Jim.Sweeney: October 2009 Archives

So I was wondering ....

President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for ... well, um ... 2009.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger collects an award from a national parks foundation after trying to close hundreds of parks (and settling for slashing hours, raising fees and generally making them less attractive).

Do you suppose Caltrans has created enough havoc on the Bay Bridge this fall to win some national engineering award?

-- Jim Sweeney

Phillip Burton, the congressman and legendary San Francisco political boss, called it his contribution to modern art.

That would be the 1981 congressional reapportionment plan for California.

If you like want to try your hand at abstract art and your dance card is clear for, oh, 2011, the state will soon start accepting applications for appointments to an independent commission that will draw legislative boundaries after the 2010 census.

By passing Proposition 11 last year, voters took the job away from legislators, who used to have the power to pick their own voters. When they couldn't agree, the job fell to the Supreme Court.

Given increasingly sophisticated databases that can mine voter rolls, election returns and an array of demographic data, competitive legislative elections have all but disappeared, except for the occasional primary contest. That's a major reason that the Capitol is populated by hardcore conservatives and unwavering liberals, and cooperation and compromise are treated like cowardice and surrender.

The authors of Proposition 11 exempted congressional districts, in effect choosing self preservation (the state's House members were prepared to spend millions to defeat Proposition 11) over principle. A successful effort by the commission probably would create pressure to extend the system to Congress for the next round of reapportionment.

The state auditor (www.bsa.ca.gov/redistricting) will begin accepting applications for the 14 commission slots on Dec. 15. You're not eligible if you're a registered lobbyist, if you've changed party affiliation in the past five years or if you have made more than $2,000 in campaign contributions. You may be asked to write a 250-word essay. Perhaps an appreciation of Piccaso's work?

-- Jim Sweeney

The California water plan

For residents of the North Bay and North Coast regions, what's the impact of a grand compromise - if there is one - on water in Sacramento?

Most obvious is the bill.

Neither Sonoma nor Marin counties get any water from the state project. Neither do the counties farther up the coast. They would, however, have to help pay off $9.4 billion in state bond debt needed to buy the new plumbing.

So should the bonds be an automatic no vote for North Coast voters? Not necessarily.

There may not be much sympathy for Southern California swimming pools, and there's plenty of reasons to have mixed feelings about Central Valley farmers, some of whom use their subsidized water to grow surplus crops to be sold into federal commodity price support programs.

But a plan that also emphasizes restoration of the deteriorating Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta might be worth paying for. And it might pay dividends for sport and commercial fishermen, two North Coast mainstays, if a healthier delta can reverse the decline in Sacramento River salmon fisheries. Salmon are the real issue in the Delta, but it's easier for those only interested in shipping more water south to demonize smelt.

Does the plan unveiled in Sacramento this week pass that test? I'm want to hear more about it before I decide. What do you think?

-- Jim Sweeney

The Loma Prieta quake gave me a good shake in my third-floor office in Sacramento, more than 100 miles from the epicenter. I arrived in San Francisco a couple hours later, watching houses burn in the Marina from the Golden Gate Bridge.

But the quake story I remember best came two days later when I got a tip that 16 children who had suffered serious injuries in the catastrophic Armenian quake less a year earlier were in San Francisco for medical treatment, having arrived just in time for another quake. I met two of them at the old Shriner's hospital, where they talked about the quake at home that killed 25,000 people and the one they had just experienced.

They were sweet kids, it was a nice day and their stories of survival were a welcome change after a couple of days covering the worst of the damage in the Bay Area. Here's the top of my Oct. 20, 1989 story from the Los Angeles Daily News:

SAN FRANCISCO - Hermine Menjelikian and Mher Pekhlivania were sitting in their classrooms in Soviet Armenia 10 months ago when the walls collapsed on them in a massive earthquake that killed at least 25,000 people.

On Tuesday, they were in San Francisco when the earth again shook violently. They were at the Shriner's Children's Hospital being treated for bone and nerve damage suffered in the Armenian quake.

None of the 16 Armenian children who were brought to the Bay Area Oct. 1 for medical treatment was injured Tuesday, and only an 11-year-old boy was emotionally traumatized by going through a second disastrous quake.

"I told him not to worry," Mher, 13, said in Armenian through the interpreter. "These are very strong structures, not like the ones back home. But he said (about the house where he is staying) 'It's going to fall on us, it's going to fall on us.' "

"I thought earthquakes don't happen here," Mher added ...

A great laugh line from a 13-year-old kid who had seen some frightful tragedies.

 - Jim Sweeney

Apparently time has sweetened Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's view of a bill that tightens the definition of honey for the purpose of commercial sales in California.

At a news conference in July, he blasted AB 1216 by Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, as an example of wasted time and effort while hinting that perhaps it was time to return to a part-time Legislature.

"Well, it's obviously very sad that we are in the biggest financial crisis and we are way overdue to get the budget done and we face a $26 billion deficit," Schwarzenegger said at the time, "and I ask over and over and over the legislators upstairs to just focus on the budget and here they are, they're debating over the definition of honey."

Schwarzenegger also ripped bout measures to end the practice of tail docking (cutting the tails of dairy cattle) and to create a state commission to help blueberry farmers market their crop. But on Sunday, even as he vetoed dozens of bill, he signed all three.

For the record, Evans said the bill is intended to address concerns about deceptively labeled and mislabeled products and to ensure that products using other sweeteners and compounds aren't labeled as honey.

-- Jim Sweeney