From the archives

The Belmont City Council unanimously agreed the week of Oct. 28, 2006 to take a step toward approving a secondhand smoke ordinance which was to prohibit smoking in most public places including work, hotels, businesses and multi-unit common areas.

The ordinance, based on action taken by the city of Calabasas in 2006, was to allow smoking in private residences including apartments and condominiums but also allow condominium and apartment owners to prohibit smoking in all places.

Supervisors approve new HSA head

As San Mateo County supervisors unanimously appointed Beverly Beasley Johnson the new Human Services Agency director the week of Oct. 28, 2006, the state senator who repeatedly questioned her leadership in Kern County asked officials there to use her departure to revamp the way it cares for abused and neglected children.

County supervisors took the unusual move of adding Johnson’s appointment to its closed session as an "emergency matter,” Chief Deputy County Counsel Mike Murphy announced in his report prior to the public portion of the meeting.

The board still appointed Johnson on its consent agenda along with dozens of other items while the Kern County Board of Supervisors also had Johnson on its agenda — as part of accepting two reports criticizing the Department of Human Services during her tenure and a closed session performance evaluation.

Propositions dripping with oil, tobacco cash

Oil and tobacco companies and their allies raised nearly $144 million to defeat propositions 86 and 87, which would boost tobacco and oil taxes to pay for health and alternative energy programs, it was revealed the week of Oct. 28, 2006.

Altogether, supporters and opponents raised $305.3 million to try to pass or defeat the 13 state measures on California’s Nov. 7 ballot.

The totals were likely to set a new record for spending on ballot measures in a single California election, but the secretary of state’s office said it didn’t have an up-to-date count to determine the current record.

Proposition 86 aimed to triple the tax on a pack of cigarettes, to $3.47, and boost taxes on other tobacco products to raise $2.1 billion a year for a variety of health programs, including tobacco prevention and education, nursing education and emergency room and public clinic funding.

Proposition 87 would impose a tax on oil production to raise $4 billion for loans, grants and subsidies to promote alternative fuels and more energy-efficient vehicles.

Quarantine on contaminated California shellfish expires

A statewide annual quarantine on mussels taken from California waters expired the week of Oct. 28, 2006, ending a precautionary effort to prevent the consumption of contaminated shellfish.

Mussels that are typically farmed on the California coast have been restricted from sport harvesting since May 1, 2006 because a naturally occurring marine toxin called domoic acid showed up in increasing numbers of mussels in recent years.

According to a release from the California Department of Health Services, high levels of domoic acid that cause paralytic shellfish poisoning reached safe or undetectable levels in all California coastal counties except for San Luis Obispo County.

From the archives highlights stories originally printed five years ago this week. It appears in the Thursday edition of the Daily Journal.