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Summary of Sunnyside' substantive news events for Feb. 2000

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Falcon Cable eyes Valley Internet service SUNNYSIDE (Thursday 2-10-00)---Yakima Falcon Cable says it will offer high-speed Internet access to Mid-Valley residents by mid-2001. With a cable modem, folks will surf the 'net 50 times faster than they can with their 56K telephone modems, says Falcon Mgr. Gary Bailey. No more snoozing while big pages load. Falcon will set up a separate outfit to act as an Internet Service Provider. The Yakima company also will offer additional analog and digital TV channels, plus interactive TV. Sunnyside OIC lands $.5-million grant SUNNYSIDE (Wednesday 2-9-00)---The U.S. Department of Labor has given the Sunnyside Opportunities Industrialization Center a $587,000 grant to help farmworker children, according to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA). Sunnyside man electrocuted at construction site SUNNYSIDE (Tuesday 2-8-00)---Two men were injured, one fatally, at 1:10 p.m. today when the metal platform on which they were working touched a high voltage wire at the Valley Processing Co. construction site on Loretta Street. Raul Garza, 28, of Sunnyside was on a worker lift platform when it contacted the electrical line. Garza was declared dead after being rushed to Sunnyside Community Hospital. Robert Rodriguez, 26, also of Sunnyside, was injured 70-100 feet away on or near the roof of a building. Police weren't sure how the current reached Rodriguez. Acting Police Chief Ed Radder said it might have been through a metal pipe or tape measure Rodriguez was using. Rodriguez was taken to Sunnyside Community Hospital then flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he was listed in critical condition Monday night with electrical burns. Both men worked for Mountain States Construction Co., Sunnyside, which is building a large addition to the Valley Processing freezer building. Judge Leavitt stays with his earlier zoning decision SUNNYSIDE (Monday 2-7-00)---Judge Michael Leavitt has decided to stay with his decision that the city be forced to rezone Clint Hergert's property from low density R1 to high density R3, according to reports. The Superior Court Judge said the city "erred" in denying Hergert his rezone request. With the stroke of his judicial pen, Leavitt may have set a precedent which takes away a city legislative body's right to control zoning decisions within its own borders. Leavitt, however, contends that that misdeed was accomplished earlier in similar Kitsap and Snohomish County cases. Sunnyside's attorney in the case, Scott Beyer of Yakima, said 95 percent of Sunnyside's new housing last year was of the manufactured variety. To fight de facto legislation by judicial fiat, usually a federal affliction, the city can appeal to a higher court or change its comprehensive plan. Leavitt is up for reelection in November. Would Fed move stop IRS snooping into bank accounts? SUNNYSIDE (Thursday 2-4-00)--Reports say the Federal Reserve Board, or "Fed", a private group of central bankers with no formal ties to federal government but close ties to world bankers, has proposed all U.S. banks get consumers' OK before they share information with affiliates, third parties, or both. The Fed suggests banks write customers a letter acknowledging their relationship, give customers an option whether to release private info, and ban disclosure of customers' account numbers and access codes to third parties, except for "consumer reporting agencies". The IRS wasn't mentioned as such an agency. Local bankers reportedly don't give out private customer info in any case. Press reports didn't indicate current bank info-release rules.   Dairy to pay $450,000 in clean water lawsuit settlement SUNNYSIDE (Thursday 2-2-00)--The DeRuyter Brothers Dairy will spend nearly a half million bucks to clean up its cow poo after the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment took 'em to federal court. The out-of-court settlement is the largest of its kind, according to CARE spokesman Helen Reddout. CARE didn't seek or receive any settlement money in the case. The group's attorney fees reportedly came to $55,000. CARE has also sued dairymen Sid Koopman, Henry Bosma, and Herman te Velde. Koopman went out of business, and te Velde settled for a secret amount last fall. Bosma was found guilty of 10 Clean Water Act violations. His fines could cost him millions.   Mary Lee Robinson fifth planner to leave Commission SUNNYSIDE (Thursday 2-2-00)--Stating she was "deeply disappointed" at the removal or resignation of four other Sunnyside Planning Commission members, Commissioner Mary Lee Robinson has herself decided to call it quits. She follows Al Tebaldi, Rick Hernandez, Stan Snow and Larry Bennett. Only two planners remain--Terri Williard and Gerald Parrish. Williard says the City Council is acting like the old German "Gestapo" (secret police) as it reorganizes the PC. Actually, the council has been acting more publicly than any council before it. Mayor Ed Prilucik has named five persons who could replace former commissioners, including Sunnysiders Paul Garcia, De Ann Hochhalter, Larry Slavens, Rob Stutesman and Sharon Tyler. The City Council confirms appointments.   Breath of fresh air I-695 sends clean air troops to employment office SUNNYSIDE (Thursday 2-2-00)--I-695 kicked a bunch of clean air bureaucrats squarely in the wallet recently, leaving many in the Lower Valley breathing more easily. The Dept. of Ecology--in a propaganda-crammed news release parroted by the DSN--says the "Clean Air" program has lost half its funding. Mary Burg was not among those cut, apparently, because she's still pumping voluminous news releases out of her Olympia digs. Les Ornelas, Clean Air chief for Yakima County, indicates NO scientific studies report Lower Valley air quality is any worse than it was 100 years ago. Such data gathering would be "too expensive" Ornelas told Lower Valley officials in January of '99.   Leavitt will reconsider rezone decision SUNNYSIDE (Thursday 2-1-00)--Superior Court Judge Michael Leavitt may have some second thoughts about a decision he made regarding rezoning Clint Hergert's property in southeast Sunnyside from low density R1 to high density R3. The city asked him to reconsider. "I think (Leavitt) missed many factors in our comprehensive plan," Councilman Chad Werkhoven told reporters. Werkhoven said the city is 'way past its planned amounts of in-town manufactured housing, and that such an imbalance is poor planning. The buzz word for manufactured homes, which depreciate like automobiles, is "affordable" housing. Judge Leavitt is up for reelection in November.   OSHA regulators back off home snooping SUNNYSIDE (Thursday 2-1-00)--The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has backed off its Orwellian decision to make employers liable for the safety of their employees who work at home and thus "telecommute." To put it mildly, OSHA was responding to "concerns" by the national Chamber of Commerce. OSHA also responded to a firestorm of rage from telecommuters, their employers, the general public, and the ridicule of Congress and news columnists. Said U.S. Cof C VP Bruce Josten, "It's a rare, but welcome event when government regulators realize they have stepped over the bounds of reason."