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<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>CREEK RESTORATION</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Editorial: Assembly bill takes shackles off
volunteers</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma><STRONG>Redding Record Searchlight -
5/27/04</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P>When the right constituency comes calling, even the California Assembly can
be provoked into doing the right thing once in a while. </P>
<P>Although normally solicitous toward the wishes of unions, legislative
Democrats appear increasingly likely to pass a bill easing senseless
restrictions imposed by the state Department of Industrial Relations on
volunteers' lending a hand on public works projects. </P>
<P>Are they motivated by common sense? Anything's possible. What really raised
the pressure for change, however, was fervent lobbying by environmental groups
that saw an array of water-quality projects threatened by the state's new
insistence that public money and volunteer labor should never mix. </P>
<P>The headwaters of the dispute are right here in Redding, where the nonprofit
Sacramento Watersheds Action Group was fined more than $33,000 for employing
volunteers and Shasta College students on a state-funded project to clean up the
Sulphur Creek canyon and build a trail on the Old Highway 99 roadbed. The
Department of Industrial Relations ruled that SWAG should have paid the
volunteers and students prevailing wage. </P>
<P>Creek restoration is not the only volunteer activity in question. Facing
similar resistance from labor unions and the Department of Industrial Relations,
the city of Redding has been unable to move forward with its share of funding
for the volunteer-driven construction of a small neighborhood park in the Vista
Ridge subdivision. The implications of the policy are truly staggering. If park
and creek projects can't use volunteers, what does that imply for school aides?
Museum docents? Library storytellers? </P>
<P>Anyhow, the creek lovers had the political chops to get a bill introduced by
Assemblywoman Lori Hancock, D-Berkeley, and while it initially would have opened
only a narrow exception for watershed projects, later amendments broadly allow
volunteers and nonprofit groups to pitch in on public projects. This is a
development worth cheering, though the bill is not law yet. </P>
<P>While Doug LaMalfa's chief of staff said the north state's assemblyman would
support AB 2690, the bill's progress opens an illuminating window onto the
Legislature's mindless partisan split. As of Wednesday, it had passed through
two Assembly committees on strict party-line votes, Democrats for and
Republicans against. Republicans would favor any bill that encourages
volunteerism and stretches tax dollars, we'd think. Did they actually read it or
just see that it is sponsored by a Berkeley Democrat and automatically vote nay?
(Not an outrageous guideline, actually, but occasional exceptions are
warranted.) </P>
<P>Whatever the process, the bill must pass the Assembly by Friday or it dies
for the year. With the usual medley of special-interest bills, vanity proposals
and fads in the legislative works, the volunteer bill is a rare measure that
will clearly help all Californians. We hope it does not get crushed in the
deadline stampede. #</P></DIV>
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