Quake
victim memorial plan withdrawn
After months of contention, the organizers behind a proposed statue that would commemorate the women killed in last December's earthquake have put their idea on hold.
On Tuesday, Paso Robles city officials at a Parks and Recreation meeting would have potentially decided whether or not to send the statue design plan to the City Council for approval.
Instead, Kyle Gardner, one of the memorial's main organizers, shocked attendees by withdrawing the proposal. The reason, he said, was downtown merchants' ongoing disapproval of the statue and a rumor that the Parks and Recreation committee was not going to approve the plan.
That withdrawal doesn't mean the issue has gone away.
"We haven't abandoned the project at all," Gardner said the day after the meeting. "We're just regrouping. As a matter of fact, we're going to push it a lot harder but we're going to do it in a much broader and organized manner."
Organizers now have three main goals: change the way Paso Robles approves its public art, get more public feedback on the proposed statue, and persuade downtown business owners that the park is the right place for the memorial.
The Gardner family, who were friends with both victims, came up with the idea for a memorial statue in the months following the quake. Since then local artist Dorothy Boyle contributed a potential design, Jon Kemple of Genesis Bronze has created a miniature version, and organizers have raised more than $11,000.
But the city meetings that have followed have been contentious for the organizers and painful for the families of the victims.
"It was a horrible experience," Gardner said.
In the next few months, organizers will hold public meetings to allow input on several different designs for the statue. ³
- Abraham Hyat
Few shots for Central Coast residents
Health departments and local doctors were caught off guard
by a sudden shortage of flu vaccine
San Luis Obispo County health officials have canceled their countywide Senior Flu Shot Day on Oct. 29 due to a lack of vaccinations.
Debbie Jo Trinidade, the county’s immunization coordinator, said the county has only received a few hundred of the state-allotted 6,960 adult and 1,020 child vaccinations.
And as for the rest, “We don’t know now. We don’t know if [we] will [get] a couple hundred, a couple thousand, or none at all,” she said.
Santa Barbara County is facing a similar shortage. Elliot Schulman, a physician with the county’s health department, said they are asking pharmacists who do have the vaccine to implement screening procedures to conserve vaccinations for at-risk groups.
As of press time, Schulman was uncertain what impact the shortage would have on the county’s flu shot clinics, scheduled to open on Oct. 28.
In Santa Maria, doctor Bill Okerblom ordered about 200 flu vaccinations for his practice nine months ago. They were originally scheduled to arrive the week of Sept. 26, in time for the 2004 flu season.
When the order didn’t arrive on time, he called Henry Schein Pharmaceuticals, the distributor, and was assured the shipment was delayed and would arrive the following week.
But when he heard the news on Oct. 5 that Chiron Corp., a British vaccine maker, had its license suspended by the British government and would not be supplying 46- to 48-million flu vaccines expected in the United States, he knew the situation had changed. Henry Schein ships Chiron-manufactured vaccines.
“I called Schein again, and they told me the vaccines would not be delivered at all this year,” Okerblom said.
Local patients who would normally seek out the vaccine at this time of year — particularly pregnant women, the elderly, and those with chronic health problems — are “scrambling to find places to get it,” he said.
“As long as there’s a lower degree of immunization in this population, there’s a higher probability of an epidemic, unless alternative sources can be found,” he explained.
British regulators ordered the shutdown after discovering contamination at the plant where Chiron manufactures the vaccine. The company was slated to provide about half of the nation’s flu vaccine supply. On Oct. 11, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena seeking documents about the vaccine. According to several media reports, the FDA red-flagged the plant for alleged contamination last year, but stopped short of shutting it down.
Only one other manufacturer, Aventis Pasteur, developed flu vaccine for the United States this year — about 54 million doses, 30 million of which have already shipped. About 1.1 million doses of FluMist, a nasal spray, will also be available nationwide this year.
Though some Central Coast hospitals do not administer flu shots to the general public, Catholic Healthcare West — which owns Santa Maria’s Marian Medical Center, Arroyo Grande Hospital, and San Luis Obispo’s French Hospital — has been in discussions with other local hospitals about how best to handle the situation, said spokeswoman Kelly Plunkett.
“Everyone is trying to prevent a huge scare, since healthy adults don’t need it — just those with chronic disease,” she said.
Staff Writer Abraham Hyatt can be reached at ahyatt@newtimesslo.com. Andrew Parker writes for New Times’ sister paper, the Santa Maria Sun, and can be reached at aparker@santamariasun.com.
Nobel effort
A controversial Nobel laureate comes to the Central Coast
Rigoberta Menchú, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, will appear
at a conference held by Family Life Counseling Services. The conference
is designed to reach out to people affected by domestic violence. Classes
and discussions with multiple guest speakers will be held on how to achieve
successful solutions toward peace. According to Dr. Vida Makowksi, conference
chair, Santa Maria has a very high rate of domestic battery.
“I’m hoping to inform the community so we can mobilize and
do something different,” Dr. Makowski said.
Menchú is a Mayan Indian of Guatemala known for her human rights work. She was awarded the Nobel Prize “in recognition of her work for social justice and ethnocultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples.”
The controversy surrounding Menchú grew after she was given the prize. She is the author of “I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala,” the story of her life growing up in Guatemala amid intense social violence. Critics claim that her book fabricates portions of her life.
In a scathing critique of “I, Rigoberta Menchú,” journalist David Horowitz, writes that “the fictional story of Rigoberta Menchú is a piece of Communist propaganda designed to incite hatred of Europeans and Westerners and the societies they have built, and to build support for Communist and terrorist organizations at war with the democracies of the West.”
Critics who claim that her book is a work of fiction raise particular debate with the treatment of her brother, who was killed by guerillas in “I, Rigoberta Menchú.” This prompted the New York Times to send a reporter to Guatemala to find the truth, but reports have been conflicting.
Menchú’s supporters counter by saying that she was not awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, she was given it for her peace work and that her book was not an autobiography of one person but of all oppressed people in Guatemala. They say her story is a story of the people. Similarly, the Nobel Prize committee never withdrew her award.
In her acceptance speech in 1992, Menchú’ said, “I
wish that a conscious sense of peace and a feeling of human solidarity
would develop in all peoples, which would open new relationships of respect
and equality for the next millennium, to be ruled by fraternity and not
by cruel conflicts.”
Later, she said that “a world at peace that could provide consistency,
interrelations, and concordance in respect of the economic, social and
cultural structures of the societies would indeed have deep roots and
a robust influence.”
Conference planners say that Menchú’s speech in Solvang
will address the power of peaceful change in society, communities, and
individuals.
“She has been controversial,” said Dr. Makowski. “[The
allegations] were found not to be of any merit and she still has her Nobel
Prize.”
Staff Writer John Peabody can be reached at jpeabody@newtimesslo.com.
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