Register-PajaronianWATSONVILLE PAJARO FREEDOM AROMAS CORRALITOS CASTROVILLE APTOS LA SELVA BEACH ROYAL OAKS ELKHORN MOSS LANDING

News leader of the Pajaro ValleyThursday, December 24, 2009 — 142nd Year — No. 126 75 cents

Tall ship toursThe Hawaiian Chieftain is stationed at the Santa Cruz

Harbor until Sunday. Page B1

Finding their formThe Pajaro Valley High boys soccer team ties Santa Cruz.

Page C1

Wednesday’s Daily 3s1st: 7, 9, 2 2nd: 3, 8, 8Wednesday’s Fantasy 5

6, 16, 26, 29, 36Wednesday’s Super Lotto8, 14, 18, 28, 29; M=2

LotteryLotteryInsideInside•Annie’s Mailbox B4•Arts & Leisure B1•Calendar A5•Classified C4•Comics B3•Crossword B3•Editorial A4

•Food B5•Movies B1•Obituaries A3•Police Reports A3•Sports C1•Television B4•Weather A6

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Register-Pajaronian

WeatherWeather

Tonight will be clear.Friday will be sunny.Tonight’s low: 38Friday’s high: 60Details on page A6.

Mostly clear

THURSDAYTHURSDAY

Tarmo Hannula/Register-Pajaronian

Watsonville Fire Capt. Tom Avila hands a bags of gifts to 9-year-old Bere Zamora Wednesday on the final stretch of the annualToys for Tots giveaway.

Aptos/La Selvafirefighter Will

Wingert deliversa stream of foam-laced water into a

burning car andbuilding on the

5600 block ofFreedom

BoulevardWednesday

evening. A mantrying to outrun

the CHP slammedinto a 1920s applestorage structure,

setting it ablaze.Tarmo Hannula

Register-Pajaronian

Alleged fleeing driver slams carinto storage building, triggers blazeDriver was reportedly trying to outrun CHP when he crashedBy TARMO HANNULAOF THE REGISTER-PAJARONIAN

APTOS — A man who wasallegedly trying to outrun theCalifornia Highway Patroltriggered a fire Wednesdayevening when he slammedinto an old apple storagebuilding on Freedom Boule-vard.

No injuries were reportedin the 4:32 p.m. crash at 5620Freedom Blvd.

CHP Sgt. Nick Ozanne saidthe incident began when themale driver of a large, white,four-door Mercury was travel-ing westbound on Freedom.Ozanne said the man was driv-ing at a high speed and drift-ed over the center line, almoststriking a CHP car that wastraveling eastbound on Free-dom.

The officer made a U-turnand tried to catch up with the

errant driver, but was unableto locate him. After inspect-ing the area, Ozanne said, theofficer located the carsmashed into the loadingdock of a 1920s apple storagebuilding. The driver had ap-parently fled the scene onfoot.

The collision sparked a firethat quickly engulfed the front

See BLAZE, page A6

Coming together to help

Watsonville firefighters distribute toys, food to local needy familiesBy TODD GUILDOF THE REGISTER-PAJARONIAN

Nine-year-old Bere Zamorawas playing with her familymembers when she heard thedeep bass rumbling of a Wat-sonville Fire Department truckas it pulled up to her house onRoss Avenue on Wednesday af-ternoon.

This was no emergency.Bouncing with almost palpableenergy, the girl and her siblingsraced out to greet the truck,which was carrying a box fullof wrapped Christmas toys forthe kids, along with a bag offood. See GIVING, page A6

“They’re all for me,” Berejoked as the firefighters carriedthe boxes into the house, whichincluded a large bag of foodfrom Second Harvest FoodBank.

Once inside, the gifts weresequestered by Bere’s mother,Lucina Gomez, not to beopened until Christmas morn-ing.

“We’re really happy,” Gomezsaid. “The economy is reallytough for us.”

The last-minute distributioncame thanks to Toys for Totsand Santa Cruz-based Charita-ble Investment Foundation, a

nonprofit group that funds pro-grams and activities benefitingneedy families. Since 1996, theorganization has worked withSecond Harvest Food Bank toprovide food for families. Thisyear, for the first time, the or-ganization contacted Toys forTots to include gifts for childrenin the giveaway.

“I’m inspired by the idea thatif we can somehow make a dif-ference in someone’s life, theycan be inspired to do the samefor another family when they’redoing well,” organization co-founder Tony Clark said. “Allwe ask is that at one point when

they’re doing well for them-selves that they help out anoth-er family in need.”

The Charitable InvestmentFoundation solicits businessesand individuals for donations,all of which goes to purchasingfood for hungry families, Clarksaid. When organizers began in1996, they gave out food bas-kets to two families. This year,nearly 50 received assistance,he said.

In hopes of securing a toy forher children, Gomez said shecalled the City of Watsonville

Crowd shoutsdown protest votePajaro Sunny Mesa ratepayersdemand another hearingBy JON CHOWNOF THE REGISTER-PAJARONIAN

A public hearing on a pro-posed increase to water ratesfor the customers of PajaroSunny Mesa Community Ser-vices District quickly turnedinto a chaotic, incoherent con-frontation Tuesday night be-tween the district’s customersand board members.

Pajaro Sunny Mesa was or-ganized in 1984 as a small,public nonprofit organization.It provides water, street light-ing and sewer services toabout 6,000 people in thegreater Pajaro area. It hopesto raise water rates by up to10 percent this year and in-crease the rate an additional10 percent for the followingfour years to pay for mainte-

nance, increased energy costsand new projects needed tosupply the public with potablewater. The meeting was to bethe culmination of a protestvote, where residents have theopportunity to either write aletter of protest or show up atthe meeting. If less than halfthe ratepayers protest, theagency can raise the rates.

The law requires the publicbe notified of the protest votemeeting at least 45 days in ad-vance. But Tuesday, residentsvehemently protested that thenotice was inadequate andcomplained the meeting wasscheduled at a time when mostresidents would either be outof town or too busy to attend.

See WATER, page A2

SenateMajority

Leader Sen.Harry Reid of

Nevada,accompanied

by SenateDemocrats,

gesturesduring a

health carenews

conferenceWednesday

on CapitolHill in

Washington. Associated Press

Final Senate vote on healthcare bill to take place todaySenate version excludes government-run insurance optionASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — Democratspushed sweeping health care legis-lation to the brink of Senate passageWednesday, crushing a year-end Re-publican filibuster against PresidentBarack Obama’s call to remake thenation’s health care system.

The 60-39 vote marked the thirdtime in as many days Democratshave posted a supermajority need-ed to advance the legislation. Finalpassage, set for about dawn today,was a certainty, and will clear theway for talks with the House on afinal compromise. Those negotia-

tions likely will stretch into Febru-ary.

The Senate has met for 24 con-secutive days to debate the legisla-tion, the second-longest suchstretch in history, and Democrats

See HEALTH, page A6

Governor voicesstate budget concernsover health care billsDems plan to address Medicaid worriesASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — Califor-nia’s Democratic congression-al leaders said Wednesdaythey hope to address con-cerns raised by Gov. ArnoldSchwarzenegger about thecost of health insurance leg-islation moving through Con-gress.

Schwarzenegger wrotemembers of the state’s con-gressional delegation thisweek and asked them formore flexibility to deal with

the state’s financial woes in-stead of imposing new coststhrough an expansion of Med-icaid. He estimated that thehealth care legislation beingdebated in Congress wouldcost the state an extra $3 bil-lion to $4 billion annually.

“This crushing new burdenwill be added to a safety netthat is already shredding un-der billions of dollars in un-funded federal mandates that

See STATE, page A2

Page A6 — REGISTER-PAJARONIAN, Thursday, December 24, 2009

BLAZEFrom page A1

of the two-story structure.Aptos/La Selva firefighters

sent streams of foam-laced wa-ter into the front of the build-

Tarmo Hannula/Register-Pajaronian

Aptos/La Selva firefighter Will Wingert uses a monitor to help douse a fire that was triggered by a car crashing into anabandoned building.

ing and into the burning car.The car was destroyed by firewithin minutes.

A huge plume of blacksmoke wafted into the eveningsky, and was visible for miles.The CHP had to close Freedomaltogether to allow for firefight-ers to set up a staging area and

lay out lengths of hoses.Battalion Chief Jim Dias said

the burning building was unoc-cupied and had apparently notbeen in use for some time. Bat-talion Chief Jeff Terpstra said hewas looking in to the prospect ofgetting an excavator to the sceneto pull the building to the ground.

Hot spots continued to eruptin various spots around thestructure, forcing firefighters totear open locked doors, cutopenings into the side of thebuilding and crash throughboarded up windows.

The incident is still underinvestigation.

GIVINGFrom page A1

and the County of Santa Cruzbefore she was directed to theWatsonville Fire Departmentand finally to Toys for Tots.

Because Gomez’s family wasone of the last ones to requestholiday assistance, however,the supply of toys was almostexhausted. They were among10 families who almost didn’tget assistance.

And so Clark’s organiza-tion again contacted Toys forTots and Second Harvest

Food Bank, and made surethe families got their gifts andfood.

The last-minute collabora-tion was a bit unorthodox —Toys for Tots program coordi-nator Delilah Valadez said herorganization doesn’t usuallywork directly with families, in-stead distributing its toys toother programs that do.

“But this year they neededsomeone to help with this lastbit,” she said. “It’s all a commu-nity collaboration. None of usare out there doing it alone.We’re counting on each other,and collectively we’re countingon the community.”

HEALTHFrom page A1

held a celebratory press confer-ence.

“We stand on the doorstep ofhistory,” said Majority LeaderHarry Reid of Nevada, whopainstakingly pieced togetherthe bill — and the now-contro-versial deals with wavering law-makers that made its passagepossible.

The measure would extendcoverage to an estimated 31million who lack it, while ban-ning the insurance industryfrom denying benefits or charg-ing higher premiums on the ba-sis of pre-existing medical con-ditions. The CongressionalBudget Office predicts the billwill reduce deficits by $130 bil-lion over the next 10 years, anestimate that assumes lawmak-ers carry through on hundredsof billions of dollars in plannedcuts to insurance companiesand doctors, hospitals and oth-ers who treat Medicare pa-tients.

Obama has also said hewants legislation that slows therate of growth in medicalspending nationwide, but theCBO said it has not determinedwhether that is the case withthe bill.

Unlike the House, the Sen-ate measure omits a govern-ment-run insurance option,which liberals favored to applypressure on private insurers butDemocratic moderates op-posed as an unwarranted fed-eral intrusion into the healthcare system.

In an interview with PBS,Obama signaled he will sign abill even if it lacks the provi-sion.

“Would I like one of thoseoptions to be the public option?Yes. Do I think that it makessense, as some have argued,that, without the public option,we dump all these other ex-traordinary reforms and we sayto the 30 million people whodon’t have coverage, ‘You know,sorry. We didn’t get exactlywhat we wanted?’ I don’t thinkthat makes sense.”

Outnumbered Senate Re-publicans stubbornly playedout a losing hand. Theylaunched several last-minuteattacks that Democrats swattedaside, then rejected calls tomove the final vote up a day indeference to a snowstorm thatthreatened to prevent lawmak-ers from reaching home onChristmas Eve.

“Tomorrow the Senate willvote on a bill that makes a badsituation worse,” said Sen.Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. “Thisbill slid rapidly down the slip-pery slope to more and moregovernment control of healthcare.”

Even before the bill passed,it was spinning off legal contro-versies at a remarkable rate.

Republican attorneys gener-al in seven states discussed a

court challenge to part of thebill that singles out Nebraskafor special treatment, a conces-sion made by the White Houseand Reid to lock in the state’sDemocratic Sen. Ben Nelson asthe 60th vote for the legislation.

Under the provision, the fed-eral government will perma-nently pick up the state’s entirecost for an expansion of Med-icaid, while paying the full tabfor the other 49 states for onlythree years.

Nelson, who has stronglydefended the provision, toldreporters, “The governor said,‘Take care of it. I did.’” Askedwhether the governor, Republi-can Dave Heineman, had said

he didn’t want the money, Nel-son replied, “He hasn’t said it tome.”

“The senator seems to beconfused,” said Jen Rae Hein,spokeswoman for Heineman.The governor “was very clearthat he did not want a specialdeal for Nebraska and all spe-cial deals should be removed,”she said.

That underscored the poten-tial political dilemma facingRepublicans in Washingtonwho oppose additional fundingthat governors of their own par-ty may want.

Senate Republicans also laidout two other avenues for acourt challenge.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.,argued the measure was uncon-stitutional, saying Congresslacks authority to require Amer-icans to purchase insurance.Democrats defeated his at-tempt to derail the bill, 60-39,but other critics of the bill werealready speaking of a courtchallenge based on the samepoint.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison ofTexas, who is running for gov-ernor, said the bill improperlyusurps the authority of thestates to regulate insurance.

PUBLIC MEETINGS

Tri-County FireThe Aromas Tri-County

Fire Protection District willmeet Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. atthe Aromas Fire Station, 492Carpenteria Road. Details:333-2645.

Watsonville Parks andRec

The City of WatsonvilleParks and Recreation Commis-sion will meet Monday, Jan. 4at 6:30 p.m. in the former CityCouncil chambers, 250 Main St.,Watsonville.

IHSS AdvisoryIn-Home Supportive Servic-

es Advisory Commission meetsFriday, Jan. 8 from 1:30-3:30p.m. at 1400 Emeline Ave.,Room 206, Santa Cruz.

TransportationCommission

The Santa Cruz County Re-gional Transportation Commis-sion will hold its next meetingon Thursday, Jan. 14 at 9 a.m.at the Santa Cruz City CouncilChambers, 809 Center St., San-ta Cruz. Information: 460-3200or www.sccrtc.org.

Rail AcquisitionCommittee

The Rail Acquisition Commit-tee of Santa Cruz will meet Mon-day, Jan. 18 at 2 p.m. in the com-mission offices, 1523 PacificAve., Santa Cruz. Information:460-3200 or www.sccrtc.org.

R-P Classifieds: 761-7342