Local Boy Hit On Mendocino Freeway

The Santa Rosa Press- Democrat reports a kid from Eureka was hit by a car on the freeway down in Ukiah.

Vehicle Abatement: Tough or not tough enough?

Reading this week's North Coast Journal piece on vehicle abatement in Eureka, sounds like it might have become one of those things that takes on a life of its own like so much else in government. At least some people seem to be having their own cars, parked in front of their own houses, towed. I was afraid this might happen.

When I first heard that they were going to step up enforcement of abandoned or illegally parked cars, I wondered if it might come to this. I mentioned here before that one of my pet peeves is abandoned cars. I've turned at least two in myself over the last year. I was going to turn in a couple others but they were either moved or towed before I got the chance.

I think Eureka's vehicle abatement program worked fine before. I've had that McCauley fellow- the guy who used to do most of the abatement work- stop by and ask me about my wrecked trailer. Once I told him it was mine, he went on his way. I've had my newer trailer tagged for abatement, as well. Tore off the sticker, though, and never heard from them again.

But some people, including my old National Guard Buddy, Kris Reynolds, don't think the abatement efforts go far enough.

I'll acknowledge that there are problem cases like the one she mentions, but hopefully those can be dealt with whether or not we get even tougher on illegally parked cars, as she suggests. Yes, there will always be some difficult cases, no matter how tough we write the laws.

Besides, now with the Police Service Officers proactively driving around and tagging cars, think about the gas being used. The cost of the gas alone should be enough to give people second thoughts about this stepped up enforcement.

Let's not beat ourselves over the head with this thing. It worked well enough the way it used to be handled.

And The Winner Is...

Me, once again, although it's been a while.

Remember how a while back I said I'd have to start shopping for a cell phone because my service provider, U.S. Cellular, wasn't going to support my old analog bag phone anymore? Well, lucky me. Looks like I just won the cell phone pictured to the left in a one- time drawing I entered.

Got a phone call this morning. At first I thought it was a telemarketer, but when she said I'd won something in the LG Electronics drawing I vaguely remembered entering a drawing from an LGsomething or another.

So she confirmed the e-mail address I'd entered under and just a few minutes ago they sent me the e-mail with a link to a page where I could actually pick my phone from one of five or six choices. You can see the choices here if you scroll down.

That's pretty cool they let you pick the one you want. Problem is I know nothing about any of them and, as I mentioned before, I didn't really want a phone with all the bells and whistles. I finally chose this one because they said something about it being user friendly.

So, in six to eight weeks, it should be delivered. Another win for the Freddy!!!

Supreme Court Backs Gun Rights

Looks like the Supreme Court came out in favor of the individual's right to own firearms today. I and a number of other people were on edge awaiting the outcome. On edge for good reason, obviously, since it was a 5 to 4 decision. In cases like that it probably wouldn't take much to have gotten one of the justices in the majority to change their mind and thus the ruling.

I've always said that just because a court rules one way or another on some issue doesn't make it right, it just makes it law. Still, I think they made the right decision this time around.

55 Saves Gas???

I've always heard that driving 55 instead of 60 or 65 saves gas. I'd never really paid attention to just how much gas was claimed would be saved. With prices what they are now, and having to go to the Bay Area on occasion, I thought I really should try it out and see if driving 55 does save gas.

Besides, I'm not often comfortable driving 65, especially on curvy roads where I know I couldn't stop in time if something's stopped in the road just around the corner.

I drove down to the Bay Area Sunday and actually checked out the 55 savings. There were a couple problems I started with:

First; I didn't top off the tank before leaving. I usually don't and usually leave Eureka just a gallon or two short of 3/4 of a tank. This time I probably had a gallon or two more than usual to start.

Second; I didn't really decide to take a serious look at the gas mileage until I was a couple miles out of Eureka so I couldn't remember exactly what the gas gauge was reading when I started. Still, I thought I had a close enough idea of where the needle was when we started off that I should be able to detect a difference in mileage.

I started off setting the cruise control to around 56 or 57 miles an hour. Right off the bat I noticed I seemed to be able to run uninterrupted on cruise control for longer stretches of road than I could going 65, or even 60.

By the time we got to around Garberville, I really felt the gas gauge was higher than it normally would have been but, since I didn't remember exactly where the gauge started out at, or where it normally would be at that point. I couldn't say for sure.

Oddly enough, it seemed like we made Garberville in roughly the same amount of time going 56 or 57 as we did going the normal speed. Around an hour and fifteen minutes. Pretty close, anyway.

Stopping at the Willits Safeway for gas, as we usually do, the gas gauge showed what I figured was about 7 gallons used. Figuring we started with the needle just over the 3/4 mark, and made Willits with it maybe a gallon under the half tank mark, I guessed it at about 7 gallons. Normally I figured it took about 10 gallons. I could never say for sure because I never top off the tank before leaving Eureka.

This wasn't accurate enough, though, since I'm basing this on memory of what I wasn't even sure was right, but we can start over again here.

I reset the odometer to zero and filled up the tank. Since we're staying at the same place this time as last trip, the mileage should be pretty much the same. The only difference will be the speed we'll be traveling at.

Driving to San Francisco and back, it seemed to me the needle was considerably higher than it would have been driving 65 but, again, I couldn't be sure. I never paid enough attention to what the gas gauge indicated at any of the points along the road, except for Willits. In Willits, coming from either direction, the needle shows around a couple gallons less than a quarter tank.

Heading back north to Willits on Monday, I was thinking we probably had a quarter tank more than we would normally have and we must be saving quite a bit of gas. I was thinking maybe we'd save five gallons out of a slightly over 20 gallon tank if this held out.

Heading up Ridgewood Grade north of Ukiah seemed to use up gas quicker. By the time we arrived at the Willits Safeway the needle looked to be maybe a gallon under half a tank. Normally at that point it would be a couple gallons below a quarter tank. I was thinking we could have saved maybe five or six gallons.

I wrote the odometer reading of 266.9 miles, on the receipt. The tank took 13.6 gallons to fill-up. I could crunch the numbers on a calculator later to get miles per gallon. I also realized I still had the receipts from our last trip at home and could just compare the two fuel purchase amounts and that would probably show a substantial difference. Anyway, at this point I was convinced I'd gotten a lot better mileage just from where the fuel gauge was when we made Willits.

I make it home and almost immediately crunched some numbers.

I'd checked the freeway mileage for my truck twice a couple years ago. Both times it came to 16 miles per gallon (11mpg in town). This time it came to 19.6mpg, 20 if you round it off. That's quite a bit better.

Then I checked last trip's gas purchases coming from San Francisco to Willits and compared the numbers: Two months ago, making the same trip but going 60 to 65, I filled up with 14.07 gallons. This time I filled up with 13.6 gallons.

WHAT??? That's only a one gallon difference over 266 miles. Something must not be right.

Looking at receipts from driving Eureka to Willits shows the same thing: I bought 14.43 gallons in April and 13.27 gallons this time, yet I was under the impression I started off this time with a gallon or two more than last time.

I must be missing something. Even though I couldn't be sure of the exact gas gauge readings I would normally have, I felt I'd saved more than just one gallon going each way. Seems to me that my gauge usually shows a gallon or two below the one quarter mark when I reach Willits coming from either direction. This time it showed maybe five gallons more than that.

I know I got better mileage. Crunching the numbers shows almost 20mph compared to the usual 16 going 55-57mph, but something's screwy with comparing receipts. I must be missing something. I just know I saved more than a gallon going each way. Then again, numbers don't lie?

And if you're curious about how much longer it took to get back to Eureka going 55-57, we left UCSF Medical Center at around 3:15pm and arrived at Henderson Rite- Aid in Eureka at about 9:50pm. That's roughly the same time it takes us going 60-65. Go figure.

Anybody up to a return to the 55mph on freeways again? It wouldn't bother me.

Makers and Takers

Would somebody please buy this book and let me read it when you're done?

Bob Barr on FISA

Released through the Bob Barr Bloggers e-mail list, to which I was recently added:

The House just passed the latest version of the FISA bill and it’s quite possible the bill will go to the Senate next week. It’s no surprise that John McCain supports this bill, which erodes privacy rights and provides telecommunications corporations with legal immunity for violating the Bill of Rights. What has surprised and angered the left is Barack Obama’s support of the bill.

“Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay,” said Obama shortly after the bill passed. “So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program.”

The Libertarian Party's candidate for president, Bob Barr, released this statement on FISA last Thursday.

Neat Discoveries?

It was kind of neat to read about some high school kid in Canada that discovered a way to dissolve those ubiquitous plastic shopping bags. The only thing is, the problem most people have with those plastic bags is not that they can't be recycled, it's that they don't end up being collected after being used in the first place and that so many of them end up as litter.

Besides, even if all those plastic bags did end up in the landfills, I'm sure their volume would be relatively insignificant compared to all the other stuff we throw away.

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I thought this was a really neat thing to hear about: Bacteria making our oil for us.

But, even as I began reading about it, I was wondering how many bacteria you'd need and what sort of space it would take up. My worries were well founded. To quote the writer:

However, to substitute America’s weekly oil consumption of 143 million barrels, you would need a facility that covered about 205 square miles, an area roughly the size of Chicago.

That is quite a large area, but what if a number of smaller bug factories were spread all across the country like all our other factories are? I wonder what area all of our current oil refineries cover?

I also can't help but wonder if it wouldn't make more sense to figure out just exactly how the bacteria's digestive systems create the oil and try and duplicate that process rather than have the bacteria themselves do it?

Hat tip to lewrockwell.com for the heads up on that news item.

Zombie's Blog

I just noticed that my favorite photojournalist, Zombie, has a blog. I was wondering if maybe she'd always had one but I just hadn't noticed the link on her main page until now. Probably not as the earliest post was made April 30 and I've been checking out her page long before that.

I guess the difference between the blog and her normal photo essays is that the blog entries aren't quite as lengthy as her normal work. It looks like she also accepts comments on her blog although I couldn't get the comment links to work.

Dems Fault For Gas Prices?

Interesting suggestion in a letter to the editor to the Santa Rosa Press- Democrat this morning:

"The first six years in office with President Bush, gas prices stayed about the same. Then the Democrats took control of the House and Senate and the price of gas doubled, almost tripled."
- Tom Meininger, Cotati

I think there's a number of reasons for high gas prices and it's not hard to make connections like that with any group and issue. Still, it's an interesting observation.

Holding A Grudge

Speaking of Vincent Bugliosi...call me a softie, but I just don't agree with this editorial in the Los Angeles Times.

You may of heard that Susan Atkins, former Manson cult member and convicted murderer, is asking for release from prison on humanitarian grounds. She has terminal brain cancer. The Times along with many others, I'm sure, opposes her release. They don't think it's fair.

I agree with Bugliosi. It is pointless and a waste of taxpayer's money to keep Atkins in prison until her death.

I've followed the Manson Family gals off and on through the years. The editorial refers to the productive use Atkins has made of her time in prison. Funny, I'd read some years ago that Atkins was the one in the whole bunch of Mansonites that's still looney tunes. Maybe what I was reading was wrong, or maybe there's a little truth to both accounts.

She should still be released.

Even more so goes to her accomplices in crime, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel. I actually watched each of their parole hearings on Court TV a couple times. I just didn't feel the threat existed anymore. In fact, Leslie Van Houten seemed like a real sweetheart of a lady with, by all accounts, a stellar record in prison.

One thing I'd read somewhere, earlier on, was that Van Houten actually made parole once years ago, but it was revoked because she failed a urine test for marijuana. Her Wikipedia doesn't make any mention of it so either they missed it or I read it wrong. Watching her during her parole hearing, I was thinking it wouldn't bother me having her living next door.

Yep, I know most of us feel that people need to pay the penalty for what they've done. I just can't help but wonder if we're beating ourselves over the head trying to keep people in prison who aren't a threat to us anymore? There's always going to be some person who's a real threat that could make better use of Atkins, Krenwinkel or Van Houten's prison space.

Thompson Votes To Impeach

Looks like our very own congressdude, Mike Thompson, joined the movement to impeach President Bush and voted for Dennis Kucinich's resolution for impeachment. This is a bit of a surprise to me, not so much the motion to impeach, but that Thompson went along with it. I'm also surprised that it passed in the House in the first place.

I might not be as much of a Bush hater as some, but the idea of cherry- picking evidence and embellishing the case to go to war is nothing new. I think Bill Clinton (and nearly everybody else, it seems) did the same thing when the case was made to attack Yugoslavia. The players- that- be over there have been slashing each other's throats for centuries, yet we cherry picked incidents to make it sound like it was all one side's fault.

And I'm sure some are now wondering, as I am, if we might have picked the wrong side in Yugoslavia to fight for after it was all said and done.

In case any of you are interested, the roll call vote on the impeachment resolution can be found here. Interesting enough, yet again, is that Congressman and past Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul, also voted for the resolution.

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As an aside, I received this and other information on votes cast in congress from a list I subscribe to from Congress.org. It's called Megavote and once every week or two they send out a list of votes taken, a very brief description of the item being voted one and how Thomspon, Boxer and Feinstein voted on them. Your choice. If you'd like to subscribe, just use the Megavote link.

I'll Be Happy On July 1

Yep, I'm a hypocrite. I mentioned here, more than once I think, that I opposed the law banning use of cell phones while driving. Actually, the law only bans speaking on them without a hands- free device. Same difference, I suppose, but I almost can't wait until July 1 when this new ban takes effect.

I hope each and every one of you that thinks you're so important you have to be talking with someone on your cell phone at all times gets a ticket. You deserve it, and not just those of you driving. People walking around stores sharing their personal lives with everyone around them, chatting away on the phone probably deserves some kind of ticket.

Too bad more stores don't do what Myrtlewood Liquors was doing a while back and add $20.00 to the bill of anybody using a cell phone in their store. Sadly, they lightened up on that and now just ask people not to use cell phones while in their store.

Yep, I'm a hypocrite, but I'll be loving it come July 1. So why does Dave Stancliff's column in today's Eureka Reporter rub me the wrong way?

I suppose I agree with him, for the most part. He's right that it's more the conversation than actually using the cell phone that's the greatest distraction. I guess it rubs me the wrong way that his conclusion is to ban cell phones in cars entirely. Gee, it's not like there's any number of other distractions that can be just as bad as cell phones. Should we ban them, too?

It's that kind of thinking that got us to where we are today where the government regulates every aspect of our lives and we still keep on hearing more and more of it. Those of you doing that, please stop.

Ron Paul Ends Presidential Bid

Some of you might have heard that, yesterday, Congressman Ron Paul put an official end his quixotic bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

I'm a bit disappointed that he didn't follow through until the Republican nominating convention. I would have liked to see how many delegates ended up voting for him, although I expected only a handful. Still, it would have been fun to see.

Why did he not follow through until the bitter end? I don't know. I suppose it could be that he realized he was just banging his head against the wall, even with a paper campaign, at this point. Still, I can't help but wonder if the powers that be in the Republican Party let him know if he continued on to cause disunity at their convention, he'd become persona non- grata with the Republican Caucus in congress forever on. Not that he was all that well accepted as it was.

To his credit, he didn't endorse John McCain. I've always felt it looks so stupid when candidates run each other down during the race for the nomination and then endorse the person they told us wasn't fit for the job once that candidate gets the nomination. To McCain's credit, I don't remember him doing that when Bush beat him out of the nomination. I understood the two weren't speaking at that point.

Not sure if it's to his credit, or not, but Paul hasn't endorsed any other presidential candidates, either. I thought he might at least point a finger at some third party candidate he thought well of.

When I first heard he was going to make a big announcement yesterday, I figured he might be announcing support for the Constitution Party candidate. What's his name...Chuck Baldwin??? I guess not, at least not yet.

So now the campaign morphs into the Ron Paul Campaign For Liberty. Just what we need: yet another libertarian oriented educational organization, although I suppose the more the merrier. Whatever. I can't help but wonder if this isn't more about money. I haven't signed up to be a member of this one yet. I'll take a wait and see attitude.

As for who I'm voting for, I'm still in a wait and see mode to see how the Libertarian Party's candidate for president, Bob Barr, handles his campaign. If it looks like he's promoting a pretty much libertarian agenda, as it does so far, I'll probably go ahead and vote for him. If he changes course and it ends up being a plug for religious right Republicanism, or some such, I may just not vote.

We'll wait a month or two and see. Then, if I'm happy with Barr's campaign, he'll get a prominent link in my blog's side bar. In the meantime, both Ron Paul and Hillary's links have been removed, although I probably should have kept Hillary's up there.

Tim Russert: 1950-2008

Most of you have probably heard that long time newsdude, Tim Russert, died today suddenly today from a heart attack. He was 58 years old.

You younger folks aren't immune from such things, either. Our very own Bohemian Mermaid tells us she suffered a heart attack a little over a week ago and she's not even 40 years old.

Back when I worked at H.C. Juvenile Hall, one of our extra- help gals died. Her name was Borgie, if memory serves me correct. She died in her sleep from a heart attack. I believe she was in her early thirties. Shocked all of us and a shame. She was real good extra- help.

CA Government Still Big Growth Sector

Those of you who worry about government not being involved in every aspect of your life need not worry about one aspect of it. The Sacramento Bee reports this morning that the State of California is still hiring, even beating the private sector in growth of new employees.

What budget crisis?

As always, if asked for a login to the Sacbee web site, you can use humboldtlib as the username and blogspot as the password.

Gas Prices Will Eventually Drop?

I have a hard time believing that, but this guy makes a case for it. If true, I hope it's sooner rather than later.

Addendum: The cover story in this week's North Coast Journal deals with the high gas prices. There's also a story about local gas thefts.

Humboldt Lodging Expensive?

It's not available online yet, but there's a letter to the editor in the Times- Standard today from a guy in Yuba City. He suggests we shouldn't expect people to vacation up here because our motels and hotels are so expensive.

I was somewhat taken aback by that. I might have even felt offended. I'd always figured that lodging costs up here would be less expensive that most places. I suppose I got that impression because I drive by that motel on the west side on Broadway near Wabash fairly often and the sign always shows a lower rate than what we pay down south.

A few weeks ago they were advertising $49.95 a night, single occupancy. Now I think it's $59.99, still a bargain in my book, at least compared to most places we stay. But that's just one motel. What about the others?

I didn't want to spend all day checking, so I ended up just taking a look at the nightly rates advertised online for three cities: Eureka, Healdsburg and Ukiah. Without spending too much time comparing, it looks like Eureka has the same range of prices as Healdsburg, but we have more lower priced offerings than they do. Ukiah looks to have about the same selection as Eureka does, as far as rates go.

Looking at Yuba City, it looks like they might actually have a slightly higher number of the lower cost lodgings. Still, their highest priced place, the Hampton Suites, comes in four dollars higher than Eureka's, the Red Lion at $140.

Of course, those are just the places that wanted to be listed with Sidestep, but it's probably as fair a way to compare prices as you could do quickly.

Headlsburg might be the place to avoid. I don't know that Eureka has any places as expensive as nearby Calistoga does.

Zoo To Charge Entrance Fee?

Looks like people might have to start paying to visit the Sequoia Park Zoo pretty soon. The Eureka City Councilcritters don't seem too happy about the situation. I suppose I don't blame them but, seems to me, user fees are probably the fairest way to pay for a many things.

Too bad the City Council didn't have such concerns when they were trying to decide whether to force garbage service on all Eureka residents. I can't help but wonder what the difference between the two issues is in their minds.

Cobb Makes Third Party Watch

How exciting. Humboldt's own David Cobb and Times- Standard makes the Third Party Watch blog!

Bob Barr on the Colbert Report

I enjoyed watching this one if only for the humor. A little over seven minutes long. Couldn't get the embed to work for some reason so had to use the link.

A Few Things

I would of mentioned a couple of these yesterday but didn't have time as my internet was down until around 8am.

I almost feel bad now. I guess the girl was for real.

Saw a couple gals across the street soliciting something earlier this week. Then, around the corner comes another girl- late teens, early twenties, real cutie. She comes over to my house and had an I.D. badge pinned to her shirt that said Teen Challenge. I figured that must be the same Teen Challenge we've been hearing about lately.

She says they're doing some renovating project at Sequoia Park and were looking for donations. I questioned her a bit about that, not having heard of any such project. I wondered if this was some scam. I finally gave her five bucks. I warned her that, if I found out there wasn't any such project, I'd come looking for her. She assured me the project was real.

The Times- Standard reports it was real.

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Somehow I missed it that the Eureka City Council passed the smoking ban on the boardwalk already. That really burns me up, no pun intended.

I'll have to admit I can count on just a couple fingers how often I do business in Old Town in one year. After this, I'll try and make sure to not do any business in Old Town from now on. The boycott is on! I hope you'll all join me.

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Interesting figures that Leo Sears came up with for his latest My Word column- Cost per resident for their local police and fire departments:

Police: Eureka $311- Arcata $265- Fortuna $159
Fire: Eureka $169- Arcata $87- Fortuna $92 and Humboldt Fire District $133

Why such a difference and does the extra cost for those that pay more show any benefit?

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Mike Thompson has introduced legislation that will supposedly increase the number of facilities that offer telehealth (aka telemedicine) services to some local residents. Telehealth, for those not familiar with the term, is just being able to use long distance technology to consult with specialists outside the area.

I've mentioned before here I'm skeptical that this will be money well spent, and that's considering how much of a stake I personally have in the issue. I have to travel regularly out of the area for medical consultations for the wife.

I haven't seen it work very well. Seems to me the medical hierarchy and bureaucracy gets in the way, at least in our case. Besides, physicians are often hesitant to diagnose and advise for conditions they can't see for themselves first hand.

I asked Dr. Hege, the wife's attending physician at UCSF Medical Center, if she saw promise in telemedicine as a way of eliminating all the wasteful back and forth travel. She said she didn't see it happening for chronic or life threatening diseases.

But, I guess we have to keep trying, huh?

The Unwatched Race

I suppose I'm as guilty as the rest, but few seem to have paid attention to the Republican primary for U.S. Congress. They had two candidates running for the chance to oppose Mike Thompson. It's a pleasant surprise to see they picked the one that would have been my choice, at least from the one article I read some time ago in one of the papers on the two Republican challengers.

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see any mention of the results in the Times- Standard. The Eureka Reporter covered it, though. The race was a little bit tighter than the results shown in the Eureka Reporter. The Smartvoter page shows it at Starkwolf 54.1% and Pharr at 45.9%. That shows stronger support than I would of expected for Pharr, the War Party candidate.

So, that means a three way race for Thompson's seat come November- Green Party candidate, Carol Wolman being the third contender. I haven't voted in the congressional race for some years unless there was a Libertarian running, not wanting to vote for Thompson and certainly not going to vote for past Republican/ War Party candidate, Lawrence Weisner.

I'll keep an eye on this Starkwolf fellow and see how oriented toward liberty he seems. Maybe I'll actually have someone to vote for in that race come November. Then again, maybe not.

Update/ Correction: My mistake. The folks at the Times- Standard have pointed out they did cover the Republican primary. What makes this really embarrassing for me is I read both the online and hard copy versions and scanned right through the references to that story.

Pretty Good Phishing E-mail

Got a pretty good phishing e-mail a few days ago that purported to be from PayPal. Copying and pasting it here doesn't seem to do it justice, but the original e-mail looked pretty authentic with the PayPal logo and all.

I was suspicious as always but actually had to look twice at this one. The links they wanted you to click on even had PayPal in them but the url was so long I doubted they were legitimate. So, I sent it to spoof@paypal.com and a day later go a reply. Sure enough, they didn't send it and said it was a phishing e-mail.

One thing I think PayPal should do to help guard against such things is to have a mailbox on each person's account page where they send a copy of anything e-mailed to their account holders. That way, you could easily just go check your inbox to see if the mail you received was something they actually did send you.

Anyway, be careful out there.

Dear PayPal valued account holder,

We recently noticed one or more attempts to log in your PayPal account from a foreign IP address and we have reasons to believe that your account was hijacked by a third party without your authorization.
If you recently accessed your account while traveling, the log in attempts may have initiated by you.

However if you are the rightful holder of the account, click on the link below and submit, as we try to verify your account.

Please click here to login into your PayPal account and then fill in the required informations. This is required for us to continue to offer you a safe and risk free environment.

The log in attempt was made from:

IP address: 91.121.78.111
ISP host: root.minifile.us

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to temporally suspend your account.
We ask that you allow at least 48hrs for the case to be investigated and we strongly recommend not making any changes to your account in that time.

* Please do not respond to this email as your reply will not be received.

Thank you for your patience as we work together to protect your account.

Copyright &copy 1999 - 2008 PayPal. All rights reserved.

Corruption In Eureka?

Well, I won't go that far with it, but I've become convinced there's more than meets the eye to these mandatory garbage service proposals for Arcata and Eureka. While the Times- Standard is saying that it looks like it's a done deal for Eureka now, I've been feeling all along it would be. Seemed like the mandatory garbage idea came first with the reasons justifying it later.

I've mentioned here before that mandatory pick- up is likely to increase the amount of trash going to landfills, not decrease it, even with mandatory recycling. I think most would agree that's likely the case yet we keep hearing the same excuse- diverting waste from landfills- as one of the primary reasons for this action.

We also keep hearing about other cities or counties that supposedly reached 90% waste diversion rates by requiring mandatory pick- up and recycling, but they don't seem interested in how Blue Lake, which doesn't require garbage pick- up, supposedly comes up with their 80% diversion rate.

I've been thinking it's simply in how they come up with their numbers. By manipulating the data they can arrive at numbers over or under the required diversion rate. I see no reason why Arcata should be getting higher diversion rates than Eureka, unless they're crunching their numbers differently.

I suspect that's why City Garbage of Eureka seems confident they can easily reach the 50% diversion rate if the get everyone in Eureka to sign on with their service: Just figure a different way of coming up with diversion rates. They probably already know how to do it.

It's also possible the Eureka City Council is looking at this as a potential income source. Perhaps once everybody is required to have garbage service, those garbage services could be an additional source to levy new fees and taxes on?

Works out great for both City Garbage and the City, doesn't it? City Garbage doubles or triples their business and Eureka can add a fifty cent or dollar tax or fee every now and then to garbage service to fund whatever they can come up with a need for, kinda like they do with utilities nowadays? Take a look at your phone or electric bill and take note of all the fees and taxes added.

Or maybe there's something going on along the line of what's happening in Sonoma County with a current garbage contractor offering the City of Santa Rosa some tens of millions of dollars if they're allowed to keep their lucrative contract with that city.

At least it looks like Santa Rosans will be getting the lowest rates possible in exchange for the contract with that garbage contractor. The $21.21 expected monthly fee the Times- Standard mentions is considerably above the $14 to $15 I pay each month now. Isn't that a 25% or more increase for me?

Anyway, no pun intended, but something really stinks about this mandatory garbage deal.