The Desert Sun from Palm Springs, California • Page 41

THE DESERT SUN SUNDAY, JUNE 17, 2007 D3 A ATI! Ci Xa Vi' i I 1 i I. A If A 1 1 ru II Jit I 1 I i Last week's business highlights Morris Beschloss GLOBAL ECONOMICS IF YOUR BUSINESS, YOUR NEWS JOB CHANGES Drew Erickson has joined Desert Commercial "PIS Great con job by ethanol industry I I (I Pb, I 1 1 The Indio Chamber of Commerce welcomed new member El Taco Maco with a ribbon cutting ceremony June 9. A rocking dance floor at Red 74 on Ferguson, Bernheimer split called 'amicable' PALM DESERT Longtime law partners Jim Ferguson and Rob Bernheimer are parting company. Ferguson, a city councilman in Palm Desert, and Bernheimer, mayor of Indian Wells, opened their practice in Palm Desert 1 1 years ago this month, Ferguson said. The firm, Ferguson Bernheimer, specializes in government relations, real estate and business law.

Clients of the firm have included Waste Management, Advertising and the Vintage Club in Indian Wells. Both men described the business split as amicable. "Jim and I have been friends since before we moved to the desert and will continue to be friends and will have projects we'll be working on together," Bernheimer said. "We'll just be doing them in our separate practices." Ferguson said it's not about money. "It was a great partner ship when we were in the same office.

It will be a great partnership when we're in different offices." One joint project that will continue is the Las Vegas golf tournament the two men started hosting for clients and associates when they both worked in Sacramento, Ferguson said. Rattlesnake restaurant moving to Palm Desert COACHELLA Renowned chef-owner Jimmy Schmidt's casual elegant Rattlesnake restaurant will relocate this fall to the new Classic Club clubhouse, centerpiece for the Arnold Palmer-designed Classic Club Course in Palm Desert. The Rattlesnake's five-year lease ends Sept. 22 at the Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella, and a day later the restaurant expects to open in the new Tuscan-style clubhouse, said Esrick Lewis, general manager of the restaurant. Schmidt's Rattlesnake, which features a high-end seasonal menu with prime certified angus beef, free-range poultry and premium seafood, last summer earned the Diamond 5-Star Dining Award from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences.

A new steakhouse to be called Jem is slated to replace the Rattlesnake at Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella, said Paul Speirs, a spokesman for the casino, which is a business venture of the Twen-tynine Palms Band of Mission El Concrete of Indio as executive vice president Formerly with Granite Construction Vwil Company for more Wk3 than If) vpars Erickson Erickson will oversee all concrete contracting operations. Ed LaRusso has joined Leeds Son in Palm Desert as store director and general manager. LaRusso has more than 35 years experience in store operations and training, most recently with Baily Banks Biddle as LaRusso regional manager and training director. Desert Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce announced its newly elected officers for the 2007-2008 term: president, Gloria Nelson of Executive Administrative Support Services; 1st vice president; Rhonda Rascoe, Realtor with First Western Properties; 2nd vice president, Ma Farley of Elite Land Tours; 3rd vice president, Alta Hester; treasurer, Randy Duncan of Desert Investments; and secretary, Linda Blake. Newly elected directors, Eric Pontius of Playoffs and Patrick Sturgeon of Two Bunch Palms Resort will serve three years.

Eric Morous has been named the new director of group services, event planning, and sales and marketing for the Kaiser Restaurant Group. For the past two years, Morcus served as the operations manager Morcus for Kaiser, which owns five restaurants in the Coachella Valley, The Kaiser Grille, The Chop House and Crazy Bones Barbeque in Palm Springs, The Chop House in Palm Desert and Hog's Breath Inn in La Quinta. Lon Dlllman has been promoted to the position of assistant. office manager of Granite Construction Company, Southern California Branch. Dillman joined Granite in 2005 when he began his training towards becoming an office manager.

Dillman OPENINGS MOVINGS The city of Palm Desert has opened its new Freedom Park at Country Club and Liberty drives. The 26-acre, $10 million park features multiple playgrounds, sports fields, basketball, tennis and volleyball courts, walking paths, a dog park, community garden, restrooms, barbecues and picnic shelters. The park is open daily from dawn to 10 p.m. PHILANTHROPY John and Tina Bolden, residents of Heritage Palms Golf Club in Indio raised more than $2,000 for the City of Hope Medical Center by hosting an invitational charity golf tournament with fifty-three golfers participating. Coachella Valley Rotary Clubs recently donated $30,000 to SafeHouse of the Desert, a planned shelter for runaway and at-risk teens scheduled to open in the fall of 2007.

The funds from the 12 local Rotary chapters representing 600 members will be used to purchase kitchen appliances. Rotarian members also agreed to volunteer time to provide one-on-one mentoring and group "activities. Soroptlmlst International of La QulntaCoachella Valley awarded a $1,000 scholarship each to the following students: Hilary Van Messel of La Quinta High School; and Magdalena Martinez and Brena Ayon, both of Coachella Valley High School. RECOGNITION Libertine Fine Jewelry Salon in Indian Wells recently had two pieces of gold and diamond jewelry feted by the jewelry iiifoinidliun Cenlei. Pieces submitted by Libertine's gemologistowner, Matilde Parente, were chosen from hundreds of nationwide entries to be featured in its annual fashion event in New York city.

'l I For close to two years, this column has inveighed against ethanol as a solution to energy dependence on the Middle East, Russia, Nigeria, and Venezuela, all weak reeds on which to lean. At the same time, we have been strong advocates of the conversion of coal- to-oil, which has proven a reliable alternative to conventional crude for almost a century. Without synthetic fuel, invented by two German geologists in the 1920s, Fischer-Tropf, the German army would have run out of oil a year before the Nazi surrender in May, 1945. South Africa, which had been cut off from Arab oil in the 1960s and 1970s to destabilize its apartheid regime, was able to hold out due to the "Sassel Project," which followed the conversion principle established by the Fischer-Tropf method. In both instances, success rested on a profusion of coal supplies, amply available in both Germany and South Africa.

The United States sits on 300 million tons of coal, the largest reserve in the world. Although an increasing amount of coal has been used to power electric generators, because of its relatively low cost and ready availability, "coal liquefaction" has been relegated to oblivion due to lack of political sponsorship. Instead, ethanol emerged from President George W. Bush's 2005 State of the Union speech which emphasized the use of bio-fuels as a mainstay of the administration's war on foreign energy dependence. This concept was readily backed by a combine of Midwest senators, powerful lobbyists, huge agribusinesses, and much of the consuming public that was conned into believing that an infinite amount of corn was available for conversion to oil.

What about the cost of conversion? How would ethanol be distributed? What effect would this new blend have on the cars' and trucks' automotive systems? What impact would this new concoction have on the price of corn and the thousand and one products processed from it? Someone sjiould have smelled a rat when a 51 cent subsidy was slapped on every gallon produced; and why has there been no reduction on America's multi-billion dollar agricultural subsidy; and how about the 54 cents per gallon tariff on converted sugar cane ethanol imported from Brazil. An important official in one of the major agribusinesses told me a year ago that this ethanol scam" should be renamed the "Agribusiness Relief Act." The intrepid Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, whose state sits on one-third of America's huge coal supplies, pleaded only for the administration to put a floor under global oil prices before developing coal-to-oil pilot plants. This caveat would prevent swing producer Saudi Arabia from price-cutting by flooding the market with excess supplies. This time, the Senate's broad-based energy bill has the support of high-placed Democratic senators who want to put coal in the forefront, along with higher mileage standards, and other renewable fuels from plants like switchgrass.

The bill is authored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, chairman of the powerful Senate Energy Committee. Although previously opposed to subsidies for coal-based fuels, Bingaman is now willing to offer up to 1 0 billion in direct government loans for coal-to-liquid plants. Of course, the environmental- i. -i the coal-to-oil alternative would make a shambles of the war against global warming.

Will this natural expedient for energy independence, so successfully innovated by the Canadhns, become viable? America's future economic stability may well depend on it. Morris R. Beschloss can be heard on KPSI Radio 920 AM Friday 8-9 a.m., KGAM Radio 1450 Saturday 9-10 a.m.. seen on local network TV, and on Time Warner Cable TV Channel 10. 'Tin.

A The Rattlesnake restaurant's five-year Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella. tl Paseo in Palm Desert. Chamber welcomes El Taco Maco eatery INDIO The Indio Chamber of Commerce welcomed new member El Taco Maco with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. El Taco Maco is at 46-900 Monroe Suite 402D, next to Guaranty Bank. The restaurant opened about a month ago, but the ribbon cutting last week was its official grand opening, manager Emesta Frias said.

"It's going really well," Frias said. "Everyone is happy and business is looking up." Women sue, allege they were run over by truck INDIO Two women who said they were hurt when a truck rolled over them at a campground next to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival sued the event's organizers Wednesday. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that Ronnie J. Sanchez of Bellflower, a security guard hired during the three-day event at Empire Polo Club in Indio, drove a 1994 Toyota truck over Johanna Garcia and Jasmine Redes as they slept. The women are both 22 and of Tijuana.

Their San Diego-based lawyer, Stephen Waldman, said his clients were stretched out in sleeping bags at a site sanctioned by Goldenvoice and the Coachella festival when the April 30 accident happened. "It's my understanding they had to lift the vehicle" to free Gar cia, Waldman said. Indio Police Department spokesman Ben Guitron said notes taken by an accident investigator indicate the truck was on a designated, equestrian pathway that ran along the campground. Nightclub Red 74 calling it quits on June 30 PALM DESERT Red 74, a lively nightclub where patrons have flocked for everything from velvety red bed covers and 9-foot-tall drag queens to locals raising funds for firefighters and Hurricane Katrina victims, is closing its doors on June 30. But who knows in what incarnation it may open owners hinted at a "major announcement this summer" in announcing the club's last big gig Fri day.

The dance club and eatery opened Sept. 10, 2004 at 72-990 El Paseo, just east of Monterrey Avenue in Palm Desert, and was co-founded by restaurateur Billy Mieldazis. Mieldazis, an entrepreneur who has also opened restaurants such as Falls Prime Steakhouse Martini Bar, plans one last "closing party" featuring singer Klementina. JUNE 27-30 Kappa Kappa lota, National Convention. La Quinta Resort and Spa.

JULY 4-14 American Institute of Floral Designers, 2007 Meeting. Desert Springs, A JW Marriott Resort and Spa. Attendees: 600 UhibKl SUN FILL 1'HOIO .9 am DBStKl SUN FILE PHU10 lease ends Sept. 22 at the AUG. 19-25 American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, 2007 Annual Convention.

Palm Springs Convention Center. Attendees: 700 COACHELLA VALLEY CHATTER "If it's going to continue to have this level of resources, it's worthy to have a public discussion of what the role is of this public entity. ait ki: n4 Mr State Sen. Denise Ducheny, chair of the state senate's Budget and Fiscal Review Committee on Desert Sun's reporting on the Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District's finances and multimillion dollar surplus. WHO'S COMING TO TOWN JULY 16-27 USA Gymnastics, 2007 Acrobatic Gymnastics National Championships and Freedom Cup Competition.

Palm Springs Convention Center. Attendees: 2,000 TUESDAY-JUNE 24 American Legion Department of California, 2007 Convention. Palm Springs Convention Center. Attendees: 1,800 THURSDAY-JULY 2 Servpro Industries Inc. Tennessee, 2007 National Convention.

La Quinta Resort and Club. Attendees: 250 t--. Do you have information for Your Business, Your News: E-mail Nina.Ronda thedesertsun.com, or call at 778-4639; fax, 778-4654. Send announcements to the following address: Nina Ronda, The Desert Sun, 750 North Gene Autry Trail, Palm Springs, Calif. 92262.

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