Here’s another reason to read the papers in the morning: There’s almost always something guaranteed to anger you so much that you get instantly revved up. Think of all the money this saves on Starbucks caffeine — a $3 cup of coffee versus a newspaper that costs a fraction of that.

Now it’s a story about two bills that passed an Assembly committee with no discussion, very little testimony and no ”no” votes.

The bills would expand the protections of a license-plate program that keeps secret the personal information of thousands of government officials, from museum guards and zoo veterinarians and code enforcers to, surprise, the legislators themselves.

According to the Orange County Register, which investigated this last year and found that it conceals home addresses in DMV records, this idea originated about 30 years ago as a way of protecting law enforcement officials from ill-intentioned people trying to hunt them down. It’s a very sound idea.

But this special protection was pretty much obviated by a more recent law drafted after a stalker used DMV records to find and kill actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989. Now everyone’s DMV records are pretty much walled off from public access.

So why would we need to have — why would we need to expand — a law protecting government employees’ information, now that it’s already protected by the same state law that protects us all? Unless, as the Register suggests, the real purpose is to signal to law enforcement, with the wink and nod of a computer code and special license plates, that the driver may be ”one of us” and deserves a break.

I’d even suggest that, much as museum guards and zoo veterinarians might enjoy this perk, knowingly or not, and some employees in sensitive jobs would have needed protection had the DMV not already provided it, that it was perhaps legislators and other state officials who put hundreds of thousands of state employees into this category in order to give themselves the protective camouflage of numbers. Pass a law protecting just that small, select group, and voters catch on fast. Pass a law claiming to protect threatened multitudes of public employees, and you can conceal yourself in the crowd.

The state is billions of dollars in the hole. We don’t need more exemptions from traffic tickets. We need the money.

Source

The intersection of 10th and L streets in Sacramento have been shut down because of a woman threatening to jump off a city parking structure at that intersection, according to authorities.

Paramedics and officers from the Sacramento Police Department and California Highway Patrol are on scene, and a negotiator and a counselor are en route, a police spokesman said at about 2:45 p.m.

Sacramento police Sgt. Norm Leong said the woman is standing on the top story of the seven-story parking structure.

The CHP is reporting on its traffic incident information page that this is the woman’s third attempt to take her life.

Leong said traffic in the area of 10th and L streets is backing up and advises drivers to avoid the area if possible. Authorities have shut down 10th Street, which runs northbound, at N Street, and L Street, which runs westbound, at 15th Street.

Source

A passenger vehicle and a railroad train collided early Monday morning, reports California High way Patrol online.

The collision occured around 5:15 a.m. at Florin Road, just east of 29th Street, in south Sacramento.

The driver of the passenger vehicle suffered moderate injuries and was taken to a local area hospital, says Sacramento P.D.

Police are still in the process of completing their investigation.

Source: http://sacbee.com/

After seat belts and air bags that have done so much to prevent serious injuries and deaths in auto accidents, it’s the turn of electronic stability control systems to be lauded for their ability to cut down accident rates in Sacramento and across the nation.

The consensus seems to be unanimous. The government, auto industry experts as well as consumer safety advocates all seem to agree that electronic stability control systems have a very important role to play in the prevention of accident deaths. In fact, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety goes so far as to say that buyers who are looking to purchase a new vehicle must strongly consider buying one with electronic stability control.
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A 70 year old man was killed while crossing the street in North Highlands, a suburb of Sacramento.

The victim was struck while crossing Elverta Road outside of a crosswalk near Walerga Road, the California Highway Patrol said.

CHP said that the motorist, who was driving westbound on Elverta Road, didn’t see the pedestrian.

Good thing for the driver he wasn’t drinking that day. In that case he would be facing charges of Sacramento DUI manslaughter and need to contact a California DUI Lawyer at once.

Actelis Networks Thursday announced it is keeping traffic running smoothly in California’s state’s capital with its Ethernet over copper solutions. Like many cities in the U.S. looking to install new IP-based traffic controllers and cameras that improve road safety and reduce traffic congestion, the City of Sacramento needed to first upgrade its legacy telecommunications network to provide more sophisticated monitoring and control capabilities. By deploying Actelis’ Ethernet over copper products, Sacramento leveraged the city’s existing copper infrastructure to deliver fiber-like performance.
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The first in an occasional look at Sacramento International Airport’s $1.3 billion makeover, one of the biggest public works projects in county history.

Holiday travelers will notice something new this year at Sacramento International Airport – a major construction zone.

Work barriers are up. Excavators are rumbling. And a gaping 16-foot-deep crater marks the foundation for a new four-story terminal and hotel.

While inconveniences are mild now, it raises a question: When the billion-dollar transformation is done in five years, will the airport lose its long-held reputation as easy-in, easy-out?

The answer literally is up in the air.

An automated tram system – called a people mover – will whisk passengers back and forth at about 20 miles per hour on a skyway over the north airfield between the new terminal and a separate jet gateway building.

The airport recently signed a $30 million deal with Bombardier of Canada, a company that has provided people movers for 17 airports, including San Francisco International and the acclaimed new terminal in Beijing, China.

Airport officials say trams will turn a several-minute walk into a 45-second glide – with panoramic views – keeping the expanded airport convenient for Sacramento fliers.

“It’s an easy way to transport a lot of people,” consultant Brent Kelley of Corgan Associates said. “It’s faster than a moving sidewalk.”

It represents both a physical and psychological break from what Sacramentans are used to at their airport.

Today fliers do their ticketing, baggage pickup and catch planes all in a single building, either Terminal A or Terminal B. That will no longer be the case when the new terminal replaces antiquated Terminal B.

Ticketing and baggage will be handled in the new four-story central terminal. But the federal security checkpoint and jet gates will be housed 300 yards away in a “remote concourse” building.

For the foreseeable future, Terminal A will remain a self-contained full-service terminal. Someday, however, it too might be served by a people mover, county representatives say. Its ticketing and baggage claim would be moved to the central terminal.

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