Alameda County

Alameda County is poised to make drug companies pay for the safe collection and disposal of residents' unused medications.

The measure would apply to prescription drugs like penicillin as well as tightly controlled substances like OxyContin.

Supporters say the ordinance would help prevent overdoses and accidental poisonings and reduce water pollution – claims the pharmaceutical industry insists are not true.

Public agencies currently pay for 25 drug disposal sites in the county. (To see locations, click here.) The ordinance would require drug manufacturers and producers to pay for the disposal of their products or face fines of up to $1,000 a day. 

“The county should not be responsible for continuing to bear the financial burden alone,” said Nate Miley, president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and sponsor of the ordinance.

The measure also requires drug manufacturers to fund any efforts by Alameda County law enforcement agencies to collect controlled substances. Federal law requires that officers be present when such drugs, like Adderall, are returned. 

The ordinance is designed to make it easier for residents to get rid of their unwanted prescription medications. But it does not stipulate where or how drugs would be collected, for instance, whether there would be collection bins at hospitals or pharmacies, or if residents would have to return their unused medications through the mail.

Despite staggering pension fund shortfalls, officials overseeing some of the largest public retirement systems in the Bay Area have spent more than $60,000 since the beginning of 2008 to attend conferences just miles from their homes, expense records show.

For example, in May 2009, five trustees and the chief executive overseeing Contra Costa County’s pension system decided it was easier to stay overnight in San Francisco, 28 miles from their office. They billed the pension fund $5,441 for a trip that included three nights at the four-star Hyatt Regency San Francisco, as well as registration, meals and transportation, according to agency records obtained under the California Public Records Act. A sixth trustee canceled at the last minute, costing the fund an additional $353.

“It’s discretionary,” said Jerry R. Holcombe, an alternate member of the county’s Employees’ Retirement Association board who attended the conference. “Sometimes, it is more inconvenient to be commuting late in the evening and then come back in the morning.”

With a $1.3 billion unfunded pension liability – the difference between the retirement benefits owed to public employees and retirees and the funds available to pay for them – the Contra Costa County Employees’ Retirement Association is expected to run out of funds by 2025, according to a 2010 report by researchers from the University of Rochester and Northwestern University.

Monterey County had the highest youth homicide rate in California in 2010, followed by Alameda County, according to an analysis conducted by the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit group focused on curbing firearms violence.

The homicide rate for 10- to 24-year-olds in Monterey County, which includes Salinas, was 24.36 per 100,000, nearly triple the statewide rate. Alameda County, which includes Oakland, had a rate of 18.41 per 100,000. El Dorado, Humboldt, Napa, Placer and Sonoma counties had no youth killings in 2010.

The study [PDF] analyzed 35 California counties with at least 25,000 people between the ages of 10 and 24. Statewide, the vast majority of the slayings involved firearms. 

Salinas has long struggled with violence.

"Our neighborhoods – especially on the east side – have experienced so much death and violence over the last 20 to 30 years that a lot of these people have started to display symptoms of PTSD," said Brian Contreras, who co-founded the Second Chance youth program, which works to prevent gang violence in Monterey County. "Our kids don't want to go out at night."

The high youth homicide rate in Monterey County may be due in part to an entrenched gang culture and a lack of activities, he said. "There's really nothing to do, not stuff for young people."

Oakland also has traditionally struggled with long-standing gang problems, said Billie Weiss, an epidemiologist at UCLA, who studies injury and violence prevention. Risk factors for youth violence include high unemployment, poverty and drug trafficking in the community, she said.

Paramedics Plus, a private company taking over Alameda County's ambulance service tonight, may be short on paramedics and use a practice called “bird-dogging” to fill the gap – enlisting local firefighters who are cross-trained as paramedics to staff some of its 60 ambulances.

Based in Texas, Paramedics Plus is taking over 911 service in Alameda County from American Medical Response at midnight. So far, both Alameda County emergency officials and Paramedics Plus executives say the changeover, which has been in the works since April, is happening smoothly. 

But in an Oct. 19 e-mail obtained by California Watch, Paramedics Plus Chief Operating Officer Jeff Taylor asked Alameda County firefighters to provide staffing for his company's ambulances while the transition is taking place through tomorrow morning. Firefighters were used during a test run of the new service only a few days ago.

“As I'm sure you can understand, Paramedics Plus is not going to ask for assistance from other ambulance providers, instead, we are asking for Level 3 Firefighter Paramedics to staff 10 Paramedics Plus ambulances to run calls in the system,” Taylor e-mailed Alameda County officials and chiefs.

According to the memo, firefighters will be assisted by lower-level providers, emergency medical technicians, who can perform basic life support functions like CPR and blood pressure readings, but not advanced life support functions like defibrillation, IV lines, and injections of lifesaving drugs and medicines.

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All voting materials in Alameda County must be available in Chinese, Spanish and English, according to an agreement between the county and the federal government announced yesterday.

Among other stipulations of the agreement, the county must appoint coordinators for Chinese- and Spanish-language election programs, form a community advisory group and hire more bilingual election officials to ensure voters who speak limited English have fair access to the polls.

“The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy, and language barriers should never keep citizens from accessing that right,” Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. The “agreement ensures that Alameda County’s Spanish- and Chinese-speaking citizens will be able to cast an effective ballot and successfully participate in the electoral process. I congratulate Alameda County for their earnest cooperation in resolving this matter.”

The agreement follows allegations by the federal government that the county neither employed an appropriate number of bilingual poll officials nor adequately translated and distributed election-related materials, including ballots, registration forms and information found on the county’s website.

Dave Macdonald, registrar of voters in Alameda County, was not available for comment yesterday.

This is not the first time the federal government has filed suit against Alameda County over voters’ rights – in 1995, it sued regarding the rights of Chinese-speaking voters with limited English skills. An agreement reached in that case expired at the end of 2000.