Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 9

1 THURSDAY JULY 15 2010 ROM PAGE ONE 510 BAY AREA NEWS GROUP A9 Ads aimed at framing the debate reed think going to like release of the breast cancer Bulbs Education rom Pagel Iw 115 01 19 $13 million $67 million Antioch 74 $13 million $18 million Martinez 39 Pittsburg $6 million sis $46 million Berkeley 85 $45 million $91 million 44 0 $4 million 84 $48 million 6 0 64 $18 million sOakland EH turn to Oakland after spending time at a facility in Southern $il4miilion $lmiiiro 3 survivor have been so many people7 working to get her said attorney Bess Kennedy just so ter serving long sentences even know how to work a Wiliams said is all funning looking scary she said But she said she has begun to relax and feel more confident even though every test Contra Costa $112 million 50 12 of teachers and to help us to Erovide smaller class said have been able to using these funds mini mize the reductions we have had When those funds go away then we are going to be in a similar situation to many other districts facing addi tional cuts that could take the form of raising class sizes or certain programs are very necessary are benefiting from it Espe cially for kids who are behind having a small group is very valuable to In Alameda County on the other hand the Dublin school district has been able to stretch its $22 million award because it has money from a parcel tax and parent founda tion to help soften the blow of state budget cuts said Super intendent Steve Hanke have actually saved laid off from her job teaching and are using the second half English language learners of that money in this coming feel that the kids really fiscal year to avoid layoffs 54 10 ford said all the data suggests that all this money hasbeen spent to little or no Mike Murphy chief strategist' said he be with standings in the Tola's refer to state fiscal stabilization a portion of stimulus money used fot instructional support fa Source California Department of Education last 10 weeks from Poizner and And he buy the conventional wisdom that Whitman is dominating the airwaves this summer this phony myth that we have unlimited TV ads and Jerry Brown is riding around in a blue Murphy said reality is that both campaigns are fully engaged not a one way battle by any means So totally covered with special interest dollars got plenty of TV and re sponding like ciazy and attacking like A key group that Whit man will target this sum mer is younger voters those between 18 and 39 who are less familiar with 40 year political experience as secretary of state two term governor three time presidential candidate and Democratic Party chairman before his more recent expe rience as Oakland mayor and state attorney general In the ield Poll Brown trailed to vv luuiiicui ui uxiat gi label warning about he said read the front of the box where it says save $48 each year in energy costs by using this product But they read the part that says the lamp contains Heidi Sanborn execu tive director of the California Product Stewardship Coun cil a nonprofit organization whose mission is to shift re sponsibility for waste man agement from local govern ments to manufacturers and 1 CtasHtod iCwtiflotod off using happened is that trying to keep mer cury out of the air by not burn ing coal and now mercury is in all of these lamps that are in she said The regulations prohibit ing CLs from being disposed in the trash went into effect in 2006 but there is no state finding attached to it That means each county in Cali fornia has had to develop its own consumer awareness and recycling program in a time of strapped budgets and some have done a better job than others is a problem that cries out for a big compre hensive said Bill Pol lock of the Alameda County Household Hazardous Waste Ham no one has the to tackle it Right now the recycling is totally volun tary people have to make an effort to do In Santa Clara County several local hardware stores including Ace Hardware Orchard Supply Hardware and the Home Depot offer free fluorescent bulb recy cling during regular business hours Sanborn says CLs are indicative of a larger problem the changing nature of the waste that California resi dentsgenerate the waste industry first started the waste stream was paper glass bones and rags basic she said waste has evolved and 70 percent of it is manu factured products like CLs and cell phones and consumer electronics Local govern ments cannot keep Hayward New Haven looking at a can didate with unlimited re sources so far dem onstrated a willingness to say anything so obviously Whitman that gro we have to be Clif percent to 46 percent has not heard yet whether it will receive additional money said Carol Bingham director of fiscal policy for the state Department of Education a lot of stimulus money being used to pay for teachers and other cntica staff at the district she said think clear that in California we are in a desper ate fiscal situation and scnoo districts need all the money Brown Whitman camps using messages to set campaign terms By Steven Harmon sharmonbayareanewsgnt4jxm SACRAMENTO Vot ers can forget about a sum mer respite from the gover race Television and radio ads are already up and running and public jostling between Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown is well under way a race to frame' the debate for voters before the campaign gets going in ear nest in die fall political veter ans say really impor tant is setting the narra tive making a very strong first said Adam Mendelsohn a GOP strategist who was on Gov Arnold re election campaign team which buried Democrat Phil Angelides with a flurry of eariy hard hitting negative advertisements en route to a landslide win in the 2006 campaign the current political environment the sooner you can get up on air the bet ter vou are added Whitman who snent $90 mUlion to defeat Steve complained that the union Poizner in the GOP primary message has been scatter shot that some of the top contributors such as billionaire Ron Burkle have not been convinced of the importance of spending in the summer and that Brown will soon be buried in an ava have got to polls given the million look at the summer months negative onslaught in the as a critical tune said Chris Lehane a Demo cratic political consultant dollar now is worth a heck of a lot more in terms of impact on the race thanSeptember or October Some labor enti ties have stepped in but not sure if yet to get to a level where able to fundamentally change the and trajectory of the Druwii spuKeamaii over ling Clifford said Brown going to independent groups from helping out but is not con vinced how effective a sum mer of attacks from Whit man will be The ield Poll showed that after Whitman has spent $100 million 42 Eercent of the voters view er unfavorably compared wih 40 percent who view her favorably num bers are jnversed: 42 percent view him favorably 40 per nuw uabi Od CONTRA CC Wstrfct SromPagel But the Decision leview Unit reversed the judgment because in their words she nose an unreasonable risk danger to California that helps women if released despite adjust to life outside prison af numerous psycnoiogicai evaluations since 1982 that declared her fit for parole They made the same argu ment against her release 11 times before This time however pa role officials and Gov Arnold from it he added a really small amount and if the realty energy ef ficient then say the good1 outweighs the bad ana buy Jamsher Bhatthal a lighting expert said most cus tomers are like Bercasio ever 1 asks me about the mercury because vises consumers to have all people and pets vacate the room open windows for at least 15 minutes and carefully scoop up any broken frag ments into a glass jar with a metal lid Any heating or air conditioning should be turned off before cleanup No one has called for CLs to be banned because on bal ance they offer a wealth of en vironmental and energy sav ing benefits Coal fired power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions in the air so using CLs which use less electricity than incandes cent light bulbs and last lon ger remains a better deal for the planet Environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council have taken a close look at the CL safety is sue and have concluded that the energy savings exceed the dangers posed by the mercury the lights contain quantity of mercury contained in the bulb and the opportunity to be exposed to the mercury is quite the NRDC said in a May 2008 policy paper Many consumers either are unaware that the lights con tain mercury or agree that the benefits outweigh the risks Julius Bercasio owner of Mighty Thredz graphics design studio in San Jose was price comparing light bulbs for his office Monday at a in San Jose but he did not see the fine print on the back of the CL box indicating product con tained mercury When it was pointed out to him the 30 year old said really toxic probably stay away stopping we tnink for students like music ana they can athletic The report by the Center The state has applied for on Education Policy is avail another round of funding but able at wwwcep dcorg has poured in $8 million in the five weeks since the end of the primary blanketing the state with two separate TV advertisements depict 1 ing Brown as a failed leader of the past and an entrenched politician Brown meanwhile has kept a tight lid on his $23 mil lion war chest saying holding onto his resources until the fall so he can com pete with Whitman when voters are more engaged But A union allies through the independent expenditure group California Working amilies for Brown for Gov ernor 2010 have put up about $6 million with mostly cable TV some broadcast TV radio ads depicting Whitman as a liar ana corporate bully who tries to buy her way out of trouble felt we let her have the airwaves to said Roger Salazar spokes man for California Working amilies it for our efforts we would have seen a repeat of Salazar says polls that show Whitman and Brown essentially in a standoff Erove that his ads ave had an effect In a re cent ield Poll Brown led cent unfavorably Whitman 44 percent to 4d Mendelsohn percent after trailing her by three points in March but some Democrats nave received or have been prom ised funding from the state fiscal stabilization fund of the stimulus act Districts with funding de clines such as those in Cali fornia are likely to face seri ous problems in the coming school year because much of the federal stabilization fund ing they have received already has been spent prompting them to lay off teachers the report states In the East Bay the Mt Diablo school district has spent all of its $132 million in stabilization fund money with most of it going to save 139 jobs said Bryan Richards the chief financial officer was a one year fill in for a hole that was caused by ongoing budget reductions from the he said is why we had additional lay offs for next At El Monte Elementary School in Concord the money paid for a summer reading intervention program that has helped 72 first through fifth grade students learn to read in small groups The school plans to use the rest of its allotment to pay for a part time reading specialist who will try to get students up to speed during the year since there will be no funding to continue the summer pro gram next year been a great thing for our school to be able to have this said teacher Carissa Sugden who has been 6" 0 100 $12 million 26 om Pagel ever there is little enforce ment and many broken or worn out CLs still end up in andfills' Some local governments encourage consumers to re cycle the bulbs on household tazardous waste collection they look closely at the days or through Take back irograms at hardware stores iowever no one monitors iow successful those efforts rave been and many fear that the vast majority of CLs still end up at the bottom of the kitchen trash can CLs contain an average of 5 milligrams of mercury sealed within the glass tubing far less than watch batteries dental filings and older thermometers but it is still enough to warrant konrllincr If a fluorescent bulb breaks producers is among those in your house the EPA ad who think still better Police rom Pagel officers assigned to each city beat crime reduction teams foot patrol officers that walked the commercial districts teams that moni tored parolees and arrested violators almost all have been shifted back to patrol Oakland residents might see just as many police cars patrolling the streets but the impact will be felt in the lack of follow up investigation on some crimes and the loss of the crime prevention abili ties and interaction between problem solving officers and the community response to emer gency calls will not go Capt Paul igueroa said the quality of life issues and the longer term strate gies coordinated by the (prob lem solving officers) will be dramatically impacted if not gone Projects being shelved in clude a burglary prevention effort in the hills area and a robbery prevention operation in beats east of Lake Merritt to 14th Avenue igueroa said the prob lem solving officers were con stantly getting calls from peo beiyor rape The department has dis banded units specializing in the apprehension of wanted violent felons and parole and probation violators and it has cut 63 problem solving offi cers ana their sergeante But the patrol division is still fully staffed with almost 50 offi cers and sergeants on duty at one time to respond to crimes IClickonGovernment' Go to the Police Depart went 'f Clickpn Make a Report There are also two com I puter report terminals a I Oakland police headquaf ters at 455 Seventh St 40 OPD is In the process of updating the list of crime reports that will be acf (cepted online If you do not see your crime listed call the non yg emergency number 510 3 777 3333 for instructions fl necessarily affect residents and businesspeople when it copies to a police officer re ple who ask questions share their concerns and offer 5 lUKCruKi aukime information fc Go to wwwoaklandnet them you lose fccom that intensity ot relationsnip he said Invaluable West Oakland resident Marcus Johnson and his Prescott neighbors are deeply involved in making their neighborhood safe But he said their efforts go hand in hand with those of two problem solving officers who attend their meetings make sugges tions and somehow manage to have their eyes and ears in three places at the same time ana make sure the beat of ficers know going on intel they pass on to the patrol officers and crime reduction teams is invaluable allowed them to come in and make arrests and sun press a lot of said sending to a crime in prog Johnson chairman of the ress such as a shooting rob Prescott Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council and an at large member of the Commu nity Police Advisory Board year we had a gang is sue that was quickly resolved and that was spearheaded by the (problem solving officer) Patrol acted ori it made some arrests I think one was for The reorganization in progress throughout the city That number swells to more than 80 from 10 pm 2 am because of shift overlaps and even more on weekend nights when tactical units work 12 hour shifts But Johnson worries that the new crime reporting Crocedures will create more arriers for the elderly or for residents in poorer neighbor hoods He thinks those resi dents might just give up in stead of contacting police will have a huge im he said an as sumption that everybody has the Internet going to go down to OPD to make a re port? There will be a huge in crease in unreported A 74 year old woman who has lived in Sobrante Park for almost 40 years and own a computer is said the woman who want her name published have those kinds of crimes out here all the time hard enough to get an officer out here now for a serious These new reporting pro cedures it very she said not going to be able to report Experience count Oakland citizens and the 694 remaining police officers the only ones adjust ing to life after tne layoffs Marc Oliver spent 23 years as an Oakland park ranger and less than Wvo months as an Oakland police officer He is now unemployed Oliver 45 was one of the two rangers whose jobs were eliminated earlier this year When his position was eliminated because of budget cuts he went through a lat eral academy and joined the force in May Although he had close to a quarter centuty of law enforcement experience in Oakland he was laid off be cause he had the least senior ity with OPD strange to work for someone 23 years and be told it Oliver said Wednesday feel a little bit His immediate plan is to become an unpaid Oakland reserve police officer and he hopes to soon meet with city officials to see if he can get his officer job back His most re cent assignment was as a foot patrol officer in the Dimond and Laurel districts He said businesspeople there did not know advance they would be losing patrol officers He said it was wak ing up and not having a job to go to He spent Wednesday morning watching cartoons with his 8 year old son and fill ing out unemployment forms But he said it was hearten ing to hear from park and rec reation people who called check on Oliver said his experiences meeting and talking to people who are in distress or just saying hello at a park have showed him that the main im pact of the layoffs will be the loss of everyday contact with the community just want to talk to he said the most part the context cathartic They want to know someone cares and when an officer shows up they feel someone cares Maybe the most you can do for them is just take a report but enough It shows someone Contact Cecily Burt at 510 208 6441 CORRECTION A front page story Wednesday incorrectly re ported the California Public Utilities Commission has suspended solar rebates on projects over 30 megawatts It should have said the rebate suspension was for projects over 30 kilowatts I.