Everybody’s business

The family jewels
The buzz has given way to confirmation that Clifford’s Jewelry, which had been situated downtown for 105 years, since 1898, will be joining Sports LTD in the Safeway/Park Plaza shopping center on Mangrove Avenue. It will move into a space to the left of Safeway by GNC.

Clifford’s, which was originally located at 240 Broadway (Body and Bath’s home), has been at 328 Broadway since the Morehead family put up the building generations ago.

Clifford’s owner Michael Hicks said he will miss downtown but it was time to go.

“It’s going to be interesting going through my basement,” Hicks said of the century’s worth of memorabilia.

Just eat it
While many corporate honchos are happy to live it up on the shareholders’ dime, the Associated Students government leaders are feeling guilty about the concept of a $20 dinner.

Adam Dondro, the A.S. executive vice president, asked Governmental Affairs Committee members on Sept. 8 if they thought the corporation’s per diem allowance of $41 for meals while traveling on official business was appropriate.

Dondro said $41 a day is extravagant for student tastes, and the last time he went somewhere, “I didn’t spend nearly the amount that was given to me. I had this extra chunk, and I didn’t know what to do with it.”

Mario Sagastume, the A.S. commissioner of activity fee, agreed that $41 is a princely sum: “That’s my grocery bill for a month.”

But Thomas Whitcher, the A.S. director of university affairs, said, “I think you’re nickel-and-diming it too much.” Some meals will cost more than others, and in the end it should be a wash. A.S. President Michael Dailey then pointed out that the per diem applies to the corporation’s career employees, too, and they go to conferences where they’re more likely to dine on costly dishes. “This is pretty low when you look at what other corporations are doing.”

The consensus seemed to be that, if an A.S. officer has money left over after a business trip, he or she should “put it back into the kitty.”

Also at the meeting, committee members passed around one copy of an information item rather than dip into the photocopying budget. Frugality reigns.

Oh, and if you’re in the market for a pool table, the A.S. is selling off five of them for $2,000 apiece (original cost: $3,700)—casualties of the failed game room in the BMU that will now become a coffee shop. “They’re in really good condition because, as you can tell, the students didn’t really use them,” said Elisa Berggren, A.S. vice president for facilities and services.

Would Annie have had satellite?
Did anyone else catch that Comcast commercial, the one in the series that features Bidwell Mansion and says they will be tearing up the streets to make infrastructure improvements for cable and Internet access?

Well, guess what. It wasn’t a commercial. Turns out Comcast considers that a public service announcement—which, incidentally, gets around the permits and fees that kick in when the mansion grounds are used for commercial purposes. State parks brass were apparently OK with that take on it.