It's up to the lawyers now

Read this and this.

Then you'll understand why this is good news.

The quick wrap: County officials need to slash more than $50 million from the budget. The District Attorney, if it is forced to lay off seven attorneys, won't be able to prosecute run-of-the-mill misdemeanors.

So a compromise was offered. Forego pay increases to save several of those vital public safety positions.

Part of it's a political move. If the members of the county attorney association say no, meaning those misdemeanors go unprosecuted, county lawyers look like they're more concerned with protecting individual pay than keeping the peace in the county. That's old-fashioned country hardball.

That said, if we're strictly speaking public policy, it makes much more sense for the association to accept the compromise and continue their good work protecting the citizenry.

There comes a time to look out for Number 1. One would hope that time isn't when general law and order would come in at Number 2.

C'mon guys. We need this help.

Public opinion: Cut taxes, raise taxes, save more, spend more

If you're confused by the headline, maybe you don't want to check out these new Bloomberg poll results.

In short, a majority of those polled (and if it's a good poll, by extension a majority of Americans) want the government to simultaneously tax the rich and enact an across-the-board tax cut; spend more on infrastructure, job training and job creation, and reduce the national deficit; avoid tax raises on the middle class and avoid cuts to entitlement programs.

Yup. We want the government to provide the best of everything, but we don't want to pay for it.

It's the American way.

Coal in Tracy manager's stocking :Updated:

Just in time for Santa's trip down the chimeny, a Web site has decided to gift Tracy personnel director Maria Olvera with a sockful of coal by naming her the nation's 11th-worst boss for 2009.

While you can read the inglorious top-25 list at the eBossWatch web site, I'm taking this shot at Olvera with a grain of salt. One big enough to season my entire Christmas goose.

Because the ranking seems to stem from a lawsuit filed earlier this year by a pair of disgruntled former Tracy workers who accuse Olvera of demeaning employees, using abusive and degrading language, and generally creating a hostile work environment.

The pair — Elizabeth Allred and Ethel McFarland — also say they were fired in retribution for having complained about their working conditions.

Keep in mind that this lawsuit is pending and that what Allred and McFarland allege — the seeming basis for BossWatch's ranking — has not yet been proven substantial in court. It's just a formal accusation. We don't really know if Olvera deserves a public lambasting or an exoneration.

So while this might make great fodder for someone wanting to prove a point against the city — I mean, saying Tracy employs the 11th-worst boss in the whole friggin' country is pretty sensational — I say that until the lawsuit is settled, Olvera doesn't deserve the serving of compressed carbon.

UPDATE: City Manager Leon Churchill defends Olvera here, and his response seems far more measured than the ranking from eBossWatch.

You think it's cold now...

... Try spending a night on the streets.

No, I haven't done it. Certainly not when the mercury dips below 32 degrees. But every time Jack Frost gnaws on my nose, I can't help but think about the people who can't simply duck indoors to thaw their fingers and toes.

To help the homeless and those who can't afford to heat their homes, donate coats and especially durable blankets, sleeping bags and tents to Tracy Interfaith Ministries.

Tracy Interfaith is easy to reach — its office is in El Pescadero Park, where Parker Avenue dead-ends at Grant Line Road.

Putting your health Furst

I usually hesitiate from passing off another newspaper's opinion as must-read material. But this editorial from the Stockton Record is worth a glance.

It excoriates county public health officials, specifically Dr. Karen Furst, for being less-than-helpful in answering media questions about the H1N1 virus and communicating with the public about when and where the vaccine will be offered.

I've only personally dealt with Dr. Furst once, while researching a column about the real vs. perceived danger of West Nile virus. It wasn't the best interview I've ever had, but I imagine it can't be fun being pestered by the media for answers reporters could easily find elsewhere.

However, what I think is most noteworthy about this subjedt is not the Record's beef with county health, serious and justified as it may be.

What's striking about the H1N1 scare is that it has so far proven no more deadly than the common flu. Yes, it is a health concern, particularly because of the population it seems to hit hardest and because of its potential to mutate into a much more dangerous virus.

But it seems a lot of the media attention devoted to "swine flu" could be directed elsewhere. Say, like reminding everyone that we're still embroiled in a couple of very expensive wars.

'Tis the season at the Tracy Press

Today the Press welcomed a pair of Christmas trees into the office. They're stately firs, and they perfume the place with a scent that screams wintertime, at least to me.

We're planning on decorating them in turn — we're thinking ornaments made wholly from Tracy Press newspapers for the newsroom conifer.

Gotta stay true to the product, and all that.

The new plan, same as the old plan

It's expected that President Obama will later today announce a major escalation in the Afghanistan war. Damn.

Though Obama campaigned on drawing down forces in Iraq and escalating in Afghanistan, this is the time the U.S. should be disengaging from both fights. It is a drain not only on human lives, but on resources that we don't have.

If this escalation goes through, there should indeed be a sort of war tax, a proposal that has come from the Democratic side of the congressional aisle.

Since then-President Bush told America after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to resume consuming and go about normal life, the sacrifices of the "War on Terror" have been borne by only a small portion of the population. Namely, the servicemen and -women who do the actual fighting, and the families they have left behind.

Furthermore, we have so far paid for these wars through debt financing, ironic considering both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have been the darlings of establishment policital conservatives, and those same conservatives have been railing against health care reform in part because of its huge cost. (Maybe war debt is OK, but debt to give everyday Americans better health insurance options is not.)

It's time to spread the true cost of this war around, because aside from it being fiscally irresponsible to finance these wars on debt, more Americans need to be reminded that war is a tough, nasty, and expensive business. If driving that message home means wrenching open a few wallets, so be it.

We might just find that if rank-and-file Americans have to share more of war's cost, war will suddenly become a much less popular endeavor.