firefighting accident in the past 30 years."  Grayback Forestry is headquartered a short drive from here in Merlin OR, Carson Helicopters operates out of the airport there, and most of the victims were from the Rogue Valley.  Suddenly the smoke blowing up from California--though mostly from Siskiyou County--is a poignant reminder. 

The smoke is having a lasting impact on some of the folks in Trinity County...though how much of one is still to be determined.  Nonetheless, it's time to seek government help.  

Dense smoke that has filtered out sunlight for weeks, along with drought conditions and sub-freezing temperatures that occurred in April and June, have resulted in serious harm to Trinity County's wine grape growers and ranchers, leading the county to proclaim a local emergency and to seek yet another disaster declaration from California's governor, the State Office of Emergency Services, and Secretary of Agriculture.

County Agriculture Commissioner Mark Lockhart said the declaration regarding smoke damage to crops "is a new and unique thing for the Office of Emergency Services," but the smoke from hundreds of wildfires that erupted after a June 20 lightning storm over Northern California has been so thick in the wine-growing regions of Trinity County that grape growers are afraid they will have no harvest this year.

The smoke has been so thick at times that it blocked enough sunlight to keep growth from occurring, Lockhart said, noting that without adequate sun and heat, sugar doesn't form in the grapes and there may be no harvest this year at all. In some cases, he said "the vines have just stopped."

Indeed, smoke can have an impact on agriculture.  Governors do occasionally declare disasters before we know if anything disastrous has occurred, like for instance when a tropical storm is headed at a region.  And when one considers how low the bar is set regarding disaster assistance for farmers of crops like corn and wheat...  

Below-freezing temperatures that struck in April and as late as June 18 didn't help crops either. His worstcase estimate for the wine grape crop is a loss of approximately 80 percent and about $120,000 in value. Half of that is due to late-season frost and the rest to smoke.

There are a few growing areas close to rivers that were not impacted as heavily by smoke if there were breezes to blow it away, Lockhart said, adding that the frost also damaged some fruit crops.

Lockhart noted that dry conditions combined with cool temperatures resulting from dense smoke have kept grasses from growing as high as usual. He said that has impacted ranchers, particularly in the southern parts of the county, who are bearing additional costs to bring water and supplemental feed to their livestock.

The purpose of the disaster declaration is to allow Trinity County producers to receive state or federal aid for their damaged crops that may be available through the federal farm bill and crop insurance programs.

Some of that makes sense.  Regarding the rest...well, let's just note that justifications for disaster assistance are often exercises in creative writing. 

A Lack of Conservation Penalty

Sometimes one's lack of conservation is indicative of illicit activities.

After nearly 10 months, two people have been sentenced for running a major pot growing operation in a number of properties around Arcata.

Following a plea agreement, Arcata residents John Devoe, 42, and Clare Holmes, 36, were sentenced Wednesday to felony probation and 30 days in jail for commercially growing marijuana in four Arcata properties.

Maggie Fleming, a Humboldt County deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, said the two owned the titles to six properties raided in August 2007 by agents with the Humboldt County Drug Task Force after an anonymous tip.

Of the six properties raided, two of them -- one in Trinidad and another in Arcata -- were found to be clean, Fleming reported.

All together, officers found 234 plants and 24 pounds of marijuana. As part of the pleas, the defendants agreed to forfeit $66,000 from bank and stock accounts, and from money found at a residence.

...

Agents used PG&E records for the properties to obtain search warrants. Those records showed the homes used more than 18,000 kilowatt hours during a 16 month period prior to the search.

It varies by state whether our utility bills are a matter of public record.  Speaking of that, remember last year when Al Gore was being slagged for how much energy he was using in his mansion (embarrassing him into installing some expensive solar panels)?

...according to the Tennessee think tank, while the average American household consumed 10,656 kilowatt-hours last year, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 – more than 20 times the national average.

In other words when it comes to home electricity usage, 18,000 kilowatt-hours over 16 months isn't that much over the national average.  But, that and an anonymous tip was evidently enough to get a warrant for the six properties in question.  Small homes, I guess... 

Conservation Penalties

The public is being bombarded with various strategies for conserving resources.  For instance...

Better insulation at home, less use of the car and even giving up an electric toothbrush can help people in rich nations halve emissions of greenhouse gases, a U.N. report said on Thursday.

"Adopting a climate-friendly lifestyle needn't require drastic changes or major sacrifices," according to the 202-page U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) book entitled "Kick the CO2 Habit: the U.N. Guide to Climate Neutrality".

But what if you're already doing a good job of conserving, and then something like the following happens?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's statewide drought declaration Wednesday was hardly news to north state water suppliers, who already are coping with cutbacks and calling on customers to conserve as sizzling summer temperatures loom.

The Bella Vista Water District has been most draconian, imposing a "drought surcharge" on customers who fail to cut their consumption by 25 percent compared to last year. The district--which serves a host of agricultural customers along with northeast Redding residents--will charge residential users an extra 10 cents per hundred cubic feet of water they use beyond the threshold.

Bella Vista officials learned in April that the district would get only half its typical share of federal Central Valley Project (CVP) water. The district avoided mandatory rationing this year only because it was able to get supplemental water from the Clear Creek Community Services District in Happy Valley.

My parents--ever frugal--lived through the drought in San Jose during the late '80s - early 90s.  The concept there for driving water conservation was similar--take a percentage of one's average consumption and assess a stiff surcharge on any usage above that amount.  They really worked to avoid that surcharge.

But, they already shut off the shower while sudsing, didn't run the water when brushing, rarely ran the dishwasher, didn't have a water feature, rarely washed vehicles, etc., so there was little to save there.  My mom would stop the washing machine and siphon the dirty wash water so they could use it to flush the toilets...and they only flushed because of solids.  They lost fruit trees and perennial vegetables (like asparagus) because those crops suffer without summer water.  Et cetera. 

In other words, because my folks always conserved, they suffered more than most during the drought.  Had they deeper pockets, they could have just paid to consume as desired.  Lesson learned...if the weather begins to look ominously dry, start wasting water. 

Unsuprisingly, my folks enjoy the greater independence of living on a well nowadays.