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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
“People across this country are struggling to pay their mortgages and afford rising health care costs, but rural communities are being hit even harder by the tough economy,” said Congressman Thompson. “Congress must ensure that America’s rural areas receive their fair share of any economic stimulus package by investing in the highways, bridges, and other infrastructure that are the arteries of our country’s economy. America cannot be restored to greatness without the help of all Americans, not just those in urban areas.”
His colleagues also emphasized the importance of public-private partnerships and investing in rural infrastructure such as broadband and electric grids.
In the letter to Pelosi, they wrote, “As Congress continues to craft an economic stimulus package, it is critical that the benefits of any stimulus are broadly distributed throughout rural, urban, and suburban America.”
That's because, according to the letter, approximately 50 million Americans live in rural communities.
“An economic stimulus package must recognize that rural Americans make vital contributions to our economy and face the same struggles with rising unemployment as people living in urban and suburban communities,” the members of Congress explained. “In fact, seasonally adjusted unemployment rates for non-metropolitan areas were higher each quarter in 2008 than for metropolitan areas.”
Thompson and his colleagues – all of them from rural districts – assured Pelosi of their support for her continued efforts to include infrastructure spending in a recovery package.
“However,” they said, “legislation with infrastructure spending that ultimately only funds projects in urban and suburban communities will fail to provide the broad economic benefit the American people expect. Facing rising unemployment, rural America cannot afford to be shortchanged in an economic recovery package.
“As representatives of rural districts, we know that rural communities are prepared with ready-to-go infrastructure projects that could put people to work within months,” the members of Congress wrote. “Rural communities have the workforce and the infrastructure needs to effectively utilize new federal spending. Rural areas should be provided with an equitable share of economic stimulus funds to improve their local economies just like metropolitan communities.”
The Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act of 2008, H.R. 7110, included a provision to distribute stimulus funds between rural and metropolitan communities.
The letter explained that funds in the Federal Transit Administration Transit Capital Assistance Grants were specifically reserved for rural formula grants.
The representatives said Congress should “build on the precedent created by the transit funds in the Job Creation and Unemployment Relief Act with guarantees in new economic recovery legislation to ensure an equitable distribution of all infrastructure funds between rural and metropolitan areas.”
In adding to Thompson, Rahall, Gordon and Filner, signatories to the letter included Reps. Joe Baca, John Barrow, Marion Berry, Dan Boren, Leonard Boswell, Shelley Moore Capito, Chris Carney, Ben Chandler, Travis Childers, Jim Costa, Jerry Costello, Henry Cuellar, Lincoln Davis, Bob Etheridge, Frank Kratovil Jr., Jim Marshall, Eric Massa, Jim Matheson, Charlie Melancon, Mike Michaud, Alan Mollohan, Collin Peterson, Mike Ross, John Salazar, Heath Shuler, Mike Simpson, John Tanner, Tim Walz and Peter Welch.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
“California is a world leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in our fight against climate change,” said the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research Director Cynthia Bryant. “With these draft guidelines, OPR took a thoughtful approach to how greenhouse gas emissions can be addressed in a comprehensive and fair way, so that we can rebuild California’s infrastructure and stimulate our economy while at the same time reducing our carbon footprint.”
In 2007, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 97 by Sen. Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga). The bill’s purpose is to advance a coordinated policy for reducing GHG emissions by directing OPR and the Natural Resources Agency to develop CEQA guidelines on how state and local agencies should analyze, and when necessary, mitigate GHG emissions.
Under SB 97, OPR has until July 1 to submit proposed draft CEQA guidelines to the Natural Resources Agency.
The Natural Resources Agency must then take the draft CEQA guidelines through a formal rulemaking process and adopt them as state regulation by Jan. 1, 2010.
OPR is releasing the draft guidelines ahead of schedule to allow additional time to address public comments and for the Natural Resources Agency to prepare the necessary documentation as part of its rulemaking process.
In June, OPR released its technical advisory, which was developed in consultation with the Natural Resources Agency, California Environmental Protection Agency and the Air Resources Board.
Until the CEQA guidelines are adopted next January, this technical advisory provides a blueprint that public agencies can use to address GHG emissions within existing requirements of the CEQA statutes and guidelines.
OPR will hold two public workshops on Jan. 22 and 26 to discuss the preliminary language before submitting its final recommendations to the Natural Resources Agency.
For more information on the OPR preliminary draft CEQA guidelines and additional tools for public agencies, go to www.opr.ca.gov.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
CLEARLAKE – A Clearlake man could spend the rest of his life in prison after receiving a 24-year sentence on Friday for a series of arsons – some of which claimed historic local buildings – that he was convicted of late last year.
Norman Ralph Henderson, 62, received the upper term of 24 years in prison from Judge Richard Martin for 10 arson fires he intentionally set between April 25, 2007, and April 10, 2008, in Lake County, according to a Sunday report from Chief Deputy District Attorney Richard Hinchcliff. Defense attorney Jeremy Dzubay represented Henderson.
Henderson also has a long history of setting fires that goes back decades, according to officials.
Hinchcliff said that, because the convictions include what are termed “violent felonies,” Henderson is subject to credit limitations so he will have to serve 85 percent of his sentence before being eligible for parole.
Martin also ordered Henderson – who will be 82 years old before being eligible for parole – to pay restitution to his victims in the amount of $543,046.25, Hinchcliff said.
On Oct. 3, 2008, Henderson pleaded guilty to starting the fires in the eastern Lake County areas of Bartlett Springs Road and Indian Valley Reservoir, according to Hinchcliff.
The fires Henderson was convicted of starting involved two motor homes, two inhabited vacation residences, a Yolo County Flood Control District cabin, two water bottling and purifying facilities owned by Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water that had been shut down, and two wildland fires.
Beginning in the spring of 2007, a series of suspicious fires began to hit vacation homes and other buildings in the Bartlett Springs area, as Lake County News has reported.
Two of the fires in particular claimed the old Bartlett Springs Lodge and the lodge's rebuilt gazebo, along with water bottling facilities that are part of the former Bartlett Springs Resort property now owned by Nestle Waters North America, the parent company of Arrowhead.
Because of their remote locations, the fires usually were well under way before firefighters could respond. That, along with the fact that by the time they arrived there was no one on scene, had left fire investigators with few leads as to who was responsible, according to previous interviews Lake County News conducted at the time with local officials.
But an important break came the way of Lake County Arson Task Force investigators when, in April of 2008, Henderson was arrested for setting fire to a fruit stand on Highway 20 just west of Williams in Colusa County, said Hinchcliff.
That case came to the attention of the task force when Williams Fire Chief Jeff Gilbert called Northshore Fire Protection Chief Jim Robbins and told him, “We may have your guy,” as Lake County News reported last May.
Lake County Arson Task Force members – including Sheriff’s Investigator Corey Paulich, Cal Fire Investigator Chris Vallerga and Lake County Fire Protection District Investigator Brice Trask – were able to connect Henderson to the Lake County fires, said Hinchcliff, who is the District Attorney's Office's arson prosecutor.
Hinchcliff said Henderson's guilty plea in October was part of an agreement reached with the District Attorney's Office which agreed not to charge Henderson with prior “strikes” for previous arson conditions in Nevada and Butte County.
Henderson's background investigation, Hinchcliff said, revealed a conviction for setting fire to a barn in Butte County in 1969. Then, in 1991, Henderson went to prison after threatening a 73-year-old Las Vegas woman. That same year he also reportedly set fire to the Nugget Casino in Fallon, Nev.
Even after spending time in prison, Henderson's series of arsons continued. Hinchcliff said that Henderson set ablaze an unoccupied building in Fallon, Nev., in 1994.
Hinchcliff said Henderson is still facing charges related to the Colusa County fire. Although the Williams fruit stand fire was quickly extinguished with little damage as a result, Henderson currently has an outstanding Colusa County warrant for that case.
Henderson, who has done yard work for a living according to his booking sheet, currently is in the Lake County Jail for the local arson cases and the outside agency warrants, according to jail records.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The 3.6-magnitude quake occurred at 1:18 a.m. Saturday, according to the US Geological Survey.
The US Geological Survey report noted that the earthquake was recorded at a depth of three miles.
Its epicenter was 11 miles southwest of Ukiah and 12 miles southwest of Talmage, according to the report.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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