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SACRAMENTO – A recent discovery by California Highway Patrol (CHP) commercial vehicle inspectors prevented a shipment of bathroom tissue holders with radiation contamination from reaching retail stores in Northern California.

“Our commercial personnel have the training, equipment, and capability of locating items that may threaten the safety of public safety,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “This equipment and training is essential in accomplishing our mission of providing safety, service and security.”

The items were detected during a routine commercial vehicle inspection and ultimately determined to be constructed from contaminated metal containing Cobalt-60.

The CHP notified the California Department of Health Services, which lead to a nationwide product recall.

The CHP has the largest commercial vehicle inspection program in the nation, conducting more than 600,000 inspections annually.

The department operates 51 Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Facilities in 37 locations throughout the state, plus 73 mini-sites. Sixteen of these facilities are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“Through an ongoing effort, the CHP strives to improve commercial motor vehicle safety on California’s highway transportation system through enforcement, training, education, and new technologies,” said Farrow.

Although highway safety is the primary purpose of commercial vehicle inspections, the CHP’s inspection program commonly results in locating narcotics, illegal contraband and other potential hazards.

The commercial enforcement program is just one facet of a more comprehensive homeland security effort by the CHP.

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Effective Jan. 1, 2012, estates of decedents valued at less than $150,000 can be settled as small estates without probate.

Formerly, the limitation was $100,000.

To determine whether a decedent's estate is a small estate the following are excluded: Assets held in the decedent's trust or in a joint tenancy with a surviving joint tenant; assets in which the decedent had a life estate only; assets that pass at the decedent's death to designated death beneficiaries (e.g., life insurance, annuities, and retirement plans); and assets that pass to the decedent's surviving spouse or surviving registered domestic partner, as relevant.

Also excluded is up to $15,000 in uncollected (unpaid) salary or compensation owing to the

decedent.

If the total appraised value of the remaining assets is equal to or less than $150,000 then the estate is a small estate which may be administered through summary administration without formal probate.

Let us discuss how small estates are settled.

When real property is not involved, then the so-called "affidavit procedure" may be utilized once forty days have elapsed since the decedent's death. This allows a beneficiary to claim ownership to all or a part of the small estate without obtaining a court order. A certified death certificate is attached.

The affidavit may vary with the type of asset, or assets, and situation involved.

For example, if a promissory note is being transferred then particulars concerning the note are discussed.

With cars and boats the Department of Motor Vehicles has its own preprinted affidavit to complete. Financial institutions, especially banks, usually have their own preprinted affidavits.

With mobile homes, however, the affidavit procedure is unavailable.

Instead, the Department of Housing and Community Development requires that its "Multi-Purpose Transfer Form" be completed along with the original title, registration and a tax clearance certificate if the mobile home is on the county tax rolls.

The affidavit procedure creates a race to claim property amongst those claiming an inheritance right. It can be a race amongst beneficiaries themselves and also by the beneficiaries against the decedent's creditors.

Unlike with a probate, the decedent's creditors must pursue their enforceable claims against the beneficiaries individually to the extent the beneficiaries receive assets from the small estate.

Unless the creditors open a probate before the affidavit procedure is utilized the creditors are

in a weak position to recover their money.

When real property is involved, however, the affidavit procedure can only be used if the total value of all real properties is equal to or less than $50,000. If more, a petition for transferring title to real property of a small estate is required to obtain a court order transferring title.

Now, let us consider a decedent who owned a bank account with $17,000; a car worth $5,000; a mobile home worth $50,000; and a lot worth $60,000.

All assets are titled in the decedent's own name. The combined appraised date of death value of all assets is $132,000.

The decedent's heirs are his two children. They wait 40 days and take possession of the bank account and car using the affidavit procedure.

They complete HCD's Multi-Purpose Transfer Form and submit it with the title, registration, death certificate and tax clearance certificate (if relevant) to HCD. The lot is over $50,000, so a court order transferring title is necessary. All of this is done without notice to creditors, outside probate.

Families of decedents with small estates can save much money and time by using the appropriate summary administration methods relevant discussed above in lieu of probate.

Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone at 707-263-3235. Visit his Web site at www.dennisfordhamlaw.com.

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COBB, Calif. – On Thursday evening a former U.S. secretary of labor came to Lake County to visit with Calpine workers who are on the verge of voting to join a union.

Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor and now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, met with about 60 Calpine workers, organizers and members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 1245 at the Little Red School House.

Approximately 219 workers at Calpine’s Geysers operations are eligible to take part in an election to join IBEW 1245 Jan. 25-26, according to the union.

Reich's visit follows a meeting several Calpine workers held with Gov. Jerry Brown about their efforts to unionize on Dec. 9.

In addition to getting the chance to hear from Reich, Calpine employees who came to the Thursday night meeting were able to ask questions of union organizers about the process and find out how contract negotiations could benefit them.

The union organizing committee asked the men and women who attended to introduce themselves and share how long they had been at the company.

There were many longtime employees, some who had worked more than 20 and sometimes 30 years as techs, in the steamfields, in maintenance and other areas.

 

The process of organizing the election to join the union has been a divisive one.

IBEW has accused Calpine – one of the county's largest employers – of fighting the organizational process, which Calpine has denied.

 

The union also has alleged that sick time and staffing levels have been reduced, while health premium offsets and choice of health plans has been eliminated, while at the same time executive pay has gone up.

For its part, Calpine maintains that its workers enjoy one of the best compensation and benefits packages in the industry – including annual raises, cash bonuses and 401k contribution matches – and are in the United States’ top 20 percent of wage earners.

One Calpine worker at the meeting Thursday evening acknowledged that pay rate, and questioned why they should ask for more from the company, which he felt treated them well.

Organizers urged workers to stand with the union, and emphasized that Calpine is not the enemy. They reported receiving support and attention from around the country.

Reich, who has openly supported unions, also encouraged workers to unionize.

“What you’re doing is really important,” Reich told the group.

He said wages and benefits for workers grew for decades after World War II, which he credited to the efforts of the labor movement.

But that’s stopped now, and Reich said the country is still in the grip of the “Great Recession” because American workers can’t afford to buy the goods the United States is producing.

Better wages and working conditions benefit everyone, Reich said.

“We’re all in this together,” he said. “It’s not a zero sum game.”

He emphasized that workers need a voice at the table. That’s especially important, he said, because the United States is the richest country in the world – it’s richer than ever before – but some are getting richer than everyone else.

“Everybody should get part of the pie,” he said.

Unions, said Reich, have historically had an important impact on the overall U.S. workforce. He said in 1955, 35 percent of U.S. workers were in unions, which was enough to influence the prevailing wage. Today, only 7 percent of the private sector workforce is unionized.

Reich told Lake County News after the meeting that he believes there is an opportunity for a resurgence of union representation in light of the current economic stresses, and as more people come to understand the country's economic disparities.

He said people are fed up with economic stresses and insecurities. “They're feeding a new populist movement.”

That movement, he said, takes the form both of the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements.

Similar social movements in the first decade of the 20th century, the 1930s and 1960s resulted in important developments for workers, Reich said.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .