Downstroke

Rural ripoff? Local leaders are steamed about a plan to hike insurance rates in rural counties to subsidize those in urban areas.

California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, who’s been lobbied by big-city interests, is considering a petition that seeks to change the way insurance rates are set.

At a March 3 press conference, business leaders, Chico Mayor Maureen Kirk and supervisors from Butte, Glenn, Colusa and Yuba counties urged citizens to tell Garamendi what they think at a public hearing that night at Chico State University.

“Rural California is under attack again,” Kirk said. “Chico residents and businesses will face an average 13-percent increase in auto insurance rates.”

The speakers argued that the long-held insurance rate formulas that include location are fair because, with fewer cars and traffic jams, rural residents are less likely to wreck and thus file claims.

Most of the hearings have already been held in urban areas, where of course the idea won wide support.

Still smokin': Call it the great Chico State smoke-out.

Members of REACH (Responsible Economic Adjustments to Chico Holdings) are asking Associated Students leaders to OK a resolution urging university auxiliaries to sell off any stocks they have invested in companies whose primary business is tobacco. The University Research Foundation currently has 1.6 percent of its holdings in tobacco company stocks.

The A.S.’s Investment Committee voted to divest the A.S. of tobacco stocks shortly after the student group launched its effort.

“We’d like to … encourage the entire university to take this stance,” said Annie Sherman, the student organizer of REACH who is also the A.S. commissioner of environmental affairs.

The resolution would acknowledge tobacco corporations’ role in environmental harm, child labor and the targeting of minorities, the poor and children in their marketing campaigns.

Off-road rage: The International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) has its spandex shorts in a bunch over a recent recommendation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that bicycles be banned from trails around Lake Oroville. Despite the support of several state agencies for the idea of sharing trails, FERC, which has the final say-so because it licenses the Oroville Dam power plant, apparently is leaning toward allowing horses but not bikes.

Both forms of recreation have their good and bad points as far as the environment is concerned. But when’s the last time you stepped in a huge pile of bike crap? The IMBA urges its members to write in protest to Magalie R. Salas, Secretary, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, NE Washington, D.C. 20426.