Can you imagine a story like this here in the United States? The Australian government says its tired of attracting “hairdressers and cooks” and wants to attract more “doctors and engineers.”

If the U.S. government were to say ” We want fewer gardeners, cab drivers and garbage men” the American media would drum the offending elected official from office.

The Australian government has announced that it is to refocus its immigration strategy on attracting highly skilled migrants to fulfill shortages in particular industries.

It says it will reject some 20,000 Australian visa applications from low-skilled workers in an attempt to award more work visas to highly skilled migrants. The move is a response to increasing demand from China, which required greater resources to fuel its growth.

Industries like mining have welcomed the announcements as fears were growing that it would suffer severe skills shortages in the coming years.

Steve Knott of the Australian Mines and Metals Associations explained, “we need the people on the job now and the demand going forward will be even greater as these projects get off the ground.”

The international student industry is expected to suffer as a result of the changes, as the focus switches from attracting young students to study in Australia to attracting experienced workers to work in Australia.

Australian immigration minister Chris Evans put it simply, “we want to make sure we’re getting the high-end applicants.” He says that the immigration drive will focus on attracting health workers and people who work in engineering and mining.

Tweet This Post 

For the record, there is no such thing as a “sex addiction.” Steve Phillips, like Tiger Woods, had the four ingredients needed to get laid. Money, fame, looks and an expense account. JD

Steve Phillips, the former ESPN baseball analyst and New York Mets general manager, said Monday that he knew he had a sex addiction problem in August — two months before he was fired from his role with the network.

“What I want to do is take ownership,” he said in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today Show. “I made some mistakes … I’m fully responsible for what I did.”

Phillips spoke publicly for the first time since he left the Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services clinic in Hattiesburg, Miss., the same clinic golfer Tiger Woods reportedly attended.

“

Phillips I couldn’t stop myself from doing the things I was doing, even knowing the consequences.

Phillips didn’t talk extensively about his time at Pine Grove, but did say that it is a place for people who are “broken” and “struggling to find answers.”

Phillips said he realized he had a sexual addiction problem in August, while he was having an affair with ESPN production assistant Brooke Hundley. That affair eventually included Hundley contacting Phillips’ wife at their home. It made its way to the New York tabloids, where Phillips was front-page fodder, in October.

“I recognized in August, I needed help,” Phillips said. “I started calling facilities.”

He said he had made the decision on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009, to attend the sexual addiction clinic. He was fired by ESPN two days later. Hundley was also let go by ESPN.

At the time, a representative for Phillips said he was entering a treatment facility “to address his personal issues.”

“I couldn’t stop myself from doing the things I was doing, even knowing the consequences,” Phillips told Lauer on Monday.

A month earlier, Phillips wife, Marni, had filed for divorce. The couple had been married for 19 years. He has four children.

He said he has returned to his home, but doesn’t know if his marriage can be saved. He declined to say if he had anything to tell Hundley.

“All of that is in the past,” he said. “My focus is moving forward, trying to save my family.”

Hundley, in a taped piece that preceded the Phillips interview, said that she was “young” and had made mistakes as well.

Phillips was the general manager of the Mets from 1997-2003. He said during that time, while taking a leave of absence from the team after a sexual harassment allegation, he had counseling locally for sexual issues, but didn’t enter a treatment facility.

He worked at ESPN from 2005 through October.

Tweet This Post 

I looked around the internet on this one, and all I can find is that a research group from Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention says that sugary drinks could increase your chances of pancreatic cancer. None of the articles I found had a link to the study website for good reason.

If you want to actually read the study, you have to spend $35.00. I find this amazing. So what we actually have here is a sensational headline to grab our attention, and no substance to the article.

* Regular soda drinkers had 87 percent higher risk

* Theory is that sugar fuels tumors

WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) – People who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have a much higher risk of pancreatic cancer, an unusual but deadly cancer, researchers reported on Monday.

People who drank mostly fruit juice instead of sodas did not have the same risk, the study of 60,000 people in Singapore found.

Sugar may be to blame but people who drink sweetened sodas regularly often have other poor health habits, said Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota, who led the study.

“The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth,” Pereira said in a statement.

Insulin, which helps the body metabolize sugar, is made in the pancreas.

Writing in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, Pereira and colleagues said they followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years.

Over that time, 140 of the volunteers developed pancreatic cancer. Those who drank two or more soft drinks a week had an 87 percent higher risk of being among those who got pancreatic cancer.

Pereira said he believed the findings would apply elsewhere.

“Singapore is a wealthy country with excellent healthcare. Favorite pastimes are eating and shopping, so the findings should apply to other western countries,” he said.

But Susan Mayne of the Yale Cancer Center at Yale University in Connecticut was cautious.

“Although this study found a risk, the finding was based on a relatively small number of cases and it remains unclear whether it is a causal association or not,” said Mayne, who serves on the board of the journal, which is published by the American Association for Cancer Research.

“Soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can’t accurately control for.”

Other studies have linked pancreatic cancer to red meat, especially burned or charred meat.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, with 230,000 cases globally. In the United States, 37,680 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in a year and 34,290 die of it.

The American Cancer Society says the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients is about 5 percent.

Some researchers believe high sugar intake may fuel some forms of cancer, although the evidence has been contradictory. Tumor cells use more glucose than other cells.

One 12-ounce (355 ml) can of non-diet soda contains about 130 calories, almost all of them from sugar.

Tweet This Post 

I am really quite fascinated with the outrage over the word “negro” being on the 2010 census. I have found a numerous Op-Ed pieces where the media seems to be fueling the fire,  making us believe that there is some sort of negative connotation to the word negro.

Erin Aubry Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times said in his op-ed titled “The term ‘Negro’? Color it obsolete”This controversy may be new, but the angst about what to call ourselves is ancient. Over the last 40 years, we have self-identified as “black,” “Afro-American” and “African American” in an attempt get out from under the subjugationrepresented by “Negro” and, before that, “colored.”

Okay, I can go along with the word “colored” as being offensive, although I don’t know why because I am routinely called “white” which if I am not mistaken is a color provided in a box of Crayola Crayons, even though I am not white I’m Italian, which according to Wiki answers make me a Latino. But I digress.

My only concern here is that in a country that has an ever expanding Hispanic population where the word negro literally means “black” in Spanish, I hear the word multiple times every day.

My question would be this. If whites are whites and Hispanics are self described “browns” (Brown pride bumper stickers and T shirts are the norm here in Los Angeles) then what are African Americans? Am I color blind or are they black?

The African American people I work with rarely if ever call themselves African American. Just yesterday I heard a coworker say “I’m a middle aged black man” when talking about a young woman he met in a bar.

My point in all of this is that it seems that most of this hyper-sensitivity is media driven. Its as if the mainstream media seeks to divide us into groups according to the color of our skin, then pit each group against the other by writing columns like the one today in the Los Angeles Times.

I would not have a problem with the census if it called “white” people “blanco”, yet another word I hear daily to describe me because I am white.

I just don’t see why there is a problem here. The word “negro” is not obsolete. The English language is based largely on the Latin language. This is the same English language spoken by African Americans in America today. The word “Black” translates to “Negro” in Latin.

People like Erin Aubry Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times calling the word and the term “obsolete” is just a silly waste of page space. JD

Tweet This Post 

This is my prediction. The Saints are hungry, driven and their defense wants a piece of Peyton Manning. I predict that Manning will be knocked out of the game at the beginning of the third quarter. Then the Saints will own the Colts. The final score will be 34 to 27 Saints. By the way, I hate the New Orleans Saints. I want the BALTIMORE Colts to win.  This prediction was posted at 11:55 am,  February 7th, 2010    JD

I found this on a site called Fanhouse.com To read the whole column click the link.

• • Thomas George
  • Thomas George is a Senior NFL Writer for FanHouse

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Football is speed. It is physical and it is tough and it can be wicked. But you can’t hit what you can’t catch.

And you cannot negate an offense that gives you the sharpest digs, the cleanest cuts, the prickliest execution.

That is why the best NFL coaches throughout the game’s history have always preached that their best players, their best teams, are not hindered by thinking. They know the schemes. But paramount, they use their speed in uninhibited ways. They play fast. They make the game a tornado. You are left spinning in your cleats.

This is what we have in the New Orleans Saints.
FanHouse TV: Stars Weigh InMuch of the nation and the Indianapolis Colts are sleeping on the Saints offense and its ability to play the game faster and quicker and cleaner than you can defend them. You take a well-oiled offense like this against a good Colts defense with a very suspect, inexperienced secondary in spots and I see the Saints offense having its way in Super Bowl XLIV. I see the Saints offense having much more success against the Colts defense than the Colts offense will have against the Saints defense.

I think Drew Brees is going to slice this Colts defense.

I think coach Sean Payton is going to creatively pluck this Colts defense with a well-conceived, effective game plan and play-calling.

It does not matter how many points the great Peyton Manning produces for the Colts. The Saints will simply produce more.

This Saints offense in its prime reminds me of some of Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh’s best offense. The players are an extension of each other. The plays are set up to complement each other. The multiple pieces in personnel make the offense flexible and probing. The mismatches created can be overwhelming.

Tweet This Post 

I have a bit to say about the people of La Canada Flintridge and their attack of Governor Schwarzenegger. First off, you people bought your big house in the foothills of Southern California, a region notorious for brush fires. Its not the governors fault that people start fires. Its not the governors fault that you people had to have a house with a view.

You are as pathetic as the multi-millionaire actors that buy houses on the beach then cry to the taxpayer when storms wash away their beach. No one told you to buy a house in the hills, thus, when the rains come and wash your house away, its not the responsibility of the State and the Federal government to bail you out. JD

Residents and officials were assessing the damage this morning after mudslides damaged 43 homes in the foothills hit by the Station fire.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was scheduled to tour the Ocean View Boulevard area this morning.

Most of the evacuations of residents were lifted, and most of the canyon roads closed by mud damage Saturday were now open.

The mudslides occurred during an intense storm early Saturday morning. The power of the debris flowing off the mountain pushed a 10-ton boulder into a crucial catch basin in La Cañada Flintridge.

The boulder clogged the drain like a giant stopper, and the ashen muck had nowhere to go but through the Paradise Valley neighborhood on the northern end of Ocean View Boulevard. Mud flowed two miles downhill, all the way to Foothill Boulevard.

“It looked like the Niagara Falls was coming down the street,” said Amanda Manukian, who lives in the 5400 block of Ocean View Boulevard. She said she saw firefighters scramble out of her neighbor’s home when a burst of rainfall poured down, threatening the crew.

The mudflow twisted garage doors into dented accordions, disintegrated walls of sandbags and knocked over 4,000-pound concrete barriers that lined the road to divert water away from homes. About 25 vehicles were damaged, flowing down the street and smashing against walls, trees and one another.

Despite the damaging flows, there were no reports of deaths or serious injuries.

Tweet This Post 

I didn’t know this. How funny is this? I was watching a repeat of the Sapranos where the characters on the show were fighting with an native American (Indian) group of protesters, and the Italians told the Indians that Iron Eyes Cody was an Italian.

I had no idea, but I remember seeing Cody on those pollution commercials in the seventies, and my Italian father used to say ” I don’t care what them Indians say, That guy is an Italian.”

He would say this all the time, and get in huge arguments with friends and family over it. It turns out he was right. I guess this was already public knowledge, but I had never heard it.

Cody was an American actor. He was recognized for portraying Native Americans in Hollywood films. Near the end of his life, his Sicilian ancestry was made public. In 1995 he was honored by the Native American community for his portrayals.

Cody was born as Espera Oscar de Corti in Kaplan, Louisiana, a son of Antonio de Corti and his wife, Francesca Salpietra, immigrants from Sicily. They had a local grocery store in Gueydan, Louisiana, where he was raised. In some of his earliest acting credits, Cody was listed as Tony de Corti. He later changed his name to Tony Cody, falsely claiming to be of Cherokee and Cree descent.

Tweet This Post 

Can you imagine the scene? Your sitting in a Karaoke bar, listening to people screech into a microphone, and suddenly someone gets up and shoots the singer?

I have news for you Karaoke fans. Its fun, but the vast majority of you people are just like me. YOU CAN’T SING! There is no need to kill each other. Stop it already. JD

GENERAL SANTOS, the Philippines — After a day of barbering, Rodolfo Gregorio went to his neighborhood karaoke bar still smelling of talcum powder. Putting aside his glass of Red Horse Extra Strong beer, he grasped a microphone with a habitué’s self-assuredness and briefly stilled the room with the Platters’ “My Prayer.”

Next, he belted out crowd-pleasers by Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck. But Mr. Gregorio, 63, a witness to countless fistfights and occasional stabbings erupting from disputes over karaoke singing, did not dare choose one beloved classic: Frank Sinatra’s version of “My Way.”

“I used to like ‘My Way,’ but after all the trouble, I stopped singing it,” he said. “You can get killed.”

The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”

The killings have produced urban legends about the song and left Filipinos groping for answers. Are the killings the natural byproduct of the country’s culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there something inherently sinister in the song?

Whatever the reason, many karaoke bars have removed the song from their playbooks. And the country’s many Sinatra lovers, like Mr. Gregorio here in this city in the southernmost Philippines, are practicing self-censorship out of perceived self-preservation.

Karaoke-related killings are not limited to the Philippines. In the past two years alone, a Malaysian man was fatally stabbed for hogging the microphone at a bar and a Thai man killed eight of his neighbors in a rage after they sang John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Karaoke-related assaults have also occurred in the United States, including at a Seattle bar where a woman punched a man for singing Coldplay’s “Yellow” after criticizing his version.

Still, the odds of getting killed during karaoke may be higher in the Philippines, if only because of the ubiquity of the pastime. Social get-togethers invariably involve karaoke. Stand-alone karaoke machines can be found in the unlikeliest settings, including outdoors in rural areas where men can sometimes be seen singing early in the morning. And Filipinos, who pride themselves on their singing, may have a lower tolerance for bad singers.

Indeed, most of the “My Way” killings have reportedly occurred after the singer sang out of tune, causing other patrons to laugh or jeer.

“The trouble with ‘My Way,’ ” said Mr. Gregorio, “is that everyone knows it and everyone has an opinion.”

Others, noting that other equally popular tunes have not provoked killings, point to the song itself. The lyrics, written by Paul Anka for Mr. Sinatra as an unapologetic summing up of his career, are about a tough guy who “when there was doubt,” simply “ate it up and spit it out.” Butch Albarracin, the owner of Center for Pop, a Manila-based singing school that has propelled the careers of many famous singers, was partial to what he called the “existential explanation.”

“ ‘I did it my way’ — it’s so arrogant,” Mr. Albarracin said. “The lyrics evoke feelings of pride and arrogance in the singer, as if you’re somebody when you’re really nobody. It covers up your failures. That’s why it leads to fights.”

Defenders of “My Way” say it is a victim of its own popularity. Because it is sung more often than most songs, the thinking goes, karaoke-related violence is more likely to occur while people are singing it. The real reasons behind the violence are breaches of karaoke etiquette, like hogging the microphone, laughing at someone’s singing or choosing a song that has already been sung.

“The Philippines is a very violent society, so karaoke only triggers what already exists here when certain social rules are broken,” said Roland B. Tolentino, a pop culture expert at the University of the Philippines. But even he hedged, noting that the song’s “triumphalist” nature might contribute to the violence.

Some karaoke lovers are not taking chances, not even at family gatherings.

In Manila, Alisa Escanlar, 33, and her relatives invariably gather before a karaoke machine, but they banned “My Way” after an uncle, listening to a friend sing the song at a bar, became enraged at the laughter coming from the next table. The uncle, who was a police officer, pulled out his revolver, after which the customers at the next table quietly paid their bill and left.

Awash in more than one million illegal guns, the Philippines has long suffered from all manner of violence, from the political to the private. Wary middle-class patrons gravitate to karaoke clubs with cubicles that isolate them from strangers.

But in karaoke bars where one song costs 5 pesos, or a tenth of a dollar, strangers often rub shoulders, sometimes uneasily. A subset of karaoke bars with G.R.O.’s — short for guest relations officers, a euphemism for female prostitutes — often employ gay men, who are seen as neutral, to defuse the undercurrent of tension among the male patrons. Since the gay men are not considered rivals for the women’s attention — or rivals in singing, which karaoke machines score and rank — they can use humor to forestall macho face-offs among the patrons.

In one such bar in Quezon City, next to Manila, patrons sing karaoke at tables on the first floor and can accompany a G.R.O. upstairs. Fights often break out when customers at one table look at another table “the wrong way,” said Mark Lanada, 20, the manager.

“That’s the biggest source of tension,” Mr. Lanada said. “That’s why every place like this has a gay man like me.”

Ordinary karaoke bars, like the Nelson Carenderia here, a single room with bare plywood walls, mandate that a singer give up the microphone after three consecutive songs.

On one recent evening, at the table closest to the karaoke machine, Edwin Lancaderas, 62, crooned a Tagalog song, “Fight Temptation” — about a married man forgoing an affair with a woman while taking delight in their “stolen moments.” His friend Dindo Auxlero, 42, took the mike next, bawling songs by the Scorpions and Dire Straits. Several empty bottles of Red Horse crowded their table.

“In the Philippines, life is difficult,” said Mr. Auxlero, who repairs watches from a street kiosk, as he railed about government corruption and a weak economy that has driven so many Filipinos to work overseas, including his wife, who is a maid in Lebanon. “But, you know, we have a saying: ‘Don’t worry about your problems. Let your problems worry about you.’ ”

The two men roared with laughter.

“That’s why we come here every night — to clear the excesses from our heads,” Mr. Lancaderas said, adding, however, that the two always adhered to karaoke etiquette and, of course, refrained from singing “My Way.”

“Misunderstanding and jealousy,” in his view, were behind the “My Way” killings. “I just hope it doesn’t happen here,” he said.

Tweet This Post 

Fatalities and multiple injuries were reported Sunday after a massive explosion at a Connecticut power plant, police confirmed to Fox News.

The explosion occurred just before 11:30 a.m. local time at the Kleen Energy plany on River Road in Middletown, Conn., according to authorities.

About 100 people were working at the plant during the time of the explosion.

Dozens of ambulances and fire trucks were on the scene and witnesses said black smoke could be seen for miles.

Police are advising everyone to stay away from the area.

The power plant was reportedly undergoing construction at the time of the explosion, though authorities said they do not know what caused it.

Tweet This Post 

The Griswolds and their Wagon Queen Family Truckster ride again, thanks to a Wheaton man’s diligent efforts.

On Sunday, actors Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo reprise their roles from National Lampoon’s “Vacation” movies in a Super Bowl commercial for a vacation home rental service.

The 30-second spot for HomeAway.com features Chase’s Clark Griswold and D’Angelo’s Ellen Griswold in the metallic pea green, wood-grain paneled Family Truckster they drove from Chicago to the fictional Walley World theme park in the 1983 “Vacation” original.

The station wagon is a near-replica created by stenographer Gary Schneider, 39.

In 2008 he decided to build it “just for fun, for something to do and to take to car shows.” A Ford LTD Country Squire wagon with tan interior soon turned up on eBay for $500.

“Then it was scrounging for parts,” he said. “I had to find another car to take part of the grille and double up the headlights.”

Schneider posted his progress online during the 18-month project, and HomeAway.com, which was acquiring the rights to use “Vacation” in a Super Bowl ad, tracked his work.

In September, HomeAway.com CEO Brian Sharples e-mailed Schneider expressing interest in the car. Schneider was reluctant to sell, considered leasing the car and finally agreed to part with it.

“He gave me enough money that I could build three more,” Schneider said.

Schneider has been invited to HomeAway.com’s Austin, Texas, headquarters for a Super Bowl viewing party, where he’ll see the “Hotel Hell Vacation” ad for the first time.

“I’m absolutely thrilled,” he said. “I never imagined … that it would be seen by millions of people.”

Tweet This Post 

LOS ANGELES — A second stolen car has been found over the side of a road where Charlie Sheen’s Mercedes was pulled from a steep ravine earlier today, and this one too belongs to a celebrity.

Sheen reported that his Mercedes-Benz sedan was stolen from his gated community at around 4 a.m. in Sherman Oaks.

At around the same time, someone reported a “vehicle over the side” in the 13300 block of the winding ridgetop road, said Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Soon after, the vehicle was spotted upside-down in a ditch near the actor’s home. Later this afternoon, a photographer reported seeing a Bentley down a cliff just a few blocks away.

No one was inside either vehicle. The Bentley is registered to actress Lisa Vanderpump. The actress, who appeared on “Silk Stalkings” and “Baywatch Nights,” is married to restaurateur Kenneth Todd.

They live near Charlie Sheen’s house in a gated community. Lisa and Ken own the Beverly Hills restaurant, Villa Blanca.

Police spokesman Richard French says three other cars in the area were broken into overnight but investigators aren’t sure if there’s a connection. Sheen reportedly parked the car inside an open garage at his Sherman Oaks home with the keys still inside the ignition.

The home is located in a gated community, and Sheen apparently told authorities that’s why he felt safe leaving the car that way.

The actor received a call around 4 a.m. from his remote diagnostics company, similar to OnStar, telling him his car had been involved in a crash and the airbags had deployed, according to online reports.

Sheen apparently then realized his car had been stolen and called authorities. It was not clear whether the actor was targeted in the theft. Investigators said nothing else was burglarized from Sheen’s home.

No suspects have been found. Police were searching for possible surveillance video of the vehicle leaving the gated community.

Sheen, 44, recently made headlines when he was arrested in Aspen, Colorado on Christmas day following an alleged domestic violence incident with his 33-year-old wife, Brooke Mueller.

Sheen, according to an arrest warrant affidavit, is accused of pinning Mueller to the bed, threatening her with a knife and saying, “You better be in fear. If you tell anybody, I’ll kill you.”

The “Two and a Half Men” star denied threatening his wife.

Sheen is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Aspen on domestic violence charges. He and his wife also are seeking modification of an order that prevents them from communicating with each other. She has said they love each other and want to reconcile.

Tweet This Post 

Authorities said a wall of mud and debris at least several feet high rumbled down a hillside in the community of La Canada-Flintridge, crashing into homes and cars and leaving a path of destruction in its wake.

There were no reports of deaths or injuries but residents were being told to leave as another heavy downpour was expected by early Saturday afternoon.

“There are mounds and mounds of dirt piled into homes and cars have been covered up and gone into homes,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Nicole Nishida told Reuters by telephone from the scene.

“(The cars) look like toys scattered across the road,” she said.

Authorities had no immediate count of the damaged homes but Nishida said that in the neighborhood where she was working she could count at least two homes that would have to be condemned.

“A car has gone into another residence and I’m smelling a lot of gas so I think there’s a gas leak that the fire department is trying to fix,” she said.

The mud came down on hillsides that were left barren by a massive wildfire last summer and officials had been warning that they were unstable.

Elsewhere in the Los Angeles area, flooding forced the closure of streets and at least one major freeway and overflowed curbs to wash into several businesses in Hollywood.

The National Weather Service has said that a weeklong series of storms that battered California in January were the strongest to hit the region in five years.

A silver lining has been heavy snowfall in mountain ranges that feed the California’s reservoirs, easing critical water shortages. But state water officials have been reluctant to declare the drought at an end.

Tweet This Post 

As a resident of San Dimas, I am sort of wondering what is wrong with the old city hall. Why does it need to be renovated? I have been bringing my children there for summer activities since they were infants. With the exception of needing new floors and paint, I can’t seem to find anything wrong with the existing structure. JD

City officials think they can save $1 million in loan costs on the $13 million City Hall renovation project.

All five city councilmen and city staff met last week to discuss the final details of the project, including a temporary City Hall move and the type of loan used to pay for the project.

“I am against the rebuilding of City Hall,” Councilman Denis Bertone said. “But the financing mechanism that the city is going to use is probably good.”

The project includes three portions: a City Hall renovation and expansion estimated at $9.2 million, an expansion of the Plummer Building near City Hall at $2.6 million and a revamp of the plaza at $1.1 million.

The projects together are estimated to cost slightly more than $13 million, City Manager Blaine Michaelis said.

The current City Hall has been in use since 1969.

The City Council voted 4 to 1 in favor of the renovation, with Bertone the dissenting vote.

“I understand where Denis is coming from. There are lots of things we could do with the money we are spending,” Councilman John Bonier said. “However, the City Hall is over 40 years old, and while it is not an ancient building, it is outdated in a lot of respects.”

The city plans to borrow $7.5 million for the project and pay an additional $5.5 million from its general fund. The city has about $17 million in its reserves.

Final approval on project bids will be Feb. 23, when the council
Advertisement
can approve either the City Hall renovation or all three projects, Michaelis said.

At Tuesday’s meeting, a majority of the council appeared to agree on a leasing option through the League of California Cities for 15 years that put the estimated full cost of the loan at $11,126,087, after interest rates are assessed.

Alternative options included 20-year loans costing $12.2 million, $12.8 million and $14.3 million respectively.

The more popular choice now on the table saves the city more than $1 million over the long term versus other options presented Tuesday, but the city will have to make payments of $741,739 a year to pay down the debt.

That total is $100,000 more than two other options considered for approval.

“It saves money in the long run,” Bertone said. “We can afford to do the higher payments.”

Mayor Curt Morris requested to see how the lease would play out if variable interest rates were used instead of a fixed rate, but he was still in favor of the 15-year loan until he saw something that swayed him, he said at Tuesday’s meeting.

Management and construction of the project have been awarded to Griffin Structures Inc., but bidding for various subcontracts – including plumbing and 34 others – begins Thursday.

If bids come under budget, the city would spend less from the general fund but still borrow the $7.5 million, Michaelis said.

Now the city must prepare to move its operation to the old Levity Building while construction begins at City Hall.

City Hall will move to the temporary site at 130 Village Court on March 5, and the move will cost the city about $300,000, officials said.

The temporary offices will be fully operational, and at 48,000 square feet will house every employee and still have room for storage space, officials said.

City officials hope City Hall is only closed to the public for that Friday due to the move, Assistant City Manager Ken Duran said.

Tweet This Post 

The huge snow storm that has hit the north eastern United States has made people think twice about the global warming myth. With snow piling up, widespread power outages and roofs collapsing under the weight of the powdery mess, people no more than ever are laughing at the notion of global warming.

At least three buildings have suffered roof collapses in the D.C. area because of the snow. Part of the roof of a house on the 3400 block of 10th Street NE collapsed Saturday morning.

“This is one of our worst fears,” says D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin. “If the roof systems begin to collapse it’s going to take a lot of resources and is going to be very difficult.” Rubin says that there are no injuries, and that one person is inside the house, but is safe.

Rubin says that there needs to be preventative maintenance done to roofs before major storms like this. “A mere 250 gallons of water, which is not a lot of water, equals one ton of weight,” says Rubin.

Meanwhile, politics as usual has come to a screeching halt in Washington DC. People have been jamming the isles of supermarkets stocking up on essentials.

In Dover, Del., Shanita Foster lugged three gallons of water out of a Dollar General store. “That’s all we need right now. We’ve got everything else,” said Foster, adding that she was ready with candles in case the power went out.

Shoppers jammed aisles and emptied stores of milk, bread, shovels, driveway salt and other supplies. Many scrambling for food and supplies were too late.

The snow comes less than two months after a Dec. 19 storm dumped more than 16 inches on Washington. Snowfalls of this magnitude – let alone two in one season – are rare in the area. According to the National Weather Service, Washington has gotten more than a foot of snow only 13 times since 1870.

The heaviest on record was 28 inches in January 1922. The biggest snowfall for the Washington-Baltimore area is believed to have been in 1772, before official records were kept, when as much as 3 feet fell, which George Washington and Thomas Jefferson penned in their diaries.

Tweet This Post 

Veteran British actor and School for Scoundrels star Ian Carmichael OBE has died at the age of 89.

The star of film and television died peacefully at his Esk Valley home, on the North York Moors, yesterday.

His second wife Kate Carmichael, 55, today confirmed his death, saying that he had fallen ill over the Christmas holidays.

Carmichael’s career covered seven decades, including a series of classic British comedy films in the 1950s and the role of PG Woodhouse’s Bertie Wooster on television in the 1960s.

His most recent appearances were the in popular ITV dramas Heartbeat and The Royal, last year.

Carmichael was born in Hull in 1922 and trained at the RADA drama school before serving the Royal Armoured Corps, as a commissioned officer in the 22nd Dragoons, during World War Two.

After the war he took up acting again and earned his first big role in 1954 film Betrayed, starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner.

He went to appear in a series of Boulting Brothers satires including Private’s Progress (1956), Brothers in Law (1957) and I’m All Right Jack (1959), as well as the classic Terry Thomas film School for Scoundrels (1960).

During the 1960s and 1970s, he moved into television, playing the hapless Bertie Wooster in The World of Wooster and Lord Peter Wimsey in several drama series based on the mystery novels by Dorothy L Sayers.

Carmichael wrote an autobiography, Will The Real Ian Carmichael. . . (please stand up) in 1979 and was appointed an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2003.

He had two daughters, Lee and Sally, with his first wife Pym McLean, who died in 1983.

His last role was as T. J. Middleditch in The Royal in which he appeared from 2007 to 2009.

Tweet This Post