Bay Briefs

State Sen. Jackie Speier introduced a bill today intended to protect customers at retail warehouse stores from being hit by unsecured merchandise falling off shelves.

Speier (D-Hillsborough) said SB 486, sponsored by the California State Firefighters Association, would require all retail warehouses such as Costco and Home Depot to secure merchandise stored on shelves 10 feet or more above the sales floor.

Stores with more than 50 employees would also be required to report annually all injuries and deaths involving customers to the Department of Industrial Relations. Currently, they are only required to report incidents involving employees.

"Shopping can be hazardous to your health," Speier said. "Falling appliances and construction materials injure thousands of shoppers at 'big box' stores annually."

Navy to use Big Sur

as bombing range

BIG SUR -- The U.S. Navy's plan to use a practice bombing range near Big Sur for its jet fighters will include sorties flown from the decks of aircraft carriers cruising off the coast of California, the Navy said.

Navy officials said Wednesday that about 2,820 sorties will be flown annually, with the vast majority coming from Lemoore Naval Air Station. The jets will drop 25-pound non-explosive devices at targets.

The Navy has proposed flying F/A-18 Hornet fighter planes to Fort Hunter Liggett in southern Monterey County. The plan has caused concern among environmentalists and Central Coast officials, who fear the planes will mar the rustic area between King City and Hearst Castle, some of the state's most remote and rugged coastal landscapes.

Critics also say noise from the jets could harm condors, bald eagles and other rare birds that have been reintroduced to the region over the past decade.

Fort Hunter Liggett is a wild stretch of oak woodlands and rolling hills once owned by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. He sold the property to the Army in 1940 for $2.1 million. The base was decommissioned in 1995, and is used mostly now as a training site.

Koala kidnapping

accomplice sentenced

SAN FRANCISCO -- A 16-year-old accomplice in the kidnapping of two koalas from the San Francisco Zoo in December has been sentenced to eight years in the California Youth Authority, the maximum term allowed under law, officials said.

The youth pleaded guilty to helping his 17-year-old friend snatch the koalas -- Pat and Leanne -- from the zoo the day after Christmas as a belated gift for the older teenager's girlfriend.

The district attorney's office declined to discuss the case, citing a gag order by a judge.

The youth was sentenced not only for being an accessory to theft in the koala case but also on an unrelated felony weapons charge. He was on probation at the time of the incident and police found explosive material and an illegal butterfly knife during a search of his home.

The older youth is scheduled to be sentenced April 10. He was given home detention -- including a curfew for 60 days -- in advance of his sentencing hearing.

Cisco, nonprofit

join to wire homes

SAN JOSE -- Peninsula Habitat for Humanity Inc., in partnership with Cisco Systems Inc., is wiring almost every room in a group of homes in Redwood City for Internet and telephone access.

Supplies cost $250 for each townhouse, Habitat officials said.

Volunteers -- computer scientists and technicians from Cisco -- will finish wiring the six two-story homes this weekend. These will be the first of many wired homes planned for construction in the United States, Europe and Africa by Habitat for Humanity International in collaboration with the Cisco Foundation.

Cisco recently offered to contribute $1 million a year over three years to help build homes in locations around the world where the corporation has a presence, said Mark Moulton, executive director of Peninsula Habitat, one of five Habitat chapters in the Bay Area.

Bodega Bay residents

sue over development

BODEGA BAY -- A group of Bodega Bay residents has sued to stop construction of the 70-home Romancia subdivision, an enclave of expensive homes slated for the center of town.

It's the latest move in a decade-long battle between the county and residents over the project.

Bodega Bay Concerned Citizens, with a core group of 25, says the working-class community needs affordable housing, not luxury homes. The first phase of homes in the subdivision are expected to sell for $350,000 to $580,000.

The group also is concerned about possible degradation of a wetland on the site and the impact of subdivision traffic on two-lane Highway 1.

But Supervisor Mike Reilly, who said he also has concerns about the project, said the development is a concession to changing times.<