2011-09-28 "Acorns: Not just for squirrels anymore; Ethnobotanist says acorns poised for comeback as a sustainable food aided by state's plentiful and adaptable oaks" by Jessica Carew Kraft from "San Francisco Chronicle" newspaper
[http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-09-28/entertainment/30211167_1_ipad-app-print-edition-sfgate-com]
It's acorn season. They're falling by the barrel-load into our yards and parks, littering the ground with squirrel food. But Jolie Lonner Egert doesn't see this as a nuisance. She calls acorns the "original California cuisine." And the Fairfax-based ethnobotanist is betting that they'll be the next locavore sensation. "I think in 10 years, you'll be able to walk into any farm-to-table restaurant and order acorn pancakes," she said.
Egert runs Go Wild, an ecological education company that offers classes on foraging and preparing edible wild plants across the Bay Area. For the past four years, she's spent her Septembers gathering the harvest from oak trees and teaching others how to do the same.
Sporting a felted acorn cap and gesturing with a squirrel puppet, Egert led a lively presentation earlier this month at Hidden Villa, an organic farm in Los Altos, in which she explained to a group of families how oak trees used to provide an easy, plentiful crop for native Californians. A mature oak tree can produce 300 to 500 pounds of acorns per season, yielding a massive surplus even after a vast network of insects, birds and mammals have been fed.
The trees are also extremely adaptable. California has at least 20 species of oak, growing in every part of the state and covering over a third of the land mass. "Oaks are shape-shifters - they can grow in the desert, or in wet, cold climates," Egert said.
She believes that if we can re-plant and sustainably manage our oaks the way native Californians did, then today's residents will have a secure and abundant food source during the coming decades of unpredictable climate change. It's simply a matter of getting Americans to try them.
"In Mexico, Korea and all across the Mediterranean, people eat acorns," she said. Audience member Jing Zhou said that he grew up eating acorn jelly in central China, and currently buys it at a local Korean market in Los Altos. "You make it like tofu," he said. "You cut it and serve it with ginger and soy sauce."
Egert prefers her acorns in baked goods. Acorn flour can be used in any recipe that calls for corn meal or nut meal. She also likes to saute chopped acorns in sugar and butter, roast the nibs with honey, or boil them into an oatmeal-consistency porridge.
So how do they taste? -
Egert served the crowd a range of acorn goodies. A tray full of cakes disappeared quickly, and the adults were offered a taste of Spanish-made acorn liqueur.
After sampling a handful of chopped and dried acorns, Rebecca Sherwood of Los Altos had some difficulty nailing down the flavor. "They're not like walnuts, which have more oil and fat and a creamy taste. They're just very mild and chewy."
Nutritionally, acorns are a good choice. They're gluten-free, low-fat, and loaded with vitamins and minerals. But they do take a lot of preparation. And a specific set of tools.
First, they must be dried until their insides rattle. A good dehydrator can accomplish this in two days. Then the nuts have to be cracked open, scanned for burrowing bugs or mold, and the inner kernel ground into coarse flour.
Bitter-tasting tannins -
Egert and her husband, David Egert, who teaches biology at the College of Marin, are constantly experimenting with new methods for each of these steps in order to perfect the process.
"People tell me that acorns take too much work. But then I ask them, 'What would you have to do to grow wheat right here?' " she said, pointing toward a majestic Oregon white oak.
She ran through the requirements: "You'd cut down the trees, destroying the rich and complex ecosystem here. You'd till the soil and have to water, weed, and kill the pests - often with nasty chemicals. Then you'd have to gather, thresh and grind the flour. Every year, you'd do the same thing over and over again."
By contrast, native oaks require only occasional pruning and weeding, and they keep local flora and fauna thriving.
"It's better for the land and way easier just to pick acorns off the ground."
Acorn workshops -
For future acorn events, go to [www.gowildconsulting.com].
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
2011-08-17 "Study Finds Local Businesses Key to Income Growth" by Stacy Mitchell
[http://www.newrules.org/retail/news/study-finds-local-businesses-key-income-growth]
Stacy Mitchell is a senior researcher with the New Rules Project, where she directs initiatives on community banking and independent retail. She is the author of Big-Box Swindle and produces a popular monthly bulletin called the Hometown Advantage.
---
The results of a new study suggest that the key to reversing the long-term trend of stagnating incomes in the U.S. lies in nurturing small, locally owned businesses and limiting further expansion and market consolidation by large corporations.
Economists Stephan Goetz and David Fleming, both affiliated with Pennsylvania State University and the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, conducted the study, "Does Local Firm Ownership Matter?" It was published in the journal Economic Development Quarterly [http://edq.sagepub.com/content/25/3/277.abstract].
Goetz and Fleming analyzed 2,953 counties, including both rural and urban places, and found that those with a larger density of small, locally owned businesses experienced greater per capita income growth between 2000 and 2007. The presence of large, non-local businesses, meanwhile, had a negative effect on incomes.
"Even after we control for other economic growth determinants … the non-resident-owned medium and large firms consistently and statistically depress economic growth rates … The other major result is that resident-owned small firms have a statistically significant and relatively large positive effect" on income growth, the authors report. Small firms are defined as those with fewer than 100 employees and large firms as those with over 500 employees.
"Subject to the caveat that the 2000-2007 period was unique in American economic history, results presented are remarkably robust in terms of the positive link between small firms that are locally owned and per capita income growth. Medium and larger firms appear to have the opposite effect, especially when they are not locally owned. These include big boxes as well as other chain and nonchain operations that are owned by individuals who are not also residents of the community. Although these types of firms may offer opportunities for jobs, as well as job growth over time, they do so at the cost of reduced local economic growth, as measured by income. Small-sized firms owned by residents are optimal if the policy objective is to maximize income growth rates," the authors conclude.
Previous studies by Goetz have found that the number of Walmart stores in a county correlated with both higher poverty rates [http://www.newrules.org/retail/key-studies-walmart-and-bigbox-retail#5] and reduced social capital [http://www.newrules.org/retail/key-studies-walmart-and-bigbox-retail#6].
[http://www.newrules.org/retail/news/study-finds-local-businesses-key-income-growth]
Stacy Mitchell is a senior researcher with the New Rules Project, where she directs initiatives on community banking and independent retail. She is the author of Big-Box Swindle and produces a popular monthly bulletin called the Hometown Advantage.
---
The results of a new study suggest that the key to reversing the long-term trend of stagnating incomes in the U.S. lies in nurturing small, locally owned businesses and limiting further expansion and market consolidation by large corporations.
Economists Stephan Goetz and David Fleming, both affiliated with Pennsylvania State University and the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, conducted the study, "Does Local Firm Ownership Matter?" It was published in the journal Economic Development Quarterly [http://edq.sagepub.com/content/25/3/277.abstract].
Goetz and Fleming analyzed 2,953 counties, including both rural and urban places, and found that those with a larger density of small, locally owned businesses experienced greater per capita income growth between 2000 and 2007. The presence of large, non-local businesses, meanwhile, had a negative effect on incomes.
"Even after we control for other economic growth determinants … the non-resident-owned medium and large firms consistently and statistically depress economic growth rates … The other major result is that resident-owned small firms have a statistically significant and relatively large positive effect" on income growth, the authors report. Small firms are defined as those with fewer than 100 employees and large firms as those with over 500 employees.
"Subject to the caveat that the 2000-2007 period was unique in American economic history, results presented are remarkably robust in terms of the positive link between small firms that are locally owned and per capita income growth. Medium and larger firms appear to have the opposite effect, especially when they are not locally owned. These include big boxes as well as other chain and nonchain operations that are owned by individuals who are not also residents of the community. Although these types of firms may offer opportunities for jobs, as well as job growth over time, they do so at the cost of reduced local economic growth, as measured by income. Small-sized firms owned by residents are optimal if the policy objective is to maximize income growth rates," the authors conclude.
Previous studies by Goetz have found that the number of Walmart stores in a county correlated with both higher poverty rates [http://www.newrules.org/retail/key-studies-walmart-and-bigbox-retail#5] and reduced social capital [http://www.newrules.org/retail/key-studies-walmart-and-bigbox-retail#6].
Sunday, August 14, 2011
2011-08-14 "4-H clubs flourish with crop of urban locavores" by Lisa Wallace from "San Fracisco Chronicle"
[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/11/HOQJ1K7MTU.DTL]
Elsa Rafter, 9, has no illusions about the messy process of raising livestock. For Elsa, clad in a sundress and jelly sandals, climbing into her family's backyard chicken coop to collect fresh eggs for breakfast is nothing but a brush of hay off her golden pigtails. The Rafter household keeps one Buff Orpington and two Ameraucana chickens in San Francisco's Hayes Valley.
"You can tell the difference between Sunshine and Chicky-Chicky because Sunshine has a dirty bottom," Elsa explains matter-of-factly, holding Sunshine in her arms for everyone to get a good look. This doesn't put Elsa off; she and her brother Roan, 6, share responsibilities for taking care of the chickens, feeding them and collecting their eggs. The two joined San Francisco's only 4-H program, started this year, to share their knowledge of chicken raising with other children in the city.
Animal husbandry is probably not what first comes to mind when thinking about the extracurricular interests of urban youth, but the Bay Area's 52 4-H clubs are flourishing, with city kids raising rabbits, lambs, goats, chickens and turkeys - some destined for dinner tables. It's another sign that urban agriculture has taken hold in the Bay Area's food culture and is trickling down to a new generation.
In a city with a strong locavore and DIY ethos, 4-H seems like a natural fit, according to Megan Price, who, along with fellow parent Lauren Ward, co-founded the San Francisco Urban chapter just this year.
"With the whole urban farming movement blossoming, there are a lot of people with backyard chickens, beekeeping, etcetera," says Price. "It just seems like a really good time to start exploring these things with our kids."
Established in 1902, 4-H - which stands for head, heart, hands, health - is a national youth development program predicated on a "learn by doing" model. Members run the clubs and design and set goals for their own projects, which can range from building robots to home economics to raising rabbits.
Over the past few years, 4-H membership has been on a steady rise, especially in urban areas. According to 4-H National, about a third of participants are now from cities of at least 50,000 or their surrounding suburbs.
Raising animals is part of 4-H's agri-science curriculum, where members are responsible for daily tasks such as feeding and grooming, as well as learning about anatomy and breeding. Summertime is the wrap-up of months of hard work, with kids showing their animals at county fairs and selling them at auctions.
Grand champion -
At the San Mateo County Fair in June, urban 4-Hers showed animals alongside those of their peers from more rural areas. Peri Wong, 17, of Menlo Park, a 4-H state ambassador, had this year's grand champion market lamb, sold at the fair's youth livestock auction along with the grand champion turkey, raised by Thomas Rivette, 19, of Pacifica.
While Rivette kept his Broad Breasted White turkey in his backyard, finding the pasture required for sheep presented a logistical challenge for Peri as it does for many other city kids interested in keeping larger animals.
Mary Meyer, 4-H coordinator for San Francisco and San Mateo, worked out a solution with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and UC Davis, affiliated with 4-H through the national Cooperative Extension System, to set up five locations in the area for 4-Hers to lease land - in Pacifica, Daly City, San Bruno, San Carlos and near the Crystal Springs Reservoir in San Mateo County. The rent is kept low, usually around $6 per month. Because there is no caretaker on the land, it's up to the 4-Hers to feed and groom their animals daily.
San Bruno commute -
This year, Peri commuted from Menlo Park to San Bruno every day because the closer San Carlos farm was overcrowded. Raising a lamb for market involved a host of tasks for Peri, including feeding, watering, halter training, grooming and keeping detailed records on its growth. The Hampshire lamb, bred at the Casarotti Ranch in Santa Rosa, is a breed prized for its large frame and hearty cuts of meat. Peri was responsible for exercising her lamb to keep it at market weight and monitoring its food intake.
It's standard practice for animals raised for meat, something Peri understands now. "When I had my first goat, I was really sad, but then I realized if it was going for meat anyway, it should still have a better life."
Jenette Masarie, 13, of Redwood City, had similar responsibilities raising a 1,253-pound Pen Pride steer with three other girls for Redwood City's 4-H. Pen Pride steers are donated by local businesses and raised collectively by each of the Peninsula's clubs. The auction revenue generated by the Red Angus steer, donated this year by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, goes to the club's scholarship fund.
Throughout the eight years she's been a 4-Her, Jenette also has raised Blue Butt pigs and Red Wether goats - all destined for the slaughterhouse.
"I do get attached," Jenette admits. "My first year I cried and it was sad; as you go on through the years it gets easier. With the steer it was really hard because I was with him longer, and I bonded with him more."
Like Peri, she has come up against her share of adversity. "I have had people come up to me at the fair and say, 'How could you do that?' but I just say I know where my food comes from, and I know the way of life and everything now.
"I think it's a great experience. I've been doing it since I was 5 years old and I love it."
Participation in 4-H is designed to develop leadership skills by fostering collaboration and personal initiative, but it also emphasizes citizenship. Rivette, for example, donated the proceeds from the sale of his turkey - $500 - to the Bryan Stow Fund, set up to help the beaten Giants' fan.
"I like that (4-H is) focused on service, that it's nondiscriminatory," Price of SF Urban 4-H says. "I like that it is focused on earth and agriculture and animals and helping - it is something that kids don't necessarily have access to in the city."
"Run by children" -
Jenette's mother, Katey Masarie, takes pride in watching Jenette hold her own in the urban farming movement. "Four-H is basically run by children," Masarie says, "and Jenette works really hard to raise those animals and become close to them, and having to learn about different meats and things - what she's really doing is learning about how life works."
The Rafter children joined 4-H because of their family's backyard chickens, but through their participation they saw several other aspects of growing and preparing food.
"When you live in a city, you're exposed to cool stuff like museums, but you have to go out of your way to see a farm, or experience milking a goat," says Price, who organized several outings to Hayes Valley Farm for SF Urban 4-H.
This year, Elsa learned to milk a club member's backyard goats and make homemade ice cream from the milk. With Price, who is a pastry chef, she baked an apple and blackberry galette with fresh fruit and an egg wash from her own chickens.
Price puts 4-H in what she refers to as "the return-to-the-earth movement."
"Like the whole Chez Panisse thing with the urban gardening and Hayes Valley Farm and people canning their own vegetables and backyard goats and chickens ..." she spouts giddily. It's reminiscent of the '60s, she explains, and laughs: "It's why the parents seem to be just as interested as the kids are."
4-H clubs -
Contact SF Urban 4-H at sfurban4h@gmail.com and visit them on Facebook at on.[fb.me/phMpiT]
To learn more about 4-H and for a listing of local offices, go to 4-H.org.
For a listing of upcoming county fairs, go to [1.usa.gov/oMreY6]
[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/11/HOQJ1K7MTU.DTL]
Elsa Rafter, 9, has no illusions about the messy process of raising livestock. For Elsa, clad in a sundress and jelly sandals, climbing into her family's backyard chicken coop to collect fresh eggs for breakfast is nothing but a brush of hay off her golden pigtails. The Rafter household keeps one Buff Orpington and two Ameraucana chickens in San Francisco's Hayes Valley.
"You can tell the difference between Sunshine and Chicky-Chicky because Sunshine has a dirty bottom," Elsa explains matter-of-factly, holding Sunshine in her arms for everyone to get a good look. This doesn't put Elsa off; she and her brother Roan, 6, share responsibilities for taking care of the chickens, feeding them and collecting their eggs. The two joined San Francisco's only 4-H program, started this year, to share their knowledge of chicken raising with other children in the city.
Animal husbandry is probably not what first comes to mind when thinking about the extracurricular interests of urban youth, but the Bay Area's 52 4-H clubs are flourishing, with city kids raising rabbits, lambs, goats, chickens and turkeys - some destined for dinner tables. It's another sign that urban agriculture has taken hold in the Bay Area's food culture and is trickling down to a new generation.
In a city with a strong locavore and DIY ethos, 4-H seems like a natural fit, according to Megan Price, who, along with fellow parent Lauren Ward, co-founded the San Francisco Urban chapter just this year.
"With the whole urban farming movement blossoming, there are a lot of people with backyard chickens, beekeeping, etcetera," says Price. "It just seems like a really good time to start exploring these things with our kids."
Established in 1902, 4-H - which stands for head, heart, hands, health - is a national youth development program predicated on a "learn by doing" model. Members run the clubs and design and set goals for their own projects, which can range from building robots to home economics to raising rabbits.
Over the past few years, 4-H membership has been on a steady rise, especially in urban areas. According to 4-H National, about a third of participants are now from cities of at least 50,000 or their surrounding suburbs.
Raising animals is part of 4-H's agri-science curriculum, where members are responsible for daily tasks such as feeding and grooming, as well as learning about anatomy and breeding. Summertime is the wrap-up of months of hard work, with kids showing their animals at county fairs and selling them at auctions.
Grand champion -
At the San Mateo County Fair in June, urban 4-Hers showed animals alongside those of their peers from more rural areas. Peri Wong, 17, of Menlo Park, a 4-H state ambassador, had this year's grand champion market lamb, sold at the fair's youth livestock auction along with the grand champion turkey, raised by Thomas Rivette, 19, of Pacifica.
While Rivette kept his Broad Breasted White turkey in his backyard, finding the pasture required for sheep presented a logistical challenge for Peri as it does for many other city kids interested in keeping larger animals.
Mary Meyer, 4-H coordinator for San Francisco and San Mateo, worked out a solution with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and UC Davis, affiliated with 4-H through the national Cooperative Extension System, to set up five locations in the area for 4-Hers to lease land - in Pacifica, Daly City, San Bruno, San Carlos and near the Crystal Springs Reservoir in San Mateo County. The rent is kept low, usually around $6 per month. Because there is no caretaker on the land, it's up to the 4-Hers to feed and groom their animals daily.
San Bruno commute -
This year, Peri commuted from Menlo Park to San Bruno every day because the closer San Carlos farm was overcrowded. Raising a lamb for market involved a host of tasks for Peri, including feeding, watering, halter training, grooming and keeping detailed records on its growth. The Hampshire lamb, bred at the Casarotti Ranch in Santa Rosa, is a breed prized for its large frame and hearty cuts of meat. Peri was responsible for exercising her lamb to keep it at market weight and monitoring its food intake.
It's standard practice for animals raised for meat, something Peri understands now. "When I had my first goat, I was really sad, but then I realized if it was going for meat anyway, it should still have a better life."
Jenette Masarie, 13, of Redwood City, had similar responsibilities raising a 1,253-pound Pen Pride steer with three other girls for Redwood City's 4-H. Pen Pride steers are donated by local businesses and raised collectively by each of the Peninsula's clubs. The auction revenue generated by the Red Angus steer, donated this year by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, goes to the club's scholarship fund.
Throughout the eight years she's been a 4-Her, Jenette also has raised Blue Butt pigs and Red Wether goats - all destined for the slaughterhouse.
"I do get attached," Jenette admits. "My first year I cried and it was sad; as you go on through the years it gets easier. With the steer it was really hard because I was with him longer, and I bonded with him more."
Like Peri, she has come up against her share of adversity. "I have had people come up to me at the fair and say, 'How could you do that?' but I just say I know where my food comes from, and I know the way of life and everything now.
"I think it's a great experience. I've been doing it since I was 5 years old and I love it."
Participation in 4-H is designed to develop leadership skills by fostering collaboration and personal initiative, but it also emphasizes citizenship. Rivette, for example, donated the proceeds from the sale of his turkey - $500 - to the Bryan Stow Fund, set up to help the beaten Giants' fan.
"I like that (4-H is) focused on service, that it's nondiscriminatory," Price of SF Urban 4-H says. "I like that it is focused on earth and agriculture and animals and helping - it is something that kids don't necessarily have access to in the city."
"Run by children" -
Jenette's mother, Katey Masarie, takes pride in watching Jenette hold her own in the urban farming movement. "Four-H is basically run by children," Masarie says, "and Jenette works really hard to raise those animals and become close to them, and having to learn about different meats and things - what she's really doing is learning about how life works."
The Rafter children joined 4-H because of their family's backyard chickens, but through their participation they saw several other aspects of growing and preparing food.
"When you live in a city, you're exposed to cool stuff like museums, but you have to go out of your way to see a farm, or experience milking a goat," says Price, who organized several outings to Hayes Valley Farm for SF Urban 4-H.
This year, Elsa learned to milk a club member's backyard goats and make homemade ice cream from the milk. With Price, who is a pastry chef, she baked an apple and blackberry galette with fresh fruit and an egg wash from her own chickens.
Price puts 4-H in what she refers to as "the return-to-the-earth movement."
"Like the whole Chez Panisse thing with the urban gardening and Hayes Valley Farm and people canning their own vegetables and backyard goats and chickens ..." she spouts giddily. It's reminiscent of the '60s, she explains, and laughs: "It's why the parents seem to be just as interested as the kids are."
4-H clubs -
Contact SF Urban 4-H at sfurban4h@gmail.com and visit them on Facebook at on.[fb.me/phMpiT]
To learn more about 4-H and for a listing of local offices, go to 4-H.org.
For a listing of upcoming county fairs, go to [1.usa.gov/oMreY6]
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
2011-02-08 "North Richmond garden project nourishes bodies and spirits" by Robert Rogers
[http://richmondconfidential.org/2011/02/08/north-richmond-garden-project-nourishes-bodies-and-spirits/]
Hope and life are springing up in North Richmond with an ambitious plan to create a host of community gardens.
Organizers hope to use grant funding to create about 10 community gardens over the next two years.
They say producing fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs in a neighborhood where both whole foods and natural spaces are scarce could be a powerful force for improvement.
“This is a community of color, one that has had poverty and neglect weighing on its collective conscience for decades,” said Iyalode Kinney, a director for Communities United Restoring Mother Earth and the project manager for the North Richmond Lot of Crops project. “This lifts the community in so many ways.”
CURME is a nonprofit urban gardening project based in Richmond, and the North Richmond effort has been underway for several months.
On Third Street just north of Grove Avenue last week, about a dozen administrators, volunteers and local workers tilled several hundred pounds of fresh soil. They used the soil to enrich the wooden planters that contain a variety of crops, including kale, collard and mustard greens, cabbage, turnips, peppers and a number of healthful herbs and edible flowers.
Kinney said the garden can provide both low-cost produce in an area largely without and opportunities for education and healthy living.
“We will soon begin holding little community classes out here in the gardens,” Kinney said. “To open people up to the health benefits of the natural plants growing out here and cooking ideas.”
Unincorporated North Richmond is the poorest community per capita community in Contra Costa County. The roughly one-mile square area has no grocery stores or restaurants.
Residents who wish to buy fresh produce and other groceries must travel to San Pablo or Richmond proper.
Organizers say the community garden project, which relies on private property owners who essentially lend the use of their vacant lots lands for the gardens, is a key step toward building community pride in an area long maligned by violent crime.
“The way North Richmond has been depicted has served to drag the people here down,” said Saleem Bey, co-director of the project. “This is really building a sense of pride and excitement. People drive by and cheer us on.”
The Lot of Crops project was given life in part with money from a much less healthy enterprise. The nearby West Contra Costa County landfill pays annually into a mitigation fund, which is to be used in the community to offset the effects of the landfill’s pollution.
The community garden project was awarded $56,000 in 2010 and $100,000 from the mitigation fund this year, Kinney said, money that pays for materials, transportation, administration and, perhaps most importantly, jobs for young workers in a community that has for decades had virtually no labor market.
Five young adults were hired Jan. 10 on five-month-long contracts to build and maintain the gardens, Kinney said. Work is also occurring on a vacant lot on Vernon Street, and the hope is that as many as 10 gardens may be in some stage of development by the end of the year.
One of those employed with the grant money is Ervin Coley, 21, a soft-spoken man who sheepishly admits he loves to smell the different leaves and flowers.
“My father loves that I am learning and helping on this project,” Coley said. “In his eyes, it’s amazing that I have a job in my own community.”
Ervin Coley, 21, is one of five young locals employed as a garden worker.
Iyalode Kinney, 62, is the director of the community garden project.
2011-04-15 "North Richmond lays to rest a native son" by Robert Rogers
[http://richmondconfidential.org/2011/04/15/north-richmond-lays-to-rest-a-native-son/]
Ervin Coley III had a natural curiosity, and a curious favorite animal: Earthworms, the slimy invertebrates that burrow into the soil, enhancing its richness with organic matter.
Coley would gently handle the tiny worms, one at a time, and place them in patches of soil that he hoped to improve.
“We called Ervin the ‘Worm Man,’” remembered a tearful Iyalode Kinney, Coley’s manager and mentor on the North Richmond Lots of Crops project, where Coley worked since December, “because when he first came out, and I taught him about what purpose the worms served, he just loved that philosophy of enriching the ground so more life would come out of it.”
Coley had found something of a calling in his work as a gardener in North Richmond, friends and family say. He had put in a day of work on March 29.
That evening he was killed.
More than 500 people filled Hilltop Community Church on Thursday to mourn Coley, 21, a lifelong North Richmond resident who was killed by a hail of bullets on March 29 while walking near the corner of Silver Avenue and Second Street.
Many people wore t-shirts with Coley’s smiling faced embossed on the front and back. Coley’s mother, father, and 5-year-old brother sat up front in the two-story worship hall. Several of the neighborhood’s most prominent religious figures attended.
“I am just getting hit with mixed emotions here,” said Jelani Moses, 30, Coley’s co-worker on the community gardening program. “I know we’re here to celebrate Ervin’s life and remember how beautiful he was, but this hurts real bad. Ervin was young and had it all ahead him and it all just got destroyed … totally senseless.”
Coley’s death was the first homicide in the tiny neighborhood of unincorporated North Richmond since May, 2010, but was part of a spate of crime that rocked the neighborhood with three shootings in three days. One night later, Jerry Owens, 22, was shot and killed less than two blocks away.
No one has been arrested in connection with either killing.
Police and neighbors have speculated that the deadly violence has origins in a simmering feud between rival neighborhood gangs in Central Richmond and North Richmond. Among the casualties were central Richmond native Joshua McClain, who was shot and killed in San Francisco; and Coley and Owens. Two other men were shot and wounded during the chaotic 72-hour period.
Friends and family have maintained that Coley was not an intended victim. “They come through, and they were just looking for a target,” said Saleem Bey, who supervised Coley in the gardening program.
Police have said that retaliation attacks between the neighborhoods have been known to target any young man found on the street at a given moment, and that the victims do not necessarily have ties to gang activity.
The service Thursday was a mix of laughs and celebration—thanks mostly to a slideshow featuring pictures of Coley’s irrepressible smile—and solemn reflection.
Bey told the crowd that North Richmond is under siege, and that despite glimmers of hope, violent crime continues to decimate the community.
“This young man was part of the positive change that was occurring in North Richmond,” Bey said. “I can’t tell you how much it hurts to see someone who had such a future get cut down like this.”
Before the spate of shootings, North Richmond seemed to enjoy a sustained period of calm. A one-square mile unincorporated community of about 3,000 people, North Richmond has the lowest per capita median income in Contra Costa County, according to Census data. Crime rates remain down from recent years, according to Sheriff’s Department statistics, but there is new unease about the prospect of future violence.
Several people in attendance Thursday expressed concern about the potential for retaliatory violence, given the raw emotions and the assemblage of so many hundreds of people for the service, many in their teens and 20s.
“We just have to do our best and hope that things don’t flare up again these next few nights,” said Joe McCoy, a longtime North Richmond resident who works for the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, a crime intervention program.
Coley was born in San Pablo in 1990, but his family’s roots in North Richmond run deep. As a young child, Coley spent periods living with a great-grandmother on Sanford Avenue. He attended the local elementary school, and later graduated from high school, an event featured in a slew of photographs during a slideshow commemorating his life.
In recent years, he lived mostly with his mother, Mariecelle Lowery, 37, and his baby brother in a unit in the Las Deltas Public housing project.
In December, he was hired as a community gardener in the Lot of Crops program, an initiative funded with money that comes from a nearby county landfill to mitigate economic and environmental impacts from the waste disposal. The job gave Coley a jolt of confidence and hope. During an interview in February, Coley enthusiastically told reporters how fulfilling it was to work to better his community.
“He wasn’t afraid to say, ‘I don’t know—can you teach me?’” Kinney said. “He was so open and so eager to learn, he was a sponge.”
After the services, Coley was buried at Rolling Hills Memorial Park in El Sobrante.
Kinney said Coley will be commemorated for his work in the neighborhood where he lived all of his 21 years. The day before his death, Coley worked at North Richmond’s newest garden, which he helped build in a vacant lot on Vernon Street. On April 23, his co-workers will dedicate the garden to Coley, with a yet-to-be-determined symbol honoring him.
“That garden will be a special place that will honor Ervin and symbolize the healing and growth of the community that he was a part of,” Kinney said.
[http://richmondconfidential.org/2011/02/08/north-richmond-garden-project-nourishes-bodies-and-spirits/]
Hope and life are springing up in North Richmond with an ambitious plan to create a host of community gardens.
Organizers hope to use grant funding to create about 10 community gardens over the next two years.
They say producing fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs in a neighborhood where both whole foods and natural spaces are scarce could be a powerful force for improvement.
“This is a community of color, one that has had poverty and neglect weighing on its collective conscience for decades,” said Iyalode Kinney, a director for Communities United Restoring Mother Earth and the project manager for the North Richmond Lot of Crops project. “This lifts the community in so many ways.”
CURME is a nonprofit urban gardening project based in Richmond, and the North Richmond effort has been underway for several months.
On Third Street just north of Grove Avenue last week, about a dozen administrators, volunteers and local workers tilled several hundred pounds of fresh soil. They used the soil to enrich the wooden planters that contain a variety of crops, including kale, collard and mustard greens, cabbage, turnips, peppers and a number of healthful herbs and edible flowers.
Kinney said the garden can provide both low-cost produce in an area largely without and opportunities for education and healthy living.
“We will soon begin holding little community classes out here in the gardens,” Kinney said. “To open people up to the health benefits of the natural plants growing out here and cooking ideas.”
Unincorporated North Richmond is the poorest community per capita community in Contra Costa County. The roughly one-mile square area has no grocery stores or restaurants.
Residents who wish to buy fresh produce and other groceries must travel to San Pablo or Richmond proper.
Organizers say the community garden project, which relies on private property owners who essentially lend the use of their vacant lots lands for the gardens, is a key step toward building community pride in an area long maligned by violent crime.
“The way North Richmond has been depicted has served to drag the people here down,” said Saleem Bey, co-director of the project. “This is really building a sense of pride and excitement. People drive by and cheer us on.”
The Lot of Crops project was given life in part with money from a much less healthy enterprise. The nearby West Contra Costa County landfill pays annually into a mitigation fund, which is to be used in the community to offset the effects of the landfill’s pollution.
The community garden project was awarded $56,000 in 2010 and $100,000 from the mitigation fund this year, Kinney said, money that pays for materials, transportation, administration and, perhaps most importantly, jobs for young workers in a community that has for decades had virtually no labor market.
Five young adults were hired Jan. 10 on five-month-long contracts to build and maintain the gardens, Kinney said. Work is also occurring on a vacant lot on Vernon Street, and the hope is that as many as 10 gardens may be in some stage of development by the end of the year.
One of those employed with the grant money is Ervin Coley, 21, a soft-spoken man who sheepishly admits he loves to smell the different leaves and flowers.
“My father loves that I am learning and helping on this project,” Coley said. “In his eyes, it’s amazing that I have a job in my own community.”
Ervin Coley, 21, is one of five young locals employed as a garden worker.
Iyalode Kinney, 62, is the director of the community garden project.
2011-04-15 "North Richmond lays to rest a native son" by Robert Rogers
[http://richmondconfidential.org/2011/04/15/north-richmond-lays-to-rest-a-native-son/]
Ervin Coley III had a natural curiosity, and a curious favorite animal: Earthworms, the slimy invertebrates that burrow into the soil, enhancing its richness with organic matter.
Coley would gently handle the tiny worms, one at a time, and place them in patches of soil that he hoped to improve.
“We called Ervin the ‘Worm Man,’” remembered a tearful Iyalode Kinney, Coley’s manager and mentor on the North Richmond Lots of Crops project, where Coley worked since December, “because when he first came out, and I taught him about what purpose the worms served, he just loved that philosophy of enriching the ground so more life would come out of it.”
Coley had found something of a calling in his work as a gardener in North Richmond, friends and family say. He had put in a day of work on March 29.
That evening he was killed.
More than 500 people filled Hilltop Community Church on Thursday to mourn Coley, 21, a lifelong North Richmond resident who was killed by a hail of bullets on March 29 while walking near the corner of Silver Avenue and Second Street.
Many people wore t-shirts with Coley’s smiling faced embossed on the front and back. Coley’s mother, father, and 5-year-old brother sat up front in the two-story worship hall. Several of the neighborhood’s most prominent religious figures attended.
“I am just getting hit with mixed emotions here,” said Jelani Moses, 30, Coley’s co-worker on the community gardening program. “I know we’re here to celebrate Ervin’s life and remember how beautiful he was, but this hurts real bad. Ervin was young and had it all ahead him and it all just got destroyed … totally senseless.”
Coley’s death was the first homicide in the tiny neighborhood of unincorporated North Richmond since May, 2010, but was part of a spate of crime that rocked the neighborhood with three shootings in three days. One night later, Jerry Owens, 22, was shot and killed less than two blocks away.
No one has been arrested in connection with either killing.
Police and neighbors have speculated that the deadly violence has origins in a simmering feud between rival neighborhood gangs in Central Richmond and North Richmond. Among the casualties were central Richmond native Joshua McClain, who was shot and killed in San Francisco; and Coley and Owens. Two other men were shot and wounded during the chaotic 72-hour period.
Friends and family have maintained that Coley was not an intended victim. “They come through, and they were just looking for a target,” said Saleem Bey, who supervised Coley in the gardening program.
Police have said that retaliation attacks between the neighborhoods have been known to target any young man found on the street at a given moment, and that the victims do not necessarily have ties to gang activity.
The service Thursday was a mix of laughs and celebration—thanks mostly to a slideshow featuring pictures of Coley’s irrepressible smile—and solemn reflection.
Bey told the crowd that North Richmond is under siege, and that despite glimmers of hope, violent crime continues to decimate the community.
“This young man was part of the positive change that was occurring in North Richmond,” Bey said. “I can’t tell you how much it hurts to see someone who had such a future get cut down like this.”
Before the spate of shootings, North Richmond seemed to enjoy a sustained period of calm. A one-square mile unincorporated community of about 3,000 people, North Richmond has the lowest per capita median income in Contra Costa County, according to Census data. Crime rates remain down from recent years, according to Sheriff’s Department statistics, but there is new unease about the prospect of future violence.
Several people in attendance Thursday expressed concern about the potential for retaliatory violence, given the raw emotions and the assemblage of so many hundreds of people for the service, many in their teens and 20s.
“We just have to do our best and hope that things don’t flare up again these next few nights,” said Joe McCoy, a longtime North Richmond resident who works for the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, a crime intervention program.
Coley was born in San Pablo in 1990, but his family’s roots in North Richmond run deep. As a young child, Coley spent periods living with a great-grandmother on Sanford Avenue. He attended the local elementary school, and later graduated from high school, an event featured in a slew of photographs during a slideshow commemorating his life.
In recent years, he lived mostly with his mother, Mariecelle Lowery, 37, and his baby brother in a unit in the Las Deltas Public housing project.
In December, he was hired as a community gardener in the Lot of Crops program, an initiative funded with money that comes from a nearby county landfill to mitigate economic and environmental impacts from the waste disposal. The job gave Coley a jolt of confidence and hope. During an interview in February, Coley enthusiastically told reporters how fulfilling it was to work to better his community.
“He wasn’t afraid to say, ‘I don’t know—can you teach me?’” Kinney said. “He was so open and so eager to learn, he was a sponge.”
After the services, Coley was buried at Rolling Hills Memorial Park in El Sobrante.
Kinney said Coley will be commemorated for his work in the neighborhood where he lived all of his 21 years. The day before his death, Coley worked at North Richmond’s newest garden, which he helped build in a vacant lot on Vernon Street. On April 23, his co-workers will dedicate the garden to Coley, with a yet-to-be-determined symbol honoring him.
“That garden will be a special place that will honor Ervin and symbolize the healing and growth of the community that he was a part of,” Kinney said.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
LNG Plant in Vallejo supported by VPOA
"Missed Opportunities", 2011-01 by VPOA Vice-President Kevin Hamrick, for “In Your City (A crime and public safety magazine)” issue #4, pgs. 4 and 5, courtesy of the Vallejo Police Officer’s Association (VPOA):
From the introduction to issue #4 by VPOA President Mat Mustard - “More than 15,000 Vallejoans receive In Your City, and we have heard from hundreds of community members that the magazine brings a welcomed message.”
Sunday, August 1, 2010
2010-08 "Benicia’s Community Garden Considers Expansion" by Samuel J. Adams from Benicia Magazine
[http://www.beniciamagazine.com/Benicia-Magazine/August-2010/Benicia-rsquos-Community-Garden-Considers-Expansion/]
A Little Old-fashioned Step Back into the Future -
Even though you can see Nations and Baskin Robbins and the Police Station over its vine-shrouded white fence, the Benicia Community Garden is easy to miss. It’s on a small hill tucked back from the road, and walking there feels not unlike trespassing through a churchyard. But the garden’s secrecy has nothing to do with exclusion; one would be hard pressed to find an arena in town more welcoming toward strangers.
Soon after I entered the garden gates, Judy Sullivan, a Benicia Community Garden member, pulls me a few sprigs of lemon verbena, and instructs me on its uses. “I just hang it upside down in a north-facing window. I dry it but I also use it fresh for tea. You just shuck it like you would a thing of corn.” The plant has a soft papery feel and smells mysteriously of lemonheads.
Mrs. Sullivan is soft-voiced, silver-haired and considerate enough of my amateurism to spell out V-E-R-B-E-N-A. She came here with her husband Sam, a well-tanned man watering the tomatoes, arugula and Swiss chard in their lot. Both garden here regularly, and in doing so they belong to a motley but select club whose membership includes a trained biologist, four homeschooled children, and a retiree in her eighties. And their ranks are growing: two recent members have been learning how to garden with upside-down tomato bags.
“We call it an oasis,” says Community Garden Board member Marilyn Bardet. “We’re in the busiest intersection in Benicia, full of car traffic and fumes, and we have a picnic on the first of every month, religiously, rain or shine…it’s a little old-fashioned step back into the future.”
As we crunch our way over a woodchip path that runs past rosemary bushes, squashes and serpentine tomato plants, the paradoxical phrase rings true: a healthy and palpable sense of atavism pervades the place. Here old knowledge is being unearthed for explicitly modern purposes.
“We’re trying to recover lost arts,” says Bardet. To her the art seems to have been lost in the late fifties and early sixties, when the national reverence for things grown was buried under a giant tomb of meatloaf and Wonder Bread, when highways and cheap fuel eliminated the meddling of the seasons, and when the delicacies or horticulture gave way to readymade meals and preserved foods that seemed never to go bad, even if they never tasted good to begin with.
Bardet recalls those days with a smile that winces. “My mother actually has a cookbook by Peg Bracken called The I Hate to Cook Book.”
But the work members do amounts to more than a personal hobby and culinary advantage; gardening is serious business, and with the looming ecological and economic troubles facing humanity, it wouldn’t take too great a shaking of the world’s foundation to make one’s relaxing hobby turn into a vital means of sustenance, much like the victory gardens were for citizens in WWII.
“Five years ago I felt like I was hit by the cosmic meatball when I really began reading seriously about the energy crisis and what the future holds. I don’t believe that the future’s going to resemble the past. There’s going to be a need for people to know basic things.”
Such statements suggest something Bardet readily acknowledges. Seclusion and intimacy notwithstanding, she sometimes wishes this private oasis were a little more like a public plaza, a low-pressure environment people regularly visit to garden, talk shop or just enjoy the company of the vegetative world. Lucky for her, and for Benicia, her group might soon come into a second property capable of fostering such an atmosphere.
A Plot to Make a Better World -
Members of the Benicia Community Garden have had discussions with Estey Real Estate, who manages the property, about acquiring a lease on a prime piece of land located at the apex of downtown’s pedestrian traffic. The lot is located at 1st and D Streets across from the Union Hotel and, in the twenty four years Bardet’s lived in Benicia, it’s never been sold. The owners have occasionally leased it for Christmas trees, pony rides, and even for a small nursery. Now only weeds grow, and they grow there so abundantly that it has to be mowed every month to comply with city fire code. With so many talented gardeners willing to mow it for free, pursuing the property seemed a logical step.
“If we pay them a nominal fee and eliminate their monthly mowing charge we could have a beautiful garden that could be ripped out if anybody ever wanted to buy the land,” says Bardet. The Presbyterian Church charges $1 for their current property, and to get the project off the ground, BCG may have to dip into the $20,000 they received from the 2010 settlement agreement between the Good Neighbor Steering Committee and Valero.
Though a second garden would be larger than the current one, the group’s inclusive policy wouldn’t change. BCG’s only rules are the minimal ones of common sense and neighborly conduct. Each person maintains their own bed and contributes to water costs. If people leave their beds fallow in winter, gardeners will sometimes ask them to use that bed to plant fava beans, something that gives nitrogen back to the soil. Sharing is strenuously encouraged; hassling is not. And it’s all organic. Whatever adulterants enter the soil will likely be inherited by the next gardener, so pests meet their end by soap sprays and lady bugs.
There would be one significant change though: the new garden, should it move forward, wouldn’t have costly raised garden beds. “Instead we’d build rounded mounds, and irrigate them by putting straw down to keep down the weeds and create a definition between the path part and the garden,” says Ms. Bardet. But she won’t say much beyond that, not because she doesn’t want to speculate, but because she doesn’t want to impose. “Whatever anybody wants,” she says. “We’re not saying what this garden should be. What we need is to get the word out.”
She hopes the new garden would be more than just the public face of the organization, and starts a movement that causes satellite gardens to sprout up around the city. She has been keenly following San Francisco’s innovations in urban gardening, where every nook is fair game for growing and, “even median strips are being planted.” The BCG would aim to increase membership with a second location, but more than that they want to spread their wisdom as far as they can.
“There’s an ebb and flow here. People come and learn and they stay a couple of years and then they might leave the garden and we get someone new in. It’s a training place. We’re growing gardeners. It’s kind of our motto.”
Those interested in gardening, or in donating their shoulders, tools, or supplies to BCG can contact Marilyn Bardet at mjbardet@sbcglobal.net. Novices and fans are also encouraged to visit the garden on Wednesdays from twelve to two to learn the tricks of the trade, says BCG co-founder and master gardener Meg Grumio.
[http://www.beniciamagazine.com/Benicia-Magazine/August-2010/Benicia-rsquos-Community-Garden-Considers-Expansion/]
A Little Old-fashioned Step Back into the Future -
Even though you can see Nations and Baskin Robbins and the Police Station over its vine-shrouded white fence, the Benicia Community Garden is easy to miss. It’s on a small hill tucked back from the road, and walking there feels not unlike trespassing through a churchyard. But the garden’s secrecy has nothing to do with exclusion; one would be hard pressed to find an arena in town more welcoming toward strangers.
Soon after I entered the garden gates, Judy Sullivan, a Benicia Community Garden member, pulls me a few sprigs of lemon verbena, and instructs me on its uses. “I just hang it upside down in a north-facing window. I dry it but I also use it fresh for tea. You just shuck it like you would a thing of corn.” The plant has a soft papery feel and smells mysteriously of lemonheads.
Mrs. Sullivan is soft-voiced, silver-haired and considerate enough of my amateurism to spell out V-E-R-B-E-N-A. She came here with her husband Sam, a well-tanned man watering the tomatoes, arugula and Swiss chard in their lot. Both garden here regularly, and in doing so they belong to a motley but select club whose membership includes a trained biologist, four homeschooled children, and a retiree in her eighties. And their ranks are growing: two recent members have been learning how to garden with upside-down tomato bags.
“We call it an oasis,” says Community Garden Board member Marilyn Bardet. “We’re in the busiest intersection in Benicia, full of car traffic and fumes, and we have a picnic on the first of every month, religiously, rain or shine…it’s a little old-fashioned step back into the future.”
As we crunch our way over a woodchip path that runs past rosemary bushes, squashes and serpentine tomato plants, the paradoxical phrase rings true: a healthy and palpable sense of atavism pervades the place. Here old knowledge is being unearthed for explicitly modern purposes.
“We’re trying to recover lost arts,” says Bardet. To her the art seems to have been lost in the late fifties and early sixties, when the national reverence for things grown was buried under a giant tomb of meatloaf and Wonder Bread, when highways and cheap fuel eliminated the meddling of the seasons, and when the delicacies or horticulture gave way to readymade meals and preserved foods that seemed never to go bad, even if they never tasted good to begin with.
Bardet recalls those days with a smile that winces. “My mother actually has a cookbook by Peg Bracken called The I Hate to Cook Book.”
But the work members do amounts to more than a personal hobby and culinary advantage; gardening is serious business, and with the looming ecological and economic troubles facing humanity, it wouldn’t take too great a shaking of the world’s foundation to make one’s relaxing hobby turn into a vital means of sustenance, much like the victory gardens were for citizens in WWII.
“Five years ago I felt like I was hit by the cosmic meatball when I really began reading seriously about the energy crisis and what the future holds. I don’t believe that the future’s going to resemble the past. There’s going to be a need for people to know basic things.”
Such statements suggest something Bardet readily acknowledges. Seclusion and intimacy notwithstanding, she sometimes wishes this private oasis were a little more like a public plaza, a low-pressure environment people regularly visit to garden, talk shop or just enjoy the company of the vegetative world. Lucky for her, and for Benicia, her group might soon come into a second property capable of fostering such an atmosphere.
A Plot to Make a Better World -
Members of the Benicia Community Garden have had discussions with Estey Real Estate, who manages the property, about acquiring a lease on a prime piece of land located at the apex of downtown’s pedestrian traffic. The lot is located at 1st and D Streets across from the Union Hotel and, in the twenty four years Bardet’s lived in Benicia, it’s never been sold. The owners have occasionally leased it for Christmas trees, pony rides, and even for a small nursery. Now only weeds grow, and they grow there so abundantly that it has to be mowed every month to comply with city fire code. With so many talented gardeners willing to mow it for free, pursuing the property seemed a logical step.
“If we pay them a nominal fee and eliminate their monthly mowing charge we could have a beautiful garden that could be ripped out if anybody ever wanted to buy the land,” says Bardet. The Presbyterian Church charges $1 for their current property, and to get the project off the ground, BCG may have to dip into the $20,000 they received from the 2010 settlement agreement between the Good Neighbor Steering Committee and Valero.
Though a second garden would be larger than the current one, the group’s inclusive policy wouldn’t change. BCG’s only rules are the minimal ones of common sense and neighborly conduct. Each person maintains their own bed and contributes to water costs. If people leave their beds fallow in winter, gardeners will sometimes ask them to use that bed to plant fava beans, something that gives nitrogen back to the soil. Sharing is strenuously encouraged; hassling is not. And it’s all organic. Whatever adulterants enter the soil will likely be inherited by the next gardener, so pests meet their end by soap sprays and lady bugs.
There would be one significant change though: the new garden, should it move forward, wouldn’t have costly raised garden beds. “Instead we’d build rounded mounds, and irrigate them by putting straw down to keep down the weeds and create a definition between the path part and the garden,” says Ms. Bardet. But she won’t say much beyond that, not because she doesn’t want to speculate, but because she doesn’t want to impose. “Whatever anybody wants,” she says. “We’re not saying what this garden should be. What we need is to get the word out.”
She hopes the new garden would be more than just the public face of the organization, and starts a movement that causes satellite gardens to sprout up around the city. She has been keenly following San Francisco’s innovations in urban gardening, where every nook is fair game for growing and, “even median strips are being planted.” The BCG would aim to increase membership with a second location, but more than that they want to spread their wisdom as far as they can.
“There’s an ebb and flow here. People come and learn and they stay a couple of years and then they might leave the garden and we get someone new in. It’s a training place. We’re growing gardeners. It’s kind of our motto.”
Those interested in gardening, or in donating their shoulders, tools, or supplies to BCG can contact Marilyn Bardet at mjbardet@sbcglobal.net. Novices and fans are also encouraged to visit the garden on Wednesdays from twelve to two to learn the tricks of the trade, says BCG co-founder and master gardener Meg Grumio.
Friday, January 25, 2008
2008-01-25 "Medical Marijuana Users Can be Fired, According to California Court"
from "Reuters" newswire [http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/8-1-25/64701.html]:
SAN FRANCISCO -
Companies can fire employees who use marijuana for medical reasons even if California law allows such use because federal law prohibits it, the state's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
"Under California law, an employer may require preemployment drug tests and take illegal drug use into consideration in making employment decisions," Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote.
The court's 5-2 decision is another blow to advocates of so-called medical marijuana.
In March last year, a federal court based in San Francisco said a California woman with an inoperable brain tumor had no fundamental right to marijuana for medical purposes.
Such rulings have confirmed that federal law governs when there are clashes with state law. California voters backed an initiative in 1996 allowing the smoking of marijuana for medical purposes -- a use barred by federal law.
"No state law could completely legalize marijuana for medical purposes because the drug remains illegal under federal law," Werdegar wrote.
In the latest case, Gary Ross said he began using marijuana in 1999 on a doctor's recommendation because of back pain.
Ross said that after he was offered a job at a company in 2001, he took and failed a drug test and was fired. He sued the company, privately held RagingWire Telecommunications, because he said it failed to make reasonable accommodation for his disability.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, which backed the employer, said the ruling would help keep drug-impaired employees from workplaces.
Proponents of medical marijuana said they were looking for support from lawmakers in the nation's most populous state.
"We remain hopeful that the legislature will come to the aid of patients by preventing the sort of discrimination that is likely to occur from such a decision," said Joe Elford, chief counsel of Americans for Safe Access.
SAN FRANCISCO -
Companies can fire employees who use marijuana for medical reasons even if California law allows such use because federal law prohibits it, the state's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.
"Under California law, an employer may require preemployment drug tests and take illegal drug use into consideration in making employment decisions," Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote.
The court's 5-2 decision is another blow to advocates of so-called medical marijuana.
In March last year, a federal court based in San Francisco said a California woman with an inoperable brain tumor had no fundamental right to marijuana for medical purposes.
Such rulings have confirmed that federal law governs when there are clashes with state law. California voters backed an initiative in 1996 allowing the smoking of marijuana for medical purposes -- a use barred by federal law.
"No state law could completely legalize marijuana for medical purposes because the drug remains illegal under federal law," Werdegar wrote.
In the latest case, Gary Ross said he began using marijuana in 1999 on a doctor's recommendation because of back pain.
Ross said that after he was offered a job at a company in 2001, he took and failed a drug test and was fired. He sued the company, privately held RagingWire Telecommunications, because he said it failed to make reasonable accommodation for his disability.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, which backed the employer, said the ruling would help keep drug-impaired employees from workplaces.
Proponents of medical marijuana said they were looking for support from lawmakers in the nation's most populous state.
"We remain hopeful that the legislature will come to the aid of patients by preventing the sort of discrimination that is likely to occur from such a decision," said Joe Elford, chief counsel of Americans for Safe Access.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)