FRIDAY

The Harder They Come

Two subjects were seen smoking marijuana on F Street.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Sacramento

Individual was seen trying to hitch a ride to Winters or Sacramento on Second Street.

Bills, bills, bills

Individual reported her son cashed her assistance check and did not pay the bills on East Eighth Street.

A little bit of PMS

Individual was banging on bedroom door threatening to break all of the reporting party’s things on Glacier Drive.

Sexy time

Loud subjects were reported in the hot tub on Alvarado Avenue.

SATURDAY

Do the can-can

A transient individual was seen sleeping under play structure with numerous cans of alcohol on Denison Drive.

I can’t believe it’s not butter

Individual reported someone damaged husband’s car and license plate, TPed the house and smeared butter on another car on Bluebeard Place.

Shy

Loud amplified music was heard and reporting party did not want to contact them on L Street.

Good Samaritan

Individual reported traffic circle had six-pack of bottles on the road and was worried some kid might get hurt at Wright Boulevard and Moore Place.

Show me the money!

Two individuals went door to door selling magazines and when the reporting party said they didn’t have any money, they said, “What do you mean you don’t have any money?” and started yelling profanities. They were then seen going to a neighbor’s and looking over a fence when no one answered the door.

SUNDAY

Gotta love them frat boys

Individual reported house across the street was playing music too loudly and believes it may be the frat house on Russell Boulevard.

Hot tub hotties

Three to four subjects were reported being too loud at the hot tubs on Alvarado Avenue.

Boyfriend blues?

Individual entered reporting party’s apartment, was kicked out and was heard outside crying on First Street.

You can do it all night long

Individual reported hearing a male and female fighting all night long in addition to playing loud music.

POLICE BRIEFS are compiled by ANN KIM from the public logs at the Davis Police Department and represent the official version of what happened. This segment appears Tuesdays and Thursdays. The DPD crime blotter can be viewed at cityofdavis.org/police/log.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility Districtunveiled a new solar-powered hydrogen refueling station on S Street on Apr. 1 for use in the district’s participation in a Department of Energy program.

The station boasts $1.7 million worth of solar panels paid for by SMUD as well as another $1.7 million in hydrogen refueling equipment paid for by the DOE and British Petroleum. The renewable energy source will refuel hydrogen fuel cell vehicles driven by SMUD employees on district business.

“The solar ray is keeping with SMUD’s history of supporting solar,” said Bill Boyce, supervisor of SMUD’s electric transportation group. “We’ve been a strong solar utility for over 20 years.”

SMUD is participating in the Hydrogen Learning Demonstration Project, a government and industry cost-sharing program sponsored by the Department of Energy as well as private automotive and energy companies. The DOE is paying an estimated $360 million, half the cost of the program, while private industry is contributing the other half, accordingto DOE’s website.

The project’s purpose is to bring private automotive and energy companies together under the guidance of the DOE in order to simultaneously install both hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and refueling stations in cities around the country.

“It’s a way to take [hydrogen] one step closer to commercialization,” said Joshua Cunningham, program manager for the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways Program at UC Davis.

Before the project began in 2004, car companies conducted separate testing and demonstrations of fuel cell vehicles. The DOE program allows them to combine their energy as well as conduct public outreach programs, Cunningham said.

Sacramento is one of only seven U.S. cities selected to participate in the vehicle demonstration and testing. Ford Motor Company and Daimler-Chrysler provided SMUD with its seven fuel cell vehicles, while British Petroleum installed the refueling station. The federal government recently approved a second phase of the project beginning in 2010, Cunningham said.

The new station will better support vehicle testing and be used to educate the public about generating hydrogen from renewable sources, Boyce said. The station will generate up to 12 kilograms of hydrogen per day. SMUD’s fuel cell vehicles can travel 40 to 50 miles per kilogram of hydrogen and take two to four kilograms per fillup.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are among the leading alternatives to fossil fuel-burning cars. They fill up at service stations like gasoline vehicles but instead of putting liquid fuel into the tank, fuel cell vehicles take hydrogen gas. The engine takes the hydrogen stored onboard, combines it with oxygen from the air and then sends the combination into the fuel cell – which generates electricity to power the car, Cunningham said.

“It’s basically an electric vehicle, but instead of storing electricity in batteries it generates it onboard,” he said.

Hydrogen fuel cells are considered “the ultimate clean motor fuel,” according to SMUD’s website, because their only byproduct is water; however, some in the alternative transportation field disagree.

“Battery-electric drive technology is proven much more affordable and durable than hydrogen fuel cell technology, is two to four times more efficient in energy use and doesn’t require building a new multi-billion dollar fueling infrastructure,” said Sherry Boschert, vice president of Plug-in America, a nonprofit alternative energy advocacy group.

Fuel cell skeptics contend that the technology is energy inefficient because hydrogen used to power the vehicles doesn’t exist naturally and must be generated using electricity to separate it from other compounds.

“People are starting to realize that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles don’t make sense, but there is a self-perpetuating industry and tons of money committed to it, so the idea is likely to die a slow death,” Boschert said. “For example, in 2007 the DOE budgeted $196 million to research and develop hydrogen technology, compared with only $51 million for hybrid and electric propulsion.”

Proponents of electric technology often point to the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle as the best solution. Plug-in hybrids are a regular Prius-type hybrid but with a larger battery pack that can be charged from a standard household outlet. The car initially runs only on electricity but automatically switches to hybrid mode once the battery pack’s charge is depleted.

“It’s very easy for people to say those two vehicles are in direct competition,” Cunningham said. “But I firmly believe we cannot pick just one solution. There is no silver bullet.”

SMUD has tested every kind of alternative transportation technology including plug-in hybrids.

“In my opinion, we need them all,” Boyce said. “I don’t think it’s one vs. another. When we need to go beyond oil-based technologies, we’re going to need all of them.”

ALYSOUN BONDE can be reached at city@californiaaggie.com.

While Proposition 215, passed by California voters in 1996, allows patients to possess and cultivate marijuana for medicinal use, not all counties in the state are accepting of the discrepancy with federal law.

In a 3-2 vote last month, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors rejected a medical marijuana identification card program, mandated by Senate Bill 420 in 2003 to address vague provisions of the initial law.

The county is one of 18 in the state that has not yet adopted the state program. Advocates say the ID cards help all parties involved by identifying patients who have a legal right to possess medical marijuana based on a physician’s recommendation.

“What the ID card does is give a legal patient an easy way to identify themselves, should they be questioned,” said Bruce Mirken, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project. “It’s simply something that makes life easier for both patients and police.”

The three board members who struck down the proposal were largely supported by the county’s law enforcement officials, including Sheriff John McGinness and District Attorney Jan Scully.

Reasons offered against the program included the assertion that ID cards would encourage marijuana use and the fact that the behavior is still illegal by federal law.

Yolo County is one of the 38 counties that have implemented the ID card program. However, the issue was not without controversy.

“I think the program proposed at the time put sheriff’s deputies in a difficult situation,” said District Three supervisor Matt Rexroad, who voted against the ID cards. “[Marijuana use] is a violation of federal law, and I just think that is confusing for the officer.”

Rexroad added that he has not yet seen a person who has not been able to acquire marijuana without an ID card.

“That just doesn’t happen,” he said.

Advocates continue to assert that controversy surrounding the program stems from a general dislike of Prop 215.

“The problem is some people just don’t like Proposition 215 and want it to go away … and it’s absolutely disgusting,” Mirken said. “These few counties [that have not adopted the program] have essentially voted to defy state law.”

Additionally, Mirken said there is no evidence that similar programs in other locations have increased the non-medical use of marijuana.

“The reasons that have been given and echoed by the board of supervisors in Sacramento are completely phony,” he said. “They have no basis, in fact, at all.”

However, not all patients using medical marijuana are thrilled about the ID card program.

Nils Johnson, first-year anthropology major, received a physician’s recommendation for marijuana from a San Francisco clinic in December as a result of chronic sleep problems and pain stemming from appendix removal surgery.

Because initial pain medications prescribed disrupted normal bowel movements, Johnson convinced the physician that marijuana would be a more natural pain reliever. Since then, Johnson said he has received his marijuana from local delivery-based dispensaries in Yolo County.

While the recommendation allows Johnson to legally smoke marijuana in the state of California, he said that he has not acquired the ID card, which would place him in a 24-hour database available to law enforcement officials.

“[The ID card program] would be a fantastic system if it were confidential,” he said, voicing concerns over being singled out by authorities. In addition, Johnson cited cost as a barrier for many acquiring the ID card.

Still, Johnson said he sees medical marijuana programs such as these as an important step to legalization.

“I don’t think that the government has the right to regulate a plant,” he said.

CHINTAN DESAI can be reached at city@californiaaggie.com.

What if someone told you that you were emitting hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide per year? Say, 225,200 tons of carbon dioxide?

That’s the question the city of Davis is currently facing. According to figures developed by the city’s Climate Action Team, Davis emitted 225,200 equivalent tons of carbon dioxide in 1990. By 2015, if things were to continue without change, the number would jump to 313,006 tons.

These numbers were presented to the Davis City Council on Apr. 1 as part of a greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

The inventory found that 57 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Davis come from transportation. Another 23 percent of the emissions come from the residential sector and an additional 20 percent from commercial activity.

So far the projections are only based on data from 1990.

“It takes months of research just to get one year’s amount of data,” said senior utility resource specialist Richard Tsai. “There are many sources. There’s data from PG&E, Department of Transportation, the Air Quality Research Board that we have to get.”

According to the report, 3 percent of emissions come from city government, while 97 percent comes from the community. City government emission sources include city buildings, city-owned vehicles, streetlights and traffic lights and waste.

“It’s small, but it is 3 percent, and we need to lead by example,” said City Councilmember Stephen Souza.

The data was compiled using special software developed by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. It is measured in “equivalent carbon dioxide,” which is used to describe all greenhouse gas emissions in an equivalent volume of carbon dioxide.

Councilmembers discussed several ideas for reducing emissions. One idea proposed by Souza is to expand solar production at the city’s current solar farm known as PVUSA, short for Photovoltaics for Utility Systems Applications. That facility is only legally allowed to produce one megawatt of electricity per year, said Mitch Sears, Sustainability Program coordinator.

“Certainly that site is capable in terms of land area of producing far in excess of what the city [government] would need,” Sears said.

Additional legislation would be required to expand production, he said.

Mayor Sue Greenwald said she also supports a solar approach.

“The time is now ripe to continue to expand the solar production,” said Greenwald. “I’d also like to get back into the research and testing end of it if possible, because a city like Davis with the university [should be able to do more than just production].”

The greenhouse gas inventory is the first of five steps the city adopted last April toward reducing its impact on the environment. The next step is to adopt an emissions reduction target for the forecast year of 2015.

The Climate Action Team met Apr. 3 to further discuss the inventory and begin dividing into smaller groups. The team meets the first and third Thursdays of the month from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Meetings are open to the public and are held in various locations. More information is available on the city’s website at cityofdavis.org.

JEREMY OGUL can be reached at city@californiaaggie.com.

On Mar. 31, a lawsuit was filed against the Apple Corporation for allegedly deceiving the public and customers by exaggerating and ultimately falsely advertising the capabilities of its new 20-inch iMac monitor.

The class-action suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose by Los Angeles based law firm Kabatek Brown Kellner LLP, a plaintiffs-only firm that is “always on the consumers’ side.”

In a press release about the suit, Kabatek Brown Kellner claims that Apple has “grossly inflated the capabilities of its monitor” even though it is inferior to previous generations and the new 24-inch iMacs. Apple told consumers the 20-inch iMac and 24-inch iMac displayed “millions of colors at all resolutions,” which is only true in the case of the 24-inch iMac and previous generations of the 20-inch iMac. In actuality, the new 20-inch only displays 262,144 colors, 98 percent fewer than the 16,777,316 colors on the 24-inch.

The difference in capabilities is significant because Apple advertises the two monitors as though they are interchangeable, when really the 20-inch iMac screens have a narrower viewing angle, less color depth and accuracy and are more susceptible to washout across the screen, according to the press release.

“Apple is duping its customers into thinking they’re buying ‘new and improved’ when in fact they’re getting stuck with ‘new and inferior,'” said Brain Kabateck, managing partner of Kabateck Brown Kellner.

Apple’s website tells consumers “No matter what you like to do on your computer – watch movies, edit photos, play games, even just view a screen saver – it’s going to look stunning on an iMac,” which the lawsuit points out to be untrue since the inferior technology and limited color potential of the 20-inch iMac is ill-suited for editing photographs.

Although there are differences between the monitors, UC Davis Apple customers don’t seem to have a problem with them.

“People haven’t complained, and we have anal retentive people coming in about the monitors,” said Michael Souder, sales associate at the TechHub at the UC Davis Bookstore. “We’ve had complaints about computers not being fast enough and not coming with software, but we’ve never had complaints about the monitor’s picture or wrongfully advertising, which I think speaks a lot about the products.”

UC Davis Apple customers, although a bit bothered by the lawsuit, still feel the same about the products.

“If Apple claims a product is something it’s not, they should refund people their money,” said UC Davis junior and Apple user Michelle Jose. “I would still buy Mac regardless. They have really great graphics, and they are better than Windows.”

According to Kabateck, the goal of the lawsuit is to help the customers who were deceived and taken advantage of and to make sure Apple tells the truth in the future.

ALEX BULLER can be reached at city@californiaaggie.com.