As reported today, there’s a Stockton angle on the late Jeanne Cooper, the famous Katherine Chancellor on the “Young and the Restless.” She attended the College of the Pacific and performed in Stockton opera and theater troupes.
More trivia: In 1965, she appeared in the western “The Big Valley,” set in Stockton.
Want to see how Cooper earned her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
Over the last five years, the median household income for Los Angeles residents fell about 5.6 percent. But the wage for employes of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power rose 15 percent.
During the Great Recession. Words almost fail.
The utility union has fought release of this information, though the release is legally required. Because when you are striving to preserve your status as a privileged elite during times of sacrifice for others, release of information will surely arouse public opposition. Better to keep the poor suckers who pay your compensation in the dark.
The L.A. Times has the story here.
The Sierra Club of California, rallying to the defense of the Delta, has written Gov. Jerry Brown a letter saying the Bay Delta Conservation Plan’s the tunnel proposal “will be disastrous for the environment, the cultural resources and the economy in the Delta.”
“Your administration seems to be focused on, if not obsessed with, building a large water conveyance project no matter what its impacts on the ecosystem and economy in Northern California,” the letter says.
What’s heartening here is the Sierra Club has irised down onto the Delta region’s economy and culture. Environmentalists don’t usually bother to recognize the non-ecological impacts — us.
Calling the BDCP plan “old-fashioned,” the Sierra Club wrote, “California needs 21st-century leadership on water policy that fully considers a wide range of alternatives that address how we can reduce water loss from existing infrastructure, preserve water quality, improve conservation across the state and across sectors of the economy, and restore watersheds to help California meet its essential public health, economic, and environmental goals.
“Rather than rushing to a tunnel solution, we urge you to reconsider your position on the Delta and explore alternative plans to lead California in a bolder, more enlightened and comprehensive direction on water supply policy.”
Bravo! Read the whole letter here.
Allegiant Air, which serves Stockton, is locked in a battle with its flight attendants over a union contract.
The attendants unionized a while back. But they have not succeeded in negotiating their first contract with Allegiant.
As part of its campaign to win hearts and minds — and to embarrass the heck out of Allegiant — the Transport Workers Union Local 577 sent out an “Allegiant Delay Survival Kit.”
The “delay” alludes to the nightmarish, 26-hour delay of an Allegiant flight out of Stockton in November, shortly after Allegiant inaugurated flights to Hawaii.
The kit includes:
—An “all day airplane sucker.”
—A Lei “for your de-lei.”
—And the above souvenir t-shirt. It reads, “I flew Allegiant to Hawaii and all I got was a lousy 52-hour delay.”
The discrepancy between the delay time we reported and the union’s figure I cannot reconcile. But I can say two things. First, it is refreshing to see a union using its wits in this clever way. Attempting merely to embarass your employer with true information is much fairer play than, say, coal strikes in West Virginia, which deploy everything from jackrocks to dynamite.
Second — speaking personally — I’m grateful Allegiant serves Stockton’s airport. I enjoyed a great, affordable vacation to Palm Springs when they had flights there; thousand of Stocktonians enjoy trips to Vegas; and the Hawaii flights are welcome, too, if not the horrendous delay. But that was, after all, an exception.
Wonder what the union will come up with next.
A state lawmaker tackles another dubious Valley factory farming method: “plumping” chickens and turkeys by injecting them with salt water and “other substances.”
Assembly Bill 682 by Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier would ban this poultry in state buildings: schools, offices, prisons.
If you’re curious about those “other substances,” read the MoBee story here.
Dofman Pacific, the Stockton hatmaker, set up shop at the recent Kentucky Derby. Cap Public radio has the story.
California Forward, a statewide government reform group, held a symposium recently on the Valley.
“This regional forum is showing the optimism and it’s showing the ambition to really renew this part of the state,” said Kish Rajan, the director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.
The video is quite modest. But it’s a good portal through which to learn more about California Forward’s efforts in the Valley.
A Diana Beuttner posted a photo on Mayor Anthony Silva’s Facebook page of a ”Truth Truck” ostensibly parked outside my house.
“Thou shalt not spew propaganda with the truth truck in town Mr. Fitzgerald. Consider yourself had by the truth truck,” she crows.
Beuttner was the woman involved in Stockton’s Occupy movement. You remember: while writing in chalk outside City Hall, she claimed she was deliberately bumped by City Manager Bob Deis. Police disagreed. All the failed Stockton movement achieved beside this puerile conflict was to turn Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza into a homeless day camp.
Now this. I could object that posting my house is an attempt at intimidation. What else is the purpose of saying, “We know where you live?” Or that it puts me at risk for the sort of vandalism Mayor Kathy Miller suffered, and could put my family at risk.
But I won’t, because … that’s not my house.
That’s not my house, genius.
I do feel Beuttner has done a service. She has shown the combination of ingorance and edgy behavior that many of Silva’s suporters substitte for reasoned civic debate. She could have argued the merits of Silva’s plan, or attacked my arguments. That is how cities argue out better policy.
Grown-ups who believe civic debate should be fact-based can read an independent analysis of Silva’s tax plan here. The experts conclude it is a disaster in the making.
Sports team owners make money in two ways: through the sale of tickets and concessions, and by skinning cities on arena deals.
The SacBee is trying to work out the amount of public funds its proposed new King’s arena would require. Best guess: $258 million to $334 million. At the low end, that subsidy is about 58 percent of the arena’s projected $448 million cost. At the high end … whew.
For comparison, Stockton’s arena cost $69 million
I haven’t studied Sacramento’s arena deal. But prudent Sacramentans should ignore the rah-rah of fiscally indifferent King’s fans who care only about keeping the team and study that deal real, real close. You can bet the rich team owners are scouring it to find every possible way to enrich themselves further at taxpayer expense. Good watchdogging now will save a lot of fiscal grief down the road. Trust a Stocktonian on that.
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