The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 3

Sunday April 1 0 2005 The Sacramento Bee A3 Capitol California wwwsacbeecompolitics Bridge mess ets sWe really credit the Oakland Zoo for raising the ethical standards for the keeping of elephants in captivity jj Debbie Leahy People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals a 35-year-old female walks through the elephant habitat at the Oakland Zoo recently Three other elephants share the enclosure which has roaming space and private places away from zoo spectators worse As allegations of faulty work surface the bay span may become a new symbol of botched public projects By Herbert A Sample BEE SAN FRANCISCO BUREAU OAKLAND When it comes to immense publicly financed construction ventures beset by huge cost overruns and constant headaches the best known example in US history is probably Boston's Big Dig That may be changing however While the nearly completed Massachusetts tunnel and highway project cost far more the effort to build a new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is looking more and more like a gargantuan and extremely expensive mess parallels between this and the Big Dig just get scarier every said Stuart Cohen executive director of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition a Bay Area watchdog group a mess of historic Commuters who have to drive the old eastern span are anxious too aware that since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake engineers have deemed it at risk of catastrophic failure if the ground shakes violently again "It seems like the (new) bridge has become a said Richard Wahl 40 a San Franciscan who crosses the bay BRIDGE page A5 Jeff Klnzley foreground the manager of the Oakland four elephants keeps occupied with a treat while keeper Yoshl Hlrano washes a foot Because elephants in captivity have foot and leg problems zookeepers Inspect and clean the feet each morning Below Hlrano files part of foot pad as part of that treatment After the dally pedicure the elephants have breakfast and then ramble through their turf Oakland Zoo backs off when elephants stomp Training system uses safety barriers rewards instead of swats with a baton AD WATCH Ad blasts governor on paroles Relatives of victim oppose any mercy for her killer Crime Victims United of California is airing a 30-second television advertisement criticizing the parole policies of Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger Following is the text of the ad and analy sis by Andy Furillo of The Bee Capitol Bu- reau: Nina Salarno-Ashford: My sister Cat- ina was murdered Shot to death by an ex-j boyfriend No mercy No remorse He' watched football on TV after killing her) But because of Gov new parole policies killer could be back on the street The governor calls reform I call it dangerous I Announcer: Over 2500 parole violators' remained free last year under the gover- plan Over 2000 went on to commit serious new crimes Harriett Salamo: You promised to WATCH page A4 I for the Ethical Treatment of Animals a huge improvement for the care of elephants in zoos" added Leahy the director of captive animals and entertainment issues The training incident was a brief example of an elephant-handling regimen that this zoo has helped pioneer called Donna frustrated by the fact that (Carpenter) was asking her to go through training behavior at a time when she normally would have gone directly to the pasture for another explained Colleen Kinzley Oaldand general curator and resident expert on elephants as you could see after striking out and expressing that frustration she went right back to cooperating and doing the behaviors that Mike asked for without any threat or dominant behavior on she added goal is to let them be elephants" Elephants in captivity once were motivated mainly via the "free method where handlers in close proximity would employ baton-like sticks often with a small ELEPHANTS pageA4 By Herbert A Sample BEE SAN FRANCISCO BUREAU OAKLAND As large and hardy as they are elephants are also delicate creatures that can experience emotional ups and downs just like humans So when the Oakland Donna grew a bit perturbed about some impromptu morning training the other day the 4 Vi -ton pachy-- derm suddenly pushed into a steel barrier separating her from keeper Mike Carpenter In years past such displays of irritation might have been met with a sharp blow from a wooden stick or some other corporal punishment But at the Oakland Zoo Carpenter simply took a couple of swift steps backward smiled and returned to the training that uses carrots and potatoes as treats Donna dutifully complied apparently having finished venting As attitudes change about how to keep elephants in captivity the Oakland Zoo has been lauded for its program including the space it devotes to its animals and how it trains them really credit the Oakland Zoo for raising the ethical standards for the keeping of elephants in said Debbie Leahy of People The politics of budget numbers prolong agony tri dan u5walters ft come and outgo elements of the state budget and gives users the opportunity to make choices on specific spending and tax categories with the cumulative results projected forward for 10 years The complexity of the budget is found not in its numbers but in its politics which in turn mirror the conflicts of the larger society and the political system that in effect gives every major interest group a unilateral veto The budget crisis developed because the state received a windfall of one-time revenues in 2000 born of the rise and fall of the dot-com industry primarily -and politicians of both parties could not resist the pressures to blow it on permanent tax cuts and spending that could not be sustained when revenues returned to normal growth levels Republicans demanded the former Democrats demanded the latter and Davis was too weak to resist even after publicly pledging that he would do so The ensuing deficits were then papered over with tens of billions of dol lars in official and unofficial borrowing because Republicans refused to raise taxes and Democrats refused to make more than token spending cuts responding to the conflicting demands of their ideological constituencies The choices much like those on the Next Ten Web site were there to be made but few too few had the guts to make them Running up the credit cards was an easier if less responsible way out of the dilemma they had created Ducking the hard choices and hoping that the problem will resolve itself has not been confined to the budget Because they reflect the larger crisis of governance the head-in-the-sand dynamics of the budget mess are to be found in transportation water education and a host of other public policy areas For years the choices have been there to be made in those areas as well but because each option would alienate some political constituency they are largely ignored Five years after the Capitol created the budget crisis by its collective lack of courage and common sense a new test is arising A tax amnesty program has produced a one-time windfall of about $3 billion and it would be very tempting for Schwarzenegger and lawmakers to use it to ease next projected deficit But it is just a one-time phenomenon and eventually much of the money may have to be returned because involved in unresolved business tax cases Thus it would be completely irresponsible to use the windfall for any current operating deficits It should be retained in the treasury only as a last-ditch emergency reserve How Schwarzenegger and the Legislature treat the amnesty windfall may tell us whether the Capitol is utterly doomed as an instrument of governance or whether its denizens have finally seen the error of their ways Reach Dan Walters at (916) 321-1195 ordwalterssacbeecom Back columns: wwwsacbeecomwalters A-- i budget crisis upward of $40 billion in deficits so far and still counting is arguably the most pressing political issue already cost one governor (Gray Davis) his office and resolving it has so far eluded his successor (Arnold Schwarzenegger) 1 As important as it may be however the budget imbroglio is merely a symptom of larger more pervasive crisis of governance: the chronic Inability of the governor and the Legislature to deal with the pressing issues that a complex fast-growing and fast-change society produces We got into the budget mess because of the breakdown and we will remain mired in it until the system can repair itself if indeed repair is possible an entirely respectable theory that California is fundamentally ungovernable because its socioeconomic and geographic fragmentation make social consensus a precondition to governance virtually Impossible -II A Outwardly nothing particularly mysteripus about the persistent deficits Voters and politicians have made more spending commitments than the revenue system can sustain and we must raise taxes andor cut spending to close what insiders have dubbed the the which runs about $5 billion to $10 billion a year The fundamental simplicity of the situation is demonstrated on a Web site established recently by Next Ten a nonprofit organization founded by venture capitalist Noel Perry The Web site (wwwnext-tenorg) concisely and accurately presents the major in.