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LAKEPORT – The Lakeport Fire District is asking the community to come and give them a hand in supporting a young family struggling with a serious health issue.
Lakeport Fire Chief Ken Wells said Chad Parlee – a fire district volunteer since 1990 – and his wife, Brandi, recently found out their 9-year-old daughter, Halee, has encephalitis.
Since her diagnosis, Halee has been receiving treatment at the Oakland Children's Hospital, Wells reported. “I don't think we could even imagine what the costs are,” Wells said.
Chad Parlee works as an airplane mechanic at Lampson Field, said Wells, and the young working-class family is struggling with Halee's medical costs.
But firefighters are used to helping those in need, and so Wells and his department are organizing a Saturday benefit to help the family.
Wells said the pancake breakfast fundraiser will be held on Sunday, May 20, at the Lakeport Fire main station, 445 N. Main St.
Firefighters will serve up a complete breakfast, including pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs and coffee, from 7:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.
“Hopefully it will go longer,” said Wells.
Many area businesses are donating to the effort, said Wells. “Everybody's kicking in.”
Those who have donated to the fundraiser, Wells reported, are Lakeport McDonald's, Longs Drugs, Park Place, Hi-Way Grocery, The Cottage Coffee Shop, Renee's Cafe, Perko's, Grocery Outlet, Shoreline Restaurant, Bruno's Shop Smart and Safeway.
The community is urged to come enjoy breakfast Sunday – come early and stay late – and help the Parlees as they get Halee the medical help she needs.
For more information or to make donations, call Lakeport Fire, 263-4396.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED.
NICE – A man who reportedly ran in front of a vehicle and was hit survived with relatively minor injuries.
The California Highway Patrol reported that they received a call at 3:48 p.m. Tuesday that a man had fallen from the back of a vehicle on Highway 20 in front of the Harbor Bar & Grill in Nice.
Thomas Rice, 27, was found to have a head injury but was conscious and alert, the CHP reported.
While investigating the incident, authorities discovered Rice hadn't fallen from a vehicle, but had actually run in front of a 2007 Saturn driven by Amy Zingone of Clearlake Oaks and been hit, according to CHP Officer Josh Dye.
Rice was taken to Sutter Lakeside Hospital, the CHP reported. Dye said Rice suffered lacerations to his face, abrasions to his head and right hand, and a pelvic fracture.
The cause of the collision was listed as public intoxication and failing to yield the right of way when not in a crosswalk, Dye reported.
Authorities said Rice would be arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct when released from the hospital.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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SAN FRANCISCO – California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. is accusing the Bush administration of siding with the auto industry by illegally adopting “dangerously misguided” gas mileage rules for SUVs, pickups and minivans.
Brown, in a lawsuit backed by 11 states and several environmental organizations, said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s new mileage standards violate federal law by ignoring both the environment and our country’s growing dependence on foreign oil.
The lawsuit, which was argued Monday in a San Francisco federal appeals court, accuses the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of ordering only a trivial increase in vehicle mileage standards – an increase from 22.2 mpg to 23.5 mpg by 2010. Such administrative action is contrary to federal rules mandating energy conservation, according to a statement from Brown's office.
The administration should have considered the effects of the vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions on global warming when formulating new mileage standards, the lawsuit alleges. Had the administration done so, the government would have demanded greater fuel efficiency, according to the lawsuit.
“After years of neglect, it is unconscionable to increase vehicle mileage standards by only one mile per gallon,” Brown said outside the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case was argued Monday. “We are asking the court to reject this dangerously misguided policy that exacerbates global warming and enriches foreign sponsors of terrorism.”
When approving the regulations last year, the Bush administration primarily emphasized the financial costs to the auto industry instead of seriously considering the cost to the environment and people's health, lawyers for Brown and the other plaintiffs argued Monday to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Suing along with Brown are Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, the District of Columbia, New York City, the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club.
About 8 percent of the United States' greenhouse gas emissions come from the vehicles at issue.
Some say global warming does not exist, but even the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged it, according to Brown's statement.
On April 2, the Supreme Court demanded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency consider adopting regulations to combat climate change.
In that case, the high court wrote "the harms associated with climate change are serious and well recognized." The Supreme Court noted environmental changes "have already inflicted significant harms" from retreating glaciers, to early spring snow melts to an "accelerated rate of rise of sea levels during the 20th century relative to the past few thousand years."
The lawsuit accuses the Bush administration of violating the Energy Policy and Conservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, and says greater fuel efficiency is vital "to avert environmental disaster."
The National Environmental Policy Act and other regulations require the Bush administration, when formulating new mileage standards, to consider the effects of the vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions on global warming, which the Bush administration failed to do, Brown said.
Instead, the Bush administration adopted a standard oblivious to how manmade pollution is harming the environment and changing the climate, Brown claimed.
On Monday, at the same time as the lawsuit was being argued in San Francisco, President Bush gave an address in the White House Rose Garden in which he stated his desire “to cut America’s gasoline usage by 20 percent.”
Brown said that he applauded the president’s favorable comments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and cutting back on gas-guzzling, but urged the president to take two immediate steps: tell the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to grant California and 12 other states permission to reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions and junk last year’s token 1-mile-per gallon increase in fuel efficiency standards and “propose something real.”
“The president doesn’t offer a single concrete proposal on how to combat global warming and instead directs his bureaucracy 'to work together’ to come up with a plan,” Brown said. “California already has a plan that can be adopted immediately.”
Arguing for California and the other states is California Deputy Attorney General Susan S. Fiering.
A decision by the three-judge appeals court panel is expected anytime.
The case is California v. National Highway Traffic Safety Agency, 06-72317.
Court records in the case can be found at: www.ag.ca.gov/newsalerts/.
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SACRAMENTO – The Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday approved the following bills by Senator Patricia Wiggins (D – Santa Rosa):
– SB 557, which seeks to include qualified doctors of audiology among those medical professionals who may be appointed by the administrative director of the Division of Workers' Compensation as qualified medical evaluators.
The bill’s sponsor, the California Academy of Audiology, asserts that an audiologist is the most qualified professional to determine whether a hearing loss would impair a worker's ability or whether a hearing loss was secondary to noise exposure on the job.
– SB 565, which would create the position of hospital and health services director at the Yountville Veterans’ Home.
Yountville is the only state veterans’ home with a hospital. Yountville has an emergency room, skilled nursing facility, pharmacy, and an Alzheimer unit. Yountville has a medical director and a nursing director but no one to administer and coordinate the medical care and medical personnel for all the facilities on the property.
Veterans and veterans’ advocacy groups believe that patients would be better served with a hospital and health services director on-site.
– SB 581, which would transfer the Volunteer Firefighters Length of Service Award System away from CalPERS and direct administrative responsibilities of the program to the California State Fire Employees Welfare Benefit Corporation.
Currently there are approximately 54 fire departments participating in the program, and 128 volunteer firefighters who are receiving monthly payments and who are eligible for the death benefit. The total membership is comprised of 3,983 volunteer firefighters and the balance in the fund is approximately $2.6 million.
In 1998, CalPERS changed the methods and assumptions it used in determining the administrative costs of the VFLSA. Since that time, the administrative costs have increased from $10,000 to an estimated cost of $139,025 for 2007-08.
The system is funded entirely by contributions from contracting fire entities and investment earnings.
– SB 861, which would authorize the North Coast Railroad Authority (NCRA) to use $5.5 million in previously allocated state funds for environmental cleanup of rail lines.
Specifically, this bill would allow the NCRA to use $5.5 million in funds allocated through the Transportation Congestion Relief Program to meet cleanup obligations under an environmental remediation consent decree ($4 million), along with some administrative responsibilities.
The authority would be prohibited from spending more than $500,000 annually on administrative expenses.
Monday's actions mean that all four bills are now eligible for a vote by the full Senate.
Wiggins represents California’s 2nd Senate District, which stretches from Solano County to Humboldt County and includes part or all of Lake, Mendocino, Napa and Sonoma Counties as well. Visit her Web site at http://dist02.casen.govoffice.com/.
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