In Local News . . .

Here in Ridgecrest California, in the high Mojave Desert, we are between the vast China Lake Naval Weapons Facility and the High Sierra Mountains. Local weather for Southern California has been cold and wet recently – very unusual for this desert community. There is even snow on the Sierras.

Southern California is actually a separate state and a completely different (and more rational) culture from Northern California, but everybody pretends we are the same state for congressional districting purposes.

In the spirit of several other writers here at MyMac, I want to include a few of the local newsworthy items in our beautiful city.


Safe and sound, Jaks is home

Alec Jaks returned to Ridgecrest Sunday, exactly one month after allegedly being abducted by his non-custodial father Lowell Jaks. Jaks was safely reunited with his mother, Elaine Jackson, in the Dominican Republic Saturday evening. “Alec is in good health and in good spirits, and we are so happy to have him home, especially Liam,” said Jackson, referring to Jaks’ 18-month-old brother.

Lowell Jaks remains in custody of the Dominican National Police. He will be extradited to the United States shortly. According to Jackson, Lowell Jaks was recognized by a peace officer as he tried to use an Automated Teller Machine, and later apprehended. The boy said he had learned some Spanish while on his month-long “vacation,” and had enjoyed swimming and boogie boarding off the Dominican coast.

Yeah, Alec is a lucky kid, but he doesn’t think so. He knew what his father was planning and didn’t tell his mother about it. Seems the Feds have gotten longer arms now, and anyone who tries a family abduction can’t even run to another country without being caught.

Local Search and Rescue locates downed plane

Witnesses reported seeing a plane go down, then a fire flare up in the San Emigdio Mountains near Bakersfield Friday about 9 p.m. The China Lake Mountain Search and Rescue Team was called out to assist in the search for the crash site, at about 2 a.m. last Saturday. The crash site is about 75 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The plane was reportedly heading from Seal Beach to Sacramento when air traffic controllers lost contact on Friday.

“We got up there around first light,” said team leader Linda Finco of Ridgecrest. She described talking to an eye witness, who pointed to where he had seen the plane go down, behind some distant trees. The search area was a mountain side, with snow falling lightly during their search. Once they found the site, the snow let up. “As soon as the local base helicopter pilot spotted the crash site, he radioed to us through the base camp. He hovered over the site until we got there. We were pretty close,” said Finco.

The China Lake team helped move the body in a litter up about 500 feet to a fire road, where they were met by the Frazier Park team, driving Fire Cat vehicles. Team members from Ridgecrest who participated in this operation were Linda Finco, Al Green, Bob Rockwell, Dan Bishop, Bud Gates, and Dave Doerr. China Lake Mountain Search and Rescue has earned a reputation for their exceptional skills on difficult terrain.

Linda and her team are legends around here. They are on the Base, but they are firefighters before anything else. They even went to New York during 9/11.

The bright and popular young man from Seal Beach who died was a new pilot, and not checked out on instruments, flying into the fog and rain around the Sierras, while trying to get to Sacramento. Such a waste.

Grocery workers ratify contract Strikers to return to work this week

“The contract was ratified. Our members will be coming back to work this week,” said United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1036 representative John Johantgen. “Hopefully we will get back to some normalcy now.”

Balloting by union membership took place Saturday and Sunday at locations throughout Southern California, from Bishop to San Diego. “All our members certainly appreciate all the support we’ve gotten from the Indian Wells Valley, Searles Valley, Inyo and Mono counties, and the whole east side of the Sierras.”

The vote concludes a 20-week strike by employees of Safeway Inc., which owns the Vons grocery chain, and a simultaneous lockout imposed by Albertsons, Inc. and Kroger Company, owner of the Ralphs grocery chain. The labor dispute affected 70,000 grocery workers at almost 900 stores in all of Southern California. The primary issues were proposed cutbacks in healthcare, increased premiums, pensions and job security. Details of the settlement were not released.



Yeah, my store is open once more. It was open anyway during the strike, but the customers did not want to cross the picket lines, knowing the store workers and all. Many of them are friends. Other people, temps, came to work during the lockout, but they were not as adept at the checkout and such. The store soon became pretty run down and many items were not available.

The whole thing was a hardship on everyone, except the single non union store in town, whose lines of customers were out the door. In the twenty weeks of the strike, they virtually rebuilt the insides of their store with new equipment and decor. They had the money to do it, servicing 22,000 people in our town, virtually single handed.

The employees at the striking stores spent their days outside the front of the stores on picket lines – a hardy proposition, given the extremes of climate in this desert town. But they stuck to their lines. Talk is that the settlement is in their favor, since they would have lost all their medical benefits otherwise.

I am glad to be shopping at my store again, since before, they had the best deli and bakery in the area, and usually better prices. Funny how something mundane like this you take for granted until its suddenly missing.

I won’t begin to try to compare this situation to other countries where a supermarket is but an impossible dream.


Film at 11.