“Some senior engineers at Tokyo Electric Power Co. knew for years that five of its nuclear reactors in Fukushima prefecture had a potentially dangerous design flaw, but the company didn’t fully upgrade them, dooming them to failure when the earthquake hit, a Wall Street Journal examination of the disaster shows.
“The company used two different designs for safeguarding its 10 reactors in Fukushima. When the devastating quake struck on March 11, the five reactors with the newer design withstood the resulting 45-foot tsunami without their vital cooling systems failing. Those reactors shut down safely.
“But the cooling systems failed at four reactors with the older design. Backup diesel generators and electrical-switching equipment were swamped by seawater. As a result, fuel melted down at three reactors and there were explosions at several reactor buildings, culminating in the largest release of radiation since Chernobyl.”
Editor’s note: Blogging is a tough job, so I was pleased to receive kudos from Robert Speer, editor of the Chico News & Review, for questioning our Assemblyman Dan Logue’s ethics in naming a campaign contributer as his “Business of the Year.” Over the years, I’ve pointed to some sage reporting by the CN&R myself, including “The post daily world.”
Speer, whom I’ve never met, has been more respectful of my journalistic acumen than The Union’s editor/publisher jackerman@theunion.com (who is still sitting on this story) or the local “wingnut” bloggers, who enjoy touting their friendship with Jeff A. and mocked me for questioning Logue’s ethics.
Not only that but Speer did not raise the possibility that I might be a “complete dick,” as “Jeff” did the other day, a vulgar remark that led to the suspension of an MSNBC commentator (but not “jackerman” — sort of a vulgar email handle in its own right). The internet is changing the way we communicate in small towns — and apparently riling the “good old boys.” Here’s Speer’s report:
“Most CN&R readers probably aren’t familiar with The Territorial Dispatch, a free weekly publication based in Marysville and distributed in Yuba, Sutter, Colusa and Nevada counties. It’s full of press-release material (“Premier Mushrooms L.P. providing summer jobs to students”) and folksy columns (“Fishin’ Talk,” by Boots Johnson) mixed in with a smattering of local news and lots and lots of red-country claptrap.
Here’s how The Territorial Dispatch is described on the Yuba-Sutter Wiki:
“There is a decidedly right-wing political bias as well as a religious-right bias to this newspaper. Opinions of the editors suggest that global warming is a hoax. The views promoted by the Territorial Dispatch are consistent with those of the Christian Reconstructionist movement.”
I mention all this because I recently received a press release from our local assemblyman, Dan Logue, announcing that he’d honored The Territorial Dispatch as the “2011 Small Business of the Year” in his district. Logue is fulsome in his praise of the paper, calling it “a very important part of our rural news community, providing news and information services to many remote cities and towns.”
What Logue fails to mention is that the paper’s owners, John Mistler and wife Kitty O’Neal, have also provided him with major campaign cash—$14,000 in the 2007-08 cycle, for example.
Let’s get this straight: Logue takes money from the paper’s owners, then spends taxpayer dollars to fabricate and deliver an award to those same owners, casting their paper in a favorable light.
This leads Jeff Pelline, a retired journalist (he was editor of the Grass Valley Union, among other jobs in the trade) and avid blogger (“Jeff Pelline’s Sierra Foothills Report”), to ask: “How does that make all the other hard-working small businesses in Dan’s district feel? What gall!”
This is yet another example of Logue’s rather carefree personal ethics. Readers may remember that in September of last year I wrote that he’d once failed to pay some $28,000 in back taxes, resulting in 16 different liens on various properties he’d owned.
Now he’s publicly honoring his campaign donors—without mentioning the money they gave him. Pelline’s right: Other small-business owners in his district should be indignant, as should voters.
I’ve enjoyed the entrepreneurial spirit of Amazon.com over the years. I was one of the first in the media to interview founder Jeff Bezos while at CNET.
I bought (and sold) some Amazon stock a few years ago for our son’s education account — in this case, at least, a well-timed and profitable transaction. It seemed overvalued.
I’m also an “Amazon Prime” customer, and just last week, I bought a “window fly trap” through Amazon, a non-toxic trap that attracts and traps them — helpful in the summer months. I shop at Amazon throughout the year, supplementing local purchases.
But I’m going to stop buying from Amazon.com, because — unlike the brick-and-mortar counterparts in California — they won’t collect sales tax to help our state out of its financial hole.
To the contrary, they are becoming more aggressive and backing out of states who ask them to collect sales tax.
“Amazon has closed or canceled new warehouses in states challenging its tax-collection policy,” choosing states such as Arizona and Indiana instead. Amazon’s VP praised Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, who didn’t demand sales tax payments.
True to form, our local right-wing contingent blames Gov. Brown, not Amazon. Aaron Klein, our “nonpartisan” trustee at Sierra College, pointed to the “havoc wreaked by our Governor and state legislators.”
“How stupid can our legislators be to kill off 10,000 entrepreneurial business for the promise of a few dollars in tax revenue,” adds Russ Steele. (He more or less concedes the commission from the affiliate program that Amazon is canceling in California still couldn’t pay for his breakfast at Humpty Dumpty’s in Grass Valley).
A few dollars? No. Supporters contend the policy will generate $300 million a year in needed state and local government revenue. Some of it could trickle down to Sierra College, where Klein is a trustee, or to a state park where Steele might like to take his RV.
A better question is to ask whether it’s fair for Amazon to not collect state sales taxes, just as brick-and-mortar stores do.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that mail-order companies do not have to collect a state’s sales tax unless they have a local physical presence, such as a store. It is an outdated rationale that came long before the internet.
Instead of being proactive, Amazon is sitting back, waiting for Congress to act, and pointing fingers elsewhere. Bezos is a billionaire — he could lead by example.
“And I don’t think our customers would say, ‘Why don’t you just optionally collect the tax?’” Bezos said recently. “I know you’re not required to do it, but aw, go ahead.”
Well, Jeff Bezos, aw, go ahead. Do it for California. Do it for Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, I’m not buying from your store.
The best part of the longrunning AtPac v. Aptitude Solutions copyright infringement lawsuit is the “story within a story,” as I’ve mentioned previously.
I’ve been interested in how certain information about the case, which also mentions clerk-recorder Greg Diaz as a defendant, gets leaked and why. It can help shine a light on whether there are political motives in this case that go well beyond arcane copyright law.
The community has a right to know about any political ax grinding, because it could wind up bearing some of the costs for an inevitable out-of-court settlement, along with insurers.
When it comes to making political hay out of this case, much of my concern goes back to Tom McClintock’s inappropriate statement at a tea party rally that it was time to replace the “left-wing” clerk-recorder with Barry Pruett, whom McClintock heartily endorsed. For the record, Diaz is a “decline to state” voter with experience in the Elections Office.
Pruett had no such resume, though he was endorsed by die-hard GOP supporters, such as McClintock and hard-right members of the local GOP central committee. Even Aaron Klein, the big GOP supporter from neighboring Placer County, endorsed Pruett (while conceding he never met his opponent). This was supposedly a nonpartisan race.
Our two moderate conservative supervisors, Nate Beason and Ted Owens, endorsed Diaz because he was the most experienced for the post.
As for lingering political motives in the case, I noted on April 16 that local right-wing blogger Russ Steele — who has been sympathetic to Pruett and AtPac, along with his fellow political bloggers — went so far as to link directly to unredacted court documents from the case marked as “highly confidential/attorney’s eyes only” to make his point. It led to the release of the home address of an employee who was involved in the case.
I asked: “Who leaked the documents to Steele and why? Was this issue of redaction — to protect the privacy of people who are involved — not explained to Steele?” After my report appeared, Steele redacted the information.
Now another twist in the case has surfaced on the blogs sympathetic to AtPac and Pruett — raising the same issues.
In “The AtPac Suit — more fumes ascending,” right-wing blogger George Rebane writes, “I have received a PDF copy of this contract that is also available from the Nevada County's website here," Rebane writes.
But like Steele, he does not say from whom. Where's the transparency?
Worse, from my perspective, is the continued innuendo in the case from the hard right blogs without a shred of hard evidence.
Examples:
•"Local blogs broke the news, and have been following, the ongoing corruption in the Clerk Recorders Office at the County Rood Center.” (NCMediaWatch, April 16, 2010)
What corruption? Where’s the proof?
•”I too was and am a supporter of Barry Pruett, and found it more than remarkable that Mr. Diaz’s record was so purposely ignored by the Nevada County establishment (I’m not ready to call it the ‘machine’ yet, but let’s see what comes out of Rood Center first).” (George Rebane)
What record? What “machine”?
•”In all honesty Russ and when this whole thing started in June 2008, I naively thought that we could talk to the BOS and tell them the truth about what Diaz was doing…and they would listen. I was wrong.” (Barry Pruett)
What “truth about what Diaz was doing?”
•”It is my experience in elections here in Nevada County that incompetence is never an impediment to the post. Every election in my political life here was screwed up so I don’t have any expectations with Diaz.” (Todd Juvinall)
What “incompetence” related to elections?
When the stories appear on the right-wing blogs they inevitably wind up in The Union. In “County ordered internal investigation in AtPac case,” the newspaper writes, “According to a document obtained by The Union, . . .”
Obtained from whom beyond the document on the county’s website? Who did the nudging?
In addition, the reporting of a single “Exhibit A” from this document that singles out an employee who allegedly ordered the scrubbing — without the full report — raises more questions that it answers.
It borders on the irresponsible, just like posting a unredacted document that exposed another employee’s home address.
As for selective reporting, I also wonder why neither The Union nor the right-wing bloggers pointed to this sentence in the contract’s “statement of work”:
“Interview appropriate staff as recommended by the county, but at a minumum, the following individuals: Mr. Stephen Monaghan, IGS Director, Chief Information Security Officer for the county, Network Administrator for the County” and some other officials in the IT group.
But nowhere does the investigation mention interviewing anyone in the clerk-recorder’s office. It is IT focused.
So where’s the evidence of the alleged “ongoing corruption” in the clerk-recorder’s office?
Where’s the “machine”?
Where’s the beef?
I also noticed that this report surfaced ahead of oral arguments for AtPac’s motion to find summary judgment in its favor on Tuesday.
Trustee Aaron Klein is trolling the comments of SacBee.com to defend the hire of Willy Duncan as president — and a salary that calls for built-in annual raises during the budget crunch.
“Retiring Sierra College President Leo Chavez fondly called his successor ‘the new guy,’ before telling a room full of administrators, trustees and donors that he feels confident he is leaving the college in good hands,” SacBee.com reported. “Incoming President Willy Duncan will officially take the helm of the Rocklin campus Friday.
“He’s going to do a great job for this institution,” Chavez said at the fourth annual Sierra College President’s Breakfast on Wednesday morning. (Posted at 12:10 p.m.)
Then in the comments:
•marine4ever
So how much they paying this hero
•Aaron Klein
$215K, which is at the low-end of market for his position. We believe good leadership saves taxpayers money, but we’re also fortunate to have hired great leaders willing to take what we can afford to pay. (I’m a trustee at Sierra.)
•icansee
probably more than the last guy. You know, gotta get and retain the best the world has to offer.
But here’s the kicker than Klein left out: Duncan’s package also includes stipulations providing for an annual raise of $5,000 as well as $15,000 to cover relocation expenses.
The salary contract, signed by Klein, reads: “The board will provide the President a salary increase in the amount of $5,000 starting on July 2012 and annually thereafter so long as the President receives a SATISFACTORY evaluation. NO FURTHER BOARD ACTION IS NECESSARY TO AFFECT THIS SALARY INCREASE.”
Wow. A “built-in” raise just as the state budget is cutting back costs at “JC’s.”
Politicians like Aaron, who is supposed to be in a nonpartisan post but is a big hard right booster, like to blast government spending. His favorite target is President Obama, Jerry Brown and the Democrats.
But when it comes to their own negotiating talents, just “go with the flow.” Can you spell “hypocrite”?
Editor’s note: Moonshine Ink has a cool article about “new blood” that is helping to revitalize Tahoe City.
“Tahoe City residents have been beaten over the head, time and time again, with all that is struggling in their town — commercial vacancies, population declines, high real estate values,” according to Moonshine Ink. “Most everyone can count off a slew of factors contributing to the frays in Tahoe City’s economic and social fabric. But frankly, most Tahoe City residents are sick and tired of hearing that their town is down. Instead, they are embracing their community, choosing to stay positive, and looking to what can be done.
“The numbers tell one side of the story
“There is no getting around the fact that Tahoe City has some very real issues that threaten its vitality.
“Data from the 2010 Census revealed that the town’s population dropped by 11.6 percent since 2000. Of the 2,119 total housing units in the Tahoe City/Sunnyside census-designated place, only 35.1 percent are occupied full time. An eye-opening 58.5 percent of all housing units in Tahoe City are second homes.
“While Tahoe City’s population has dropped, its home prices remain high. According to data collected by the Tahoe Sierra Board of Realtors for the first quarter of 2011, the median price for homes sold between Dollar Hill and Tahoe City was $653,000. Down the West Shore, the median home price was $550,000. Truckee’s median price for the same period, by contrast, was $375,000.
“Yet, to residents like 33-year-old Brendan Madigan, who is president of the Tahoe City Downtown Association, manager at Alpenglow Sports, and still rents his home, none of the drawbacks to Tahoe City outweigh the town’s lakefront location and community.
“I may not be able to afford a house here,” Madigan said. “But if town could be really rad one day, then that’s a better — another — alternative.”
“To carry their town forward and guide Tahoe City’s evolution, Wilderotter and other established community leaders and business owners point to the next generation that is stepping up to the plate and getting involved with the local community.
“It’s the next generation; it’s new ideas,” said Don Fyfe, owner of Alpenglow Sports. “I think it’s very important that we get that new thought process in there.”
The sendoff for Nevada City manager Gene Albaugh, who is retiring, was on Tuesday. Details here. Peter Van Zant posted photos of the event on his Facebook page. Social media is changing how we communicate in small towns:
“Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann claimed Wednesday that the media is rooting for a catfight between her and Sarah Palin,” according to CNN.
“‘They want to see two girls come together and have a mud wrestling fight, and I am not going to give that to them,” Bachmann told a voter Wednesday who asked about her relationship with the former Alaska governor.
“The Minnesota congresswoman praised Palin and said there is room in the Republican presidential race for any candidate.
“‘This race is wide open and we can accommodate all the candidates who want to come in,’ she said.
“She urged Republicans to unite behind ‘the ultimate goal’ of defeating President Barack Obama in 2012.”
Methinks Michele projects too much, though I’ve always wondered about the appeal of Bachmann and Palin to retired white males who are over 60 and very conservative. Is there a Karl Rove internal “memo” on that?
The biggest component of the new state budget is a $4 billion assumption of higher revenues in 2011-12, as the Sacramento Bee points out. The “trigger” cuts are essentially in three tiers, based on how much of the extra $4 billion is collected.
Tier 0: If the state gets $3 billion to $4 billion of the money, the state will not impose additional cuts.
Tier 1: If the state gets $2 billion to $3 billion of the money, the state will impose about $600 million of cuts, including:
– $100 million cut to UC – $100 million cut to CSU – $100 million cut to In-Home Supportive Services hours
– $100 million cut to Department of Developmental Services – $80 million cut to public safety programs
– $30 million cut to community colleges triggering a $10/unit fee hike
— $23 million across-the-board cut to childcare funding
– $20 million cut to Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation – $16 million cut to California State Library in library grants
– $15 million cut related to Medi-Cal Managed Care
– $15 million cut to California Emergency Management Agency
– $10 million cut to Department of Social Services in anti-fraud grants
Tier 2: If the state gets $0 to $2 billion of the money, it will also impose as much as $1.9 billion in additional cuts:
– $1.5 billion reduction to K-12 schools that allows districts to drop seven classroom days. That would lower the required total to 168 days, down from 180 days three years ago.
– $248 million cut that eliminates school bus transportation
– $72 million cut to community colleges.
All cuts would take effect Jan. 1, 2012, except for the school year reduction, which districts could impose starting Feb. 1, 2012.
