Community feels pinch as Sacramento's parks, schools prepare to close

Blake Formanek, 17, above, stands watch over the swimmers at Glenn Hall Pool on Tuesday. Day camp counselors Maija Williams and Rob Creer corralled a group of summer camp kids out of the afternoon sun in Southside Park and into the community room to play board games. Williams, 19, and Creer, 30, are among 26 city recreation aides whose day camps the city decided to close because of budget deficits. The counselors will be out of work Monday. "I don't know what I'll do," Williams said. "You can't collect unemployment when you work a seasonal job for the city." The city announced this week deep cuts to youth programs, pool hours and park maintenance. The cuts will save the city nearly $4.5 million. That's not comforting to children whose summer camp programs will end mid-session, families whose neighborhood pools will close to the public just as the summer gets hot, and to summer lifeguards and camp counselors whose hours will be halved or cut completely. And there's little hope among city officials that programs and services will go back to normal levels next season. "For the foreseeable future, that's the level of services we're able to provide," said Dave Mitchell, operations manager for the city's parks and recreation department. In the cool shade of the Southside Park community room, groups of children huddled over magnetic building blocks, the foosball table, and a fierce game of Risk. Eight-year-old Kaylee Kazee frowned as one of her playmates invaded Alaska. Kaylee said she was disappointed when her mother said this was her last week at Southside Park at 6th and W streets. "This is the best one I ever came to," Kaylee said. "There are less kids, lots of activities, it also has a shelter. Land Park doesn't have a shelter." William Land Park's summer camp is among the 15 programs that survived the cuts. The majority of those remaining are outdoor sites with only shade to hide from the sun, a concern some parents are raising about the cuts. The city has told parents their children can attend a camp that isn't being cut. But Kaylee's mom, Cindy Kazee, said her choice was "based on amenities." She said she wanted her son and daughter to have access to both the outdoors and an indoor space. Kazee said the city should re-examine its fees, because parents would be willing to pay more. "I paid $100 for eight weeks of child care," Kazee said. "I'd be happy to pay twice that." The budget cuts also forced the department to close public swim hours at five municipal pools – Cabrillo, George Sim, Glenn Hall, Mangan and Natomas High School – though swimming lessons and swim team practices will continue as scheduled. All other pools will reduce their public swim hours by half, according to Greg Narramore, superintendent of Aquatics and Public Safety. "This is absolutely unprecedented," Narramore said. Two-year-old Madeleine Winchell paddled her first swimming strokes toward her mother, Jennifer Winchell, in River Park's Glenn Hall pool Monday afternoon. That evening, Winchell came home to news reports that her neighborhood pool was closing. Winchell said she comes to the pool nearly every weekday with her two young daughters, Madeleine and Olivia, 4. She's also worried about the city's decision to close bathrooms in virtually all the city parks. "They're just going to let the park smell like urine," Winchell said. Some neighborhood groups are rallying to keep their community pools open. Jeff Harris, president of the River Park Neighborhood Association, said it and other neighborhood groups are talking with District 3 Councilman Steve Cohn to see if the community can raise money to keep the pool open for general swimming. It costs $138 per hour to keep a small pool like Glenn Hall open, according to Dave Mitchell, operations manager. Larger pools cost about twice that amount. "That's a lot of money for neighbors to raise to keep swimming pools open," Harris said. "We really want to keep this pool open," Harris said. "Even if we got two hours, three days a week." Ben Billeci, 46, left, swims with his daughter, Isabel, 7, at Glenn Hall pool. The city plans to cut the hours at that pool, as well as all the other public pools, to help ease a budget deficit.

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In S.F., thou shalt compost: It's the law

A Norcal Waste Systems truck filled with food scraps, yard trimmings and other compost ingredients tips its load at Jepson Prairie Organics' dumping yard in Vacaville. San Francisco, renowned for its civic will to save the planet, is now ordering residents and businesses to compost food scraps and biodegradables, or risk fines for not properly sorting their garbage. That's welcome news for Jepson Prairie Organics, a Dixon-based composting firm that already accepts delivery of 400 tons a day in plate scrapings, greasy cardboard and other sweet-stinking waste from San Francisco eateries and homes. It's also uplifting for Kathleen Inman, who uses the finished product to cultivate her pinot noir vines at Inman Family Wines in Sonoma County's russian river valley. For some 200 Northern California vineyards that use it, there is something about San Francisco compost and its unique, urban blend of crab shells from Fisherman's Wharf, pasta from North Beach, pupusas from the Mission District and dim sum from Chinatown that nourishes the soil like little else. Yet the question for San Francisco is whether the new city composting law signed by Mayor Gavin Newsom last month will nourish the city's ecological soul or merely irritate the populace. The new law gives the city authority to fine residents and small businesses $100 – and impose penalties up to $1,000 on big firms and apartment owners – if they refuse to segregate leftover fish bones, watermelon rinds and watercress salad into compost bins. Even in liberal San Francisco, which boasts of recycling 72 percent of its 2.1 million tons of waste a year, a few residents wonder if the law is a case of big compost meets Big Brother. "I think a fine is a little excessive, especially considering that it will probably be levied on the landlords," said David Baird, an interior designer for real estate sales who lives in the city's Castro District. "And if you have 200 units all dumping into the same compost bin, that's going to be pretty gross. "It's insane to sign a law without working out how to enforce it and regulate it." Newsom, a second-term mayor now running for governor, said the composting law is part of a "local global climate action plan" to reduce greenhouse gases, including methane from bloated landfills. The city, which has had a composting program since the mid-1990s, has achieved voluntary participation from 50 percent of restaurants, 40 percent of single-family homes and 20 percent of apartments. But the new law, designed to boost those rates by using the threat of citations, is drawing national media attention. San Francisco is the first major city to mandate that residents divvy up their trash – with green bins for compost, blue for recyclables and black for garbage – to salvage their food scraps. "All of a sudden, the headlines were 'Garbage Police: They're coming,' " Newsom mused in a signing ceremony for the law passed on a 9-2 vote by the Board of Supervisors. Newsom said the law "should be a model for every municipality … across the state of California and the country." But he said citations will be handed out rarely – and only to "egregious" offenders "blatantly violating the law." The city is hyping the composting law with instructive advertisements on pizza boxes across the city. If they're unspoiled cardboard, they go into the blue recyling bins. If they're kissed by anchovies, they're green bin compost. The city's efforts to boost composting are applauded by Damon Hall, the "chef de cuisine" at the upscale MoMo's restaurant, across the street from AT&T Park. After Giants baseball games, Hall says he fills three green bins with hundreds of pounds of compostables, from chicken skins and bones to onion cuttings and oyster shells. Hall considers himself both an environmentalist and a "small government libertarian." He says the city "just has to encourage people" to properly dispose their waste – not necessarily pass a law. But the recipients of San Francisco's gunky leftovers say they just can't get enough. Jepson Prairie Organics, which greets 18-wheel trucks carrying San Francisco compostables six days a week, bills its trademarked finished product as "Four Course Compost." Resembling dark roast coffee, it contains key soil-enriching ingredients: nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and calcium. Bob Shaffer, a soil scientist from Glen Ellen who works with wineries and farms from Napa Valley to the Sierra Nevada, said San Francisco compostables produce more nutrients than suburban yard clippings or agricultural waste because of the food diversity. For example, he said, those crab shells produce calcium and chitin, "a very valuable protein in soil." That dim sum is a great source of nitrogen. And that North Beach pasta helps accelerate the decomposition of slimy scraps into a treasured compost. The process "is like feeding sugar to children and watching them run around," Schafer said. "That's what happens to my microbes." In Dixon, Nigel Walker, who runs Eat Well Farms, feeds his soil with a six-inch layer of San Francisco compost. He figures a fraction of the 15 tons of compost he used this year for his tomato, wheat, barley, lettuce and figs may have originated from crops he grew that were consumed and disposed of in San Francisco. "Every week our trucks go to the city full of vegetables. Then the trimmings come back," he said. "In a way, it's really recycling. We're using the waste from our vegetables to grow more vegetables." Inman, who produces organic wines, said using San Francisco's compost makes her feel she is "reducing my carbon imprint and returning the earth to the way I found it." Dave Stockdale, director of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market on the San Francisco Bay, said he used to just "throw stuff in the nearest trash container, not really thinking where it will end up." The market now recycles or composts 90 percent of its garbage. "I found green ethics," he said. Robert Reed, public relations officer for Norcal and Jepson, shows off the product that's produced from all those scraps. A prep cook drops fish skin into a collection bin at MoMo's restaurant in San Francisco. The scraps are shipped out for composting.

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Economic pinch eases freeway commutes

Afternoon traffic backs up on Interstate 5 through downtown Sacramento, one of several remaining rush-hour choke points despite an overall easing of congestion on area freeways. Officials say high gas prices are driving motorists to mass transit. Has Sacramento turned back the clock on its highways to a more free-wheeling time? Some drivers and highway officials say yes – knock on wood – congestion doesn't seem as bad as it once was. Plenty of commuters, stalled in their regularly scheduled daily jam, find that hard to believe. But state Department of Transportation local freeway operations chief Jim Calkins said his crews have been chronicling an unbuckling of congestion around Sacramento for several years. "I'm not saying it isn't bad out there," Calkins said. "It's just not as bad. People are driving less." The estimated total commute hours vehicles spent in congested traffic on Sacramento freeways dropped from 21,800 to 11,500 over the last four years, Caltrans estimates. Notably, though, congestion during the heart of the commute – at 8 a.m. and at 5 p.m. – appears to be as heavy as ever. It's an indication that commuters still choose to cluster, even though their drives would be easier if they took off earlier or later. Three years ago, traffic on Highway 99 from Elk Grove would begin slowing daily soon after 6 a.m., Caltrans' Calkins said. Now, at that hour, it's often clear sailing. Caltrans officials note the easing of traffic started before the current recession hit. They cite expansion projects, such as lane additions at the notorious Roseville Interstate 80 bottleneck, and other fixes on Highways 99 and 50 and I-5, as well as some surface street widenings, as part of the reason. But the main cause, traffic watchers say, is much bigger than Caltrans. It's the economy. Last year, skyrocketing gas prices kept many cars in garages for anything other than essential trips. Bus and light-rail use jumped. This year, layoffs, furloughs and construction slowdowns have reduced the number of vehicles on the road on any given day, officials say. And as major retail outlets closed, truck deliveries to those stores disappeared, too. If there is an upside to the economic doldrums, a recent Sacramento State survey hints it may be that drivers are less stressed now. Just three years ago, 70 percent of Sacramentans rated congestion as a big problem. This spring, only 43 percent said it was a big problem. Stephanie Griffin, who lives in Yuba City and works near Howe Avenue, said she first noticed traffic wasn't as bad this year on nights the Sacramento Kings were playing. She used to keep a Kings game schedule at work as a warning "to avoid sitting in bumper to bumper traffic." Now, she says, traffic seems lighter along her entire commute. Jan Mendoza, who commutes on I-5 and Highways 70 and 50, agrees. "I used to have to leave my house no later than 6:15 to make it to my desk at 7:30," she said. "Lately, I've been leaving the house at 6:30 and arriving five minutes early." Early signs suggest this summer will see the lightest traffic in Northern California in years. The California State Automobile Association projects a 2 percent drop in the number of people planning long driving trips compared to last summer. A recent USA Today and Gallup poll found half of Americans intend to just stay home this summer. That's up from 41 percent last year. Congestion hot spots remain throughout Sacramento, and a few appear to be getting worse. For commuter Griffin, the W/X section of the Capital City Freeway continues to be a sore spot, as cars weave in and out, at varying speeds, to and from freeway ramps. Interstate 5 through downtown Sacramento has become one of the region's slowest afternoon commute sites, Caltrans data show. Commuters crawl through there on average only 26 mph, according to 2007 data. That appears to have improved lately, Caltrans officials said, thanks to a new road surface, some restriping and ramp meters. The section of the Capital City Freeway over the American River to Arden Way registers the second-slowest average afternoon commute speeds – 31 mph. To avoid that bottleneck, some commuters have switched to I-80 in Natomas, turning the freeway section near Northgate Boulevard and Norwood Avenue into the region's newest commute trouble spot. But congestion in Sacramento isn't only a weekday event. On Friday evenings, some commuters say, traffic on I-80 and Highway 50 can be at its worst. "A nightmare," El Dorado County commuter Jo Noble said. "People heading up to Tahoe, I presume." The return crowd from the mountains on Sunday afternoons – many headed back to the Bay Area – habitually clogs I-80 near Roseville and in West Sacramento on the approach to the Yolo Causeway. Both are spots where major freeways converge. The recent overall dip in congestion gives Caltrans workers a slight breather on a handful of major road projects, officials said. Road expansions continue on I-80 at the Roseville bottleneck, on the Lincoln Bypass portion of Highway 65, and on Highways 70 and 99 south of Yuba City and Marysville. In January, Caltrans plans to start building a set of carpool lanes on Highway 50 between Sunrise Boulevard and Watt Avenue. The reprieve isn't forever, though. The economy will pick up, and Sacramento will grow, planners say. And most agree that widening roads won't solve congestion problems in the long run. In fact, if poorly planned, they can make congestion worse, many say. Caltrans is analyzing Sacramento's main freeway corridors for improvements, including looking at how parallel roads, transit and bike routes can be used to supplement the highway. "We are trying to take a multi-modal approach," Caltrans's Jeff Pulverman said, "so we can squeeze as much as we can out of the existing network."

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Enjoy Some Jazz Music While Cruising Through New York's Waters

Lisa Mateo is taking a cruise right here in the Big Apple. Like everything else, travel and live jazz have suffered the economic downturn in New York and beyond. Fortunately, this summer New Yorkers don't have to go any farther than their own harbor every Wednesday night for great jazz and beautiful city views. For the 10th year in a row, The Smooth Cruises are back and setting sail along the scenic Hudson River. This 10-week series features some of the world's premier jazz artists. Marquee Concerts, New York's biggest jazz promoter, transforms the Shttp://www.spiritofnewyork.compirit of New York Cruise Ship into a floating jazz club each summer. Each cruise is a one-of-a-kind live show and lifestyle evening on the water. Starting July 1 and running every Wednesday night until Labor Day, there is a sunset cruise (6:30pm) and a moonlight cruise (9:30pm). This year's featured artists include Spyro Gyra, Alex Bugnon & Paul Taylor, Bobby Caldwell, The Rippingtons, Jonathan Butler, Najee, Peter White & Mindi Abair, Marion Meadows & Shilts, Phil Perry and Pieces of a Dream. For more information, visit www.spiritofnewyork.com.Continue Reading: http://weblogs.wpix.com/news/local/morningnews/blogs/2009/06/jazz_cruise.html

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River plan has ‘water square’ as a link to city

A massive city water square leading from the river towards The Esplanade will have boats and be surrounded by bars, restaurants, shops, hotels, apartments, offices and tourist attractions if the lates

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Body found in river ID'd as missing boater

SIOUX CITY -- Officials have recovered the body of a South Sioux City man missing since Saturday, when he fell off a boat into the Missouri River near the Port Neal industrial complex.

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VALUE AND VIEWS! 400 EAST 90TH STREET

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New land of Lincoln: Sacramento

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