Mountain Views News          Saturday, January 1, 2011

10

EDITORIAL

 Mountain Views News Saturday, January 1, 2011 

SUSAN Henderson

NEW LAWS 2011

A new year brings lots of changes, including new laws that we need to be 
aware of. Here are just a few State Laws that go into effect on New Years 
Day

• AB 119 prevents insurance companies from charging different rates for men 
and women for identical coverage.

• SB 782 prevents landlords from evicting tenants who are victims of domestic or

 sexual abuse or stalking.

• AB 1844—informally known as Chelsea's Law and authored by local Assembly 
man Nathan Fletcher—will increase penalties, parole provisions and oversight 
of sex offenders, including a "one-strike, life-without-parole penalty" for some. 

• AB 1871 allows people to lease out their cars when they are not being used—

 alleviating the need to purchase additional insurance.

• AB 537 will make food stamps an acceptable form of payment at farmers markets 

 through an EBT process.

• SB 1411 makes it a misdemeanor to maliciously impersonate someone via a 

 social media outlet or through e-mails.

• SB 1317 allows the state to slap parents with a $2,000 fine if their K-8 child misses 

 more than 10 percent of the school year without a valid excuse. It also allows the 

 state to punish parents with up to a year in prison for the misdemeanor.

• AB 715 makes a change to the California Green Building Standards code. The

 change will require new California buildings to be energy efficient.

• SB 1449 makes the possession of one ounce of marijuana an infraction with a 

 penalty of a $100 fine.

• AB 12 allows foster youth to acquire state services until the age of 21.

• SB 1399 allows California to medically parole state prison inmates with physical 

 incapacitating conditions and ultimately shifts some of the cost of care to the

 federal government.

• AB 97 bans the use of trans-fats in food facilities.

And Time Marches On...


You know, sometimes I 
surprise myself with the 
number of times I quote 
my parents considering 
that I was no different 
than most other children, 
especially teens, 
when it came to taking 
their advise seriously. 
But, once again, dear old 
Dad was absolutely right. “Time marches 
on”, or his other favorite expression in the 
alternative was, “Time waits for no one”. 
And so it has. Another year has come and 
gone.....and in my case, far too quickly. If I 
were to wax philosophical like my colleague 
Mr. Tolchin, I would be pontificating on 
the true meaning of that, but....I don’t have 
time. I have to move forward with what I 
know and that is, the clock is ticking and I, 
we, should all make hay while we can. 

 2010 was a very challenging year and while 
most of my immediate family has been 
blessed with good health, I have had too 
many close friends who have been stricken 
with cancer. One such person is Joan Baldwin 
who showed me incredible kindness 
and love when I was a young adult and held 
my hand through the turbulent years of being 
a young wife, mother and student. She 
was diagnosed in October with advanced 
pancreatic cancer and when we spoke just 
this morning, it was clear that this devastating 
disease was rapidly taking its toll. 

 When I hung up the telephone I was grateful 
that I had taken the time to spend a few 
days with her this fall while we could still 
have a good laugh and reminisce about old 
times. The memory reminded me that every 
single moment we have is precious and we 
should make the best of it. It also reminded 
me that we should remember to thank those 
who help us along the way, not so much in 
words but in deeds.

 You may be surprised to hear this, but that 
is one of the things that I love about this 
town of Sierra Madre. As much as we may 
appear to be tearing each other apart at the 
seams, the truth is, we are a community that 
works very hard to keep things together. 
The amount of time, money and energy that 
volunteers invest in our organizations and 
institutions are the glue that makes Sierra 
Madre what it is today. 

 Now, what Sierra Madre will be tomorrow 
depends on how well we make use of the 
time we have before us. 

 I am involved in a number of local organizations 
and there is one thing that I have 
noticed they all have in common. They all 
have a great membership roster that has 
been there working in the trenches making 
certain that things get done. That is terrific. 
But the other thing they all have in common 
is that there will soon be a gap in that 
leadership unless we begin to recruit a new 
crop of leaders that can carry on in the future. 
So, while we are celebrating making it 
another year, let’s put at the top of our list, 
recruiting new people to get involved. We 
must embrace new leadership, new ideas, 
and new energy if we want to continue to 
see progress in this or any other community.

 We really don’t have time to put it off until 
tomorrow. According to that clock my 
daddy had, tomorrow is today.

 Happy New Year!


AND THE PHOTO OF THE YEAR IS......I was going to do a recap of the best photos 
from 2010 but this one beat them all. And...it just happens to be of a man who exemplifies 
making good use of your time, volunteering and giving back.


Former Sierra Madre Mayor George Maurer is swimming with the Dolphins in November.

 The advent of a New 
Year is time to make a list 
of resolutions. It’s also time 
to take stock of what’s been 
accomplished since making 
out last year’s list, to see what 
remains undone. (Preparing 
new lists of resolutions is 
thus rather easy for me; after 
taking note of what I’ve accomplished, I find I 
can just use the same list year after year.)

 

 Officeholders in our nation’s capital engage 
in a similar exercise every two years - with the 
advent of a new Congress. For Democrats, 
this means drawing up an agenda consisting 
of pursuing immigration reform and a 
renewed push for the DREAM Act, energy 
legislation emphasizing green technologies 
and attacking global warming, assuring that 
the needs of the military are met not only in 
the field but when our soldiers return home 
from combat, and progress towards economic 
recovery and addressing high unemployment.

 

 For Republicans, this means an agenda of 
trying to make President Obama look bad.

 

 This is also the time to reflect and assess 
accomplishments of the past two years. 
Republicans have stalled, watered-down, 
and broken records for using Senate rules to 
block legislation and prevent nominations 
for administration and judicial posts from 
coming to the floor for consideration. 
(Remember their cries of “Up or down! Up 
or down!”, demanding the opportunity to 
vote one way or another on Republican 
nominees?)

 

 Meanwhile, Democrats under the Obama 
Administration have:

 

 Enacted sweeping healthcare legislation 
that has eluded presidents since Theodore 
Roosevelt; providing 32 million Americans 
access to health insurance, reducing costs 
while expanding coverage, curtailing abusive 
insurance practices, saving families from 
bankruptcy - and saving lives.

 

 Enacted the most sweeping Wall Street 
reforms since the Great Depression; 
applying new standards of accountability 
and transparency to the markets that caused 
the economic meltdown, protections for 
consumers using credit cards and other 
financial products, and assurances that even 
the biggest players will have to play by the 
rules.

 

 Pumped $800 billion 
into the economy 
with a stimulus going 
one-third towards construction of bridges, 
highways, investments in clean energy and 
broadband technologies - creating over 3.3 
million new jobs (and counting); one-third 
towards saving the jobs of tens of thousands 
of police, teachers and firefighters threatened 
by state and local budget cuts; and one-third 
towards providing one of the biggest middle-
class tax cuts in our nation’s history.

 

 Ended decades of discrimination by 
allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in 
our armed forces.

 

 Provided help to the 9/11 first-responders 
suffering respiratory and other ailments from 
their exposure to toxic materials at ground 
zero.

 

 Ratified the START nuclear arms treaty; 
providing for mutual reduction of nukes by a 
third and launch systems by half, monitoring 
and safeguarding of stockpiles, and steps to 
prevent the spread of nuclear materials to 
unstable regimes and terrorist groups.

 

 Passed legislation making it easier for 
women to seek redress from employers 
practicing pay discrimination.

 

 Brought tobacco under the purview of the 
Food and Drug Administration, allowing 
greater controls over the marketing of tobacco 
products.

 

 Expanded the S-CHIP program, providing 
matching funds to states in bringing health 
coverage to 4 million additional children and 
pregnant women.

 

 Put the first Latina, Sonia Sotomayor, on 
the Supreme Court which, with the addition 
of former Harvard Law School Dean Elena 
Kagan, gave us a Supreme bench with one-
third of the Justices being women for the first 
time in our history.

 

 Revamped the student loan program, so 
students can get low-interest college loans 
without having to graduate with crushing 
debt owed banks amassing taxpayer-
guaranteed profits - providing, according to 
the Congressional Budget Office, a ten-year 
savings to taxpayers of $61 billion.

 

 Passed the Child Nutrition Bill, encouraging 
schools to incorporate USDA nutritional 
standards in meal preparation, expanding 
school health and wellness programs, and 
providing access for over 100,000 additional 
children to school meal programs.

 

 Passed the Food Safety Act, giving the FDA 
broadened responsibilities and resources for 
protecting us against food-borne illnesses, 
clamping down on unsafe practices in 
domestic food processing as well as greater 
inspections of food coming to market from 
across our borders - along with protections 
for industry whistleblowers.

 

 Settled decades-old discrimination 
claims made by black and native-American 
farmers against the USDA and the Federal 
Government.

 

 Expanded the 1969 federal hate-crimes law 
to include crimes motivated by the victim’s 
gender, sexual orientation and disability.

 

 Rescued the U.S. auto industry with “Cash 
for Clunkers” and financial help (much 
already paid back) in the restructuring of GM 
and Chrysler, saving an estimated 1 million 
jobs from being added to the 400,000 already 
lost, and seeing 45,000 new jobs created since 
GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy.

 

 Strengthened registration and reporting 
requirements for lobbyists.

 

 Reinstituted “Pay-Go” rules, requiring 
specified funding sources to offset 
spending; rules abandoned during the Bush 
years.

 

 Increased funding and personnel for the 
Border Patrol on our southern border, oversaw 
increased deportations of undocumented 
aliens - focusing on those with criminal 
records.

 

 Enacted the “New G.I. Bill” for those 
returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and 
provided support for caregivers of wounded 
veterans.

 

 Enacted the HIRE Act providing tax cuts 
to small businesses for the hiring of new 
employees and write-offs for the purchase of 
new equipment.

 

 Provided federal support for stem-cell and 
biomedical research.

 

 Extended the Ryan White HIV/AIDS 
Treatment Bill allowing further federal 
support for research and treatment.

 

 Enacted the Fair Sentencing Act, eliminating 
mandatory jail sentences for first-time drug 
offenders and simple possession.

 

 Increased federal funding for science and 
research labs.

 

 Expanded AmeriCorps and other national 
service opportunities.

 

 These accomplishments took place with 
a new congress and a new president handed 
two wars, a trillion-dollar deficit and the 
worst economic crises in almost eighty years 
to start with.

 

 As for the Republicans, they want to start 
by holding hearings to proclaim the jury’s still 
out on global warming.

 

 As for me, I’d better start working on my 
own New Year’s resolutions. Let’s see: 

 #1. Never keep Susan waiting by turning in 
my column after the deadline . . .

HOWARD Hays As I See It


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