Page A2 — REGISTER-PAJARONIAN, Thursday, January 17, 2013
Cabrillo College gets interim president
Obama unveils gun plan, concedes tough fight ahead
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By TODD GUILD
OF THE REGISTER-PAJARONIAN
APTOS — The Cabrillo
College Board of Trustees on
Monday appointed an interim
president to fill the vacancy
when current President Brian
King leaves at the end of January.
John Hendrickson, who
most recently served as chancellor at Saratoga-based West
Valley-Mission Community
College District, will take the
helm at the college in February and lead the college as the
board searches for a permanent replacement.
West Valley-Mission Com-
munity College District in
Santa Clara boasts two colleges
and more than 20,000 students.
“I’m excited about doing the best
I can to being a positive
member of
the Cabrillo
team,” he said
from his Lafayette home
Tuesday. “It’s
a b e a u t i f u l Hendrickson
Community
College that has a great reputation for the way the entire
community focuses on stu-
dent success.”
In addition to his four years
with the West Valley-Mission
Community College District,
Hendrickson has held various
roles with colleges and businesses that date back to 1969.
Hendrickson praised King’s
openness and accessibility to
the community.
“That’s exactly what I think
makes a successful leader,” he
said.
“I’m looking forward to following Brian King,” Hendrickson said.
Hendrickson said he plans
to lease a house during his time
with Cabrillo.
Pajaro Valley Chamber set to award honorees
By ERIK CHALHOUB
OF THE REGISTER-PAJARONIAN
WATSONVILLE — Tickets
are going fast for the Pajaro
Valley Chamber of Commerce
and Agriculture’s 51st annual
awards dinner on Jan. 26.
“It’s a really exciting event,”
said Katie Mahan, president of
the chamber. “Every year it gets
better and better.”
Faced with the challenge of
topping last year’s “absolutely
blowout amazing event,” Mahan said, the chamber chose
the theme “New Orleans Style.”
The J.J. Crosetti Building
at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds will be completely
transformed with Mardi Gras
decorations for the event.
During the dinner, the chamber will present awards to this
year’s honorees, who were announced in October.
The organization’s lifetime
achievement award went to
former Graniterock CEO Bruce
Woolpert.
Second Harvest Food Bank
Chief Executive Officer Willy Elliot McCrea earned the
man of the year award, while
Georgeann Cowles Eiskamp
was named woman of the year.
The business of the year went
to S. Martinelli & Co, while the
Santa Cruz County Fair was
named event of the year.
Pajaro Rescue Mission,
which recently took over
operations of the Watsonville
Salvation Army shelter and
added to the number of beds it
provides to homeless people,
is organization of the year.
About 440 people attended
the event last year, and Mahan
said she expects around the same.
“It will be an absolutely
outstanding evening,” she said.
The event takes place Jan.
26 at 5:30 p.m. in the J.J. Crosetti Building at the Santa Cruz
County Fairgrounds, 2601 East
Lake Ave., Watsonville.
Reservations, which are
$75 per person, are required in
advance. To RSVP, call 724-3900,
email dianne@pajarovalleychamber.com or mail to Pajaro Valley
Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box
1748, Watsonville, CA, 95077.
Applications now being accepted for agriculture scholarship
By ROSEANN HERNANDEZ
OF THE REGISTER-PAJARONIAN
WATSONVILLE — AgriCulture is now accepting applications for its 2013 spring
scholarship program for students majoring in agriculture.
In operation since 1984 and
renamed in 1998 to the Jimmie
Cox Memorial Scholarship, the
scholarship program is open to
students who live in Santa Cruz
County or within the Pajaro
Valley Unified School District
boundaries, or is a member of
the Santa Cruz County Farm
Bureau.
A partnership with American AgCredit last year doubled
the size of the scholarship from
$2,000 to $4,000.
Criteria for the scholarship
are based on student leadership skills, a demonstrated
commitment to the industry,
grades and financial need.
Last year’s recipient, Kevin
Bargetto, is currently studying Ag
Business at Cal Poly and hopes
to be involved in the family’s
winemaking business when he
completes his studies, said Jess
Brown, executive director of the
Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau.
Brown said many former
scholarship recipients have
returned to the Pajaro Valley to work at places such as
Driscoll’s, in family businesses
or have set up their own.
To request an application,
students may contact their
school’s financial aid office or
visit the Agri-Culture office at
141 Monte Vista Ave.
Applications are also available online at www.agri-culture.us.
WASHINGTON — Conceding “this will be difficult,” President Barack Obama urged a reluctant Congress on Wednesday
to require background checks
for all gun sales and ban both
military-style assault weapons
and high-capacity ammunition
magazines in an emotion-laden
plea to curb gun violence in
America.
The president’s sweeping,
$500 million plan, coming one
month after the school massacre in Connecticut, marks the
most comprehensive effort to
tighten gun laws in nearly two
decades. But his proposals,
most of which are opposed by
the National Rifle Association,
face a doubtful future in a divided Congress where Republicans
control the House.
Seeking to circumvent at least
some opposition, Obama signed
23 executive actions on Wednesday, including orders to make
more federal data available for
background checks and end a
freeze on government research
on gun violence. But he acknowledged that the steps he took on
his own would have less impact
than the broad measures requiring approval from Capitol Hill.
“To make a real and lasting
difference, Congress, too, must
act,” Obama said, speaking at
a White House ceremony with
school children and their parents. “And Congress must act
soon.”
The president’s announcements capped a swift and wideranging effort, led by Vice President Joe Biden, to respond to
the deaths of 20 children and
six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Conn. But Obama’s gun control
proposals set him up for a tough
political fight with Congress as
he starts his second term, when
he’ll need Republican support to
meet three looming fiscal deadlines and pass comprehensive
immigration reform.
“I will put everything I’ve got
into this, and so will Joe,” the
president said. “But I tell you,
the only way we can change is if
the American people demand it.”
Key congressional leaders
were tepid in their response to
the White House proposals.
Republican House Speaker
John Boehner’s office signaled
no urgency to act, with spokesman Michael Steel saying only
that “House committees of
jurisdiction will review these
recommendations. And if the
Senate passes a bill, we will also
take a look at that.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, D-Nev., said he was committed to ensuring that the Senate will consider gun violence
legislation “early this year.”
But he did not endorse any of
Obama’s specific proposals.
The president vowed to use
“whatever weight this office
holds” to fight for his recommendations. He’s likely to travel
around the country in the coming weeks to rally public support
and could engage his still-active
presidential campaign operation in the effort. But he’ll have
to overcome a well-financed
counter-effort by the NRA.
“This will be difficult,” Obama
acknowledged. “There will be
pundits and politicians and special interest lobbyists publicly
warning of a tyrannical, all-out
assault on liberty — not because
that’s true, but because they
want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves.”
The president, speaking in
front of an audience that included families of some of those
killed in Newtown, said 900
Americans had lost their lives to
gun violence in the four weeks
since the school shootings.
“We can’t put this off any longer,” Obama declared. “Every
day we wait, the number will
keep growing.”
Many Democrats say an assault weapons ban faces the
toughest road in Congress.
Obama wants lawmakers to
reinstate the expired 1994 ban
on the high-grade weapons,
and strengthen the measure to
prevent manufacturers from
circumventing the prohibition
by making cosmetic changes to
banned guns.
The president is also likely to
face opposition to his call for
Congress to limit ammunition
magazines to 10 rounds.
But Democrats are hopeful they can build consensus
around the president’s call for
universal background checks.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent
Gun Violence says 40 percent of
gun sales are conducted with no
criminal background checks,
such as in some instances at
gun shows or by private sellers
over the Internet or through
classified ads.
The NRA is opposed to all
three measures. In a statement
Wednesday, the gun lobby said,
“Only honest, law-abiding gun
owners will be affected” by
Obama’s efforts and the nation’s
children “will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more
tragedy.”
And on the eve of Obama’s announcement, the NRA released
an online video accusing him
of being an “elitist hypocrite”
for sending his daughters to
school with armed Secret Service agents while opposing
having guards with guns at all
U.S. schools.
White House spokesman Jay
Carney called the video “repugnant and cowardly.”
The president’s proposals
did include a $150 million request to Congress that would
allow schools to hire 1,000 new
police officers, counselors and
psychologists. The White House
plan also includes legislative
and executive action to increase
mental health services, including boosting funding for training
aimed at getting young people
into treatment more quickly.
A lopsided 84 percent of
Americans back broader background checks, according to
a new Associated Press-GfK
poll. Nearly six in 10 Americans
want stricter gun laws, the same
poll showed, with majorities
favoring a nationwide ban on
military-style weapons and
limits on gun violence depicted
in video games, movies and TV
shows.
The NRA and pro-gun lawmakers have long suggested that
violent images in video games
and entertainment are more to
blame for mass shootings than
the availability of guns. But
Obama’s proposals do little to
address that concern, other than
calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to
research links between violent
images and gun attacks.
Government scientists have
been prohibited from researching the causes and prevention of
gun violence since 1996, when a
budget amendment was passed
that barred researchers from
spending taxpayer money on
such studies.
The administration is calling
on Congress to provide $10 million for expanded research.
Obama also wants lawmakers
to ban armor-piercing ammunition, except for use by the military and law enforcement. And
he’s asking them to create stiffer
penalties for gun trafficking,
to provide $14 million to help
train police officers and others
to respond to shootings, and to
approve his nominee to run the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives.
One of the president’s executive actions on Wednesday was
to nominate B. Todd Jones to
head the ATF, which has been
without a permanent director
since 2006. Jones has served
as the bureau’s acting director
since 2011.
Student of the Week
Pajaro Valley Unified School District
Student of the Week, Dec. 30, 2012-Jan. 5, 2013
McDonald’s joins the Pajaro Valley Unified School District and the
Register-Pajaronian in recognizing this week’s student of the week:
Rolling Hills Middle School
Mariana Garcia-Vargas
Rolling Hills is proud to present
Mariana Garcia-Vargaswith the Pajaro
Valley Unified Student Recognition
Award. Mariana has been at Rolling Hills
since 6th grade. Since seventh grade her
grades have continually improved every
quarter. So far this year, Mariana has
earned a 4.0. Mariana is a student to be honored because she has
exceptional personality and skills that help her be successful in
school. Mariana’s teachers enthusiastically agree that she is most
dissevering of this award. Comments from Mariana’s teachers
include:
Mariana is a student who takes strong interest in her
academics and leadership.
She takes an active role in class and is always willing to
participate and assist others in class.
Mariana is upbeat and fun with a great personality
Mariana is focused on her studies and helping her family.
She shows creativity, artistic talent, and intelligence in her
school work.
When you think of a student with a great personality who
continually improves academically and enjoys helping others, you
think of Mariana Garcia-Vargas from Rolling Hills Middle School.
We support education. We are proud of our students!
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