Payroll Inflation Leaves Willie Brown Behind

Mayor Willie Brown is slipping.

Not in the polls, at least not markedly--he did get reelected, after all.

But last year he was No. 13 on the city payroll’s moneymaker list.

This year, he ranks No. 25; 24 of his employees took home more than the mayor’s $147,000. The city’s airport director and its public health director went to the bank with $185,000 and $181,000; about 200 cops hit six figures, thanks to overtime--much of it from private companies needing extra security, the police chief hastened to explain.

A few city plumbers and bus drivers also hit the big six figures, a salary that would have sent Ralph Kramden himself to the moon.

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Thank a vet: State Sen. Don Perata is fit to be tied--not unlike the creatures he wants to protect.

As an Alameda County supervisor, he passed a law requiring on-site veterinarians at most rodeos. Before, an injured animal had to suffer while a vet was summoned to treat or euthanize it. This month, a horse at a Livermore rodeo broke its neck and was put to death at once by the vet who was required to be there by Perata’s measure.

“Animals deserve as much consideration as the athletes,” the Oakland Democrat argued. “It’s ironic that we require ambulances to be on site [for humans] but don’t do a comparable thing for animals. If it weren’t for the animals, there wouldn’t be any rodeo.”

Yet when Perata tried to do the same thing statewide, reaction “was like a buzz saw,” he said. The Assembly Agriculture Committee has sent the senator and his SB 1462 back for a rewrite. An on-site vet is too much, the committee declared; more reasonable in rural California is an on-call vet, one no more than 30 minutes or maybe an hour away.

Perata, whose bill already allows junior rodeos that latitude, says, “If the professional rodeo associations require it, why shouldn’t others? The animal doesn’t get to choose between a little arena and a big arena, Ferndale or the L.A. Coliseum.”

He hopes committee members realize, as he does, that supporters have the clout and the cash to get the measure on a statewide ballot. “If that’s the case, we could get a much more restrictive law than what I’ve proposed. Look what happened to mountain lion [hunting bans]. People care about these issues.”

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The green, green grass of home: A California taxicab cruising through the belly of Kansas was stopped by a lawman who wondered what kind of person would hop in a cab for a 2,200-mile trip to Cincinnati.

Nothing illegal in that. Even the $2,500 fare wasn’t highway robbery. But inside a television set the passenger was taking home to the Buckeye State, the lawman found 10 pounds of marijuana.

The cabby, unaware of the marijuana, isn’t in Kansas any more. He drove home with the $1,000 his passenger gave him at the outset, and a story he can tell for years about the fare that got away.

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One-offs: Al Capone’s toenail clippers, christening medal and other objets de crime went for $5,000 at a San Francisco auction of mobster memorabilia that included John Dillinger’s bulletproof vest and the hat Clyde Barrow was wearing when he was gunned down with Bonnie Parker. . . . Border Patrol agents at Temecula seized 90 vials of liquid testosterone hidden inside a ceramic “Winnie the Pooh” statue. . . . The Sierra foothills town of Rough and Ready celebrates the 150th anniversary of the day it seceded from the United States to form its own republic, which ended after 90 days because either (no one is quite sure) residents realized they had to rejoin the union to buy liquor or because a pregnant resident wanted her baby to be born a U.S. citizen.

EXIT LINE

“It’s quite the landmark. In fact, I recently wrote ‘Snoopy Rock’ in the directions for a vendor who’ll be delivering asphalt for roadwork up here.”

--Tom White, Caltrans maintenance supervisor for California 299 between Redding and Burney, home to the Snoopy Rock. For years, the formation reminded drivers of the cartoon dog, and in 1986, Burney resident Paul Welty applied paint to highlight the resemblance. Truckers and emergency crews have come to use it as a navigational landmark.

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Sweet Season

June is apricot season in California, which produces 95% of the nation’s crop. Statewide production this year is forecast at 95,000 tons. Here are the top apricot-producing counties in 1998, the most recent year for which detailed statistics are available:

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TONS OF VALUE TO GROWERS COUNTY APRICOTS (in millions) Stanislaus 113,000 $35.1 San Joaquin 28,700 $7.1 Merced 10,044 $3.0 Fresno 7,300 $6.9 Tulare 5,360 $5.7 San Benito 4,473 $1.5 Contra Costa 3,540 $1.1 Kern 2,550 $2.8 Santa Clara 1,500 $0.5 Kings 622 $0.3 State total 177,617 $64.6

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Sources: California Agricultural Statistics Service, county agricultural commissioners

Researched by TRACY THOMAS/Los Angeles Times

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