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Woman hauls trash to mayor's office

Woman hauls trash to mayor’s office: Holiday puts cramp in pick-up schedule
 
Frank Lewis
Portsmouth Daily Times
 
Janice Shanks hauled two bags of trash to Portsmouth Mayor David Malone’s office on Friday in protest of the city not collecting trash this week because of Labor Day. Malone said he would deliver the bags to the Service Department for Shanks.
 
Janice Shanks hauled two bags of trash to Portsmouth Mayor David Malone’s office on Friday in protest of the city not collecting trash this week because of Labor Day. Malone said he would deliver the bags to the Service Department for Shanks.
 
Janice Shanks carried two bags of trash into the office of Portsmouth Mayor David Malone on Friday morning, expressing her frustration with the mix-up of the trash pick-up schedule this week.

“We always have more (trash) than just ours,” Shanks said. “I don’t know what to do. It’s overflowing. We’re gonna be in a real pickle. It was the holiday weekend and all of our grandkids were there and our children, so I had more than normal.”

Shanks, who lives on Fourth Street, said she also has extra trash on a regular basis because students from Shawnee State University pull up and dump their fast food wrappers and cups onto a lot and it blows onto her property. She said her husband, Curtis Shanks, often has to clean the mess up.

Malone accepted the trash and apologized for the schedule mix-up and said he would take the trash to the Service Department.

“With it being a holiday, we tried to avoid paying overtime. Monday’s was picked up on Tuesday and then Wednesday we went to the regular days and regular route,” Malone said. “I guess there had been some confusion. I guess (City Service Director) Bill (Beaumont) put out a press release last week and didn’t even tell us. We had given them orders as to what we wanted them to do this week. Bill didn’t tell me he had put that press release out as a notice out to the residents. That brought confusion as to which route was going to be picked up. If Bill had stuck with what we had planned — what we had worked out for him — there would have been no confusion. Even when I told him what we needed to do to avoid overtime, if he had told me then, that he had already put a press release out the week before, then I probably wouldn’t even have enforced the plan we put in.”

Dr. Robert Nelson said the trash piling up at his office on Offnere Street is presenting a health hazard.

“It’s overflowing,” Nelson said. “You have vermin, flies; flies cause disease. There are rats and mice. I saw a dead mouse out here on the street. This is a health hazard. Why isn’t the Portsmouth Board of Health on this thing?”

A woman in the hilltop area of the city, who asked to remain anonymous, said she contacted the mayor’s office who told her they deliberately skipped her area and that the plan is to skip another area at the next holiday to prevent the need to pay overtime.

“I asked what we can do because our trash cans are overflowing, and we were told we could get a truck and take our own trash to the dump,” the woman said. “I said, since we had already paid through our water bill, could they give us a discount, a refund credit for one week.” She said they told her no. The woman suggested the city place Dumpsters in various parts of the city, and have the Dumpsters picked up during regular hours.


Read more: Portsmouth Daily Times - Woman hauls trash to mayor’s office Holiday puts cramp in pick up schedule
Entry #5,436

Walgreens sued over firing diabetic who took chips

Walgreens sued over firing diabetic who took chips

 

Bob Egelko

Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle September 9, 2011 04:00 AM

Friday, September 9, 2011

 
 

 

When Josefina Hernandez, a longtime Walgreens employee with diabetes, felt an attack of hypoglycemia coming on in September 2008, she grabbed a $1.39 bag of chips and ate them to boost her blood sugar, she said.

Hernandez said she paid for the chips as soon as she could leave her cashier's post at the South San Francisco drugstore. She said she tried to explain her actions to Walgreens, but the company fired her.

"They said they had a zero-tolerance policy," said David Offen-Brown, an attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which filed a federal court suit Thursday accusing the Illinois retailer of discriminating against a disabled employee.

Hernandez had worked nearly 18 years for Walgreens with no disciplinary record, the EEOC said. She told the agency she usually carried some candy in her pocket in case her blood sugar dropped, but hadn't brought any along that day.

"I knew I needed to do something quickly, so I reached for a bag of chips and paid for them as soon as I could," she said in a statement released by the agency. "I am very upset to lose my job over this."

William Tamayo, the EEOC's regional attorney in San Francisco, said federal law requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities such as diabetes.

"Accommodating disability does not have to be expensive, but it may require an employer to be flexible and open-minded," he said. "One wonders whether a long-term, experienced employee is worth less than a bag of chips to Walgreens."

The suit seeks back pay and other damages for Hernandez. Walgreens declined to comment.

Entry #5,430

Lawmakers treat President Obama's jobs speech as a joke

The irrelevancy of the Obama presidency

 

Dana Milbank

Washington Post

Friday, September 9, 1:29 AM

 

President Obama gave one of the most impassioned speeches of his presidency when he addressed a joint session of Congress on Thursday night. Too bad so many in the audience thought it was a big, fat joke.

“You should pass this jobs plan right away!” Obama exhorted. Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) chuckled.

“Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary — an outrage he has asked us to fix,” Obama went on. Widespread laughter broke out on the GOP side of the aisle.

“This isn’t political grandstanding,” Obama said. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) guffawed.

“This isn’t class warfare,” Obama said. More hysterics on the right.

“We’ve identified over 500 [regulatory] reforms, which will save billions of dollars,” the president claimed. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) giggled.

It was, in a way, more insulting than Joe Wilson’s “you lie” eruption during a previous presidential address to Congress. The lawmakers weren’t particularly hostile toward the president — they just regarded the increasingly unpopular Obama as irrelevant. And the inclination not to take the 43-percent president seriously wasn’t entirely limited to the Republicans.

The nation is in an unemployment crisis, and Obama was finally, belatedly, unveiling his proposals, but Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) thought this joint session of Congress would be a good time to ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to autograph a copy of the children’s book “House Mouse, Senate Mouse.”

Former representative David Wu (D-Wash.), forced to resign this summer over accusations of sexual impropriety, nevertheless showed up for the speech (in a business suit rather than his tiger suit) and took a seat among the Democrats.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Vice President Biden set the tone at the start. Waiting for Obama to make his way down the center aisle, they stood before the House and had a talk — not about jobs, but about golf.

“Seven birdies, five bogeys,” Boehner reported to Biden.

“You’re kidding me!” the vice president said.

“I missed a four-foot, straight-on birdie on the last hole,” Boehner said of another round.

“Whoa!” the vice president said.

“So, the next day,” Boehner went on, “I shoot an 86! Ha, ha, ha!”

“That’s incredible,” the vice president said.

Boehner went on about other memorable golf moments before an aide let the men know that their microphones were live.

Obama rose to the occasion with a bold jobs proposal that delighted liberals but also had elements conservatives grudgingly endorsed. Yet long before the speech, both sides had concluded that it didn’t much matter: Obama has become too weak to enact anything big enough to do much good.

“I thought it was a great speech,” said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) But the odds of Obama getting his plan through Congress “are probably as good as the Nationals winning the league this year.”

Presidential addresses to Congress are often dramatic moments. This one felt like a sideshow. Usually, the press gallery is standing-room-only; this time, only 26 of 90 seats were claimed by the deadline. Usually, some members arrive in the chamber hours early to score a center-aisle seat; 90 minutes before Thursday’s speech, only one Democrat was so situated.

Republican leaders, having forced Obama to postpone the speech because of the GOP debate, decided they wouldn’t dignify the event by offering a formal, televised “response.” And the White House, well aware of Obama’s declining popularity, moved up the speech time to 7 p.m. so it didn’t conflict with the Packers-Saints NFL opener at 8:30.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) had planned to skip the speech to host a football party, but the Senate majority leader thwarted his plan. “Typical Harry Reid,” Vitter tweeted. “He’s now schdld votes that should’ve been this morn 4 right b4 & right AFTER prez’s speech. Pens me in 2 have 2 stay.”

Almost all Republicans ignored the calls of some within their ranks to boycott the speech. In fact, the empty seats were on the Democratic side. Democrats lumbered to their feet to give the president several standing ovations, but they struggled at times to demonstrate enthusiasm. When Obama proposed payroll tax cuts for small businesses, three Democrats stood to applaud. Summer jobs for disadvantaged youth brought six Democrats to their feet, and a tax credit for hiring the long-term unemployed produced 11 standees.

Obama spoke quickly, urgently, even angrily. Rep. Jesse Jackson (D-Ill.) stared at the ceiling. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) scanned the gallery. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) was seen reading a newspaper. And Republicans, when they weren’t giggling, were mostly silent.

Even a mention of Abraham Lincoln, “a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad,” brought no applause from the GOP side. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) yawned. One Republican backbencher, Jeff Landry of Louisiana, chose this moment to hold up a sign demanding “Drilling = Jobs.”

So now even Lincoln doesn’t merit Republican applause when Obama invokes his name? If it weren’t so disturbing, it would be kind of funny.

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