A10
AUG. 2, 2013
THE COAST NEWS
FCCSB receives donation to fund stairway By Jared Whitlock
The cause of an approximately 10-acre fire is still unknown. The fire immediately threatened two homes, but no homes were damaged. Photo by Nick Cagala
Cause of Hodges fire is still unknown By Tony Cagala
ESCONDIDO — The cause of a fire that charred approximately 10 acres east of the boat dock at Lake Hodges is still unknown. Cal Fire was asked to take the lead on the investigation, but calls to the agency went unanswered. The vegetation fire, which started on July 25, was contained in 45 minutes, said Escondido Fire Battalion Chief Ken Slaven. “It’s forward progress got stopped about 20 or 25 minutes after the initial dispatch,” he added. Rancho Santa Fe Fire units were the first to respond to the dispatched call at approximately 4:30 p.m.; they were assisted by Escondido and San Marcos fire units and Cal Fire. According to Slaven, the
Lake Hodges area is served by four fire agencies, including Rancho Santa Fe, Cal Fire, Escondido and the San Diego County Fire Authority. Residents near the area received a reverse 911 call. “Basically the (fire) got put out pretty quickly. It really only immediately threatened two homes, and the aircraft did a good job keeping it away from them,” Slaven said. Two helicopters from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department dropped water on the fire, as well as two Cal Fire fixed-wing air tankers from the Ramona airbase. Slaven described the conditions at Hodges as being “extremely dry.” “The burning conditions are very dry and fires are burning with a lot of intensity for this time of the year,”he added.
Clarifications: The July 26 article “Rancho Santa Fe Foundation moves to Encinitas” incorrectly stated the foundation’s new location is in the Santa Fe Plaza. It’s the Rancho Santa Fe Plaza. In the article “City Ramps Up Public Outreach Effort,” it was incorrectly stated that the city will put its General Plan to a public vote in Nov. 2014. Rather, the city intends to put its housing element to a public vote in Nov. 2014. Additionally, it was also incorrectly stated that the city will use MindMixer to conduct virtual town meetings. However, MindMixer is only a consideration at this point. In the July 26 story,“Fluoridation begins after permit OK’d,” John Carnegie was incorrectly identified as an OMWD Board of Directors member. Mr. Carngie is a staff analyst with OWMD.
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ENCINITAS — On Saturday, Cardiff Seaside Market made a $20,000 donation to help rebuild a beachside stairway that leads to the San Elijo Campgrounds. “The money will aid us in preserving beach access,” said Bill Mahoney, founding board member of Friends of Cardiff & Carlsbad State Beaches (FCCSB), a nonprofit that launched an adopt-a-stairway program this spring. “We’re very, very thankful,” he added. The cost of restoring a stairway is roughly $25,000, Mahoney said. Ultimately, FCCSB wants to repair nine local stairways throughout Encinitas and Carlsbad. Most of the stairways in these cities haven’t undergone major renovations since the 1960s. He noted the San Elijo Campgrounds stairway will likely be upgraded in October or November. Similar to adopt a highway, individuals, foundations or businesses can fund the repairs and ongoing maintenance of stairways to protect them for future gen-
Ken Hays, left, and Bill Wisener are among those heading an effort to maintain nine bluffside stairways in Encinitas and Carlsbad. The project was given a shot in the arm by a $20,000 donation from Cardiff Seaside Market. The donation was announced at Friends of Cardiff & Carlsbad State Beaches’ annual Christmas in July event. Photo by Jared Whitlock
erations. The donation was announced this past Saturday at FCCSB’s annual Christmas in July, a free
event that was attended by more than 2,000 people and raised more than $7,000 for beach-related causes. “We focused on giving
back to the community this year,” Mahoney said, adding that the event gave away more than 120 free prizes to the community.
Minimum wage, maximum frustration THE MOTLEY FOOL INVESTOR W a l Mart is the largest private employer in the world. More p e o p l e receive a payMORGAN check from HOUSEL the company than live in Latvia, Qatar, Slovenia or 96 other countries. Wal-Mart has gotten as big as it has — it will likely do half a trillion in sales this year — because it’s very efficient at what it does. Part of that efficiency means keeping wages low. According to market research group IBISWorld, the average Wal-Mart sales associate earns $8.81 per hour. The heat over WalMart’s low wages turned up this month when Washington D.C.’s city council passed a bill requiring all new stores of at least 75,000 square feet and $1 billion in annual revenue to pay a “superminimum” wage of $12.50 per hour, up from the city’s standard $8.25 per-hour minimum wage. Existing employers are exempt for four years. Wal-Mart currently has no stores within D.C. city limits, so the bill effectively forces any D.C.-based WalMart stores built in the next four years to pay a minimum wage 50 percent above its competitors. Wal-Mart, which had plans to open six stores in D.C., balked. “We will not pursue Skyland, Capitol
Gateway and New York Avenue and will start to review the financial and legal implications on the three stores already under construction,” spokesman Steven Restivo said. “This was a difficult decision for us — and unfortunate news for most D.C. residents — but the Council has forced our hand.” Now the awkward moment: D.C.’s city council proposed the bill to help provide its residents with a living wage. But Wal-Mart — which said its six planned D.C. stores could have created 1,800 jobs — will now be providing no wages to D.C. residents. The winner: nobody. Minimum wage, maximum frustration. We still don’t know how this story will end. Wal-Mart could change its mind, or Mayor Vincent Gray could veto the bill. But this seems like a good time to discuss the merits of the minimum wage. There are two sides to the minimum-wage debate. One says it prices low-skill workers out of the jobs market. That’s what Econ 101 tells us should happen, and it explains Wal-Mart’s experience in D.C. The other side says these stories are anecdotal, that there’s little evidence of employment falling when minimum wages are increased. Wal-Mart very likely can pay a $12.50 minimum wage while covering its cost of capital, and retailers like Costco have
shown that marginally higher wages can pay for themselves through lower employee turnover. Each side has evidence to back up its arguments. Economists Alan Krueger of Princeton and David Card of the University of California, Berkeley looked at minimum-wage hikes in California in 1988 and New Jersey in 1992, and compared them to regions that didn’t raise wages. The pair found that “increases in the minimum wage lead to increases in pay, but no loss in jobs.” Two economists from the London School of Economics looked at different data and used a different statistical technique to show that, indeed, raising the minimum wage does reduce employment, particularly among teenagers. Arindrajit Dube, then at Berkeley, looked at yet another set of data and found “strong earnings effects and no employment effects of minimum wage increases.” Three separate economists asked fast-food restaurants in Georgia and Alabama how they would react to minimum-wage increases implemented between 2007 and 2009. Fifty-three percent said increasing employee performance standards was very important to deal with the wage hikes. Twentynine percent said they’d cut weekly hours of some employees. Eight percent
said they’d reduce headcounts. Bottom line: It’s a more complicated issue than we make it out to be. Here’s what we do know. Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 per hour) has declined sharply over the last forty years. But the problem with a statistic like this is that it masks differences in cost of living throughout the country. Some states and cities have their own minimum wages, but differences in pay are often swallowed by differences in costs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Cost of Living Index shows that it costs an average of 87 percent more to live in Honolulu than it does Cedar City, Utah, but minimum wages in the two cities are the same. Whether a worker finds a wage “fair,” or how likely he or she is to find a minimum wage worth working for, varies wildly by location. In the end, the problem with economists looking at the minimum-wage debate is that the issue is far more political than it is economic. And alas, politics being what they are, there are few agreements, and the only constants are frustration and disagreement.
(Morgan Housel has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool owns shares of Costco Wholesale.)