CARB REPORT PRODUCES ONLY MORE HOT AIR.

Byline: Terri Hardy and Dorothy Korber

The California Air Resources Board recently released a 61-page report reviewing studies on the health and environmental impact of leaf blowers.

State officials couldn't provide a breakdown on how much the report cost to produce but said they had a team of four researchers assigned to the study, including an air pollution specialist working full-time for six months.

What did taxpayers get for their money? Mostly hot air. The report concluded it could make no recommendations on alternatives because of a lack of data.

That didn't stop Assemblyman Tony Cardenas, D-Panorama City, from shooting out a press release saying the report shows ``leaf blowers have the same impact on the environment as a lawn mower or generator.'' Cardenas wants the state's 20 cities that have prohibited leaf blowers to consider overturning the bans.

But Michael Carter, the chief of emission research for the air board, who oversaw the report, said Cardenas' interpretation of the findings isn't quite right.

The report's executive summary shows there isn't enough data to determine health impacts. But it does suggest workers could be endangered by the blowers' emissions and noise. The researchers couldn't determine effects on the public, but noted that bystanders were clearly annoyed and stressed by the blowers.

STRESS? YES!

Jacques Barzaghi, Jerry Brown's longtime confidante and quasi-bodyguard, has gone to work as the Oakland mayor's ``interim adviser on the arts,'' for $114,000 a year. (Mayor Brown earns $104,553.)

Barzaghi and his wife share communal digs with Brown in a downtown Oakland warehouse.

During Brown's eight years as governor of California, Barzaghi served him in several roles, including arts adviser and administrative chief. But it wasn't easy working for a relentless visionary, apparently.

According to government records and interviews with officials, Barzaghi suffered a massive coronary in 1982, and he filed a claim with the state stating it was job-related. Barzaghi settled for an undisclosed amount, says Steve Geissinger of the Oakland Tribune, who's been digging into the question.

Barzaghi, who boasted to a reporter recently that he has been a political mystery for 30 years, clearly relishes his enigmatic reputation. Maybe that's why he won't comment on his disability settlement - or on why he's back with the same boss he worked for during those stressful years.

REFUND? YES!

Three weeks ago, we told you about an ugly legislative tug-of-war.

Assemblyman Tom McClintock, R-Granada Hills, and state Sen. Betty Karnette, D-Long Beach, had dueling bills seeking to provide refunds to some 1.7 million Californians who paid a $300 smog impact fee on their out-of-state vehicles since 1990. (The fee has been declared unconstitutional.)

Now McClintock and Karnette - who occupy distant ends of the political spectrum - have patched up their differences and are moving ahead together. Last week's Assembly Transportation Committee hearing was a virtual lovefest, with McClintock happily citing the Magna Carta and Karnette gleefully saluting the Founding Fathers.

Then, in a bold show of bipartisan support for a measure taxpayers are sure to love, all 19 members of the committee begged Karnette to list their names as co-authors on the bill.

PROPOSITION 22

Under the strange political bedfellows category:

Conservative businessman and University of California Regent Ward Connerly has joined a campaign led by lesbian musician Melissa Etheridge to fight Proposition 22, which would reiterate and broaden California's ban on gay marriages. The proposition appears on the March 7 ballot.