County reports second swine flu death

Below is a press release on the second swine flu-related death in Stanislaus County, a 37-year-old man. Here is our story on the first.

The county likely won't release any info on this man's identity aside from what's in the news release. If anyone has any information on the man, please contact me at james@pattersonirrigator.com or call 892-6187.

--------------------------------------------

Second Death from H1N1 Flu in Stanislaus County

Stanislaus County – Stanislaus County health officials announce that a 37-year-old male has died on August 10 from complications of the H1N1 (swine flu) virus, while hospitalized. His death is the second in Stanislaus County involving a person with the H1N1 virus. “We would like to convey our deepest sympathy to the family of this patient," stated Dr. John Walker, County Health Officer. “We are grieved by this second death, and his death reminds us that the H1N1 virus is widespread and among us. Although this should not be cause for alarm, everyone should remain vigilant in helping to prevent the spread of H1N1.”

The vast majority of cases have mild or moderate illness, and most patients fully recover. “However,” Dr. Walker adds, “the tragic California H1N1 deaths this spring and summer reveal that we are still in the early stages of a global influenza pandemic, and we need to continue precautions to protect ourselves, our families, our co-workers, and our community.”

Effective July 16, the California Department of Public Health changed the reporting requirements for individual case reporting for H1N1 influenza by local health jurisdictions (Local Health Departments).

New reporting requirements will track only hospitalized and fatal cases. Non-hospitalized case reporting is no longer needed at this stage of the pandemic. As of August 5 this year, there have been a total of 892 hospitalized cases and 92 deaths in California. In Stanislaus County, there have been 35 hospitalized cases.

There is currently no vaccine available to protect against the novel H1N1 virus. Vaccine is in production and should be available by late fall-early winter. It is important that county residents take the following precautions to help prevent the spread of the virus.

• Cover your coughs and sneezes with your elbows, sleeves, or with a tissue. Dispose of the tissue after each use. Coughing into hands can spread germs to others.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, even after washing your hands.
• Avoid close contact with sick people.
• Stay home and away from others if you are sick.

The symptoms of H1N1 Influenza in humans are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people have also reported diarrhea and vomiting associated with H1N1 influenza.

If a person has these symptoms, here are some simple steps to follow:

• It is not necessary to be tested for the virus in most cases.
• Contact your healthcare provider by phone, especially if you are pregnant or have a health condition such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma, or emphysema.
• Ask your healthcare provider about medications that may help relieve the symptoms of the flu.
• Stay home and away from others until at least 24 hours after you are free of fever (100° F or 37.8°C), or signs of a fever without use of fever–reducing medications.
• Get plenty of rest and drink clear liquids.
• Avoid close contact with others.

For more information about the H1N1 virus, please visit the following websites:

• Stanislaus County website at www.stanemergency.com
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at www.cdc.gov
• The California Department of Public Health at www.cdph.ca.gov

School board candidate deadline extended

The deadline to apply for candidacy in the race for three seats on the Patterson Joint Unified School District has been extended to Wednesday — and if no more candidates step forward, there will be no race at all.

Incumbents Michelle Bays and Ruben Pina have taken out papers to run again this year. Fellow incumbent Susan Scheuber has not, and I hear she likely will not run this year. Local business owner Grace McCord will run, but as of Friday, there were no other candidates. If that holds, McCord would get Scheuber's spot uncontested — and we'll have a lot less to talk about come October and November.

The original deadline of 5 p.m. Friday was extended to Wednesday, so we'll see if anyone else steps up. Don't expect to see anything on this in Thursday's paper, because the deadline for candidates to apply comes after our deadline for the paper. We'll likely have a story next Thursday detailing the situation.

People interested in becoming candidates can visit the Stanislaus County Elections Office at 1021 I St., Room 101, in Modesto, or call 525-5200 (525-5230 for Spanish).

In other news, former mayoral candidate Luis Molina will be uncontested in his bid to remain the District 5 representative on the Stanislaus County Board of Education. Also, the three open seats on the Patterson Irrigation District board will each be filled by incumbents. The filing deadline for those races have closed and were not extended.

School board meets tonight

The Patterson Joint Unified School District board will meet tonight (7 p.m., District Office, 510 Keystone Blvd.) in what promises to be a calmer, quieter, less controversial gathering than last month's meeting.

Among the notable items on the agenda is a report from Mark Wheeler, the district's manager of facilities and construction, on the progress that has been made on projects being paid for by Measure V, which was passed by voters in November. According to Wheeler's report, progress is being made on the district's top three priorities — as decided by the board before the election.

Modernization of the agricultural science/auto mechanics building at Patterson High School is underway and is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Completion of Walnut Grove School is moving along — permanent classrooms and the kitchen to be finished for the start of school this week and construction on a permanent student support services building and one additional classroom to begin in September — though no work is scheduled for the library building as of yet. And the district's $12 million debt is being paid off as scheduled.

Also on the agenda is a report on the 2009-10 budget from Assistant Superintendent Steve Menge. The report states that while the district is still waiting to hear final numbers on how the new state budget will affect its allocations, Menge believes many of the proposed cuts have already been factored in by the district and therefore the impact to the district might not be too severe. The district has made several significant cuts already, having laid off teachers and classified staff and closed Rising Sun School, among other cuts.

Health center decision could come tonight

The Del Puerto Health Care District's board of directors meets tonight (7 p.m., 875 E St.) and will possibly decide on the course of action it will take in the ongoing saga of its health center. For those who haven't been paying attention, here's a recap:

The district announced plans late last year to move the Del Puerto Health Center from its current location at 1108 Ward Ave. to a much larger building in the Keystone Pacific Business Park. Its current landlord, John Ramos, appealed the Patterson Planning Commission's approval of the move, stating that zoning laws in the business park did not allow for that type of medical use. In February, the commission again sided with the district. In May, the City Council heard Ramos' appeal and sided against the district, denying the move.

Now, the district's board must decide what it will do next. At its last meeting, June 2, the board came out of its closed session discussion only to announce no decision had been made. District CEO Margo Arnold said this afternoon the board needs to make a decision. The directors could decide to apply for an amendment to the city's zoning law in an attempt to move forward with the Keystone site. Or they could decide to move on and look for another site. The district's lease at the current site runs out next year, so time would appear to be a factor in the board's decision.

I'll post again tonight if anything noteworthy comes out of the meeting.

Industrial supplier plans massive distribution center at Keystone

Grainger Industrial Supply announced today its plans to build an 800,000-square-foot distribution center in the Keystone Pacific Business Park in western Patterson. The building, slated to open in mid-2011, would be roughly the size of the CVS (formerly Longs) distribution center and would provide 150 to 200 warehouse and logistics jobs, according to a company news release.

Grainger has more than 600 branches and 18 distribution centers around the world. Far as I can tell, the closest branch is in Ceres. I'm hoping to talk with a representative from the company today. May or may not get a story on this into Thursday's paper, but we'll have something at least by next week.

Below is the full text of the news release:

----------------------------------------------

Grainger Announces Expansion in California’s Central Valley

Company to build new 800,000 square-foot distribution center in Patterson

Santa Ana, Calif. (July 28, 2009) – Grainger, a distributor of facilities maintenance supplies, today announced plans to build a new distribution center in Patterson, Calif. The company recently purchased a 45-acre property in Patterson’s KeyStone West Business Park and plans to break ground on the development in September.

“Grainger is excited to become part of the Patterson business community,” said Brian Williams, Regional Director of Distribution at Grainger. “We’ve been in California for 75 years and building a new distribution center in the Central Valley will allow us to deliver more products next-day to our customers on the West Coast.”

The 800,000 square-foot distribution center is scheduled to open mid-2011 and is projected to house more than 350,000 industrial supply products, such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment, hand and power tools, and electrical and safety supplies. The company anticipates the new facility will employ 150-200 warehouse and logistics employees when complete.

Grainger currently operates nearly 50 locations in California and employs 1,000 people throughout the state. Founded in 1927, Grainger has a long history of being an active member in the communities where its employees live and work.

For more information about the new facility, media should contact JP Clark, Regional Communications Manager at (949) 300-4943 or jp.clark@grainger.com

About Grainger
Illinois-based W.W. Grainger, Inc. (NYSE: GWW), with 2008 sales of $6.9 billion, is the leading broad line supplier of facilities maintenance products serving businesses and institutions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, India, China and Panama. Through a highly integrated network including more than 600 branches, 18 distribution centers and multiple Web sites, Grainger's employees help customers get the job done.

Let's try this again, shall we?

Ok, so that first little experiment with blogging was a little spotty. Now that we've pretty well established ourselves on Twitter and Facebook, I think it's time to give this another shot.

Unfortunately, I'll be going it alone this time, as reporter John Saiz has left us for a new life in the Bay Area. I have at least temporarily taken over John's city beat. We are going to be bringing in a new reporter, but that's likely a month or so away.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to again use this blog as a means by which to offer news updates and analysis to supplement our normal coverage. I'd like to start posting updates after City Council meetings, for example, whether that means the night of the meeting or the morning after. With stories not appearing in print until more than a week after the meetings, this seems like a good way to get information out.

As for last Tuesday's council meeting, I'll have a story up on the Web site on Monday. The biggest story to come out of the meeting was Tori Hughes being named Patterson's new police chief. A story on that will be up later in the week.

Marathon meeting fails to yield decision

Forgive me if I don't quite have the energy for a long, thorough post on this, but there seemed to be enough public interest that an update was in order.

Tuesday night's Patterson City Council meeting — one of the longest in recent memory, by some accounts — included more than THREE HOURS of legal arguments, public comment and discussion about the Del Puerto Health Care Center's proposed move to the Keystone Pacific Business Park and the appeal of that move by the health care district's current landlord, John Ramos. The meeting in its entirety lasted more than five hours and stretched past midnight (I'm assuming ... I left at about 11:45 p.m. with other agenda items still to come).

There were a lot of very technical legal interpretations of zoning ordinances, CEQA law and the developer agreement between Keystone and the city. There were a lot of impassioned pleas from patients, providers and health care district board members about the need for a bigger, better facility. The arguments on both sides were convincing.

As midnight approached, council members were still discussing whether they had a solid, impartial enough interpretation of the zoning laws and whether Ramos' motives — a matter of some debate — should be part of the discussion.

In the end, the council decided to solicit the opinion of a fifth lawyer — after hearing from attorneys for Ramos, the district and Keystone, as well as City Attorney George Logan — voting to seek out a land-use attorney while promising to come forth with a decision at the next council meeting.

It appeared as though the decision became more complicated as each argument was heard, and it doesn't appear likely this is going to be truly settled anytime soon. If the council votes for one side, the other could sue. If the council votes to amend the developer agreement and require CEQA approval, it could add precious months to the project for a district whose current lease expires in less than a year.

John Saiz will have a story on this in Saturday's Irrigator and probably on the Web site sometime this week. Stay tuned.