At 24, Beecham is as far along in college as many young adults four, five and even six years her junior.
She's also a little older than most people deciding what they want to be when they grow up or what mark they want to leave on the world.
But when Beecham, a Glenn County foster youth advocate, speaks — people listen.
If that is an advantage in life, Beecham said it's only because she speaks from the heart, and from a life experience few people know about or understand.
"Having grown up in the foster care system, you might say that is where I get my passion," said Beecham, the California Youth Connection coordinator at the Glenn County Office of Education, a part-time position.
She also works part-time in a similar capacity with Health and Human Resources, and is enrolled full-time at Butte College.
"Someday, I would love to get a Ph.D. in psychology," she said wistfully; still unsure of her future.
In other ways, however, Beecham is ahead of her time.
When she speaks, Beecham brings tears to the eyes of grown men and rooms full of people to their feet in standing ovation.
She also spends her days helping empower children in the foster care system to find their own voices.
Her goal, she said, is to enlighten the public and policy makers about the unique needs of foster youth, and to change the negative stereotypes many people have.
"The more you talk about being a foster youth, the more the community will be educated," Beecham said. "That is what empowered me to speak the first time, and I haven't stopped. I'm continually pushing forward."
And if she helps just one foster youth
climb from under a veil of secrecy and onto a similar path to success, Beecham said she will have done her job.
"Children are placed in foster care through no fault of their own," she said. "It's not because they did something wrong. It's not because they are bad children. It is usually because their parents did something wrong."
Beecham was 11-years-old when she was taken from her mother, who had been in and out of prison.
By the time she was 14, she had lived in several foster homes and attended many schools.
"My freshman year, I attended four high schools, Corning, Marysville, Natomas in Sacramento and Willows," she said. "I was lucky. My sophomore year I was placed in a home in Orland, so I was able to stay there three years until I graduated."
Many foster youth aren't so lucky.
Even though they may be placed in good homes, even loving homes, the odds are against them, Beecham said.
Turnover among foster parents is extremely high — largely due to returning to work, lack of day care, retirement or lack of support — making it hard for foster youth to develop relationships with the people they live with.
Many youth go into foster care never able to recover from the abuse or neglect that put them in the system in the first place.
They often, because of movement, fall behind in school and perform far below grade level.
Foster youth are often restricted by state and federal rules and regulations that prevent them from growing emotionally, bonding with others or able to learn from life's milestones or from making mistakes.
"When you are a foster child, you never really get to be a normal teenager," Beecham said. "You are always afraid you will do something that will cause you to lose your placement."
The fear is genuine, she said. A misadventure that may have garnered a normal child a scolding from a parent — or an argument with a classmate at school — could find a child uprooted, plastic bag of meager belongings in hand, and shipped to the next available home.
By the time foster youth reach high school, chances of graduation or earning a general education diploma are 50 percent, and going to college is one in ten.
By the time they are emancipated, foster youth typically have few resources or know what resources are available to them, and most have even fewer champions to give them the support they need to make it in the real world.
"When I emancipated out of the system at 17, I didn't know anything or what was available to me," Beecham said. "I ended up making mistakes, like getting way over my head into debt. I also became a mother at 17."
Mostly through shear determination, perseverance and reaching out to past mentors, Beecham overcame many of the obstacles that typically keep foster youth down.
"Nobody ever says they want to grow up to be unsuccessful," she said. "At some point, you have to make a relationship that helps you get the support you need."
Glenn County foster youth, at least, are luckier than most.
"They don't get lost in the system like youth in larger counties," said Robin Smith, Foster Youth Services and Project "HELP" coordinator at the Glenn County Office of Education. "In LA, where there are thousands of foster kids, they are just data in a computer."
Smith said working with Beecham as a teenager, maintaining contact through foster youth programs and then bringing her into the Office of Education's Foster Youth Services as the local California Youth Connection coordinator has been a blessing in more ways than one.
"She inspires me," Smith said. "She helped me rekindle a passion for my own job, and motivated me to not give up."
Together, Beecham and Smith work to promote educational success for about 100 Glenn County foster youth through advocacy, mentoring, tutoring, vocational training, work experience, counseling and guidance.
The program is funded by a state grant, which has been renewed for another three years.
Glenn County has also formed a Blue Ribbon Commission to allow the courts, child welfare agencies and other government agencies to share responsibility for local foster youth, all of whom deserve a system that treats them fairly, Smith said.
More importantly, with Beecham as a foster youth advocate, Glenn County youth in the system are finding their own voices before state legislators in Sacramento.
In the first year of a two-year legislative session, 2011 produced several bills that will have a significant impact on the lives of youth in or transitioning out of foster care, Beecham said.
The most significant was AB 212, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Oct. 4, that allows foster youth to remain in a system of care until age 21, as long as they are in college, working or preparing for a job.
It was a huge victory, she said, and one that will prevent youth from ending up alone on the streets at 17 or 18.
Other California Youth Connection supported bills, signed by the governor, included AB 791, which allows children at the age of 16 access to their birth certificate; AB 709, which allows a foster child to be enrolled in a school even if they cannot produce clothing or medical records normally required at admission; and SB 926, which allows a foster child's agent or social worker to disclose the fact that a child is in custody in order to help find a relative for possible placement.
With the help of the community, Beecham is raising money for Glenn County foster youth to attend a legislative conference at the state Capitol in January to advocate for rights and upcoming legislation that may have a positive impact on their lives.
2011年10月31日星期一
2011年10月30日星期日
Plunging crime rates a community accomplishment
There are crime rates, and then there are crime rates.
One correlates the number of incidents with the population base.
The other simply counts the crimes from year to year.
In Flagstaff, police do both, and the conclusion drawn from each is the same: Flagstaff is a much safer place now than it was five years ago.
That's a credit to not only the department but also numerous agencies and groups that have worked on prevention, prosecution and reducing the recidivism rate.
Skeptics might note that the crime rate across the United States and Arizona has been falling for much of the last decade. Flagstaff, they say, could just be along for the ride.
Except that the falloff here defies that explanation. In most categories, the rate of decline is two to three times greater than the national and state decreases.
Take grand theft auto. Five years ago there were 192 vehicles reported stolen in the Flagstaff; last year there were 62. For a city at the crossroads of two major interstates and a hub for regional commerce, that is an amazing statistic.
Burglary, another property crime tied to opportunity, fell from 499 incidents in 2006 to 225 last year. Larceny theft, which includes big-ticket shoplifting, fell by nearly 700 incidents. Arson was down 66 percent.
On the violent crime side, which often involves substance abuse, aggravated assault was off 43 percent in five years, robbery 44 percent.
As the Daily Sun reported during its coverage of Chief Brent Cooper's untimely death, the recent plunge in the crime rate coincides with his appointment five years ago and implementation of community policing. The department combined that technique with a computerized, block-by-block tracking system of incidents, allowing patrol officers and detectives to get out ahead of criminals -- or at least know better how to catch up with them.
The techniques don't make headlines or appear on most TV crime shows -- gaining the trust and cooperation of a neighborhood like Sunnyside is done one community meeting or sidewalk chat at a time.
The same goes for nabbing garden-variety criminals. A rise in auto break-ins, for example, means more unmarked stakeouts in parking lots, handing out brochures to residents telling them to lock their cars, and alerting apartment complex managers to report suspicious activity. The culprits are caught sooner, put away in prison, and the crime rate drops.
Or, over at the Guidance Center, there are new programs in place to sober up street alcoholics and get them on the road toward dealing with their addiction. At the jail, there's a new rehab program for drug addicts that looks to do the same thing.
The results show up in fewer drunken assaults and fewer petty thefts to support drug habits.
Does it cost any more to be that much safer? Yes, the $200,000-a-year in-custody rehab program is supported through a higher jail district sales tax. And several government agencies dip into their tax-supported budgets to help underwrite the detox program at the Guidance Center.
But remarkably, the police department has kept up the momentum behind falling crime rates even as city budget cuts resulted in fewer positions last year. The tradeoff, as we reported last Sunday, has been a rise this year in DUI-related collisions as officers make fewer traffic stops than in the past. Now that the trend is clear, area drivers can expect more traffic patrols at key times and in key corridors in the coming months, say police.
Before we pat ourselves on the back too much, however, it is important to note that Flagstaff's crime rates are in most categories still above the national and state averages. And when compared to similar, medium-sized university cities in the Mountain West, Flagstaff is generally less safe, sometimes by a significant margin.
Each city, of course, has its own demographic profile, police budget and other unique factors. But the comparisons are worth exploring further, if only for police officials to open lines of communications that might help when an emergency or special case arises.
On balance, though, it's hard to complain about crime rates in Flagstaff that are all headed in the right direction. No single person deserves all the credit, but we have to think that what Brent Cooper created and then directed at the police department for the past five years has played a major role. We'd hope that any search for a successor sets criteria that look to build on that legacy.
One correlates the number of incidents with the population base.
The other simply counts the crimes from year to year.
In Flagstaff, police do both, and the conclusion drawn from each is the same: Flagstaff is a much safer place now than it was five years ago.
That's a credit to not only the department but also numerous agencies and groups that have worked on prevention, prosecution and reducing the recidivism rate.
Skeptics might note that the crime rate across the United States and Arizona has been falling for much of the last decade. Flagstaff, they say, could just be along for the ride.
Except that the falloff here defies that explanation. In most categories, the rate of decline is two to three times greater than the national and state decreases.
Take grand theft auto. Five years ago there were 192 vehicles reported stolen in the Flagstaff; last year there were 62. For a city at the crossroads of two major interstates and a hub for regional commerce, that is an amazing statistic.
Burglary, another property crime tied to opportunity, fell from 499 incidents in 2006 to 225 last year. Larceny theft, which includes big-ticket shoplifting, fell by nearly 700 incidents. Arson was down 66 percent.
On the violent crime side, which often involves substance abuse, aggravated assault was off 43 percent in five years, robbery 44 percent.
As the Daily Sun reported during its coverage of Chief Brent Cooper's untimely death, the recent plunge in the crime rate coincides with his appointment five years ago and implementation of community policing. The department combined that technique with a computerized, block-by-block tracking system of incidents, allowing patrol officers and detectives to get out ahead of criminals -- or at least know better how to catch up with them.
The techniques don't make headlines or appear on most TV crime shows -- gaining the trust and cooperation of a neighborhood like Sunnyside is done one community meeting or sidewalk chat at a time.
The same goes for nabbing garden-variety criminals. A rise in auto break-ins, for example, means more unmarked stakeouts in parking lots, handing out brochures to residents telling them to lock their cars, and alerting apartment complex managers to report suspicious activity. The culprits are caught sooner, put away in prison, and the crime rate drops.
Or, over at the Guidance Center, there are new programs in place to sober up street alcoholics and get them on the road toward dealing with their addiction. At the jail, there's a new rehab program for drug addicts that looks to do the same thing.
The results show up in fewer drunken assaults and fewer petty thefts to support drug habits.
Does it cost any more to be that much safer? Yes, the $200,000-a-year in-custody rehab program is supported through a higher jail district sales tax. And several government agencies dip into their tax-supported budgets to help underwrite the detox program at the Guidance Center.
But remarkably, the police department has kept up the momentum behind falling crime rates even as city budget cuts resulted in fewer positions last year. The tradeoff, as we reported last Sunday, has been a rise this year in DUI-related collisions as officers make fewer traffic stops than in the past. Now that the trend is clear, area drivers can expect more traffic patrols at key times and in key corridors in the coming months, say police.
Before we pat ourselves on the back too much, however, it is important to note that Flagstaff's crime rates are in most categories still above the national and state averages. And when compared to similar, medium-sized university cities in the Mountain West, Flagstaff is generally less safe, sometimes by a significant margin.
Each city, of course, has its own demographic profile, police budget and other unique factors. But the comparisons are worth exploring further, if only for police officials to open lines of communications that might help when an emergency or special case arises.
On balance, though, it's hard to complain about crime rates in Flagstaff that are all headed in the right direction. No single person deserves all the credit, but we have to think that what Brent Cooper created and then directed at the police department for the past five years has played a major role. We'd hope that any search for a successor sets criteria that look to build on that legacy.
2011年10月27日星期四
Pacific Biosciences Posts Q3 Revenues of $10.5M, Lowers Revenue Guidance
Pacific Biosciences reported after the close of the market Thursday that its third-quarter revenues fell 1 percent sequentially but beat analysts' consensus estimates on the top and bottom line.
The firm also lowered its revenue guidance for the year based on its current backlog of instrument orders.
The single-molecule, real-time sequencing instruments maker brought in total revenues of $10.5 million for the three-month period ended Sept. 30, down from $10.6 million for the second quarter, but above analysts' consensus estimate of $9.8 million. The firm reported revenues of $220,000 for Q2 2010, before it launched its first product, the PacBio RS system.
PacBio reported product revenues of $9.8 million versus $10.1 million for Q2 2011. Service and other revenues were $535,000, up from $192,000, and grant revenues were $165,000 versus $290,000. All of the revenues in Q3 2010 were from grants.
On a conference call following the release of the results, PacBio President and CEO Hugh Martin said that the firm placed a total of 15 RS systems during the third quarter. Of those 15, seven were new placements. The company now has an installed base of 31 systems, he added.
Martin said that the company has been successful in placing instruments with early "adopters and innovators," but added that many mainstream customers are still "waiting on the sidelines." He also acknowledged that the company "overestimated the speed" at which the transition from early adopters to the mainstream market would occur.
The firm posted a net loss of $29.3 million, or $.54 per share, compared to a net loss of $40.7 million, or $39.70 per share, for Q3 2010, before the firm went public. Its Q2 2011 net loss was $22.5 million, or $.42 per share. PacBio beat the Wall Street estimate for a loss per share of $.59.
It R&D spending was $20 million, compared to $32.9 million for Q3 2010 and $19.5 million for Q2 2011. Its SG&A expenses were $12.8 million, versus $8 million for the third quarter of 2010 and $11 million for the second quarter of 2011.
PacBio recently laid off 130 employees, or 28 percent of its workforce. At the time it said that the job cuts were the result of "uncertainties associated with the economic environment" and to put the company in a position for success in the long term.
The firm recorded charges of $4.9 million for the quarter tied to the staff reductions.
According to Martin, the layoffs cut the firm's burn rate to $20 million per quarter. It had spent around $32 million in the second quarter.
PacBio finished the quarter with $193.7 million in cash and investments.
Ben Gong, VP of finance and treasurer, said on the call that PacBio has trimmed its 2011 revenue forecast to a range of $30 million to $33 million from a previous expectation of around $35 million. He said the current backlog is 27 RS units, representing $18M in system revenue backlog, and the firm would need to install 19-20 units in Q4 to meet the earlier $35 million guidance.
Instead, PacBio intends to "stagger" the installations into Q1 in order to "smooth" the installation process and spend more time with customers, since new customers require a great deal of support, he said.
Martin added that PacBio has begun the early-access program for the C2 chemistry upgrade, which will increase the read length and improve the accuracy of the system. The firm initially targeted the commercial launch for the fourth quarter of this year but has pushed that into Q1 2012. Martin said PacBio is looking for early-access customers to "validate that the release is ready" before it become more broadly available.
Separately, PacBio announced that Michael Hunkapiller has been named executive chairman of the firm's board of directors. Hunkapiller is a general partner at venture capital firm Alloy Ventures and former president and GM of Applied Biosystems, which is now part of Life Technologies. He's been a member of PacBio's board since 2005.
The firm also lowered its revenue guidance for the year based on its current backlog of instrument orders.
The single-molecule, real-time sequencing instruments maker brought in total revenues of $10.5 million for the three-month period ended Sept. 30, down from $10.6 million for the second quarter, but above analysts' consensus estimate of $9.8 million. The firm reported revenues of $220,000 for Q2 2010, before it launched its first product, the PacBio RS system.
PacBio reported product revenues of $9.8 million versus $10.1 million for Q2 2011. Service and other revenues were $535,000, up from $192,000, and grant revenues were $165,000 versus $290,000. All of the revenues in Q3 2010 were from grants.
On a conference call following the release of the results, PacBio President and CEO Hugh Martin said that the firm placed a total of 15 RS systems during the third quarter. Of those 15, seven were new placements. The company now has an installed base of 31 systems, he added.
Martin said that the company has been successful in placing instruments with early "adopters and innovators," but added that many mainstream customers are still "waiting on the sidelines." He also acknowledged that the company "overestimated the speed" at which the transition from early adopters to the mainstream market would occur.
The firm posted a net loss of $29.3 million, or $.54 per share, compared to a net loss of $40.7 million, or $39.70 per share, for Q3 2010, before the firm went public. Its Q2 2011 net loss was $22.5 million, or $.42 per share. PacBio beat the Wall Street estimate for a loss per share of $.59.
It R&D spending was $20 million, compared to $32.9 million for Q3 2010 and $19.5 million for Q2 2011. Its SG&A expenses were $12.8 million, versus $8 million for the third quarter of 2010 and $11 million for the second quarter of 2011.
PacBio recently laid off 130 employees, or 28 percent of its workforce. At the time it said that the job cuts were the result of "uncertainties associated with the economic environment" and to put the company in a position for success in the long term.
The firm recorded charges of $4.9 million for the quarter tied to the staff reductions.
According to Martin, the layoffs cut the firm's burn rate to $20 million per quarter. It had spent around $32 million in the second quarter.
PacBio finished the quarter with $193.7 million in cash and investments.
Ben Gong, VP of finance and treasurer, said on the call that PacBio has trimmed its 2011 revenue forecast to a range of $30 million to $33 million from a previous expectation of around $35 million. He said the current backlog is 27 RS units, representing $18M in system revenue backlog, and the firm would need to install 19-20 units in Q4 to meet the earlier $35 million guidance.
Instead, PacBio intends to "stagger" the installations into Q1 in order to "smooth" the installation process and spend more time with customers, since new customers require a great deal of support, he said.
Martin added that PacBio has begun the early-access program for the C2 chemistry upgrade, which will increase the read length and improve the accuracy of the system. The firm initially targeted the commercial launch for the fourth quarter of this year but has pushed that into Q1 2012. Martin said PacBio is looking for early-access customers to "validate that the release is ready" before it become more broadly available.
Separately, PacBio announced that Michael Hunkapiller has been named executive chairman of the firm's board of directors. Hunkapiller is a general partner at venture capital firm Alloy Ventures and former president and GM of Applied Biosystems, which is now part of Life Technologies. He's been a member of PacBio's board since 2005.
2011年10月26日星期三
College’s new IT Director brings experience, enthusiasm to role
Laura Eagen is looking forward to landing in the Okanagan to take over her new job as the College’s Director of Information Technology Services.
She’s worked in Ireland, Newfoundland and Ottawa over the course of the last three decades, and brings with her extensive experience in a number of different scenarios. Most recently, she has been Chief Information Officer for Newfoundland Liquor. Before that was head of Strategic Development for the Bank of Ireland.
“I’m eager to immerse myself in the post-secondary environment,” she said. “Information Technology has always been an integral part of the education system, but from the business side of the equation to the classroom and to educational delivery, it is becoming increasingly critical. Okanagan College has a deserved reputation for leadership in post-secondary, and I’m hoping to help further bolster that.”
“Laura’s breadth of experience and her demonstrated capacity for innovation and for strategic development impressed us,” explained Bob Eby, Okanagan College’s Vice-President of Finance and Administration.
Eagen will replace retiring IT Director Dave Harris, who wraps his career with Okanagan College in December after almost 25 years as an employee. His history with the college, though, goes further than that. Dave’s relationship with Okanagan College began in the late 1960s when the computer business he worked at took on the College as a client, printing class lists from punched cards.
She’s worked in Ireland, Newfoundland and Ottawa over the course of the last three decades, and brings with her extensive experience in a number of different scenarios. Most recently, she has been Chief Information Officer for Newfoundland Liquor. Before that was head of Strategic Development for the Bank of Ireland.
“I’m eager to immerse myself in the post-secondary environment,” she said. “Information Technology has always been an integral part of the education system, but from the business side of the equation to the classroom and to educational delivery, it is becoming increasingly critical. Okanagan College has a deserved reputation for leadership in post-secondary, and I’m hoping to help further bolster that.”
“Laura’s breadth of experience and her demonstrated capacity for innovation and for strategic development impressed us,” explained Bob Eby, Okanagan College’s Vice-President of Finance and Administration.
Eagen will replace retiring IT Director Dave Harris, who wraps his career with Okanagan College in December after almost 25 years as an employee. His history with the college, though, goes further than that. Dave’s relationship with Okanagan College began in the late 1960s when the computer business he worked at took on the College as a client, printing class lists from punched cards.
2011年10月25日星期二
Penticton Rotary clubs help students hit the books hard
When students at Okanagan College’s new Centre of Excellence sit down to study, they’ll literally be supported by their local Rotarians.
The Penticton, Penticton-Okanagan and Skaha Rotary Clubs successfully pooled their resources to raise $21,660, which will create a designated study space.
“Education is one of the key focuses of Rotary, so this made perfect sense,” said Skaha Club director and lawyer Tom Kampman. “I remember what it was like trying to study during my academic years. I used to find a spot in the windowless basement of the library, and just put my head down. I think being in that academic air makes a difference.”
The three clubs presented their cheques to the Okanagan College Foundation at a special event held on the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 19 at the College’s new Centre of Excellence. Following the presentation, the Rotarians toured the net-zero energy facility.
“There is nothing that ensures a student’s success more than the combination of community support and personal effort. This is exactly what the Foundation likes to encourage,” said Okanagan College Foundation president Jim Henderson.
Erwin Ploner, president of the Penticton Club, said his club quickly took up the fundraising campaign when Henderson brought the idea to their attention.
“The new building will increase enrolment, and give students the opportunity to stay home so they can save the extra living expenses,” he said, adding it’s a great addition to the community as a whole.
Penticton-Okanagan club president Barry Reid agrees.
“The city, and the region, is already well known for open spaces, lakes, fruit and wine, and now it has a campus with high-tech courses focused on promoting green technology,” said Reid, who sat on the Centre’s campaign committee. “This is a good fit for the city and the city’s future. This Centre of Excellence is now part of our identity.”
The donations from Penticton ($15,000), Penticton-Okanagan ($5,000) and Skaha ($1,600) combined with the donation from Summerland Rotary ($25,000) earlier this year mark the latest demonstration of community support for the College and its unique multi-million dollar building.
The Penticton, Penticton-Okanagan and Skaha Rotary Clubs successfully pooled their resources to raise $21,660, which will create a designated study space.
“Education is one of the key focuses of Rotary, so this made perfect sense,” said Skaha Club director and lawyer Tom Kampman. “I remember what it was like trying to study during my academic years. I used to find a spot in the windowless basement of the library, and just put my head down. I think being in that academic air makes a difference.”
The three clubs presented their cheques to the Okanagan College Foundation at a special event held on the afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 19 at the College’s new Centre of Excellence. Following the presentation, the Rotarians toured the net-zero energy facility.
“There is nothing that ensures a student’s success more than the combination of community support and personal effort. This is exactly what the Foundation likes to encourage,” said Okanagan College Foundation president Jim Henderson.
Erwin Ploner, president of the Penticton Club, said his club quickly took up the fundraising campaign when Henderson brought the idea to their attention.
“The new building will increase enrolment, and give students the opportunity to stay home so they can save the extra living expenses,” he said, adding it’s a great addition to the community as a whole.
Penticton-Okanagan club president Barry Reid agrees.
“The city, and the region, is already well known for open spaces, lakes, fruit and wine, and now it has a campus with high-tech courses focused on promoting green technology,” said Reid, who sat on the Centre’s campaign committee. “This is a good fit for the city and the city’s future. This Centre of Excellence is now part of our identity.”
The donations from Penticton ($15,000), Penticton-Okanagan ($5,000) and Skaha ($1,600) combined with the donation from Summerland Rotary ($25,000) earlier this year mark the latest demonstration of community support for the College and its unique multi-million dollar building.
2011年10月24日星期一
Buses should be top priority, not trolleys
It's difficult to make sense of Columbia City Council's recent decision to acquire six aged and ailing trolleys from the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority even as this community braces for a proposed 40 percent cut in bus service.
How is it that resurrecting a trolley system that has failed multiple times - once under the guidance of the city and again under the direction of the transit authority - has become a priority at such a pivotal moment in the life of the bus system? The trolleys were put to rest because they simply couldn't be run efficiently and were too much of a drain on public coffers.
While the city will receive the trolleys at no cost from the transit authority, it's going to cost a projected $30,000 to $40,000 to get them ready for the road - if not more. In a memo to city manager Steve Gantt, general services director David Knoche wrote: "As a reminder, there are six trolleys, none have run in the last year, four have not run in the last several years and were used to rob parts off of for the last two that were running."
So, although the city takes over the trolleys at no cost, it remains to be seen exactly what it's going to cost to get and keep them on the road.
The success of this endeavor is questionable enough considering the past failures and the condition of the trolleys. But the bigger concern is the city's insistence on developing a separate plan to run, fund and manage the trolleys outside of the overall transit system. Using local tax dollars to put the trolleys back on the road should be out of the question, especially considering the state of the bus system - and all the other unmet service needs in these lean times.
Mayor Steve Benjamin said in an email that the city will seek grant funding to help put the trolleys back in service. It's unclear exactly how a newly configured trolley system would work. Mr. Benjamin said the hope is to develop a downtown circular trolley service that would not only serve tourists but also help planned "park and ride" efforts. He said it's important to develop various devices aimed at getting people out of their cars. An effective trolley service, he said, would "help with parking, traffic, air quality and the growth of the regional transit system."
He also noted that citizens already have paid for the trolleys and that, in an effort to return them to use effectively, "it was important to me to have them under our control again until a meaningful, big picture, fiscally conservative plan could be developed for them."
If the trolley system is going to have a reasonable chance of success, it must work hand-in-hand with a viable bus system, which would bring people into town who would use the trolleys. It's odd that the city is concentrating on the trolleys when the overall transit system is in danger of falling apart. Although Columbia and Lexington and Richland counties are providing funding for the bus system, the total allocation falls short of what it takes to keep the system operating at its current inadequate level, let alone supporting the kind of service this community actually needs.
The transit authority is considering potentially debilitating cuts to bus service as a result of a $3 million funding gap. ...
The direction and future of the bus system are in limbo. The system hasn't had an executive director in months, the current board is on its way out, and it is hurting for money. The most immediate response on the part of local officials should be to spend more time and effort - and money - saving the bus system, not trying to salvage a defunct trolley system.
How is it that resurrecting a trolley system that has failed multiple times - once under the guidance of the city and again under the direction of the transit authority - has become a priority at such a pivotal moment in the life of the bus system? The trolleys were put to rest because they simply couldn't be run efficiently and were too much of a drain on public coffers.
While the city will receive the trolleys at no cost from the transit authority, it's going to cost a projected $30,000 to $40,000 to get them ready for the road - if not more. In a memo to city manager Steve Gantt, general services director David Knoche wrote: "As a reminder, there are six trolleys, none have run in the last year, four have not run in the last several years and were used to rob parts off of for the last two that were running."
So, although the city takes over the trolleys at no cost, it remains to be seen exactly what it's going to cost to get and keep them on the road.
The success of this endeavor is questionable enough considering the past failures and the condition of the trolleys. But the bigger concern is the city's insistence on developing a separate plan to run, fund and manage the trolleys outside of the overall transit system. Using local tax dollars to put the trolleys back on the road should be out of the question, especially considering the state of the bus system - and all the other unmet service needs in these lean times.
Mayor Steve Benjamin said in an email that the city will seek grant funding to help put the trolleys back in service. It's unclear exactly how a newly configured trolley system would work. Mr. Benjamin said the hope is to develop a downtown circular trolley service that would not only serve tourists but also help planned "park and ride" efforts. He said it's important to develop various devices aimed at getting people out of their cars. An effective trolley service, he said, would "help with parking, traffic, air quality and the growth of the regional transit system."
He also noted that citizens already have paid for the trolleys and that, in an effort to return them to use effectively, "it was important to me to have them under our control again until a meaningful, big picture, fiscally conservative plan could be developed for them."
If the trolley system is going to have a reasonable chance of success, it must work hand-in-hand with a viable bus system, which would bring people into town who would use the trolleys. It's odd that the city is concentrating on the trolleys when the overall transit system is in danger of falling apart. Although Columbia and Lexington and Richland counties are providing funding for the bus system, the total allocation falls short of what it takes to keep the system operating at its current inadequate level, let alone supporting the kind of service this community actually needs.
The transit authority is considering potentially debilitating cuts to bus service as a result of a $3 million funding gap. ...
The direction and future of the bus system are in limbo. The system hasn't had an executive director in months, the current board is on its way out, and it is hurting for money. The most immediate response on the part of local officials should be to spend more time and effort - and money - saving the bus system, not trying to salvage a defunct trolley system.
2011年10月23日星期日
Five workshops held by the Labour Party in Gozo today
The Labour Party has been holding its regional conference in Gozo this weekend. Today, five different workshops were held which were set up to discuss political, social, economic and cultural proposals for a better Gozo.
The five workshops were run by Dr Anton Refalo, Mr Joe Cordina, Dr Justyne Caruana, Mr Anton F Attard and Mr Franco Mercieca.
Many topics were discussed across the various meetings, in discussions took place about the possibility of direct access to EU funds for Gozo, the development of new economic sectors and the island having it’s own regional decision making structures.
Participants in another meetings felt that “Gozo needed a further yacht marina.” Also discussed was that a “better transport service between Gozo and Comino, as well as to possibly some of the bays on the island, should be developed.” Underground car parks built in Mgarr and Victoria to ease the parking problems was another item discussed.
In another discussion it was said that the “Xewkija industrial area should be revived and that a new business park built in Gozo would generate new economic activity, encouraging the return of lost businesses from Malta and abroad to the island.”
Those present in the meeting that had an educational theme agreed that “extra investment was required for the youth of Gozo to provide them with more educational opportunities on the island.” Also discussed was the point that “local university students should be able to submit their assignments in Gozo as well as take their exams in Gozo. Gozitan students who have to travel to Malta, should continue to receive financial support, this could also possibly include those in private education. Better career guidance for the youth in Gozo was also something that needed attention, the attendees thought. Others felt that the “unfair gap in pay between Gozitans and Maltese must be addressed
The celebration of Gozo’s cultural and natural heritage, through handicrafts, art and culture, were discussed, with participants commenting on the need for camping and caravan sites. Investment in new cultural, sports and recreational facilities was also mentioned. “More public gardens and recreation areas for families were needed on the island,” they thought. The chance of having off road facilities was discussed, as well as to hold more cultural events of all types in Gozo. The participants also thought that “more archaeological work must be carried out at the Citadel to prevent its deterioration.”
Changing the health care service was discussed in another meeting so that patients “could be assigned rooms not according to their gender but according to their condition.” Also mentioned was the “urgent need for a chemotherapy service in Gozo and that the medicines service provided by the health system should be under the control of the Health Ministry and not the Ministry for Gozo which is not professionally qualified to provide it.” Those at the meeting also felt that homes for the elderly in Gozo were badly needed.
The five workshops were run by Dr Anton Refalo, Mr Joe Cordina, Dr Justyne Caruana, Mr Anton F Attard and Mr Franco Mercieca.
Many topics were discussed across the various meetings, in discussions took place about the possibility of direct access to EU funds for Gozo, the development of new economic sectors and the island having it’s own regional decision making structures.
Participants in another meetings felt that “Gozo needed a further yacht marina.” Also discussed was that a “better transport service between Gozo and Comino, as well as to possibly some of the bays on the island, should be developed.” Underground car parks built in Mgarr and Victoria to ease the parking problems was another item discussed.
In another discussion it was said that the “Xewkija industrial area should be revived and that a new business park built in Gozo would generate new economic activity, encouraging the return of lost businesses from Malta and abroad to the island.”
Those present in the meeting that had an educational theme agreed that “extra investment was required for the youth of Gozo to provide them with more educational opportunities on the island.” Also discussed was the point that “local university students should be able to submit their assignments in Gozo as well as take their exams in Gozo. Gozitan students who have to travel to Malta, should continue to receive financial support, this could also possibly include those in private education. Better career guidance for the youth in Gozo was also something that needed attention, the attendees thought. Others felt that the “unfair gap in pay between Gozitans and Maltese must be addressed
The celebration of Gozo’s cultural and natural heritage, through handicrafts, art and culture, were discussed, with participants commenting on the need for camping and caravan sites. Investment in new cultural, sports and recreational facilities was also mentioned. “More public gardens and recreation areas for families were needed on the island,” they thought. The chance of having off road facilities was discussed, as well as to hold more cultural events of all types in Gozo. The participants also thought that “more archaeological work must be carried out at the Citadel to prevent its deterioration.”
Changing the health care service was discussed in another meeting so that patients “could be assigned rooms not according to their gender but according to their condition.” Also mentioned was the “urgent need for a chemotherapy service in Gozo and that the medicines service provided by the health system should be under the control of the Health Ministry and not the Ministry for Gozo which is not professionally qualified to provide it.” Those at the meeting also felt that homes for the elderly in Gozo were badly needed.
2011年10月20日星期四
Abu Dhabi to launch rental guidance index
The index will determine the rental value of a unit based on indicators like location, number of bedrooms and how old it is, Ali Al Hashemi, manager of Tawtheeq at the Municipality of Abu Dhabi City, told Gulf News.
"This index will be in place within the next two years, and it is one of the future plans for the municipality's Tawtheeq system that aims to streamline leasable unit transactions in the city," Al Hashimi said.
From November, the Tawtheeq system will be implemented for transactions associated with the Department of Transport , the Abu Dhabi Distribution Company and the Department of Economic Development.
"In this first phase, a Tawtheeq-registered tenancy contract will be required for all transactions related to rental units leased out by property management companies. These transactions include getting a parking spot near one's residence from the DoT, or opening up a new account for water and electricity distribution with the ADDC," Al Hashimi said.
The requirement will be extended to units leased by private landlords and property owners as well by February, he added.
"Although tenants will eventually require Tawtheeq-registered contracts for transactions with at least 16 different entities, the responsibility to register units on to the system, as well as the cost, is entirely up to the property management company or the landlord. Tenants must therefore approach their landlords if their contracts are not registered," the official added.
Nearly 45,000 leasable units have already been registered under the system since its introduction in March, including those owned by Abu Dhabi Commercial Properties Company, First Gulf Properties, Deyaar Development and Abu Dhabi National Property Company.
"While nearly 80 per cent of property management companies have registered by now, only about 10 per cent of private landlords have responded," Al Hashimi said. He urged leasable property owners to ensure conformity with the system soon.
David Dudley, regional director of international real estate services company Jones Lang LaSelle and head of its Abu Dhabi office, said the rental index would promote market transparency.
"Currently, a two-tier market exists in the Abu Dhabi housing market. People who rented units before the 2007-2008 peak are paying low rents due to the 5 per cent annual rent cap, while those who came in afterwards are paying much higher sums and constantly negotiating with their landlords to have these reduced," Dudley explained.
"This index will be in place within the next two years, and it is one of the future plans for the municipality's Tawtheeq system that aims to streamline leasable unit transactions in the city," Al Hashimi said.
From November, the Tawtheeq system will be implemented for transactions associated with the Department of Transport , the Abu Dhabi Distribution Company and the Department of Economic Development.
"In this first phase, a Tawtheeq-registered tenancy contract will be required for all transactions related to rental units leased out by property management companies. These transactions include getting a parking spot near one's residence from the DoT, or opening up a new account for water and electricity distribution with the ADDC," Al Hashimi said.
The requirement will be extended to units leased by private landlords and property owners as well by February, he added.
"Although tenants will eventually require Tawtheeq-registered contracts for transactions with at least 16 different entities, the responsibility to register units on to the system, as well as the cost, is entirely up to the property management company or the landlord. Tenants must therefore approach their landlords if their contracts are not registered," the official added.
Nearly 45,000 leasable units have already been registered under the system since its introduction in March, including those owned by Abu Dhabi Commercial Properties Company, First Gulf Properties, Deyaar Development and Abu Dhabi National Property Company.
"While nearly 80 per cent of property management companies have registered by now, only about 10 per cent of private landlords have responded," Al Hashimi said. He urged leasable property owners to ensure conformity with the system soon.
David Dudley, regional director of international real estate services company Jones Lang LaSelle and head of its Abu Dhabi office, said the rental index would promote market transparency.
"Currently, a two-tier market exists in the Abu Dhabi housing market. People who rented units before the 2007-2008 peak are paying low rents due to the 5 per cent annual rent cap, while those who came in afterwards are paying much higher sums and constantly negotiating with their landlords to have these reduced," Dudley explained.
2011年10月19日星期三
Buses should be top priority, not trolleys
IT’S DIFFICULT to make sense of Columbia City Council’s recent decision to acquire six aged and ailing trolleys from the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority even as this community braces for a proposed 40 percent cut in bus service.
How is it that resurrecting a trolley system that has failed multiple times — once under the guidance of the city and again under the direction of the transit authority — has become a priority at such a pivotal moment in the life of the bus system? The trolleys were put to rest because they simply couldn’t be run efficiently and were too much of a drain on public coffers.
While the city will receive the trolleys at no cost from the transit authority, it’s going to cost a projected $30,000 to $40,000 to get them ready for the road — if not more. In a memo to city manager Steve Gantt, general services director David Knoche wrote: “As a reminder, there are six trolleys, none have run in the last year, four have not run in the last several years and were used to rob parts off of for the last two that were running.”
So, although the city takes over the trolleys at no cost, it remains to be seen exactly what it’s going to cost to get and keep them on the road.
The success of this endeavor is questionable enough considering the past failures and the condition of the trolleys. But the bigger concern is the city’s insistence on developing a separate plan to run, fund and manage the trolleys outside of the overall transit system. Using local tax dollars to put the trolleys back on the road should be out of the question, especially considering the state of the bus system — and all the other unmet service needs in these lean times.
Mayor Steve Benjamin said in an email that the city will seek grant funding to help put the trolleys back in service. It’s unclear exactly how a newly configured trolley system would work. Mr. Benjamin said the hope is to develop a downtown circular trolley service that would not only serve tourists but also help planned “park and ride” efforts. He said it’s important to develop various devices aimed at getting people out of their cars. An effective trolley service, he said, would “help with parking, traffic, air quality and the growth of the regional transit system.”
He also noted that citizens already have paid for the trolleys and that, in an effort to return them to use effectively, ”it was important to me to have them under our control again until a meaningful, big picture, fiscally conservative plan could be developed for them.”
If the trolley system is going to have a reasonable chance of success, it must work hand-in-hand with a viable bus system, which would bring people into town who would use the trolleys. It’s odd that the city is concentrating on the trolleys when the overall transit system is in danger of falling apart. Although Columbia and Lexington and Richland counties are providing funding for the bus system, the total allocation falls short of what it takes to keep the system operating at its current inadequate level, let alone supporting the kind of service this community actually needs.
The transit authority is considering potentially debilitating cuts to bus service as a result of a $3 million funding gap. Before those cuts could go into effect, the public must be allowed to comment. Anyone who cares about the bus system shouldn’t miss this opportunity. The first of three public hearings was held on Tuesday. The second begins at 5:30 p.m. today at the main Richland County library, 1431 Assembly St. The final one will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the transit authority headquarters, 3613 Lucius Road, off River Drive.
The direction and future of the bus system are in limbo. The system hasn’t had an executive director in months, the current board is on its way out, and it is hurting for money. The most immediate response on the part of local officials should be to spend more time and effort — and money — saving the bus system, not trying to salvage a defunct trolley system.
How is it that resurrecting a trolley system that has failed multiple times — once under the guidance of the city and again under the direction of the transit authority — has become a priority at such a pivotal moment in the life of the bus system? The trolleys were put to rest because they simply couldn’t be run efficiently and were too much of a drain on public coffers.
While the city will receive the trolleys at no cost from the transit authority, it’s going to cost a projected $30,000 to $40,000 to get them ready for the road — if not more. In a memo to city manager Steve Gantt, general services director David Knoche wrote: “As a reminder, there are six trolleys, none have run in the last year, four have not run in the last several years and were used to rob parts off of for the last two that were running.”
So, although the city takes over the trolleys at no cost, it remains to be seen exactly what it’s going to cost to get and keep them on the road.
The success of this endeavor is questionable enough considering the past failures and the condition of the trolleys. But the bigger concern is the city’s insistence on developing a separate plan to run, fund and manage the trolleys outside of the overall transit system. Using local tax dollars to put the trolleys back on the road should be out of the question, especially considering the state of the bus system — and all the other unmet service needs in these lean times.
Mayor Steve Benjamin said in an email that the city will seek grant funding to help put the trolleys back in service. It’s unclear exactly how a newly configured trolley system would work. Mr. Benjamin said the hope is to develop a downtown circular trolley service that would not only serve tourists but also help planned “park and ride” efforts. He said it’s important to develop various devices aimed at getting people out of their cars. An effective trolley service, he said, would “help with parking, traffic, air quality and the growth of the regional transit system.”
He also noted that citizens already have paid for the trolleys and that, in an effort to return them to use effectively, ”it was important to me to have them under our control again until a meaningful, big picture, fiscally conservative plan could be developed for them.”
If the trolley system is going to have a reasonable chance of success, it must work hand-in-hand with a viable bus system, which would bring people into town who would use the trolleys. It’s odd that the city is concentrating on the trolleys when the overall transit system is in danger of falling apart. Although Columbia and Lexington and Richland counties are providing funding for the bus system, the total allocation falls short of what it takes to keep the system operating at its current inadequate level, let alone supporting the kind of service this community actually needs.
The transit authority is considering potentially debilitating cuts to bus service as a result of a $3 million funding gap. Before those cuts could go into effect, the public must be allowed to comment. Anyone who cares about the bus system shouldn’t miss this opportunity. The first of three public hearings was held on Tuesday. The second begins at 5:30 p.m. today at the main Richland County library, 1431 Assembly St. The final one will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the transit authority headquarters, 3613 Lucius Road, off River Drive.
The direction and future of the bus system are in limbo. The system hasn’t had an executive director in months, the current board is on its way out, and it is hurting for money. The most immediate response on the part of local officials should be to spend more time and effort — and money — saving the bus system, not trying to salvage a defunct trolley system.
2011年10月18日星期二
French deploy IR Hammer
The French air force and navy have begun operational deployment of the infrared terminal guidance version of the Hammer AASM.
Developed and produced by Sagem, with French defense procurement agency DGA acting as program manager, the Hammer AASM is a family of air-to-ground weapons, comprising a guidance kit and range augmentation kit fitted to standard bombs, making the AASM a high-precision guided weapon with a range exceeding 37 miles.
The AASM IR version features a guidance kit with an infrared imager in the nose cone, along with the standard hybrid GPS/inertial guidance systems.
Following the initial deployment of the Hammer AASM, the French air force and navy carried out the first firing tests of this version of the AASM under combat conditions.
Sagem said by adding infrared terminal guidance to the standard hybrid GPS/inertial version of the AASM, the Hammer IR proved to be particularly well-suited to precision strikes against targets with uncertain coordinates, offering impact accuracy to within a few yards, even when GPS signals were unavailable.
The AASM has been deployed in foreign theaters of operation, demonstrating its reliability and accuracy, including for long-range missions.
The GPS/inertial version of the AASM guided weapon, with 500-pound bombs, has been in service with the French air force since 2008, and with the French naval aviation since 2010.
A new version with laser terminal guidance, capable of engaging moving targets, is completing development.
Developed and produced by Sagem, with French defense procurement agency DGA acting as program manager, the Hammer AASM is a family of air-to-ground weapons, comprising a guidance kit and range augmentation kit fitted to standard bombs, making the AASM a high-precision guided weapon with a range exceeding 37 miles.
The AASM IR version features a guidance kit with an infrared imager in the nose cone, along with the standard hybrid GPS/inertial guidance systems.
Following the initial deployment of the Hammer AASM, the French air force and navy carried out the first firing tests of this version of the AASM under combat conditions.
Sagem said by adding infrared terminal guidance to the standard hybrid GPS/inertial version of the AASM, the Hammer IR proved to be particularly well-suited to precision strikes against targets with uncertain coordinates, offering impact accuracy to within a few yards, even when GPS signals were unavailable.
The AASM has been deployed in foreign theaters of operation, demonstrating its reliability and accuracy, including for long-range missions.
The GPS/inertial version of the AASM guided weapon, with 500-pound bombs, has been in service with the French air force since 2008, and with the French naval aviation since 2010.
A new version with laser terminal guidance, capable of engaging moving targets, is completing development.
2011年10月17日星期一
Hyundai Veloster: prices announced
With two doors on the driver’s side of the cabin, and one on the passenger side, it offers a unique configuration in its class, making it easier for rear-seat passengers to get in and out.
It marks a return to the coupe class for Hyundai, after its last sporty model went out of production in 2009. The Veloster will compete against the Volkswagen Scirocco, Renault Megane Coupe and Vauxhall Astra GTC.
Just one engine is available at launch – the 1.6-litre GDi diesel with 138bhp, fitted with a six-speed manual gearbox or Hyundai’s first dual-clutch automatic.
Stop and start and low rolling-resistance tyres contribute to the Veloster Blue Drive managing 47.9mpg average fuel consumption and emitting 137g/km of CO2.
This makes it an economical choice, but it’s some way behind the Volkswagen Scirocco 2-litre TDI Bluemotion Technology, which manages 62.8mpg and emits 118g/km of CO2. Its saving grace is an asking price of £18,345, compared with £22,435 for the Scirocco.
The Veloster promises to be well-equipped, with standard features including 17-inch alloy wheels, 7-inch touch-screen media centre, Bluetooth with voice recognition, climate control, reversing sensors, front and rear fog lights, LED daytime running lights, CD player, iPod connection and leather steering wheel.
Choose the Sport trim level and 18-inch alloys, leather upholstery, heated front seats, panoramic sunroof, cruise control, keyless entry, engine stop/start button and alloy pedals are also fitted. On the options list, you’ll find sat-nav, rear parking camera, ParkingGuidance system , speaker upgrade and a red leather interior.
All Hyundai Veloster models are covered by a five-year/unlimited miles warranty, including five years of roadside assistance and five years of vehicle health checks.
It marks a return to the coupe class for Hyundai, after its last sporty model went out of production in 2009. The Veloster will compete against the Volkswagen Scirocco, Renault Megane Coupe and Vauxhall Astra GTC.
Just one engine is available at launch – the 1.6-litre GDi diesel with 138bhp, fitted with a six-speed manual gearbox or Hyundai’s first dual-clutch automatic.
Stop and start and low rolling-resistance tyres contribute to the Veloster Blue Drive managing 47.9mpg average fuel consumption and emitting 137g/km of CO2.
This makes it an economical choice, but it’s some way behind the Volkswagen Scirocco 2-litre TDI Bluemotion Technology, which manages 62.8mpg and emits 118g/km of CO2. Its saving grace is an asking price of £18,345, compared with £22,435 for the Scirocco.
The Veloster promises to be well-equipped, with standard features including 17-inch alloy wheels, 7-inch touch-screen media centre, Bluetooth with voice recognition, climate control, reversing sensors, front and rear fog lights, LED daytime running lights, CD player, iPod connection and leather steering wheel.
Choose the Sport trim level and 18-inch alloys, leather upholstery, heated front seats, panoramic sunroof, cruise control, keyless entry, engine stop/start button and alloy pedals are also fitted. On the options list, you’ll find sat-nav, rear parking camera, Parking
All Hyundai Veloster models are covered by a five-year/unlimited miles warranty, including five years of roadside assistance and five years of vehicle health checks.
2011年10月16日星期日
U.S. government eliminates Eco Passes for employees at Boulder's federal labs
Beginning next year, nearly 900 federal employees in Boulder will no longer have access to a popular bus-transit program, in a move that has drawn the ire of city and congressional officials alike.
A legal interpretation handed down last month by attorneys for the U.S. Department of Commerce concludes that the Regional Transportation District's popular Eco Pass program -- which provides deep discounts to businesses or neighborhoods that purchase annual bus passes in bulk -- is a form of a "transit subsidy benefit" and cannot be distributed universally to federal workers.
The federal transit subsidy program has strict limitations on who is eligible to participate, including restrictions on how often employees may drive themselves to work without losing the benefits.
RTD guidelines for the Eco Pass program, meanwhile, require businesses that participate to make the passes available to any worker who wants one. That helps keep the cost of the passes down while encouraging new riders, officials say.
The changes affect 863 workers at the Boulder offices of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
NOAA campus director Don Mock said the Eco Pass program has been a popular benefit for many employees over the years.
"The type of employees we have are very environmentally aware and they appreciate the aspects of the Eco Pass program -- which really encouraged people to try the bus," he said.
He said that losing the program has been a "shock to the system for our staff," and called the Eco Pass a "tremendous deal for the government" that is simple to administer.
Of the labs' collective 863 employees, a total of 654 workers accepted Eco Passes this year, at a cost of $126,000, said Daria Serna, a spokeswoman for RTD.
She said RTD has not been notified by the Commerce Department about plans to stop purchasing Eco Passes. A spokesperson for the Department of Commerce did not return calls on Friday.
Workers at the three labs will remain eligible to apply for a monthly RTD pass through the federal transit subsidy program, but they must meet strict guidelines that require users to take the bus to work almost every day. The subsidy will provide up to $120 per month toward the price of transit -- which is not enough to cover the $176 monthly price tag of a regional RTD pass for people who commute from Denver to Boulder.
John Augustine, a longtime meteorologist based at the Boulder NOAA office, said that he's already applied for whatever subsidy he can get. But he remains concerned about others who either don't qualify or won't follow through with the paperwork.
He said he's also concerned because the federal complex was intentionally constructed with a fewer number of parking spaces than employees.
"If this impacts a lot of people where they don't follow through and begin driving, we're going to have a huge problem and it's going to start affecting the surrounding neighborhoods," he said.
Jim Burrus, the public information and outreach coordinator at the Boulder NIST office, said he rides the bus from Longmont to Boulder up to four times a week and uses his Eco Pass "extensively."
"If it's taken away and not replaced, it will cost me literally thousands of dollars a year in extra gas, oil, maintenance and brain damage, not to mention parking," he said, adding that parking is not a reimbursed expense at the lab. "Sitting in traffic sucks if you're not on a bus."
Officials with the city of Boulder also expressed concerns.
"We are dismayed at the guidance from the federal level," said Martha Roskowski, program manager for Go Boulder.
She said the decision to eliminate Eco Passes from the federal labs "doesn't make any sense at all" from a financial perspective.
Records with RTD and NOAA show that the Department of Commerce spent $146 per Boulder employee last year to purchase Eco Passes. Under the federal transit subsidy program, the government could end up paying up to $1,440 per employee for the same level of service.
"The Eco Pass program is a really cost-effective way to provide transit services," Roskowski said. "It also encourages new people to try transit."
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, highlighted those same points in a Sept. 28 letter to Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke.
"The city of Boulder and I share serious concerns about this decision as the transit benefits currently being provided at the Boulder campus are extremely cost-effective and very important for both employees and the city in its goal and need to increase transit ridership," Polis wrote.
The congressman went on to say that the decision to do away with Eco Passes "would seem likely to lead to an unnecessary greater expense of taxpayer dollars."
Transportation officials have agreed to work on behalf of the three Boulder labs to determine whether continued participation in the Eco Pass program is in the government's best interest, according to an internal memo sent to all NIST employees late last month.
But even if the decision were made to continue purchasing Eco Passes, only workers who qualify for the broader federal transit subsidy would be eligible, according to the memo.
In the meantime, workers are being encouraged to continue to ride the bus.
"While we appreciate that this will be a significant change, we hope you will consider using mass transit and apply for the transit benefit," the memo reads.
A legal interpretation handed down last month by attorneys for the U.S. Department of Commerce concludes that the Regional Transportation District's popular Eco Pass program -- which provides deep discounts to businesses or neighborhoods that purchase annual bus passes in bulk -- is a form of a "transit subsidy benefit" and cannot be distributed universally to federal workers.
The federal transit subsidy program has strict limitations on who is eligible to participate, including restrictions on how often employees may drive themselves to work without losing the benefits.
RTD guidelines for the Eco Pass program, meanwhile, require businesses that participate to make the passes available to any worker who wants one. That helps keep the cost of the passes down while encouraging new riders, officials say.
The changes affect 863 workers at the Boulder offices of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
NOAA campus director Don Mock said the Eco Pass program has been a popular benefit for many employees over the years.
"The type of employees we have are very environmentally aware and they appreciate the aspects of the Eco Pass program -- which really encouraged people to try the bus," he said.
He said that losing the program has been a "shock to the system for our staff," and called the Eco Pass a "tremendous deal for the government" that is simple to administer.
Of the labs' collective 863 employees, a total of 654 workers accepted Eco Passes this year, at a cost of $126,000, said Daria Serna, a spokeswoman for RTD.
She said RTD has not been notified by the Commerce Department about plans to stop purchasing Eco Passes. A spokesperson for the Department of Commerce did not return calls on Friday.
Workers at the three labs will remain eligible to apply for a monthly RTD pass through the federal transit subsidy program, but they must meet strict guidelines that require users to take the bus to work almost every day. The subsidy will provide up to $120 per month toward the price of transit -- which is not enough to cover the $176 monthly price tag of a regional RTD pass for people who commute from Denver to Boulder.
John Augustine, a longtime meteorologist based at the Boulder NOAA office, said that he's already applied for whatever subsidy he can get. But he remains concerned about others who either don't qualify or won't follow through with the paperwork.
He said he's also concerned because the federal complex was intentionally constructed with a fewer number of parking spaces than employees.
"If this impacts a lot of people where they don't follow through and begin driving, we're going to have a huge problem and it's going to start affecting the surrounding neighborhoods," he said.
Jim Burrus, the public information and outreach coordinator at the Boulder NIST office, said he rides the bus from Longmont to Boulder up to four times a week and uses his Eco Pass "extensively."
"If it's taken away and not replaced, it will cost me literally thousands of dollars a year in extra gas, oil, maintenance and brain damage, not to mention parking," he said, adding that parking is not a reimbursed expense at the lab. "Sitting in traffic sucks if you're not on a bus."
Officials with the city of Boulder also expressed concerns.
"We are dismayed at the guidance from the federal level," said Martha Roskowski, program manager for Go Boulder.
She said the decision to eliminate Eco Passes from the federal labs "doesn't make any sense at all" from a financial perspective.
Records with RTD and NOAA show that the Department of Commerce spent $146 per Boulder employee last year to purchase Eco Passes. Under the federal transit subsidy program, the government could end up paying up to $1,440 per employee for the same level of service.
"The Eco Pass program is a really cost-effective way to provide transit services," Roskowski said. "It also encourages new people to try transit."
U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, highlighted those same points in a Sept. 28 letter to Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke.
"The city of Boulder and I share serious concerns about this decision as the transit benefits currently being provided at the Boulder campus are extremely cost-effective and very important for both employees and the city in its goal and need to increase transit ridership," Polis wrote.
The congressman went on to say that the decision to do away with Eco Passes "would seem likely to lead to an unnecessary greater expense of taxpayer dollars."
Transportation officials have agreed to work on behalf of the three Boulder labs to determine whether continued participation in the Eco Pass program is in the government's best interest, according to an internal memo sent to all NIST employees late last month.
But even if the decision were made to continue purchasing Eco Passes, only workers who qualify for the broader federal transit subsidy would be eligible, according to the memo.
In the meantime, workers are being encouraged to continue to ride the bus.
"While we appreciate that this will be a significant change, we hope you will consider using mass transit and apply for the transit benefit," the memo reads.
2011年10月13日星期四
Hispanics protest immigration law
Ezequiel Gutierrez didn’t put out pastries Wednesday in his Russellville shop, Mexico Cakes & Bakery.
Juan Martinez kept the front door locked at his grocery store, Tortilleria Daisy.
Jaime Valdez did not oversee his commercial and residential properties.
And at least half a dozen chicken plants across the state were forced to shut down or scale back operations. The parking lot was virtually empty at a Wayne Farms poultry plant in DeKalb County that employs about 850 people.
Gutierrez, Martinez and Valdez are all legal immigrants in Alabama, but they stood in solidarity with other Hispanics across the state in protesting the new immigration law by keeping their businesses closed and their children out of school.
The protests were at least partially prompted by social media outlets such as Facebook, as well as a Spanish-language radio station in Birmingham.
Valdez said he would make efforts to use very little utilities, showering Tuesday night instead of Wednesday, for example, to further the idea that he had, in essence, left the state for the day.
He said Hispanics also tried to refrain from making purchases Wednesday to show how the economy would be affected without their tax dollars.
Valdez became a U.S. citizen in 1988, but he crossed the border from Guatemala into California illegally in 1980.
“I don’t forget — I was an undocumented, too,” he said. “I crossed the border undocumented, and I don’t forget what that was like.”
Russellville Mayor Troy Oliver said Franklin County might see some economic impact as a result of the protest.
“The Hispanic community has a large impact on the economy here and also on the school system,” he said. Because businesses were closing for just one day, however, he said the impact would be minimal.
Oliver said while he appreciates Hispanic residents’ exercising the right to peacefully protest, he does not encourage keeping children out of school, adding that he’d spoken with one boy who cried because he hadn’t been taken to class Wednesday.
“The white kids, too, are really worried about what’s going to happen to these Hispanic kids that they’re friends with,” Oliver said. “They’re truly concerned. So why bring (the protest) into the school system when the children are doing so well? Why get them focused on something that they really can’t do anything about and really shouldn’t know anything about until all of this is sorted out?”
Valdez said this was one time he could not honor Oliver’s wishes.
“He told me I should send my kids to school, and I said, ‘No, I’m disappointed now. I have to support the people who need it,’ ” Valdez said.
School officials in Franklin County said children of immigrant families who didn’t report to school Wednesday ultimately punished themselves, adding that unexcused absences lead to truancy issues.
The Russellville school system, with about 800 Hispanic students, had 170 students out Wednesday.
“We must follow board policy on attendance, and our hope is that they’re back in school (today),” Ramona Robinson, the system’s federal programs coordinator, said Wednesday.
At Tharptown School in Franklin County, where there is a significant population of Hispanic students — about 32 percent of the student body — there also were unusually high numbers of absentees.
Tharptown is one of the smallest schools in the county. There were 34 Hispanic students absent at the high school Wednesday and 39 of the 100 Hispanic elementary-age children.
“This is of great concern for us as a school system, but also as a state,” Tharptown Elementary guidance counselor Brandi Gholston said. “We could get into the emotional aspects of this all day long, but looking just at numbers, we stand to lose a lot of revenue. It hurts us financially when our average daily attendance takes a dive like this, but several days like (Wednesday) would really be devastating. The really sad thing is that these aren’t children who normally miss school at all.”
In Florence, Hispanic student absenteeism wasn’t higher than usual Wednesday, Superintendent Janet Womack said.
“Communication with these families has been the key on our parts,” she said. “I wasn’t alerted Wednesday to any unusually high absenteeism.”
An estimated 185,000 Hispanics live in Alabama. According to the latest census reports, the largest number of Hispanics reside in Franklin County. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 70 percent of the state’s Hispanic residents are Mexican.
Republican supporters say Alabama’s strict new immigration law was intended to force illegal workers out of jobs and help legal residents find work in a state suffering from high unemployment.
The law allows police to detain people indefinitely if they are suspected of being in the country illegally and requires schools to check the status of new students when they enroll.
Since a federal judge upheld much of the law two weeks ago, many frightened Hispanics have hidden in their homes or fled Alabama.
The Obama administration is among the critics of the new law and asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to at least temporarily block enforcement, arguing in court documents that the statute oversteps the state’s authority. It’s not clear when the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will rule on the administration’s request for a preliminary injunction.
Juan Martinez kept the front door locked at his grocery store, Tortilleria Daisy.
Jaime Valdez did not oversee his commercial and residential properties.
And at least half a dozen chicken plants across the state were forced to shut down or scale back operations. The parking lot was virtually empty at a Wayne Farms poultry plant in DeKalb County that employs about 850 people.
Gutierrez, Martinez and Valdez are all legal immigrants in Alabama, but they stood in solidarity with other Hispanics across the state in protesting the new immigration law by keeping their businesses closed and their children out of school.
The protests were at least partially prompted by social media outlets such as Facebook, as well as a Spanish-language radio station in Birmingham.
Valdez said he would make efforts to use very little utilities, showering Tuesday night instead of Wednesday, for example, to further the idea that he had, in essence, left the state for the day.
He said Hispanics also tried to refrain from making purchases Wednesday to show how the economy would be affected without their tax dollars.
Valdez became a U.S. citizen in 1988, but he crossed the border from Guatemala into California illegally in 1980.
“I don’t forget — I was an undocumented, too,” he said. “I crossed the border undocumented, and I don’t forget what that was like.”
Russellville Mayor Troy Oliver said Franklin County might see some economic impact as a result of the protest.
“The Hispanic community has a large impact on the economy here and also on the school system,” he said. Because businesses were closing for just one day, however, he said the impact would be minimal.
Oliver said while he appreciates Hispanic residents’ exercising the right to peacefully protest, he does not encourage keeping children out of school, adding that he’d spoken with one boy who cried because he hadn’t been taken to class Wednesday.
“The white kids, too, are really worried about what’s going to happen to these Hispanic kids that they’re friends with,” Oliver said. “They’re truly concerned. So why bring (the protest) into the school system when the children are doing so well? Why get them focused on something that they really can’t do anything about and really shouldn’t know anything about until all of this is sorted out?”
Valdez said this was one time he could not honor Oliver’s wishes.
“He told me I should send my kids to school, and I said, ‘No, I’m disappointed now. I have to support the people who need it,’ ” Valdez said.
School officials in Franklin County said children of immigrant families who didn’t report to school Wednesday ultimately punished themselves, adding that unexcused absences lead to truancy issues.
The Russellville school system, with about 800 Hispanic students, had 170 students out Wednesday.
“We must follow board policy on attendance, and our hope is that they’re back in school (today),” Ramona Robinson, the system’s federal programs coordinator, said Wednesday.
At Tharptown School in Franklin County, where there is a significant population of Hispanic students — about 32 percent of the student body — there also were unusually high numbers of absentees.
Tharptown is one of the smallest schools in the county. There were 34 Hispanic students absent at the high school Wednesday and 39 of the 100 Hispanic elementary-age children.
“This is of great concern for us as a school system, but also as a state,” Tharptown Elementary guidance counselor Brandi Gholston said. “We could get into the emotional aspects of this all day long, but looking just at numbers, we stand to lose a lot of revenue. It hurts us financially when our average daily attendance takes a dive like this, but several days like (Wednesday) would really be devastating. The really sad thing is that these aren’t children who normally miss school at all.”
In Florence, Hispanic student absenteeism wasn’t higher than usual Wednesday, Superintendent Janet Womack said.
“Communication with these families has been the key on our parts,” she said. “I wasn’t alerted Wednesday to any unusually high absenteeism.”
An estimated 185,000 Hispanics live in Alabama. According to the latest census reports, the largest number of Hispanics reside in Franklin County. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 70 percent of the state’s Hispanic residents are Mexican.
Republican supporters say Alabama’s strict new immigration law was intended to force illegal workers out of jobs and help legal residents find work in a state suffering from high unemployment.
The law allows police to detain people indefinitely if they are suspected of being in the country illegally and requires schools to check the status of new students when they enroll.
Since a federal judge upheld much of the law two weeks ago, many frightened Hispanics have hidden in their homes or fled Alabama.
The Obama administration is among the critics of the new law and asked a federal appeals court Wednesday to at least temporarily block enforcement, arguing in court documents that the statute oversteps the state’s authority. It’s not clear when the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will rule on the administration’s request for a preliminary injunction.
2011年10月12日星期三
Council must explain its thinking
Walter Markham’s criticisms of PKC planning (PA, September 23) will resonate with many people.
The council has a raft of stated aims and policies, but it is unclear just how it applies those in development management.
It seems that staff are left to decide what to use and how, while adding “policies” of their own.
Differences of opinion between staff and members and among the latter are also often evident at committee meetings.
Since providing some level of certainty as to what will happen is a key role of the planning system this is grossly unsatisfactory.
A plan should not be a kind of “menu” from which members, officers, applicants or objectors can select whichever aims or policies support their opinions, while ignoring those which do not.
Even individual policies can be interpreted in many ways, since no criteria for their use are indicated.
An example is Policy 41 of the Perth Area Plan, the gist of which is that “infill” in housing areas should not “significantly” increase area densities. Since it is not said whether the area is the immediate environs, the street, or a larger unit and just what percentage eg. 5, 15, 25, or more is deemed “significant” this policy can mean anything the council chooses.
In some areas densities have increased by well over 100% through “infill” suggesting the council has not applied the policy at all. It seems to be left to staff to choose whether or not to use it, and if so, how. Yet in the 15 years since the plan was adopted there has been no seemingly no clarification of the matter. Officials should have sought such.
Mr Markham noted that no reference was made to pedestrian and bus accessibility in the report on the monastery land, although providing such is one of the government’s, and the council’s, priorities.
SPPs 3 and 17 and the new “Tactran” transport strategy as well as the development plans state this.
However, a reason offered for refusal was that views of “listed” buildings would be obscured by the proposed development. Yet the Council has no official policy for this matter. Perhaps it is an officers’ (“under the counter”) policy.
Moreover, it is a long established principle that planning consent cannot be refused to maintain views, nor to keep land in its existing condition. One would expect members and staff to know this.
Views of the monastery, and the open field, anyway, could easily be blocked by planting an evergreen hedge on its land close to the road. The council has no power to prevent this. Those who objected because they liked the existing landscape obviously did not realise this.
If councillors, officials and others had a proper understanding of these matters then a great deal of their time and public money would be saved.
The problems are exacerbated by the council’s failure to make clear, what its priorities are.
As with education, housing, recreation, etc planning decisions are “political” as well as “technical” and councils must explain how they interpret national and local policies and what their priorities are.
All proposals for public projects are subject to benefit/cost analyses, to indicate who will pay and who will gain. Development applications should be similarly assessed.
In Brighton, where I am temporarily based, the local council’s stated priorities are to provide much more housing and greatly reduce car use.
Its planning policies reflect this.
Although there are many “conservation areas” and “listed” buildings protection of these comes second to housing provision. Councillors and staff must follow this dictum in making development decisions. It requires them to be creative and imaginative in making recommendations/decisions.
In regard to car use, parking is not required on housing sites, since it is believed such encourages car ownership. A maximum of one stall per home is permitted. There is no parking for most staff at Council HQ.
Most then travel to work by bus, bike, or on foot.
PKC is, according to its website, preparing “supplementary guidance” on reduction of carbon emissions in development. These will focus on reducing energy use by locating, siting and designing buildings in particular ways.
Yet this key concern seems not to be addressed in development management, or by those making comments thereon.
I agree that the council should indicate to intending applicants what matters will be considered in assessing their proposals and ask them to provide statements showing how these will be addressed.
Those offering opinions, whether for or against, should also refer to these.
Many public comments ignore policies, except where these relate to their own interests, and offer no hard evidence to support their views. These are not then useful in making decisions.
Applicants must pay highly to have their proposals decided upon.
The council has a raft of stated aims and policies, but it is unclear just how it applies those in development management.
It seems that staff are left to decide what to use and how, while adding “policies” of their own.
Differences of opinion between staff and members and among the latter are also often evident at committee meetings.
Since providing some level of certainty as to what will happen is a key role of the planning system this is grossly unsatisfactory.
A plan should not be a kind of “menu” from which members, officers, applicants or objectors can select whichever aims or policies support their opinions, while ignoring those which do not.
Even individual policies can be interpreted in many ways, since no criteria for their use are indicated.
An example is Policy 41 of the Perth Area Plan, the gist of which is that “infill” in housing areas should not “significantly” increase area densities. Since it is not said whether the area is the immediate environs, the street, or a larger unit and just what percentage eg. 5, 15, 25, or more is deemed “significant” this policy can mean anything the council chooses.
In some areas densities have increased by well over 100% through “infill” suggesting the council has not applied the policy at all. It seems to be left to staff to choose whether or not to use it, and if so, how. Yet in the 15 years since the plan was adopted there has been no seemingly no clarification of the matter. Officials should have sought such.
Mr Markham noted that no reference was made to pedestrian and bus accessibility in the report on the monastery land, although providing such is one of the government’s, and the council’s, priorities.
SPPs 3 and 17 and the new “Tactran” transport strategy as well as the development plans state this.
However, a reason offered for refusal was that views of “listed” buildings would be obscured by the proposed development. Yet the Council has no official policy for this matter. Perhaps it is an officers’ (“under the counter”) policy.
Moreover, it is a long established principle that planning consent cannot be refused to maintain views, nor to keep land in its existing condition. One would expect members and staff to know this.
Views of the monastery, and the open field, anyway, could easily be blocked by planting an evergreen hedge on its land close to the road. The council has no power to prevent this. Those who objected because they liked the existing landscape obviously did not realise this.
If councillors, officials and others had a proper understanding of these matters then a great deal of their time and public money would be saved.
The problems are exacerbated by the council’s failure to make clear, what its priorities are.
As with education, housing, recreation, etc planning decisions are “political” as well as “technical” and councils must explain how they interpret national and local policies and what their priorities are.
All proposals for public projects are subject to benefit/cost analyses, to indicate who will pay and who will gain. Development applications should be similarly assessed.
In Brighton, where I am temporarily based, the local council’s stated priorities are to provide much more housing and greatly reduce car use.
Its planning policies reflect this.
Although there are many “conservation areas” and “listed” buildings protection of these comes second to housing provision. Councillors and staff must follow this dictum in making development decisions. It requires them to be creative and imaginative in making recommendations/decisions.
In regard to car use, parking is not required on housing sites, since it is believed such encourages car ownership. A maximum of one stall per home is permitted. There is no parking for most staff at Council HQ.
Most then travel to work by bus, bike, or on foot.
PKC is, according to its website, preparing “supplementary guidance” on reduction of carbon emissions in development. These will focus on reducing energy use by locating, siting and designing buildings in particular ways.
Yet this key concern seems not to be addressed in development management, or by those making comments thereon.
I agree that the council should indicate to intending applicants what matters will be considered in assessing their proposals and ask them to provide statements showing how these will be addressed.
Those offering opinions, whether for or against, should also refer to these.
Many public comments ignore policies, except where these relate to their own interests, and offer no hard evidence to support their views. These are not then useful in making decisions.
Applicants must pay highly to have their proposals decided upon.
2011年10月11日星期二
Molasses used in cleanup of polluted sites
For more than half a century, International Molasses Corp. has sold its product to bakeries and manufacturers that use the sticky syrup in cookies and candy.
But recently, the Saddle Brook company found a new and unexpected market — at contaminated industrial sites, where the molasses literally gets pumped into the soil.
A 6,000-gallon tanker truck filled with diluted molasses recently pulled into the parking lot of the 25-acre campus of Kearfott Guidance and Navigation Corp. in Woodland Park. Workers attached hoses from the truck to several injection wells, and the molasses flowed silently into the ground under the facility's parking lot to help rid groundwater of high levels of contamination that seeped into the soil decades ago.
In a relatively new process called enhanced anaerobic bioremediation, the diluted molasses provides a food source for microbes that occur naturally in the soil. The microbes multiply, then use the solvents the way humans use oxygen, breaking them down into non-toxic byproducts, such as carbon dioxide.
International Molasses now ships its syrup to cleanup sites in New Jersey and several other states.
"A few years ago we started seeing a lot of growth in this area," said Eric Lushing, vice president of Malt Products Corp. and its subsidiary, International Molasses Corp., which supplies molasses to the Kearfott site.
"The molasses we produce is food grade, which is not true of a lot of refineries, which make it below food grade," Lushing said. That makes their product more appealing to cleanup experts, since food grade molasses does not contain other chemicals that might exacerbate a contaminated site's issues, he said.
The companies' molasses and malt products are more typically sold to food manufacturers that make cookies, snack foods, breakfast cereals, candy and peanut butter.
International Molasses Corp. began in 1957 as a regional supplier of malts and has grown internationally. It has manufacturing plants in Maywood as well as in Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The company also has a product called Eco-Molasses, a byproduct of sugar refining that is sold to golf courses and other facilities for lawn maintenance. Eco-Molasses is touted as a product that improves leaf color and plant health, decreases thatch, and increases microbial activity in the soil.
"We're hoping that within two years this process will bring the contaminants down to an acceptable standard," said Mo Mohiuddin, project manager with Arcadis, the contractor hired to clean up the Kearfott site. "We won't get every molecule of contamination but we should be able to hit 99 percent of the mess."
Anaerobic bioremediation is a growing strategy for contamination cleanup experts. It has been used at hundreds of sites nationwide, including Air Force bases from Oklahoma to California.
Mohiuddin said Arcadis has used it successfully at dozens of sites, including a 3M plant in upstate New York and a Johnson & Johnson facility in New Jersey.
DuPont is conducting a pilot study to determine how well bioremediation would work to clean up groundwater contaminated with solvents beneath homes in Pompton Lakes. Instead of molasses to spur microbe activity, however, DuPont plans to inject the soil with soybean oil.
The concept is the same, but whether vegetable oil or molasses is used depends on factors specific to each site, said Dan Pope, a consultant affiliated with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
"It's mainly dependent on the practical problems of making it work at the site. How long do you need or want the product to last in the subsurface — a few days, months or years?" Pope said. "Molasses is more readily broken down — it's pretty soluble, and you can push it out farther and more quickly into the subsurface. Oil globs on to the subsurface particles more. But in the end, basically they are both food for the microorganisms in the soil."
Arcadis' Mohiuddin agreed. "Oil stays a much longer time in the soil, and the remediation rate is slower," he said. "The molasses solution degrades very quickly." Molasses is also cheaper."
In the Kearfott cleanup, the molasses gets hauled in by tanker truck each month, Mohiuddin said. Workers attach hoses from the tanker individually to each injection well.
Because bioremediation is still relatively new, little data exists to measure success. Most sites using the process are still undergoing remediation and are not fully cleaned.
The Kearfott plant on McBride Avenue is bordered by the Passaic and Peckman rivers. The facility was built in 1950, and the company makes navigation and guidance systems, gyroscopes and other electro-mechanical products for the aerospace industry.
Before the early 1960s, chemical waste at the site, including solvents, was disposed of in dry wells, most likely unlined holes dug about five feet deep, according to documents filed with the Department of Environmental Protection. Later, waste solvent return lines from degreasing tanks were fed into 55-gallon drums for disposal.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, several underground storage tanks that had been leaking were removed from the site. They had been used to store solvents, gasoline and fuel oil. Several hundred yards of contaminated soil was excavated and disposed offsite in 1993.
Testing of the soil and groundwater indicated extensive contamination by six volatile organic compounds, including the solvents PCE and TCE, which have been linked in lab studies to cancer. Most of the contamination was detected near the site of the underground tanks.
Worried the contaminated groundwater could flow into the bordering rivers, an earlier contractor proposed installing a slurry wall in the ground to block the contamination and a pump and treat system to strip the contaminants out of the groundwater.
But Arcadis said the molasses treatment would be faster.
A six-month pilot test in 2005 to inject the molasses near the rivers worked well enough for Arcadis to propose widening the scope of the injections to the rest of the site. But the DEP case manager for the site left, Mohiuddin said, and it took the state until 2009 to issue the permits to restart molasses injections.
Arcadis recently won approval to add 14 more injection wells, which were drilled a few months ago. Arcadis now pumps about 6,000 gallons of molasses each month into 24 wells extending 16 to 17 feet deep.
Cleanup costs between 1986 and 2010 totaled an estimated $2.4 million, and cleanup through 2015 is expected to cost another $1.3 million, DEP records indicate.
Groundwater will be monitored quarterly until there are significant declines in contamination, officials said.
But recently, the Saddle Brook company found a new and unexpected market — at contaminated industrial sites, where the molasses literally gets pumped into the soil.
A 6,000-gallon tanker truck filled with diluted molasses recently pulled into the parking lot of the 25-acre campus of Kearfott Guidance and Navigation Corp. in Woodland Park. Workers attached hoses from the truck to several injection wells, and the molasses flowed silently into the ground under the facility's parking lot to help rid groundwater of high levels of contamination that seeped into the soil decades ago.
In a relatively new process called enhanced anaerobic bioremediation, the diluted molasses provides a food source for microbes that occur naturally in the soil. The microbes multiply, then use the solvents the way humans use oxygen, breaking them down into non-toxic byproducts, such as carbon dioxide.
International Molasses now ships its syrup to cleanup sites in New Jersey and several other states.
"A few years ago we started seeing a lot of growth in this area," said Eric Lushing, vice president of Malt Products Corp. and its subsidiary, International Molasses Corp., which supplies molasses to the Kearfott site.
"The molasses we produce is food grade, which is not true of a lot of refineries, which make it below food grade," Lushing said. That makes their product more appealing to cleanup experts, since food grade molasses does not contain other chemicals that might exacerbate a contaminated site's issues, he said.
The companies' molasses and malt products are more typically sold to food manufacturers that make cookies, snack foods, breakfast cereals, candy and peanut butter.
International Molasses Corp. began in 1957 as a regional supplier of malts and has grown internationally. It has manufacturing plants in Maywood as well as in Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The company also has a product called Eco-Molasses, a byproduct of sugar refining that is sold to golf courses and other facilities for lawn maintenance. Eco-Molasses is touted as a product that improves leaf color and plant health, decreases thatch, and increases microbial activity in the soil.
"We're hoping that within two years this process will bring the contaminants down to an acceptable standard," said Mo Mohiuddin, project manager with Arcadis, the contractor hired to clean up the Kearfott site. "We won't get every molecule of contamination but we should be able to hit 99 percent of the mess."
Anaerobic bioremediation is a growing strategy for contamination cleanup experts. It has been used at hundreds of sites nationwide, including Air Force bases from Oklahoma to California.
Mohiuddin said Arcadis has used it successfully at dozens of sites, including a 3M plant in upstate New York and a Johnson & Johnson facility in New Jersey.
DuPont is conducting a pilot study to determine how well bioremediation would work to clean up groundwater contaminated with solvents beneath homes in Pompton Lakes. Instead of molasses to spur microbe activity, however, DuPont plans to inject the soil with soybean oil.
The concept is the same, but whether vegetable oil or molasses is used depends on factors specific to each site, said Dan Pope, a consultant affiliated with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
"It's mainly dependent on the practical problems of making it work at the site. How long do you need or want the product to last in the subsurface — a few days, months or years?" Pope said. "Molasses is more readily broken down — it's pretty soluble, and you can push it out farther and more quickly into the subsurface. Oil globs on to the subsurface particles more. But in the end, basically they are both food for the microorganisms in the soil."
Arcadis' Mohiuddin agreed. "Oil stays a much longer time in the soil, and the remediation rate is slower," he said. "The molasses solution degrades very quickly." Molasses is also cheaper."
In the Kearfott cleanup, the molasses gets hauled in by tanker truck each month, Mohiuddin said. Workers attach hoses from the tanker individually to each injection well.
Because bioremediation is still relatively new, little data exists to measure success. Most sites using the process are still undergoing remediation and are not fully cleaned.
The Kearfott plant on McBride Avenue is bordered by the Passaic and Peckman rivers. The facility was built in 1950, and the company makes navigation and guidance systems, gyroscopes and other electro-mechanical products for the aerospace industry.
Before the early 1960s, chemical waste at the site, including solvents, was disposed of in dry wells, most likely unlined holes dug about five feet deep, according to documents filed with the Department of Environmental Protection. Later, waste solvent return lines from degreasing tanks were fed into 55-gallon drums for disposal.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, several underground storage tanks that had been leaking were removed from the site. They had been used to store solvents, gasoline and fuel oil. Several hundred yards of contaminated soil was excavated and disposed offsite in 1993.
Testing of the soil and groundwater indicated extensive contamination by six volatile organic compounds, including the solvents PCE and TCE, which have been linked in lab studies to cancer. Most of the contamination was detected near the site of the underground tanks.
Worried the contaminated groundwater could flow into the bordering rivers, an earlier contractor proposed installing a slurry wall in the ground to block the contamination and a pump and treat system to strip the contaminants out of the groundwater.
But Arcadis said the molasses treatment would be faster.
A six-month pilot test in 2005 to inject the molasses near the rivers worked well enough for Arcadis to propose widening the scope of the injections to the rest of the site. But the DEP case manager for the site left, Mohiuddin said, and it took the state until 2009 to issue the permits to restart molasses injections.
Arcadis recently won approval to add 14 more injection wells, which were drilled a few months ago. Arcadis now pumps about 6,000 gallons of molasses each month into 24 wells extending 16 to 17 feet deep.
Cleanup costs between 1986 and 2010 totaled an estimated $2.4 million, and cleanup through 2015 is expected to cost another $1.3 million, DEP records indicate.
Groundwater will be monitored quarterly until there are significant declines in contamination, officials said.
2011年10月10日星期一
MotionX GPS Drive is Top-Notch Auto and Pedestrian Navigation App
GPS navigation systems are expensive and have become more of a commodity than an essential tool for driving. However, that’s not to say drivers don’t need them from time to time. And if they do, MotionX GPS Drive is the one they want.
Developed specifically for the iPhone, the navigation app turns the handset into more than just a point A to point B system. It turns it into a “Hey, what else is out there and I’d like to be told when I’m at the doorstep…” feature rich navigation master.When MotionX GPS Drive is launched the user is prompted to agree with the end user license agreement, similar to any GPS device, stating that the app should not be configured while driving. Phew, glad the legal jargon is out of the way. Now, onto the good stuff. Oh wait, there is another prompt. This time asking to be added to MotionX’s database just incase there is a device change.
Now? Nope, there is then another prompt to download live voice guidance with spoken street names. The download is free for the first 30 days and at the end of the service there is no automatic charge.
Beyond the prompts there is a beautiful layout of navigation functions that make traveling near and far a breeze. Quick POI’s (point of interest) such as dinning, airport, medical and more are easily accessible on the front screen and are situated around a sleek black colored interface. One tap and search results bring up the closest POI for that specific category.
One of the most useful features is the map view option that overlays the search results with the surrounding area and shows which direction the user is pointed in. It even has a Facebook Checkin shortcut, which came in handy several times.
Along with the normal find this place and go to it function is a bonus music option that allows the MotionX GPS Drive app to pull up the iTunes music library for some background traveling tunes. Very useful. Another bonus feature is an actual magnetic compass for exploring latitude, longitude, altitude, speed, heading and strength of the GPS signal. It also includes save this, email or save as a parking spot quick keys.
MotionX GPS Drive is probably more feature packed than some of the top of the line GPS navigation systems and it beats them in function, not to mention price by $200. These reasons combined with live traffic flow maps and multi-stop routing make it the only GPS system required for driving or walking.
Developed specifically for the iPhone, the navigation app turns the handset into more than just a point A to point B system. It turns it into a “Hey, what else is out there and I’d like to be told when I’m at the doorstep…” feature rich navigation master.When MotionX GPS Drive is launched the user is prompted to agree with the end user license agreement, similar to any GPS device, stating that the app should not be configured while driving. Phew, glad the legal jargon is out of the way. Now, onto the good stuff. Oh wait, there is another prompt. This time asking to be added to MotionX’s database just incase there is a device change.
Now? Nope, there is then another prompt to download live voice guidance with spoken street names. The download is free for the first 30 days and at the end of the service there is no automatic charge.
Beyond the prompts there is a beautiful layout of navigation functions that make traveling near and far a breeze. Quick POI’s (point of interest) such as dinning, airport, medical and more are easily accessible on the front screen and are situated around a sleek black colored interface. One tap and search results bring up the closest POI for that specific category.
One of the most useful features is the map view option that overlays the search results with the surrounding area and shows which direction the user is pointed in. It even has a Facebook Checkin shortcut, which came in handy several times.
Along with the normal find this place and go to it function is a bonus music option that allows the MotionX GPS Drive app to pull up the iTunes music library for some background traveling tunes. Very useful. Another bonus feature is an actual magnetic compass for exploring latitude, longitude, altitude, speed, heading and strength of the GPS signal. It also includes save this, email or save as a parking spot quick keys.
MotionX GPS Drive is probably more feature packed than some of the top of the line GPS navigation systems and it beats them in function, not to mention price by $200. These reasons combined with live traffic flow maps and multi-stop routing make it the only GPS system required for driving or walking.
2011年10月9日星期日
Deaths of 8 children put Hillsborough Kids Inc. in limbo
The homegrown, nonprofit agency charged with protecting 2,500 of Hillsborough County's most vulnerable children is at risk of losing its $65.5 million state contract because of eight dead kids.
They died in the last two years while under the supervision of Hillsborough Kids Inc.
The eight stood out in a Department of Children and Families study of child deaths statewide. Seven of the eight children were under supervision because of reports of abuse, neglect or abandonment. DCF said no other agency in Florida had so many deaths.
Two agencies — Big Bend Community-Based Care in Tallahassee and Our Kids Inc. in Miami-Dade — each reported five deaths. Just one case apiece involved children who had previously been abused or severely neglected.
"Any death of a child raises concern," said Mike Carroll, DCF's regional director. "When you have eight, especially under the circumstances that occurred here, that raises alarms."
He said the future of Hillsborough Kids was undecided, but "performance around child safety is a key success requirement for any vendor we contract with. If a vendor is unable to perform at a high level in the business of keeping kids safe, that puts its ongoing contract at risk."
Hillsborough Kids' response:
"Message received," said CEO Jeff Rainey.
The agency's contract runs out in June. DCF issued "Invitations to Negotiate" to both for-profit and nonprofit agencies. Among the expected competitors are agencies serving Pinellas, Pasco and South Florida counties.
Hillsborough Kids has been DCF's lead social service agency in the county since the state began outsourcing services to families and children in 2001. The giant office on Florida Avenue sits next door to DCF's Hillsborough headquarters.
The expiring contract would have gone out for bid regardless of performance, and a decision to renew isn't based on a single number. Rainey said the vast majority of protected children are living safely. In the past five years, 10,000 more have been kept out of the system through aid to families, and 2,000 others have been adopted. He also cites the agency's local roots, its 12-year Tampa history, and its warehouse of food, kitchenware and clothing that keeps the families it counsels going.
"We either bat a thousand, or we bat zero," Rainey said. "When a child dies, we bat zero."
In the last two years, tragedy has struck one child after another.
Among the most publicized: a 4-month-old boy who was beaten and thrown from a car on I-275 in 2009. The ex-boyfriend of the baby's teenage mother was charged with his murder. Another victim was a 5-month-old girl choked to death last year. Police charged her mother. Also last year, an 18-month-old toddler, once found sleeping next to a loaded gun during a drug raid, wandered into the path of car in an apartment parking lot and was killed.
This year, two more child deaths caused Hillsborough Kids to take action against two key subcontractors that perform home visits:
Mental Health Care Inc. was found at fault in its monitoring of Ezekiel Mathis, a 1-year-old killed last May. Three workers apparently were unaware that a boyfriend they found living in the home had been barred by a judge. Their e-mail inquiry to deputies wasn't opened until after the baby's death. The boyfriend is charged with his murder. After the tragedy, MHC removed the three workers from its Crisis Response Team.
Recently, MHC's $2.4 million contract was cut by $250,000. MHC also received only a six-month extension of its contract rather than full renewal. At the same time, Hillsborough Kids signed a yearlong, $689,000 contract with an agency similar to MHC.
Children's Home Society was cited for missing dangers 16-month-old Ronderique Anderson faced when he was taken from his mother and put in the care of his father. Investigators found caseworkers should have provided the mother with better services and more closely examined the criminal backgrounds of the father and his girlfriend. They also said the case supervisor did not provide sufficient oversight or instruction. His father is charged with beating the baby to death last February.
Children's Home Society, which is paid $5.1 million annually, was stripped of half its caseload.
David Bundy, CEO of Children's Home Society of Florida, said his agency agreed a smaller caseload was necessary to get a handle on problems.
DCF acknowledges that in the volatile business of protecting vulnerable children, some can die — even when everything possible is done to prevent it.
But the review of the eight deaths found that, in some cases, everything wasn't done.
The two most common shortcomings identified by DCF: failures of frontline workers in the most potentially dangerous homes to understand the family dynamics, and failures of their supervisors to give enough guidance.
DCF administrator Carroll says effective casework is based on common sense, intuition and experience as much as following check lists and completing questionnaires. Supervisors are key, especially when caseworkers are young,
In one federally required quality assurance check this year, Hillsborough Kids scored 25 percent for supervisory reviews of children's safety, permanency and well-being.
It scored 56 percent on how well supervisors followed up on guidance and direction.
The agency was criticized for considering the mother's needs in just seven of 11 sample cases and the father's needs in two of nine.
Other Hillsborough Kids subcontractors include Camelot Community Care, Gulf Coast Community Care, Devereux, and Youth and Family Alternatives.
Among the eight dead children, three fell under Camelot supervision, three under Children's Home Society and one each was managed by Devereux and Mental Health Care.
Rainey said the number of subcontractors has helped reduce caseloads. But Hillsborough Kids' strategic plan acknowledges the difficulties of managing so many subcontractors.
Hillsborough Kids has prohibited Mental Health Care from sending a case manager and therapist to a home at the same time, then counting their visit as two of the three required visits per week — something that happened in the Ezekiel Mathis death. Rainey said the joint visit was an isolated incident, not a regular practice.
The joint visits were done for safety, the agency replied in writing. "MHC still teams its staff when safety is a concern, and agrees with HKI to count this as one visit only."
In a review, Hillsborough Kids also criticized Children's Home Society for "a significant number of risk/safety issues" and performances "below expectations in qualitative guidance by supervisors."
The agency demanded future scores of at least 80 percent on quality assurance reviews.
It ordered Children's Home Society to submit a written plan for improvement.
"We agreed with the findings," said Bundy, the society's CEO. He said his agency is working with the universities of South Florida and Central Florida to catch red flags earlier. He said the agency found it wasn't making changes fast enough in Hillsborough and redesigned the program with major staff changes.
At Hillsborough Kids, Rainey said, his agency has reviewed 1,800 cases and introduced changes.
They include the pending creation of a special dependency court for the highest-risk cases. It will be presided over by Circuit Judge Katherine Essrig.
New software will flag families at high risk for abuse: those with teen mothers, day care problems, past domestic violence and parents who were abused as children. Most of the factors showed up in the eight deaths. The agency also has started a Family Finding program to identify biological or adoptive family members, teachers, coaches, and friends to form support teams for children.
Rainey said frontline workers will have to take an additional 16 hours of training to learn how to size up families and household environments.
He said supervisors, too, will get more training and will be equipped with devices that alert them to problems found during home visits.
DCF's Carroll said the changes are all good.
"But in the end, what we are looking for is improved performance."
Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of Florida's Children First, serves on the committee that will review bids when Hillsborough Kids seeks to renew its contract. She said she hasn't yet formed an opinion, but she said the number of deaths "is alarmingly high."
DCF, she notes, has shown before that it's not afraid to make big changes to give kids and families a better shot to survive and thrive.
"Safety is important, but it is not everything," she said. "We could lock kids in padded cells and they would be safe. We have to do a lot more to make sure they do well."
They died in the last two years while under the supervision of Hillsborough Kids Inc.
The eight stood out in a Department of Children and Families study of child deaths statewide. Seven of the eight children were under supervision because of reports of abuse, neglect or abandonment. DCF said no other agency in Florida had so many deaths.
Two agencies — Big Bend Community-Based Care in Tallahassee and Our Kids Inc. in Miami-Dade — each reported five deaths. Just one case apiece involved children who had previously been abused or severely neglected.
"Any death of a child raises concern," said Mike Carroll, DCF's regional director. "When you have eight, especially under the circumstances that occurred here, that raises alarms."
He said the future of Hillsborough Kids was undecided, but "performance around child safety is a key success requirement for any vendor we contract with. If a vendor is unable to perform at a high level in the business of keeping kids safe, that puts its ongoing contract at risk."
Hillsborough Kids' response:
"Message received," said CEO Jeff Rainey.
The agency's contract runs out in June. DCF issued "Invitations to Negotiate" to both for-profit and nonprofit agencies. Among the expected competitors are agencies serving Pinellas, Pasco and South Florida counties.
Hillsborough Kids has been DCF's lead social service agency in the county since the state began outsourcing services to families and children in 2001. The giant office on Florida Avenue sits next door to DCF's Hillsborough headquarters.
The expiring contract would have gone out for bid regardless of performance, and a decision to renew isn't based on a single number. Rainey said the vast majority of protected children are living safely. In the past five years, 10,000 more have been kept out of the system through aid to families, and 2,000 others have been adopted. He also cites the agency's local roots, its 12-year Tampa history, and its warehouse of food, kitchenware and clothing that keeps the families it counsels going.
"We either bat a thousand, or we bat zero," Rainey said. "When a child dies, we bat zero."
In the last two years, tragedy has struck one child after another.
Among the most publicized: a 4-month-old boy who was beaten and thrown from a car on I-275 in 2009. The ex-boyfriend of the baby's teenage mother was charged with his murder. Another victim was a 5-month-old girl choked to death last year. Police charged her mother. Also last year, an 18-month-old toddler, once found sleeping next to a loaded gun during a drug raid, wandered into the path of car in an apartment parking lot and was killed.
This year, two more child deaths caused Hillsborough Kids to take action against two key subcontractors that perform home visits:
Mental Health Care Inc. was found at fault in its monitoring of Ezekiel Mathis, a 1-year-old killed last May. Three workers apparently were unaware that a boyfriend they found living in the home had been barred by a judge. Their e-mail inquiry to deputies wasn't opened until after the baby's death. The boyfriend is charged with his murder. After the tragedy, MHC removed the three workers from its Crisis Response Team.
Recently, MHC's $2.4 million contract was cut by $250,000. MHC also received only a six-month extension of its contract rather than full renewal. At the same time, Hillsborough Kids signed a yearlong, $689,000 contract with an agency similar to MHC.
Children's Home Society was cited for missing dangers 16-month-old Ronderique Anderson faced when he was taken from his mother and put in the care of his father. Investigators found caseworkers should have provided the mother with better services and more closely examined the criminal backgrounds of the father and his girlfriend. They also said the case supervisor did not provide sufficient oversight or instruction. His father is charged with beating the baby to death last February.
Children's Home Society, which is paid $5.1 million annually, was stripped of half its caseload.
David Bundy, CEO of Children's Home Society of Florida, said his agency agreed a smaller caseload was necessary to get a handle on problems.
DCF acknowledges that in the volatile business of protecting vulnerable children, some can die — even when everything possible is done to prevent it.
But the review of the eight deaths found that, in some cases, everything wasn't done.
The two most common shortcomings identified by DCF: failures of frontline workers in the most potentially dangerous homes to understand the family dynamics, and failures of their supervisors to give enough guidance.
DCF administrator Carroll says effective casework is based on common sense, intuition and experience as much as following check lists and completing questionnaires. Supervisors are key, especially when caseworkers are young,
In one federally required quality assurance check this year, Hillsborough Kids scored 25 percent for supervisory reviews of children's safety, permanency and well-being.
It scored 56 percent on how well supervisors followed up on guidance and direction.
The agency was criticized for considering the mother's needs in just seven of 11 sample cases and the father's needs in two of nine.
Other Hillsborough Kids subcontractors include Camelot Community Care, Gulf Coast Community Care, Devereux, and Youth and Family Alternatives.
Among the eight dead children, three fell under Camelot supervision, three under Children's Home Society and one each was managed by Devereux and Mental Health Care.
Rainey said the number of subcontractors has helped reduce caseloads. But Hillsborough Kids' strategic plan acknowledges the difficulties of managing so many subcontractors.
Hillsborough Kids has prohibited Mental Health Care from sending a case manager and therapist to a home at the same time, then counting their visit as two of the three required visits per week — something that happened in the Ezekiel Mathis death. Rainey said the joint visit was an isolated incident, not a regular practice.
The joint visits were done for safety, the agency replied in writing. "MHC still teams its staff when safety is a concern, and agrees with HKI to count this as one visit only."
In a review, Hillsborough Kids also criticized Children's Home Society for "a significant number of risk/safety issues" and performances "below expectations in qualitative guidance by supervisors."
The agency demanded future scores of at least 80 percent on quality assurance reviews.
It ordered Children's Home Society to submit a written plan for improvement.
"We agreed with the findings," said Bundy, the society's CEO. He said his agency is working with the universities of South Florida and Central Florida to catch red flags earlier. He said the agency found it wasn't making changes fast enough in Hillsborough and redesigned the program with major staff changes.
At Hillsborough Kids, Rainey said, his agency has reviewed 1,800 cases and introduced changes.
They include the pending creation of a special dependency court for the highest-risk cases. It will be presided over by Circuit Judge Katherine Essrig.
New software will flag families at high risk for abuse: those with teen mothers, day care problems, past domestic violence and parents who were abused as children. Most of the factors showed up in the eight deaths. The agency also has started a Family Finding program to identify biological or adoptive family members, teachers, coaches, and friends to form support teams for children.
Rainey said frontline workers will have to take an additional 16 hours of training to learn how to size up families and household environments.
He said supervisors, too, will get more training and will be equipped with devices that alert them to problems found during home visits.
DCF's Carroll said the changes are all good.
"But in the end, what we are looking for is improved performance."
Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of Florida's Children First, serves on the committee that will review bids when Hillsborough Kids seeks to renew its contract. She said she hasn't yet formed an opinion, but she said the number of deaths "is alarmingly high."
DCF, she notes, has shown before that it's not afraid to make big changes to give kids and families a better shot to survive and thrive.
"Safety is important, but it is not everything," she said. "We could lock kids in padded cells and they would be safe. We have to do a lot more to make sure they do well."
2011年10月8日星期六
Poor patients to get cheaper medical facilities: Shahbaz
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that the Punjab government is considering providing treatment and test facilities to the deserving patients at reasonable rates in private hospitals and diagnostic laboratories.
Addressing a meeting to review the ongoing drive for eradication of dengue virus in the province, he said that deserving patients would be provided cheap medical facilities on permanent basis and instructions have been issued for formulating a policy in the regard.
A system should be evolved under which, besides dengue, medical facilities should be provided to the under-privileged classes at reasonable rates in private hospitals and diagnostic laboratories, he said. He said that a vigorous campaign regarding dengue virus was continuing and cooperation of the people was of great importance to contain the epidemic. He said that the government was also making formal legislation for keeping the environment clean.
He said that a strategy should be devised for removing the heaps of garbage and draining out stagnant water. He added that the Solid Waste Management and WASA would present a plan in this regard in few days. He directed the officials to strictly implement the one-month ban on the transportation of tyres from the city and added that the process of fumigation and spray in all graveyards of the city, including the Cantonment area, should be completed by November. He said that “Qadam Barhao-Dengue Makao” campaign has yielded positive results and by adopting this drive as a model, cleanliness drive will be continued on a permanent basis in the province.
Expressing his gratitude to the Indonesian medical team, he said that the way this team was providing guidance to the doctors and nurses by visiting hospitals and extending cooperation in dengue eradication campaign is laudable. He said that an agreement would be made with the Indonesia with regard to cooperation in eradication of dengue virus from the province.
Shahbaz said that dengue virus had converted the elected representatives, bureaucrats and experts into social workers and they had set such an excellent example by serving to the ailing humanity as a team. He said that by following this example, not only dengue, but also other challenges could also be overcome and the country could be put on the road to the progress.
He said that government was implementing a comprehensive strategy for providing best medical facilities to the patients and curbing the dengue virus and action plans have been evolved for meeting this challenge in all districts of the province.
He said that the dengue patients were being looked after properly in the High Dependency Units and besides other arrangements, one nurse had been deputed for looking after one patient. Expressing satisfaction over the pace of addressing the complaints being received on help line set up for providing guidance to the citizens regarding awareness against dengue, he directed that the process of redressing complaints should be further accelerated and the parents of the students should also be invited to the seminars being held in educational institutions. He said that the cooperation of laboratories for conducting dengue test at Rs 90 is commendable.
Addressing a meeting to review the ongoing drive for eradication of dengue virus in the province, he said that deserving patients would be provided cheap medical facilities on permanent basis and instructions have been issued for formulating a policy in the regard.
A system should be evolved under which, besides dengue, medical facilities should be provided to the under-privileged classes at reasonable rates in private hospitals and diagnostic laboratories, he said. He said that a vigorous campaign regarding dengue virus was continuing and cooperation of the people was of great importance to contain the epidemic. He said that the government was also making formal legislation for keeping the environment clean.
He said that a strategy should be devised for removing the heaps of garbage and draining out stagnant water. He added that the Solid Waste Management and WASA would present a plan in this regard in few days. He directed the officials to strictly implement the one-month ban on the transportation of tyres from the city and added that the process of fumigation and spray in all graveyards of the city, including the Cantonment area, should be completed by November. He said that “Qadam Barhao-Dengue Makao” campaign has yielded positive results and by adopting this drive as a model, cleanliness drive will be continued on a permanent basis in the province.
Expressing his gratitude to the Indonesian medical team, he said that the way this team was providing guidance to the doctors and nurses by visiting hospitals and extending cooperation in dengue eradication campaign is laudable. He said that an agreement would be made with the Indonesia with regard to cooperation in eradication of dengue virus from the province.
Shahbaz said that dengue virus had converted the elected representatives, bureaucrats and experts into social workers and they had set such an excellent example by serving to the ailing humanity as a team. He said that by following this example, not only dengue, but also other challenges could also be overcome and the country could be put on the road to the progress.
He said that government was implementing a comprehensive strategy for providing best medical facilities to the patients and curbing the dengue virus and action plans have been evolved for meeting this challenge in all districts of the province.
He said that the dengue patients were being looked after properly in the High Dependency Units and besides other arrangements, one nurse had been deputed for looking after one patient. Expressing satisfaction over the pace of addressing the complaints being received on help line set up for providing guidance to the citizens regarding awareness against dengue, he directed that the process of redressing complaints should be further accelerated and the parents of the students should also be invited to the seminars being held in educational institutions. He said that the cooperation of laboratories for conducting dengue test at Rs 90 is commendable.
2011年10月7日星期五
How to conduct a basic church security survey
Think like a thief or a criminal. Are you surrounded by suburbs, or is your church now located within a business community? No matter your site, you should look for burglar bars, steel doors, burglar alarm signs and indications of intense police or private security activity. Do the same walk-about at night.
Individual victims may be significantly harmed in any crime. When the crime occurs at church, however, the danger is that the fellowship may be harmed, along with attendance. Folks don't ordinarily worship at sites they are afraid to visit.
There also is a strong liability issue. When a civil suit results from harm at your site, the usual claim is that the church "did not exercise ordinary care."
If your church is in an inner-city crime "hot zone," or any crime-intensive venue, there is also the issue of "forseeability," another legal term implying your church did not reasonably attempt to deter or prevent criminal activity. The terms "due diligence" and "due care" often are heralded in litigation. Failure to respond to assessed risks appropriately may well be considered negligence.
The Scriptures also address this issue. "A prudent man foresees evil and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it" (Proverbs 22:3, NIV).
Many observers believe a determined adversary can overcome almost any security system, but this isn't true. If a determined adversary could defeat any security system, we would not be able to keep an American president in office, our national treasury would be pilfered continually, and our personal bank accounts wouldn't be safe.
In the late 1980s, skyjackings occurred at the rate of two or three each month. Today, these attacks are rarely heard of. Effective security was put in place. The security practices used to protect airlines, our financial institutions and our governing bodies can be used to protect houses of worship.
A purse left in an unoccupied Bible-study class is a soft target. That same purse sitting on the pew between a wife and her husband is much more secure and is a hardened target. Target hardening also involves locks, lights, security doors, fences, alarms and closed-circuit television units.
For a church, the primary form of target hardening is called access control. If guardians — church members, greeters or private security officers — can limit access first to your parking lots and then to your sanctuary, you will have established the first and second tiers or layers of security protocols.
Individual victims may be significantly harmed in any crime. When the crime occurs at church, however, the danger is that the fellowship may be harmed, along with attendance. Folks don't ordinarily worship at sites they are afraid to visit.
There also is a strong liability issue. When a civil suit results from harm at your site, the usual claim is that the church "did not exercise ordinary care."
If your church is in an inner-city crime "hot zone," or any crime-intensive venue, there is also the issue of "forseeability," another legal term implying your church did not reasonably attempt to deter or prevent criminal activity. The terms "due diligence" and "due care" often are heralded in litigation. Failure to respond to assessed risks appropriately may well be considered negligence.
The Scriptures also address this issue. "A prudent man foresees evil and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it" (Proverbs 22:3, NIV).
Many observers believe a determined adversary can overcome almost any security system, but this isn't true. If a determined adversary could defeat any security system, we would not be able to keep an American president in office, our national treasury would be pilfered continually, and our personal bank accounts wouldn't be safe.
In the late 1980s, skyjackings occurred at the rate of two or three each month. Today, these attacks are rarely heard of. Effective security was put in place. The security practices used to protect airlines, our financial institutions and our governing bodies can be used to protect houses of worship.
A purse left in an unoccupied Bible-study class is a soft target. That same purse sitting on the pew between a wife and her husband is much more secure and is a hardened target. Target hardening also involves locks, lights, security doors, fences, alarms and closed-circuit television units.
For a church, the primary form of target hardening is called access control. If guardians — church members, greeters or private security officers — can limit access first to your parking lots and then to your sanctuary, you will have established the first and second tiers or layers of security protocols.
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