GREG GOES TO PAGEANT OF THE MASTERS IN LAGUNA BEACH
THREE DEPUTY SHERIFFS FOUND GUILTY OF A VISITOR BEATING
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FIRE DEPARTMENT BENIFITS FROM HOMELAND SECURITY GRANTS PG. 5
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MONDAY, JULY 13, 2015 - JULY 19, 2015 - VOLUME 6, NO. 28
SUPERSCOOPER FIRE-FIGHTING AIRCRAFT TO ARRIVE IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY SEPTEMBER 1
BY TERRY MILLER Two CL-415 SuperScoopers fire-fighting aircraft leased from the government of Quebec will arrive for service in Los Angeles County on September 1 according to the County Board of Supervisors.
SuperScoopers are a fixedwing aircraft that can carry up to 1,620 gallons of water and takes only 12 seconds to scoop water from a lake and inject it with fire-resistant foam – a combination up to 3 times more effective than water alone. They can be airborne in as little as five minutes and fly three hours before refueling. In addition, an Erickson Aircrane Type I Helitanker was also leased for the 2015
fire season. Capable of delivering 2,200 gallons per drop, it will be placed into service on Saturday, August 15, 2015. “To combat wildfire and protect life and property, these vital aircraft will supplement our County Fire Department’s water-dropping helicopters, its arsenal of ground equipment, and the nation’s finest firefighting force,” said Antonovich. The Los Angeles County Fire Department will continually monitor the fire activity, wildland fuel conditions and weather forecasts in order to determine if these important firefighting resources will need to be extended past their initial lease periods.
-Photo by Terry Miller
Two Men Charged In Robbery Of Southern California Edison Adding Flat Rate for Low-Energy Users Man Outside Riverside Coffee Shop BY NICK KIPLEY
On July 2, 2015, two men were charged by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office and arraigned in connection with a robbery in May of a deaf man outside a Riverside coffee shop. Daniel Allen Estramera, DOB: 4-23-93; and Dawone Anthony Finnell, DOB: 12-2292; both of Riverside, have each been charged with robbery as well as a sentencing enhancement that the victim was deaf. The two defendants appeared before Judge Helios Hernandez at the Hall of Justice in Riverside where they entered pleas of not guilty. Both men now have a felony settlement conference scheduled for July 8, 2015, at 8:30 a.m., in Dept.
63 at the Hall of Justice. The men are charged with the May 19, 2015, robbery of a 20-year-old man who was sitting at the outside patio of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, 3712 Mission Inn Avenue. During their investigation into the crime, Riverside police detectives on June 23, 2015, released surveillance footage of the crime on social media and to media outlets in an effort to find the suspects. Follow-up investigation led detectives to the arrests of Estramera and Finnell. Estramera had previously been charged by the DA’s Office with robbery and dissuading a witness from a crime that happened on April 19, 2015, at White Park in Riv-
erside. Finnell had been previously charged by the DA’s Office with possession of a concealed knife. At the July 2, 2015, arraignment for the robbery outside the coffee shop, the DA’s Office dismissed those two cases and charges in both those cases have now been incorporated into the criminal complaint filed today in the May 19, 2015, robbery case. If convicted as currently charged, Estramera faces a maximum of about 25 years in prison and Finnell faces up to 18 years and four months in prison. The case on both defendants, RIF1503019, is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Matthew Strickroth.
On their website, Southern California Edison gives a reason for the recent plan to restructure their rates over the next few years. SoCal Edison claims that they will restructure their rates so that those who don’t pay much on their energy bills now will have to pay a flat rate, because their customers who use quite a lot of energy actually offset those who do not use much energy at all. This, they claim, isn’t fair to those who use lots of energy. Their official reasoning is as follows: “For many years high-usage customers have subsidized low-usage customers. With these
changes, costs will be more evenly spread among all customers.” Of course, one could argue that by forcing customers who use very little energy to pay a flat fee, they are essentially paying in part for the whole complicated infrastructure that delivers the electricity to their door in the first place—and one could argue the same about the taxes embedded in a gallon of gas. Unfortunately, rather than say this outright, SoCal Edison chooses to embed their reasoning in an example that doesn’t make much sense at all, claiming that “this allows for a more equitable recovery of ‘fixed’ costs through fixed charges,
and will include a reduction in the price charged per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity. That should help avoid some of the bill volatility some customers experience during hot weather.” This means that the future “minimum” electric bill will be $10 per month, and $5 for low-income households. In other words, if you can only stir the air in your small studio apartment during a heat wave by means of a weak oscillating fan, you might as well invest in a pawn-shop window A/C unit given the fact that the guy who has to cool down his 7,000 square-foot hillSEE PG. 4