Alicia Robinson
President Bush on Wednesday signed Rep. Chris Cox's $5.6-billion bill
to purchase and stockpile vaccines against biological agents , the
nation's largest first-responder program ever.
Local emergency service providers said they are happy about the
bill, which will dovetail with local efforts to create emergency
response plans for terrorist attacks.
"It's a really great bill for us, because right now Newport Beach,
along with other agencies in the county, are working comprehensively
to really develop a plan," Newport Beach Fire Chief Tim Riley said.
"We honestly believe that probably the single-best method for being
prepared for biological attacks is having stockpiles instead of
having everybody carry [vaccines]."
Now, local agencies can put to other uses the funds they were
using for biological threats such as anthrax, he said.
Costa Mesa Police Lt. Les Gogerty said the bill will be a good
thing, although it won't stop local emergency responders from having
to worry about terrorist attacks.
"I think that what people have realized is that terrorism has
become a part of our vocabulary," he said. "It's something we have to
learn to deal with, but from a day-to-day standpoint, we haven't
stopped focusing on the day-to-day things that we do [as emergency
responders]."
As chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Cox has
written, sponsored or supported numerous national security bills,
including one that would change the formula for distributing federal
funding to local emergency responders.
Edwards' Balboa Bay Club stop nets more than $400,000
A fundraiser Saturday at the Balboa Bay Club, where Democratic
vice-presidential candidate John Edwards spoke, was everything local
Democrats hoped it would be, Orange County Democratic Party Chairman
Frank Barbaro said.
"It was extremely successful, much more so than the Los Angeles
fundraiser [Edwards] had the night before," Barbaro said. "He really
reached the people."
The money from the $1,000-a-plate luncheon in the heart of
Republican country is still being counted, but Barbaro said that so
far the party raised $400,000 for Edwards' and presidential candidate
John Kerry's campaign, and at least $10,000 more is expected.
While Democratic supporters were eating
ginger-and-teriyaki-marinated salmon and fancy custard desserts, a
group of GOP activists held an anti-Kerry/Edwards demonstration
across the street to show the county is staunchly Republican. That,
in turn, sparked a counter-protest by a handful of Democrats hoping
