plus 4, Dispute Over Ambulance Service Monopoly And Rising Fees For Willow ... - RoadracingWorld.com |
- Dispute Over Ambulance Service Monopoly And Rising Fees For Willow ... - RoadracingWorld.com
- Ticket Ticket 2's Day: See Supercross Racing At AT&T Park - BayInsider
- FD council acts on tax break for motorcycle shop - Fort Dodge Messenger
- Vineland bowling alley burns, sends life's work up in smoke - Atlantic City Press
- Show's focus: small, green, efficient - Vancouver Sun
| Dispute Over Ambulance Service Monopoly And Rising Fees For Willow ... - RoadracingWorld.com Posted: 11 Jan 2010 08:30 PM PST Jan 11, 2010, By Michael Gougis, ©Copyright 2010, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc. A dispute between the sole ambulance company authorized by Kern County to serve Willow Springs International Raceway (WSIR) and track management means that the Rosamond, California facility does not intend to have ambulances on-site at the opening round of the 2009 Willow Springs Motorcycle Club (WSMC) season this coming weekend. WSIR and WSMC owner Bill Huth says recent increases in the hourly rates charged by Hall Ambulance have left some clubs that operate at Willow reeling financially. And by county law, if Willow chooses to hire an ambulance to stand by at the track, it must use Hall Ambulance, Huth says.
It is a political standoff between Huth, whose pioneering, independent streak is well-known, and the county's system of providing monopolies for ambulance services in designated areas. Kern County's Board of Supervisors set out "exclusive ambulance service operational areas for emergency, non-emergency, and stand-by ambulance service throughout the County," to "ensure competent, efficient and adequate care is provided within the County," according to documents available on the Kern County website: Huth says the "operational area" that includes WSIR is served by Hall Ambulance. The company, founded in 1971, provides exclusive 911 paramedic service for 87 percent of Kern County, according to the company website (http://www.hallambulanceservice.com/corpindex.html). It is the largest privately owned emergency and non-emergency medical transportation provider in California, and the 30th-largest in the United States. Hall is owned by Harvey L. Hall, mayor of Bakersfield, by far the largest city in Kern County, and also the home of the Kern County Board of Supervisors, which issues the exclusive ambulance service area contracts. Huth says that rather than pay the increased fees, the track will hire an EMT to remain on-site for the races and to ride in the crash truck, which reaches crashed riders first. The EMT will do immediate first aid at the scene of an accident, and can call in a helicopter from Bakersfield or an ambulance from a dispatch center in Rosamond – which is located an eight-minute drive from the track – if the injury is serious. Huth says he is infuriated that the cost of a Basic Life Support ambulance increased from $100 to $109 an hour, and that the cost of an Advanced Life Support ambulance went to $140 an hour. It is but the latest in a series of cost increases for ambulance service. One track-day provider said that under the Kern County monopoly system the cost of providing ambulance service at the track has nearly doubled in the past five years. Roadracingworld.com will provide more information as it becomes available. More Breaking Headlines | Next Article | Home
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| Ticket Ticket 2's Day: See Supercross Racing At AT&T Park - BayInsider Posted: 11 Jan 2010 07:26 PM PST "MORNINGS ON 2" presents TICKET 2's DAY KTVU and Mornings on 2 bring you Tickets 2's Day, a weekly contest with tickets to some of the hottest concerts and events in the Bay Area! To win, just watch Mornings on 2 every Tuesday for the "secret word" of the day, then come to KTVU.com and enter to win. Read the rules. This week, two lucky Ticket 2's Day winners will receive a four pack four-pack of tickets to see the Monster Energy AMA Supercross event at AT&T Park in San Francisco on Saturday, January 30. Bikers will mount their 125cc and 250cc motorcycles at SBC Park on Saturday, January 30 digging into the dirt and taking to the sky during this Monster Energy AMA Supercross event. The exciting sport of supercross has gained an ever-growing audience thanks to the fearless riders' penchant for high-flying stunts and daredevil tricks that the uninitiated may need a glossary to keep up with.Every week, the best riders from across the globe, like two-time champion James Stewart and three-time champion Chad Reed, seek to outrace each other on motocross' most challenging courses. Featuring tight corners, fast straightaways, challenging rhythm sections and vertigo-inducing jumps, these tracks pack excitement into every inch of dirt.While winning races to score points and rise in the Supercross rankings in order to take the championship crown is the goal of all racers, its the grit of flying dirt and the thrill of flying riders that has made the sport popular. The event kicks off at 12:30 p.m. with practice and qualifying runs. Attendees shouldn't miss a chance to meet the riders and get autographs at the Pit Party starting at 12:30 p.m.Note: Winner receiving tickets at a venue's Will Call window will need an ID that matches the name on the ticket list. You must show picture ID to obtain the tickets. TICKETS ARE NOT TRANSFERRABLE. Did You Get Your Entry In? Be sure to come back and enter next week! To sign up for the BGP Newsletter to get on-sale information via email, click here. Copyright 2010 by KTVU.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| FD council acts on tax break for motorcycle shop - Fort Dodge Messenger Posted: 11 Jan 2010 08:02 PM PST FD council acts on tax break for motorcycle shopRacing Unlimited Inc. could see 10-year rate phase-inBy BILL SHEA Messenger staff writer An expanding Fort Dodge motorcycle shop is on track to get a property tax break as a result of City Council action Monday. The council voted unanimously to give preliminary approval to a plan that would enable Racing Unlimited Inc., 2606 200th St., to gradually assume the higher property tax burden created by an addition that's being built. Alan Rodenborn, president of the company, said Monday afternoon that the addition will create space for building racing engines for motorcycles that are sold throughout the United States. It will replace a downtown building that was rented, he said. The exterior shell of the building is up. The interior still must be finished. Rodenborn said he expects the project to be done by spring. Jensen Builders Ltd., of Fort Dodge, built the addition's exterior shell. Clark Construction Ltd., of Fort Dodge, and Armstrong Plumbing, of Badger, will do the interior work. After the completed addition is placed on the tax rolls, Racing Unlimited Inc. will pay taxes on 20 percent of its taxable value in the first year, according to Dennis Plautz, the city's director of business affairs and community growth. That percentage will rise over the course of 10 years until the property is fully taxable. The business sells and services motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles and personal watercraft. Located at the intersection of 200th Street and Webster County Road P59, it was annexed into the city last year. The City Council's action Monday places the property in the Industrial Park Urban Revitalization Area and the Center City and Industrial Park Urban Renewal Areas. Two more council votes will be needed to finalize the tax phase-in. On Monday, council members set the stage for offering a different type of help to another business. The council scheduled a public hearing for 6 p.m. Jan. 25 in the Municipal Building on the possibility of vacating part of an alley in the 200 block of Central Avenue and transferring that property to Josephson Manufacturing Co., 216 Central Ave. That maker of radiators and other engine cooling packages has two buildings that are separated by the alley. If the council approves the plan, the company will connect the two buildings, according to Andy Josephson, the vice president of operations. ''It should allow us to have a better production flow,'' he said Monday afternoon. Contact Bill Shea at (515) 573-2141 or bshea@messengernews.net Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Vineland bowling alley burns, sends life's work up in smoke - Atlantic City Press Posted: 11 Jan 2010 07:33 PM PST With photo gallery of the blaze.
Click to view a photo gallery of firefighters battling the fire. Click here for a map of the area. VINELAND - As Charlie Loyle stared out the window Monday, he kept thinking about the past 50 years. That's how long ago he and his brother John built Loyle Lanes Bowling Center. There was no highway along South Delsea Drive in Vineland then, and no Cumberland Mall a quarter-mile away. There was one motel across the street and nothing else, just open land. So the Loyles built a bowling alley and watched as the world around them changed. The bowling alley changed, too, recently undergoing renovations - adding new computers, monitors, seating and carpeting. In recent years, the owners added a bar. Local bands played there. In the early-morning Monday hours, the bowling alley underwent its latest change, as fire reduced the polyurethane balls and wooden pins and aerosol shoe deodorizer cans to black smoke and ash. The fire has been labeled suspicious. * * * So Charlie Loyle stood next to the window inside the Friendly's family restaurant neighboring the bowling alley. As Loyle Lanes Bowling Center smoldered, officials shut down the roadway in front of the restaurant and bowling alley. Friendly's opened at 7 just as it does every morning, but with its driveway blocked by fire trucks, the restaurant turned into a meeting point for family and friends who spent some of their happiest moments inside the bowling alley. Friendly's waiter Stephan Lamnin, 20, gave free cups of coffee to Charlie Loyle, his friend Bob Swanson, an insurance agent scribbling into a spiral notebook and a newspaper reporter. Swanson ordered French toast and bacon, and asked his friend if he wanted breakfast. "I can't eat anything," Loyle said. * * * The fire started somewhere around 2:30 a.m. Officials aren't sure how the fire began, but it's being labeled suspicious. Within 20 minutes, fire crews at the scene called for more help. Four hook-and-ladder fire trucks sprayed the building with water - 4,000 gallons a minute, according to Vineland Fire Chief Robert Pagnini. Extra water trucks arrived. Workers spread industrial salt, trying to keep the surrounding parking lots from turning to ice. Despite the salt, the water mixed with below-freezing early-morning temperatures to turn the parking lots near the bowling center and restaurant into slushy rivulets. Firefighters spent 31/2 hours trying to contain the fire, and remained on the scene hours past daybreak. The fire ate through the roof, leaving behind bare wood and twisted metal. Burned, mangled debris lay in the parking lot. The letters on the front of the building - spelling the name of the alley, Loyle Lanes - were warped, the final two letters, 'E' and 'S', melted away. But somehow, long after the hot-burning fire had been extinguished, the letters L-O-Y-L-E remained hanging from the side of the building. * * * After 20 minutes of seeing his friend Charlie Loyle slouch and mumble and stumble about the restaurant, Bob Swanson leaned over the counter to talk to the waitress. "Do you have anything with blueberry in it, maybe a bagel or an English muffin?" he asked. "I'm afraid Charlie isn't going to eat anything." Swanson tossed the waitress a folded dollar bill, in that subtle way an aunt or uncle or grandparent might slip a child money. She slid it back. "I can't take that," she said. "They've always been good to us." A few minutes later the waitress handed Swanson a Styrofoam container with a blueberry muffin inside. Swanson placed the container on a table next to the window. "Here you go, Charlie, you can sit down and eat this, and you can still see everything," Swanson said. Charlie sat and crossed his left leg over his right and took one bite out of the muffin, continuing to look out the window. Eventually Charlie Loyle's brother John arrived, the brother he started the company with 50 years ago. Chuck and Mike, Charlie's sons, too. The sons own the bowling alley now, after their father and uncle retired. But it wasn't a very convincing retirement, as Charlie was still a fixture at the bowling alley. The family celebrated New Year's at the alley. Pictures from that party, posted on the business's Web page on the social networking site Facebook, show smiling, happy people. Charlie's wife, Grace, wears a "Happy New Year" visor in one of the photos. Less than two weeks into 2010, three days after the pictures were posted online, the smiles have been wiped away. * * * Loyle Lanes Bowling Center normally opened at 9 a.m. Mondays. But this Monday, instead of turning on lights and opening doors, the sons spent most of the morning outside, talking to fire officials. This Monday, a community mourned and reflected. The fire took a part of them, too. For John Madkiff III, Monday was a chance to return a few favors. Madkiff, of Vineland, 52, was about 10 years old when he started bowling at Loyle Lanes. Four decades later, the loyalty and friendship remains. "My parents couldn't afford to buy me a bowling ball, so John Loyle gave me one," Madkiff said. "It was my first bowling ball." Madkiff spent his teen and early adult years coming to and from the bowling alley, racing his motorcycle up and down the nearby railroad tracks with a bowling ball strapped to the back. When the bike was broken, he would carry the ball to a bus stop, where the Loyles would pick up Madkiff and other area bowlers in a bus for Saturday league play. In recent years, Madkiff fell on hard times - it's tough being a unionized laborer in this type of economy. But he'd be bowling on Mondays and Tuesdays, and sometimes the Loyles would clean his ball and waive the fee. Now Madkiff's bowling ball is gone. His wife's, too. The melted bowling balls took stories with them, the stories of nicks and scratches acquired on wooden lanes against wooden pins that seemed to hold some magic in them. * * * Bowling is a sport of noise, of kinetic energy transferred from a ball with three holes onto 10 defenseless white pins. The bowler tosses the ball, and the ball whrrrrs down the lane ... And sometimes the ball plops into the gutter, and sometimes the ball CLACKs into pins, scattering them to a pile. But neither is destined to happen, the roll marked by final, total silence. So after a lot of noise, Loyle Lanes - the host of midnight bowling and Bowl-A-Thons and Special Olympics, the place where people met best friends and spouses - fell quiet Monday. It is too soon to tell what the family will do next. Those questions will be answered in time, after the cause of the fire is determined, after Vineland's bowling community has a chance to celebrate what was. To reflect. That's what Charlie Loyle did as he sat next to the Friendly's window. A woman approached and placed her hand on his shoulder. He glanced up and stood. "Charlie, I'm so sorry," she said. They hugged. He didn't say anything, just shrugged and tossed his hands in the air. And before long he was sitting back down in front of the forgotten blueberry muffin and a lukewarm cup of coffee, looking out the window beyond icy slush and fire trucks and yellow tape, all the things that could never overshadow the past 50 years. Contact Dan Good: 609-272-7218 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. 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| Show's focus: small, green, efficient - Vancouver Sun Posted: 11 Jan 2010 07:19 PM PST DETROIT -- Resembling a massive construction site, the main floor of Detroit's Cobo Center was the centre of auto show preparation on the weekend as crews were busy assembling displays before the two-day press preview, which starts Monday. While many of the vehicles starring in the 2010 North American International Auto Show were literally under wraps, the green theme was prevalent throughout the main floor. Detroit Three automakers will be asserting their place in a vehicle segment long occupied by foreign competitors such as Honda, Toyota and Hyundai, said Doug Fox, NAIAS chairman. "What we're seeing is a strong directional shift from our hometown manufacturers that had been heavily reliant on pickup truck and sport utilities and crossovers to the small, fuel-efficient, energy-saving, environmentally friendly, low-emission vehicles," Fox said. "A strong push in that direction is coming from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, and this is a segment they've somewhat let other foreign manufacturers have over the last decade. They've made it very clear that they're entering the segment in a very strong, powerful way." As part of its partnership with Italy's Fiat SpA, Chrysler will unveil an electric Fiat 500 minicar, Fox said. Ford will use the show to stage the global launch of the 2011 Focus subcompact, Fox said. "It's my understanding there will be several renditions of the Focus, everything from fuel cell, hybrid to electric." General Motors will unveil its Chevy Spark minicar as well as the final production version of the electric Volt. "We've been waiting five years to see that," Fox said. When it comes to environmentally friendly vehicles, consumers, especially Canadians, are moving quickly into that segment, said auto analyst Dennis DesRosiers. "We started the decade with only 34.6 per cent of consumers buying a small fuel-efficient vehicle. We finished the decade with 50.8 per cent buying a small, fuel-efficient vehicle." DesRosiers said green is also the theme of small, nascent automotive players, like Spokane, Wash.-based Commuter Cars, which produces the electric two-seater Tango. President and founder, Rick Woodbury, talked enthusiastically of a vehicle he invented with the help of his son Bryan. "We consider it, unequivocally, the world's fastest car, probably the world's safest car," Woodbury said. "You'll think that's crazy because it looks so small. But, the doors have four times more steel in them than the largest SUV. "This is a full NASCAR-style roll cage. It's certified for racing at 200 miles an hour, so it's a complete cage just like a race car." Featuring tandem seating for two, the Tango is eight feet, five inches long, 39 inches wide, and weighs 3,000 pounds. It can accelerate from zero to 60 m.p.h. in about four seconds and can manoeuvre through traffic like a motorcycle. In jurisdictions like California, where lane-splitting is permitted, the Tango can travel along the white line between the separate lanes. Though the price tag of more than $100,000 a vehicle is prohibitive, Woodbury hopes exposure attained from premiere auto shows will generate the kind of buzz that could lead to big-time investors interested in mass producing the car. Mass production would bring the car's price tag down to about $20,000, said Woodbury. For the first time, Magna International will stage an exhibit highlighting green car technologies, as well as introducing its "E-Car Systems," which focus on electrification capabilities, said Don Walker, co-CEO of Magna International. "The exhibit coincides with Magna's strategy to strengthen its position as a leader in hybrid and electric vehicle development and products," he said. "The global trends towards CO2 reduction and improved fuel economy are important drivers of future growth in hybrid and electric vehicles," Walker said. "We have been enhancing our capability in this area by developing systems such as electric motors and motor control units, chargers, electric pumps, electric drivetrain and lithium ion battery packs." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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