Hyatt risk of injury

By Enrique Lopetegui
elopetegui@sacurrent.com

An unprecedented study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine indicates that female Hispanic hotel housekeepers are 1.5 times more likely to be injured than men, and almost twice as likely to be injured than their white female counterparts. Hispanic and Asian males were about 1.5 times more likely to be injured on the job than white males.

“This is the first study in the hotel industry to ever look at the difference between injury rates by race and gender,” Pamela Vossenas, health and safety expert for the labor union Unite Here, which co-authored the report, told the Queblog by phone. “That hasn’t been done before. We were able to make distinctions by gender, race, and job title.”

“Unite Here union obtained the data and then sent it to the university,” said lead-author Dr. Susan Buchanan, from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health, during a November 19 press teleconference. “Unite Here personnel were co-authors of the study and played and integral role in every step, mainly in the data collection, but there were discussions all along regarding how the data analysis was going, what we wanted to focus on and which things we wanted to present on the tables, etc.”

During the same press teleconference, Vossenas added that Unite Here’s participation in the report was vital because the labor union had information no one else had access to.

“Since we represent hotel workers, we have the rights to the demographic information and the rights to the injury information,” Vossenas said. “So we were able to bring those two pieces together. That’s how we had access to the [Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s] logs with the employer’s records of workplace injury and illness.”

Although the report, presented two weeks ago at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Philadelphia, doesn’t mention the companies involved in the study, Unite Here claims that the Hyatt chain had the highest injury rate, at 10.4 percent, while the Hilton chain had the lowest at 5.47 percent.

The report was based on a three-year study of 2,865 injuries at 50 unionized hotels, and came weeks after the QueQue reported on the San Antonio Grand Hyatt’s successful hiring of a union buster to discourage service workers attempts to form a union with the help of Unite Here (see The Grand Héctor).

“The excess risk among women probably reflects the fact that so many of them work in the very demanding job of room cleaner,” said report co-author Dr. Laura Punnett, from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, in a Unite Here press release. “The excess risk among Hispanic housekeepers compared to other housekeepers is more difficult to explain and requires further study.”

The study also concluded that housekeeping had the highest rate of injuries at 7.9 percent, 50 percent higher than all other hotel positions.

For María del Carmen Domínguez, a housekeeper at the Grand Hyatt, the report came in handy, but it was no surprise.

“[The Grand Hyatt] gives us 30 rooms to clean in seven and a half hours,” said Domínguez, who started feeling pain in her shoulder on August 31. “We had to finish by 4:30 p.m., because we were told we would not get paid any extra hours.” According to Vossenas, anything more than about 15 rooms is an excessive daily quota for housekeepers.

In early September, Domínguez felt pain in her shoulder, back, arm, and neck. The Hyatt sent her to the company doctor and assigned her to “light duty.”

“They told me I couldn’t lift five pounds or push 10 pounds, but asked me to go to the 20th floor to help a co-worker make the beds and clean the bathrooms.,” Domínguez recalled.

Despite her protests, Domínguez said the hotel insisted that they were following the doctor’s advice.

“To me, that was no ‘light duty,’ because I only had one working hand. But somebody in Human Resources told me ‘if you can’t use one hand, use the other.’”

So she decided to go to a different doctor.

“He immediately took me off work because he found a broken nerve and swelling in the shoulder and back, and a dislocated disk in the neck,” said Domínguez, who promised to show the QueQue copies of both the Hyatt’s and her own doctor’s medical records. “That’s where the pain comes from.” She hasn’t been paid in more than a month.

“[A person called Peggy Herrera] told me I don’t qualify for benefits,” said Domínguez. “She said the company’s doctor concluded that I’m ready to go back to work. But my own doctor says otherwise and I know I can’t hold my grandson or even comb my hair anymore. I continue my therapy, and the Hyatt sent its own doctor to observe what kind of therapy I’m receiving from my doctor. I don’t know what’s going to happen. All I want is my salary and an agreement. Thirty rooms is too much, and it’s not fair that we’re fired after three warnings if we don’t finish the rooms on time.”

In a press teleconference held on Thursday, the president of Unite Here speculated on the reasons why the Hyatt had the highest rate of injuries.

“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they seem to make workers work faster and do more rooms,” John Wilhelm said in the press teleconference on November 19. “We hope very much that the hotel industry will work with us in a cooperative way to address this. We can’t except to build a service sector economy in the 21st century in the United States and Canada if one of the things that happens to people who show up to do what society expects from them wind up with these types of life-changing injuries. We’ve negotiated changes like smaller room quotas [with some hotels], but there’s a lot more that should be done. This should not be a subject of adversarial fighting. There’s enormous potential to make improvements really quickly if we work in a cooperative way.”

The Grand Hyatt and Peggy Herrera weren't available for comment.

CPS Execs return from Operation Cacahuates Japonés

(Or: 'Bless Me, Panchito')

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

For CPS Energy CEO-lite, Sr. Steve Bartley, four pounds may be a small price to pay for redemption. That’s how much he told the utility’s Board of Trustees on Monday that he lost during a four-day trip to Japan last week on a nuclear rescue operation.

Bartley and fellow utilitarians, CEO Milton Lee and Nukemeister Bob Temple, were hoping to drive back down Toshiba’s cost estimate for the planned expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear complex outside Bay City.

After a summer spent pimping a “tantalizing” $13 billion construction job, news broke the day before the City Council was to vote on a $400 million infusion that Toshiba’s figure had mysteriously bloomed to $17 billion. Worse, Bartley and others had known about the estimate explosion and apparently weren’t going to tell Council pre-vote.

While the foray into Toshiba Territory didn’t collapse the company’s figures immediately, the manufacturer of fax machines and reactor vessels pledged to have a new, lower number back to CPS by December 31.

The message that San Antonio has a definite “affordability threshold” was not lost on our Asian partners, Bartley said. “They understood the urgency of our need,” he said.

In preparation for the utility’s scheduled January rate-hike hit-up of Council, CPS will have charted out two courses forward: one nuclear, (and thanks to strong encouragement from Mayor Julián Castro) also one not-so nuclear, hewing to natural gas, energy efficiency, and renewable power.

While board member Steve Hennigan wanted to know what Toshiba’s number actually was — exactly — CPS attorneys wouldn’t allow the number to be spoken in open meeting. In fact, when a new number is rolled out in late December or early January it will reflect (again) CPS’ estimate, not Toshiba’s confidential figure, Bartley said.

Aside from solid numbers, Hennigan also fretted that CPS does not have its own designated negotiating team (apart from the on-call Bartley Bombers), but share a team with our nuke partner NRG Energy and the NRG-Toshiba construction tag-team NINA (Nuclear Innovation North America LLC). “Their self interests may not align with our interests,” he said. “Their interests may be different than ours.”

Bartley said that was understood.

Not to be outdone in dropping tantalizing tidbits, Mayor Castro said that the actual date that San Antonio would need a new source of power online had slipped from 2020 (the date ballyhooed by Bartley y Co. all summer) to 2023.

Castro promised recently that if CPS couldn’t get the estimate back down to a more manageable size, the project was dead. That must have been rattling in many heads, as utilty reps and board members spoke of the value of the project “whether or not” San Antonio chose to build it out. In the back of every head was the possibility of a sell-off.

While the airplane food and “exotic” fare of Japan didn’t sit well with Bartley (“With my Texas tastes, I had a bit of an issue,” he said), his homecoming binge at Panchito’s may wind up sitting just as precariously. The meeting room was full of detractors awaiting sour news with baited breath. And the financial outlook for the utility is not good.

Raises are being deferred; contractors are being laid off and work deferred; and employees are being asked to reduce travel, said Paula Gold-Williams, the utility’s chief financial officer. Depending on January's nuke vote are promised scrubbers for the coal plants and roll-out of a smart grid.

Yet, one way or another, rate increases are coming early next year, said Gold-Williams. Without the fiscal bump, she said, “we will not be able to maintain our infrastructure.”
Without the nuclear, that bump will be kept to 7.5 percent, she said, as opposed to the previously promised 9.5 percent.

If Bartley doesn’t have heartburn now, chances are he’ll be tasting his Panchito’s again come January.

Mexico ready to wed sister park to Big Bend brother?

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Since the 1930s, there's been talk of a Mexican counterpart to the 800,000-acre wilderness of Big Bend National Park being established south of the Rio Grande.

But with little history or experience with federal wild lands management, it has taken Mexico’s largest cement company and some influential non-profits to begin cobbling together private lands across the river for wilderness conservation. More recently, the federal government has followed by designating some areas as protected areas, but they mostly remain in private hands.

However, early next year Ernesto Enkerlin Hoeflich, head of the nation’s National Commission on Protected Areas (middle right, receiving the 2009 Kenton R. Miller Award for Innovation in Protected Area Sustainability last week), expects the Mexican government to announce the first “umbrella agreement” on the creation of a true bi-national park system with the U.S.

It seems the country, in the midst of gangland warfare between and within the various drug cartels, army, and police forces, is also experiencing what Hoeflich calls a “small golden age for conservation.”

“Right now in Mexico, we’re living in a time of very positive things happening for conservation,” said Enkerlin.

But don’t strap on your hiking boots just yet. Since a dramatic show of force by the U.S. Border Patrol in 2002, a late-coming response to the 9/11 attacks in the badlands of Big Bend, the long-used area crossings have been closed. They’ll likely remain that way even as ecological connections and international agreements are signed.

Referring to the reopening of those crossings — an issue Big Bend National Park’s spokesperson says remains in the hands of U.S. Homeland Security — Enkerlin said:
“That’s, of course, something that’s going to happen eventually, we hope, but it’s not something that we should worry too much about right now. Because if we focus on that we might not get the other part, which in a way is more important.”

He added that reestablishing human relationships across the river in this region would be “beneficial” to both countries in terms of overall national relations but also for security in the communities of la frontera.

“There was a continuous presence [before 2002] and that made for a good environment, safety wise,” he said. “So we’re hoping to recuperate that good environment. We understand why it needed to be stopped, but we think there are good possibilities.”
Ultimately, Enkerin said his department is hoping to see 300,000 hectares, or 730,000 acres, given wilderness protection.

But don’t expect a “peace” park from the ongoing bi-national discussion, as the partnership was originally envisioned.

Mexican officials are more interested in simply calling it a “bi-national park” or a “park of concorida … something that reflects more the culture, the Mexican culture,” Enkerlin said. “We believe a peace park is something that is not understood quite the same way by the Mexican people.”

David Elkowitz, Big Bend Naitonal Park’s spokesperson, tried to drain some of the air out of the bi-national park balloon, saying: “There is hope, but that does not necessarily mean it’ll be realized. There are hoops to jump through.” Adding that, “We might know more in a couple of months.”

Still, interest is high on both sides of the river for the project and the potential for the creation of trans-boundary eco-tourism throughout the region, something that would benefit communities across the states of Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Texas.

While Mexican cement company CEMEX currently owns 300,000 acres of the Sierra del Carmen, the Mexican government has so far only set aside 42,500 acres as wilderness. Still, that designation is a first for all of Latin America, Enkerlin says. And there’s room to grow still.

“There’s potential to get to 200,000 or maybe 300,000 hectares of wilderness in the region, which is what we’re shooting for,” Enkerlin said. “I mean, 23,000 hectares is nice, but it’s not enough for wilderness.”

And so, the first protected wild space, or tierra silvestres, in all of Latin America could grow to more than 730,000 acres in the near future, a worthy companion for our own Big Bend.


Dr. Ernesto Enkerlin Hoeflich, a parrot expert and, we should note, a Texas Aggie, was awarded the 2009 Kenton R. Miller Award for Innovation in Protected Area Sustainability at last week’s World Wilderness Congress in Mérida, Mexcio. A report on that congress will appear soon in the San Antonio Current.

Dobbs leaves CNN; bastadobbs campaign claims victory

Coincidence or cause? Lou Dobbs made his last appearance as a CNN anchor last night, announcing that he was leaving the network he helped put on the media map for other opportunities. His sudden departure follows both a reported meeting with Fox News Channel President Roger Ailes, and a nationwide campaign to oust him for his anti-immigrant rhetoric, which was often bolstered by outright fallacies. San Antonio's Esperanza Peace & Justic Center was a member of the Basta Dobbs coalition, which collected more than 100,000 signatures for a petition asking CNN to dump Dobbs.

“[Dobbs's rhetoric] riles up those who are suffering,” Esperanza Director Graciela Sanchez told the Current in October. “The economy is down and people look for enemies. You base it on a stereotype, you make that stereotype inhuman.”

The Basta Dobbs campaign also focused on the message that American Latinos wouldn't overlook Dobbs's anti-immigrant tirades just because the network was hiring Latino talent and producing targeted fare such as the Latino in America series hosted by Soledad O'Brien.

Watch Dobbs's announcement here, and see if you can parse it.

Lucky update: Ladran, Sancho

By Enrique Lopetegui
elopetegui@sacurrent.com

“Ladran, Sancho. Señal que cabalgamos (“When the dogs bark, it is because we are working),” said Don Quixote, according to my dubious English-translated copy of the Cervantes classic (I would've preferred "advancing" to "working," but you get the idea).

After a press conference Friday at the San Antonio Zoo where activists demanded that Lucky the Asian elephant be retired and transferred to a sanctuary, the first person to bark at the Zoo was director Steve McCusker. He defiantly told the Express-News that those who demand to see animal records (especially those concerning Lucky) “will never get them.”

“They would utilize those documents for all the wrong reasons and don't have people capable of interpreting them.”

Just like Lucky, McCusker (and the Zoo’s marketing and public-relations supervisor Debbie Ríos-Vanskike, who refused to speak to the Current) are showing signs of stereotypical behavior. Lucky does the infamous head-bobbing seen in animals under stressful conditions; McCusker and “Current, no” Ríos exhibit the paranoid behavior often seen in sloppy Zoo, shelter, and animal-sanctuary people who claim transparency and legitimate animal love, but who refuse to release records that would give us an idea of how many animals have died and how or what shape the live animals are in.

“I think [critics are] out to close all zoos,” McCusker told the E-N. “They don't know anything about medical science, they don't know anything about biology, they don't know anything about captive management, they don't know anything about what we do for field research and for rare and endangered species. I would suggest that arguing with them is fruitless.”

Never mind that the among the people who called the press conference (In Defense of Animals, the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, and VOICE for Animals) were IDA’s wildlife biologist and veterinarian Anand Ramanathan and veterinarian Mel Richardson, who was the SA Zoo’s veterinarian for five years.

While Ríos kept silent, McCusker kept on barking, rebutting what the E-N called “a rumor.”

“We're committed to keeping Asian elephants,” McCusker said, even though in November 2008, when the Current reported on the Zoo’s plans for a new African elephant exhibit, McCusker said that, “The plan is to get one or more Asian elephants, which is not as easy as it sounds … Then, when the time is right, move those animals out so we can get in there and do some total Phase 3 construction When that is completed, we’ll bring elephants back, but they’ll be Africans.”

Needless to say, the back-and-forth transfer of captive elephants is one of several obvious violations to the Animal Welfare Act, but the US soccer team will win the World Cup before the USDA (or anybody) enforces the already weak animal protection laws.

On the phone Monday, Ríos was nicer than in person on Friday.

“I don’t want to say anything bad about the Current, but I don’t want to get into the reasons we don’t want to speak to them,” she said. She even laughed when I told her I’m the new guy here and that, compared to Greg Harman (who wrote the 2008 report and always goes for the jugular), I’m an infant who throws softballs. But she wouldn’t buy it.

“No, I won’t ask [McCusker] to speak to you.”

So all we have is what IDA, the ZCTF, and Voice for Animals tell us and show us.

“It’s time to give Lucky a break,” said Catherine Doyle, IDA captive-elephant specialist. “She’s done her time.”

Lucky, an Asian elephant, has been at the SA Zoo for 47 of her 49 years, and since 2007 she has been living alone at the Zoo, after the death of Alport, her companion. According to  a complaint filed by IDA with the USDA on November 2, her half- acre enclosure is too small and barren, and doesn’t have enough shade. Elephants are social animals and Lucky is alone, and we don’t know for sure what the state of her health is because the zoo refuses to release its records.

“The Zoo has resisted calls to send Lucky to a sanctuary,” reads the complaint, “and has kept her in a cramped and outdated zoo exhibit which is inadequate to meet the needs of elephants.”

The allegations are backed by a graphic 23-page report sent to IDA in late October by the ZCTF.

After the press conference, I asked Mel Richardson his opinion on state and federal animal protection laws.

“I think they suck,” said Richardson, who was the SA Zoo vet for five years. “The laws don’t have any teeth behind them. Even USDA people on top are very frustrated because they can’t change it. It’s a large, bureaucratic mess that is basically run by the agro business industry in this country.”

Is it time to change the laws? Are politicians part of the mess? Do they have any interest in keeping things the way they are?

“Either they have an interest or they don’t care,” he said. “There are so many pressing problems like crime, or the economy, that the way politicians think, I believe, is, ‘Oh, it’s just an animal.’ ”

Ultimately, it all comes down to money.

“Elephants need money,” said Richardson. “It’s a business. Most zoos don’t want to get rid of elephants, I believe, because they’re afraid less people are going to come through the gate. And in order to make the improvements they need to make, it’ll be much more expensive.

“[The Zoo is] very nervous about people knowing how many animals have died. The USDA doesn’t even know how many animals died. This was the last zoo I’ve worked in, and after this, I said ‘no more.’ ”

Jungle Rumble: What gives with Wild9?

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Not content with stripping the Wild Animal Orphanage bare on a Bexar County stage and exposing the unraveling mortal coil that is entertainment by marine mammal, the Current decided to hit upon what is perhaps the world’s most significant international gathering dedicated to the protection of the world’s wildlife and wild spaces.

Bienvenidos a Mérida, where a partnership between The WILD Foundation and Unidos para la Conservación has melded a week-long examination of the most pressing conservation issues of our day. Bienvenidos a Wild9.

Generally held every four years at various points around the globe, The World Wilderness Congress this round is attacking the dangers of climate change and stressing the role that habitat conservation plays in maintaining a stable planet.

Having arrived two days late, I have already missed one truly remarkable event: the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the nations of Canada, U.S., and Mexico for wilderness protection — the first of its kind.

Mexican President Calderon announced the signing at the opening ceremony of the 9th World Wilderness Congress to an audience of about 1,200 delegates.  

A press release reads:

This morning, I’m preparing for a keynote address from one of the planet’s most recognizable conservationists, Jane Goodall, to be followed with some face time with clean-energy visionary Amory Lovins.

The knowledge being shared here in the heart of Mayan country would do worlds of good back in Alamo City, where we are challenged by story after story of the perils our planet faces and yet remain politically ambivalent.

Some recent headlines that have caught my eye include this notice that Texas could meet its energy needs five times over with renewable sources, that the “problem” of renewable-power storage is no more, and that sprawl, that Bexar County speciality, kills.

While SA flounders over its nuclear-expansion plans, talks more renewables, and begins tentatively to chart a green-jobs component of our economy, perhaps it is time to roll it all into one honest-to-goodness sustainability plan for the region. One not just built on jobs creation, but one that takes open spaces and greenhouse gases into account.

I’ll be shipping back notes from Mérida to keep these issues front and center in hopes South Texans will benefit from the message from the rest of the world. The mensaje de Mérida? "Wilderness: The Climate's Best Ally."

CPS Energy’s Bob Temple talks nuke options

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Two days before he boards a plane for some sure-to-be heated negotiating in Japan, CPS Energy’s VP of Nuclear Development, Bob Temple, spent a few minutes with the Current laying out the city’s options.

In the course of just a few months, the city’s appetite for power from a planned expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear complex in Matagorda County has nearly collapsed.

San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro pushed the utility to agree to selling down the city’s share in the project from 50 percent to 40 percent. Soon, after that, fiscal concerns had the City-owned utility’s board of directors whittling that share down again: to 20 or 25 percent. Now, after what can only be described as a wicked breach of trust, members of the City Council is seriously considering walking away from it completely.

Whether or not Temple (along with CPS co-CEOs Milton Lee and Steve Bartley) are able to talk Toshiba back down to the previous $13 billion figure, the Council and City’s appetite may have irrevocably turned on the deal. If that proves to be the case, what are our options from here?

Temple sees three paths forward: dump it, try to sell it, or put the project in the cryogenic freezer.

The summer’s hard sale for nuclear spearheaded by Bartley was about keeping the project moving in order to benefit from our front-runner status before the U.S. NRC and DOE. With the first application in 29 years we were at the head of the pack for new nukes before the NRC. Meanwhile, the DOE has the project short-listed for federal loan guarantees since we're running with a pre-certified reactor design and a location prefabricated to fit two new reactors.

But there is no reason San Antonio can’t hit the brakes and idle on the deal, Temple said.

“We could also agree with our partner to suspend the project while we sort things out,” he said. “If you don’t care when your project gets done then [the NRC will] put people on other projects where folks are trying to get it done quickly.”

But the deep freeze stops forward movement and limits our ability to roll-out other alternative projects.

That leaves us with the choice of dumping the deal and walking away or working to flush out a buyer.

The sales path is full of uncertainty; Temple likens it to selling real estate. “I’ve got some property over in Santa Fe and I’ve had that on the market since 2008 and that’s not that unique of an asset,” he said. Many across the country are in similar shape, thanks to the economic slowdown and housing crisis. Similarly, it may be a difficult time to pawn off a $6.5 billion investment.

“It’s very hard to tell, but I think there would be interest in a project like this, but it’s very unique, so we’d really have to get out in the marketplace and see.”

Thanks to previous decisions to sell down our share in the expansion, CPS has already started shopping for buyers and recently retained investment bankers and advisers to assist in that search.

The risk here is that the city would still have to keep up with our current 50-percent share of the development to keep the project moving forward and of value to potential buyers. The city would have to be prepared to pass not just one but possibly two $400-million bond issues along the way with no guarantees of a final sale.

Says Temple: “If our partner wants to continue developing the project, in order for us not to default and have our partner walk away, we’d have to continue to fund development.”
As unlikely as that scenario seems, Temple says CPS would obviously have to meet with mayor and council and “get some direction on what their level of tolerance is.”

“I don’t think it’s good for the citizens of San Antonio for us to hold a fire sale, if they want us to sell the interest. So, I’d like a little bit of time so we can get true buyers rather than walk away from it.”

Option 3 is the stop, drop, and roll. Those who have been urging the city to steer clear of the project from the beginning for the financial risk it represents tend to advocate this response.

What would walking away mean?

“We have to pay our proportion of interest up to the time we withdraw and we have to give some notice of that,” Temple said. But, beyond that, our contract with NRG Energy holds no specific penalties for walking out. It comes at the price of lost investment, however. Not only would be saying farewell to about $300 million spent on the project to date, but the value of the STP 3 & 4 site itself is worth even more, Temple says. Somewhere between $500 million and $1.5 billion.

He echoed Bartley on Toshiba’s addition of $4 billion to their estimated costs. “That’s negotiating, posturing. There is no $4 billion … They’re just throwing a number out there.”

Still, it’s a big thrown number. And CPS’ failure to share it with the Council, even as the city leaders sidled up to a $400-million bond vote, shows the level of communication and trust needed to manage a multi billion-dollar project is sorely lacking.

Not to say it can’t be salvaged. To that end, Temple flies to Japan tomorrow, followed by Bartley and Lee on Tuesday. Negotiations are scheduled for Thursday and Friday, before the triad returns to Alamo City.

If they come back with the right numbers for San Antonio (and the right contractual provisions that allow Toshiba to account for inflation), nukes could roll again come January — especially if Council fails to use this time to forge a reasonable alternative strategy to weight it against, both in terms of cost and risk.

Senator Cornyn’s prescription is in

By Enrique Lopetegui
elopetegui@sacurrent.com

“Now what? Are we going to yell and scream?” asked a high-school-aged girl outside the elevator, on her way to Senator Cornyn’s office in Downtown San Antonio. She was surrounded by about 15 fellow students and several MoveOn activists carrying a huge “prescription bottle” filled with pro-public health care messages for the Senator.

“Nobody is going to yell, and nobody is going to scream,” Christopher Allen, one of the council chairs of MoveOn San Antonio told her. “We’re going to be very respectful, hand him the bottle, and ask some questions.”

“I want to shake [Cornyn’s] hand,” said the girl. “Don’t!” a kid told her. “He’s mean! You don’t shake mean people’s hands!”

The small but well-organized group (with the exception of the red meanie vigilante), divided in shifts, started collecting messages for Cornyn on Wednesday at 8:15 a.m. in Travis Park (a couple of blocks from the Senator’s office), and then they all gathered at 4 p.m. to march and deliver the container, which looked like this:



“We got about 50 RSVPs, and we expect about 30 people,” Angie Drake, the local council co-coordinator of MoveOn told the Current, and that’s pretty much what she got.

After a few words were spoken, the crowd of 30-or-so marched southbound on Navarro Street, carrying signs and the “prescription” bottle filled with messages like “Health care yes” (written by Conrado Pérez), “Health care is a right, not a privilege” (John Michael Pulido), and “Yes for health care” (Richard Ríos).



“These are not messages from MoveOn members,” said Drake. “These are messages from people in San Antonio, people who take the bus or enjoy their lunch sitting on a bench. We collected about 100 messages from 8:30 to 9:30, and expect several hundreds by the time we get to the Senator’s office.” Indeed, by 4 pm the bottle was packed with handwritten messages.
 
Due to the small size of Cornyn’s office, more than half of the protesters had to stay downstairs, but those who went up were enough to fill the room.



Jonathan Huhn, South Central Texas/El Paso deputy regional director for the Senator, looks like he’s barely out of high school. He was courteous, eloquent when discussing the issues he seemed to master, and real and humble enough to say “I’ll have to look it up”  or careful enough to not screw up whenever Allen asked him for specifics.

“For any official statements on behalf of the Senator, you’ll have to call our press office,” Huhn said, but nevertheless engaged in an informal conversation with the volunteers.

After a few minutes, Drake asked the key question:

“But Senator Cornyn will vote against the public option, right?”

Then Huhn delivered the big news.

“With Senator [Barbara] Boxer’s legislation he voted against that particular provision,” said Huhn. “And yes, he’s against the public option. He’s against any kind of government-run health-care option. He wants competition, but not an increase any taxation on his constituents, especially with unemployment on the rise.”

Allen asked whether the Senator would vote for removing the state boundaries for health insurance companies, even knowing what happened with credit card companies in South Dakota.

“Even knowing … I’m not … what’s the correlation?” asked Huhn.

“The consumer protection laws were much more lax in North Dakota,” explained Allen, “so many credit card companies moved there and that’s why you now have many credit card companies with a 31% interest rate.”

For some reason, Huhn assumed Allen was referring to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, one of the proponents of the 2009 Patient’s Choice Act of 2009, but said “I haven’t heard the senator [Cornyn] reflect directly on that issue yet.”

“I wasn’t referring to that at all,” Allen told the Current later. “I knew he didn’t have an answer for me, the same way he didn’t have an answer for me when I mentioned the $500  billion in Medicare which don’t represent ‘cutting of benefits’ but cutting on waste and abuse. I was referring to credit card companies moving to South Dakota and life insurance companies moving to Delaware. We actually have a template of what happens when we remove those state boundary restrictions without any kind of regulations. We don’t want that to happen to the health-care industry.”

Allen also asked whether Senator Cornyn would support the health exchange, and Huhn said “I would have to look at the legislation.”

“That surprised me a little speechless,” Allen told the Current. “Cornyn actually wants that, except for the fact that it is regulated by the government. That and the public option are the cornerstones of the health-care legislation that he opposes, because it would make it impossible to have big or small insurance companies. Everyone would have bargaining power.”

Finally, Allen asked whether anyone had any questions, and 17-year-old Gabriel González, from Indian Creek, stepped up.

“Any talks of marijuana legalization anytime soon?”

“I have no comment on that,” said Huhn, not at all eager to roll ’em up with Little Gabe.

Union wants Probation Chief Fitzgerald out now

Greg Harman
gharman@sacurrent.com

Local union reps are leaning on criminal district and county judges to put Bexar County Probation Chief Bill “On the Fritz” Fitzgerald on administrative leave rather than allow the target of several federal lawsuits to serve out his time before a planned January retirement.

Fitzgerald, the target of multiple state and federal lawsuits, resigned under pressure this summer. But his effective retirement date is not until January 1, 2010.

“The judges job is either to hire him or fire him,” said Linda Chavez-Thompson, a consultant for the Adult Probation Local 9528, which is affiliated with the United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO. “But there’s nothing in the rules that say they can’t have some sort of investigation regarding this, and they have not done that.”

Allegations against Fitzgerald run the gamut, from improper termination of employees to sexual harassment to the intimidation of union employees.

The Local 9528 filed their letter with the judges this week in response to the firing of a union member on Tuesday.

“This is what we warned them was going to happen,” said Chavez-Thompson. “We said, ‘Hey, once [Fitzgerald] is forced out, he’s going to try to take a few people with him.”

The letter urges judges to:

You may recall, Fitzgerald was forced onto the ropes after misdemeanor judges voted back in August not to retain him as the chief probation officer. Had a similar vote followed on the felony court side, he would have been toast. However, an attempt by 379th District Judge Ron Rangel* to call for a performance review of Fitz was unexpectedly pulled from their agenda after the retirement notice was proffered.

Union reps warned that leaving Fitzgerald in office for five more months would put more staff at risk of retaliation.

“I’ve been trying to meet with them and tell them, ‘Look, this is what’s going on, this is what’s happening, and this is how the employees feel,” said Chavez-Thompson. “Some of them just won’t return my phone calls.”

We know the feeling.

While union organizer Sheri Simonelli’s wrongful termination was recently dismissed, she said she has plans an appeal to the Fifth Circuit. “I’m upset a little bit that mine got dismissed, but I respect the judge, what the judge said. But I know I’m right. I’m going  to stand and keep fighting it.”

Still, other Simonelli complaints have been rolled into another federal case set to be heard in January. Just in time for Fitzgerald’s retirement party.


Judge Rangel got back with me shortly after this blog went up.

Here's what he had to say on the union letter:

On finding Fitzgerald's replacement:

The WAO Files 6: Sumner Matthes.

By Enrique Lopetegui
elopetegui@sacurrent.com

“Why are you calling me?” Sumner Matthes asked when I called him in early October, days after Carol and Ron Asvestas had been terminated and their daughter Nicole put in charge of WAO.

After examining hundreds of pages of public records related to WAO, I came to the conclusion that Matthes, WAO’s vice president, was often the most lucid voice in a disintegrating operation. I was curious to know why, after years of siding with WAO’s bosses, he eventually decided to join in the uprising.

In early October, Matthes spoke with us on the phone from Florida (where he resides) and later sent us additional answers via email.

Why am I calling you? You’re a member of the board, aren’t you?
Yes, I am.

Going through public records, it seemed to me that you’ve been the voice of reason all along, and I thought you were a good person to call to help me make sense of the latest developments at WAO.
And who are you with?

San Antonio Current…
Well… I’ll talk to you a little bit…  I might have to turn you back to our attorney, but I’ll give it a shot. What do you need?

The Asvestas claim that they were wrongfully terminated, because there were only three people at the board meeting where it was decided to terminate them, not five, as dictated by WAO’s by-laws.
Yeah… I can tell you one thing: There were five members when we terminated them. Not “terminated,” but when we put them on administrative leave and then, subsequently, took action when they tried to remove equipment from the office. And that resolved into termination.

Why did the board decided to raise Ron and Carol’s salaries to $100,000, in the middle of an investigation by the USDA?
It was voted upon… The reason it was done was… We reviewed other organizations, similar organizations throughout the country to determine how much the executive directors were being paid, and that felt that was the right amount.

But the raise took place in the middle of so many allegations. It sounds like a lot of money to me…
Depending on how you look at it, sir… It depends on what’s being done by the individuals who were given the pay raise at that time. You will probably find it not excessive at all.

Was the vote to suspend and terminate unanimous?
Yes, it was.

Couldn’t you have acted earlier? Why now? Didn’t you think the allegations were true before?
The allegations probably have a lot of true in them, I can’t say they were all true simply because I haven’t seen all of them. There is supposedly a 600-page list of allegations that the Attorney General gave to Carol Asvestas. I have attempted since that time, and that was months ago, to get a copy of them and nobody [gave them to me]. As far as doing what we did, I think we went over backwards trying to resolve this problem. I think a lot of the problems were due to the fact that they have a lot of personal problems that affected their running of the orphanage.

So far do you see any change with Nicole running WAO?      
Absolutely. I think things are definitely changing for the better. In fact, I just got off the phone with people out of Talley Rd., just a couple of hours ago, asking them if the food situation now there has improved for the animals and they guaranteed and assured me: Yes it had. I have to credit that to Nicole’s diligence in getting that straightened out. I have heard nothing but positive things on Nicole since she’s taking over the operation as CEO. I have been in touch with her on a daily basis to determine if there are any real problems. There are a number of problems that she’s having personally with her family but, as far as the operation of the Wild Animal Orphanage, I think it has improved tremendously since she has taken over the job. As far as the lawsuit, I wasn’t aware of it.

Among other things, the Asvestases claim WAO owes them money.
Anything like that I’m sure it’s going to be a very long-term thing. There are many questions about how much money is owed to them. It’s not something I want to talk about because, if we’re going to be sued, we’ll have to bring it up in the courts. I’m very disappointed in the actions of the Asvestas to sue the board of directors, who did everything they possibly could to work with them and to make things better down there, and it didn’t happen.

Any examples?
I have been working with Carol Asvestas and Ron Asvestas, more Carol than Ron, for 13 years. I’ve been involved with the sanctuary down there for 13 years, and I kept finding things in the last couple years. Again, I think because of their personal problems, things were not getting accomplished.  We were asking for the things that were not provided to us. We were asking for financial data, it did not get to us. As I said, that 600-page document that the Attorney General presented to them concerning the allegations that were being made by Ms. Brunner and others, as I understand it we were never able to determine who had it. In fact, at the last voting we asked about it and nobody seemed to know where it was. So there’s been a series of things over a considerable period of time that I think the board has tried their best to work with Carol and Ron Asvestas, but it hasn’t been satisfactory. And in the last few months we’ve gotten complaints from the employees we got in the operations down there. And it was time, probably the best time, to take some positive actions to try to get this situation straighten down and I think we’ve been successful in doing that.

As opposed to Kristina Brunner’s lonely crusade in the past, this time it was a massive uprising and you decided to take action?
That was part of it… But, again, part of it also was the fact that I wasn’t obtaining information concerning the operation of the orphanage that I felt I was due as a board member.

That “information” includes, for example, the animal’s death certificates?
That was part of the problem, yes. I don’t know… Again, this is an ongoing thing because of the number of animals involved and the allegations that have been made. I don’t think they’ve been reconciled totally. I believe the veterinarian was working on that, but again, nothing has been accomplished or finalized on the records of the animals.

Do you want to add anything else?
I don’t know what are your plans based on my discussion with you, but I would like to say that everybody, employees and the board of directors at the orphanage, seem to be in an upbeat mood. I would hate to see some lawsuit destroy what we have accomplished in the last two weeks.

After Tammy Click, attorney for the Asvestases, sent responses on behalf of her client, I sent more questions to Matthes. The following are his written replies (my comments in brackets; third-person references were prepared, I assume, by Buck Benson, the new WAO lawyer, who was cc’d on the email I received from Matthes):

Was anybody present in person at the board meeting that ended with the suspension/firing of Ron and Carol, or was it a telephone meeting?
There were two (2) individual board members initially present at the initial meeting in which Carol and Ron were placed on Administrative Leave. Three (3) board members attended via a telephone conference call line. Our attorney at that time, Mr. [Eric] Turton [who no longer represents WAO but who represents Carol Asvestas in her libel suit against R.G. Griffing], was also physically present at the board meeting.  It should be clearly understood that this meeting resulted in the unanimous vote to place Carol and Ron on Administrative Leave for 90 days without pay. At that point both Carol and Ron walked out of the meeting. It should be noted that one of the board members, Andrew Behaine, took the tapes that recorded the meeting and we have not been able to get them back, although our then-attorney [Eric Turton] indicated that he would see that they were returned.  As a result, no minutes of this meeting are yet available. The board members were subsequently advised that Carol and Ron had left the meeting and had gone to the WAO office and were removing files, computers and other items from the WAO office.  Law enforcement was called and responded.  I believe a police report was made but I do not have a copy.
 
As a result of the unlawful actions of Ron and Carol by removing company records, it was determined that there could well be obvious possible guilt reasons for their actions.
 
Based on their actions, three (3) board members (a quorum) met in a conference call and voted to terminate, for cause, the employment of Carol and Ron. At that point Andrew Behaine and Chris Morton both tendered their resignation from the [board of directors].

Is it true that they didn't have a chance to ask the board the reason of their firing nor to defend themselves?
Ron and Carol were not given specific reasons for the action that ended in their being placed on Administrative Leave. Sumner Matthes advised them that the board had more than sufficient documentation from employees and the [Attorney General] to take our action.  Mr. Matthes has been attempting to obtain a copy of the AG Listing that contains 607 pages of copies of complaints filed against the ASUS/WAO.  This file was requested by Carol and was sent to her on January 10, 2008.  I have been trying to get the WAO to provide me with a copy since that date. When asked about this file during the Administrative Leave meeting nobody seemed to know where the file was.  Also it is well known that Carol and Ron have had serious domestic problems in the immediate past which the board felt did not have to be made public at that time, but were taken into consideration by the BOD in reaching the decision to place them on Administrative Leave.

Is it true that, prior to the board meeting, there was a “secret” conference call between the three members who voted in favor of the suspension and in favor of putting Nicole in charge?
To the best of my knowledge, there were no “secret” phone calls between board members prior to the initial meeting. Because of the severity of the subsequent actions of Ron and Carol, the (3) remaining board members certainly did discuss what action should be taken. A board meeting by telephone was then convened and the termination action was voted on unanimously.

Haven’t there been tours at Leslie Rd. before Nicole was in charge? Was there any insurance at Leslie Rd. in case a visitor gets injured? I was surprised to read Click’s email accusing Nicole’s WAO of touring without a license or insurance.
There have been tours at Leslie Road for many, many years.  I do not know what the insurance status is for the Leslie Road property. This will be looked into by the board of directors and, if insurance coverage is not adequate, appropriate action will be taken to obtain proper insurance.

The WAO Files 5: WRR’s Lynn Cuny

By Enrique Lopetegui
elopetegui@sacurrent.com

In 1977, Lynn Cuny founded Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation, a model sanctuary in Kendalia. Shortly after WAO’s shake-up, Cuny met with Nicole García, chosen by WAO’s board to replace her own mother as the head of WAO.

I spoke to Cuny by phone on October 9.

Did you meet with Nicole García?
That’s correct. We met yesterday.

How did that happen?
She contacted me. We agreed we would meet and I invited her here to give her an idea of what a bona fide sanctuary looks like, and how it is possible to give animals who have to remain in captivity a great deal of space. My goal was to answer any questions she had and to hopefully encourage her to turn that facility into a true sanctuary.

There are no tours at WRR, right?
That’s absolutely correct. We’re not open to the public.

That’s one of the main differences between a zoo and a sanctuary, right?
Right. You cannot have a true sanctuary and just be open to the public at the public’s whim. That’s impossible, because the whole point of a sanctuary, the true meaning of that word, is that you give animals that already been through, at the very least, unpleasant situations and, at the very most, abusive situations, you give them a new and respectful life that mimics the wild. That is the goal of a legitimate sanctuary: To try to get back for these animals some resemblance of what life would be if humans had not… screwed them up, for lack of a more eloquent term.

Is it normal for a sanctuary to have 100 dead animals every year?
Not if you’re talking about animals that are in captivity. If you take injured animals, like we do all the time, raccoons that were hit by a car, deer that have been shot, opossum that has been poisoned, in that kind of structure you’ll see more fatalities, because they came to you in very bad shape. But no, there should not be 100 animals dying a year in a sanctuary where animals come and you just give them a place to live.

I can’t understand why the Freedom of Information Act gives me access to all kinds of delicate information, but so far I haven’t been able to obtain records of dead animals. Why shouldn’t donors have the right to access that info?
You should be able to. I don’t have the answer to that, unless the organization itself doesn’t make that known. It could have something to do with the fact that, maybe, there’s no government agency that makes that required.

Another general question: Do monkeys fall and break their necks?
That’s not a common occurrence by any means. We’ve never had that happen.

There’s a lot that can be said about bad sanctuaries, but also about the weak animal laws in the country. What’s your opinion about those laws?
It varies; it’s state by state. Texas is clearly one of those states that don’t do a whole lot to protect the animals that live here.

I was also surprised at how widespread meat eating is in the animal sanctuary world. Is it important to be a vegetarian? Can you just love animals without changing your diet?
I don’t think you can. I think it’s accurate to say a lot of animal ‘protection’ organizations… The sad thing is that you will often see, for instance, a dog and cat shelter having a fundraiser event, and the fundraiser is a barbecue. You’ll see the same with sanctuary groups. I think it’s absurd. If you’re going to be an animal protection organization, if your mission and your message is that you care about animals, then that message has to be consistent. If you’re going to be eating one animal in order to raise money to feed another one, then I don’t think you’re doing your job and I don’t think you’re holding that really true high standard of what an animal protection organization is and what they stand for. Now, people will say, ‘Oh, well, animals eat animals, so why shouldn’t we?’ Those in the animal protection should be held in a higher standard. It’s one thing to see a mountain lion eat meat, because certain animals have to have flesh in order to survive. The human being is not one of those. We should not be saying ‘Oh, well, I want to eat them so I’m going to eat it.’ To do a barbecue as a fundraiser for animals is not much different than opening the doors and saying “We need money to run this organization, so we’re going to put the animals on exhibit to raise that money.” My response to that is that it’s not the animal’s job to raise money. That’s the job of the people who run the organization, without making the animal work or suffer exploitation.

When I ask them whether they’re vegetarian, they very casually tell me, “Oh, no, I eat meat,” like it’s the most normal thing. They see no connection.
And that’s the problem. They don’t see the connection between the two. And they don’t see the connection between the animals, and that’s a huge part of the problem with human beings: How many people absolutely love and are devoted to their companion animals? And yet never give a second thought to eating a cow or a chicken or going out and killing a deer or whatever. It’s almost like “I’m going to love this animal because he shares my house with me,” or this one because “it’s been with me for many years, but I’m not going to see these other ones in the same light.” And the fact of the matter is that the animal, whether she is a cat or a cow or an elephant, they all have a need to be respected and protected and cherished and given the life nature intended them to have. They don’t need us to be using them or abusing them, but the opposite. And we don’t want to see that and don’t want to talk about that.

And there’s the old argument that, unless you do certain things that involve animal killing or tours, you won’t be able to raise enough funds, which is nonsense.
It is nonsense! Oh, yeah, it’s absolute nonsense. You can raise money for a non-profit organization without exploiting animals. It is possible and it is done every day.

How do you even get licensed to be a sanctuary, and who has oversight of what? Are the USDA, TCEQ and the Attorney General’s office all involved in overseeing a sanctuary?
The activity that is carried out at a sanctuary is what decides which agency will issue the permit(s). If a facility is open to the public then the USDA issues the permit. If the facility rescues migratory birds and endangered species, then a permit must be held by the USFWS. If native wildlife are cared for, then it is Texas Parks and Wildlife, WRR is licensed by the latter two.

What was your impression of Nicole?
I think she means well. Whether she will have a chance to do it or not, and the backing, and the knowledge and the experience, I don’t have the answer to that.

Anything else?
I think it is important for people who frequent roadside attractions, if they're going to visit places that keep animals captive, pay attention. Think in terms of, What kind of a life that animal really has? People say, “Oh, well, animals just need some shelter and some food and some water.” That’s not what we give ourselves, we don’t just give ourselves what we need, but what we want. Nobody takes that into consideration. Maybe a monkey can live in a 10 x 10 cement floored cage, and have food and water and shelter, but it’s a horrible life.

On a November 1 email, Cuny replied to my request for info on animal deaths at WRR, so that I could compare them to those of WAO:

"As I mentioned earlier, we are having some trouble accessing our stats, but best I can tell we have lost about 20 to 25 animals in ’09 and about the same in ’08. This is about 8% of the wild animals we have in sanctuary.

Enrique, it is important, in order to be fair in this, to note that what should be included in the picture when evaluating the loss of animal lives is the condition they were in when they arrived.

I will just give some examples here: If a sanctuary conducts a rescue of 10 lions from a roadside zoo where the animals were kept in close confinement but were well-fed and the animals are all young-to-middle-aged, then there is no apparent reason for the deaths of those animals in the coming five to even ten years.

If a sanctuary is involved in a rescue of 10 bears who were poorly fed and poorly treated, under constant stress and held in filthy confinement, and those bears are all over the age of 15, then you could reasonably expect to have one, two or even perhaps five deaths from this group in the coming five to 10 years. Occasionally, an animal that is rescued from substandard conditions will die within several months of being rescued.

Both the responsibility and moral obligation of legitimate sanctuaries is to first reverse the damage done to the newly rescued animals, then to quite literally add years to their lives by affording them large, spacious, interesting and totally natural enclosures where they are never crowded, on exhibit or stressed in any way, as captivity itself is stress enough. In addition to this, a proper diet is paramount to high standards of care for all animals, but it is even more critically important for animals who have lived lives of terrible deprivation. Experience in this field has shown that both a species-appropriate and highly nutritional diet can profoundly alter the future of animals who have suffered extensive abuse.

For more information on WRR, visit www.wildlife-rescue.org.