Featured BlogsRss Latest News!Written By Comment Count Comment Last Three March 11, 2010
CA Political News
You know that the Depression is bad. San Fran is laying off bribe paying workers--then cutting the pay of those they hire back.
"A $522 million city deficit has turned the unthinkable into reality. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has ordered - not just suggested - that 17,424 unionized workers be laid off and then rehired with a 6.25 percent wage cut. No deals, no sweet talk, just action." Maybe the workers could save some money by ending their bribes to the unions--which caused this problem in the first place.Wonder if the union officials are taking a pay cut? Wonder if the unions are lowering the bribes to allow the workers to continue on the payroll? SF Chronicle, 3/11/10 A$522 million city deficit has turned the unthinkable into reality. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has ordered - not just suggested - that 17,424 unionized workers be laid off and then rehired with a 6.25 percent wage cut. No deals, no sweet talk, just action. It's a dramatic and creative step, one that could save $110 million in salaries - the largest expense item in the city's $6 billion budget. Wage cuts can't be avoided with a financial hole this large, and Newsom acknowledges there will still need to be dismissals. Past financial crunches have produced similar showdowns. Usually labor postpones wage increases or accepts layoffs after horse-trading for future rewards. But this time it's a done deal, reached early in the budget-writing season. And, wonder of wonders, there's relatively little uproar. A budget hearing by a skeptical panel of city supervisors - who have no say in the issue - produced little fireworks. The layoff letters landed this week. Sometime in May, the rehire notices will follow. Delays and hitches will no doubt happen, fraying nerves. Newly employed city workers are clearly the most worried. An unknown number - possibly 1,000 or more - may not return as the budget picture darkens. But without the wage cuts, many more would need to be fired, a thought that's clearly on the mind of both labor and the mayor. To city residents, a reduced workweek for gardeners, street sweepers, public health workers and librarians is preferable to the disruptions that wholesale dismissals bring. Still, the fire-then-rehire maneuver won't save Even with the reduced salaries and other reductions in city spending, the city will be $130 million short of filling the $522 million gap, the mayor's financial team told the supervisors. At that point, the focus will narrow on new taxes, a prospect sure to shoot off sparks. Asking voters to approve revenue raisers can be hard in the best of times. It will be especially hard now, and it can't happen unless the city shows it's serious about cutting costs. Newsom's tough-minded move heads in the right direction. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
Radicals hate freedom and any symbol of our heritage and liberties.
"In a 2-1 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the arguments of atheist Michael Newdow, who has been on a long legal quest to remove the pledge from schools because he maintains the inclusion of the phrase "under God" violates the constitutional separation between church and state." All of our history is under attack. When you do research you will note that the Obama wing of politics never defended out Pledge of Allegiance--wonder why? Appeals court rejects challenge to Pledge of Allegiance in schools
By Howard Mintz, Oakland Tribune, 3/11/10 A federal appeals court today shot down the latest challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, concluding that the ritual is constitutional and does not amount to a government endorsement of religion. In a 2-1 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the arguments of atheist Michael Newdow, who has been on a long legal quest to remove the pledge from schools because he maintains the inclusion of the phrase "under God" violates the constitutional separation between church and state. The 9th Circuit ruling overturns a decision from a Sacramento federal judge who ruled in Newdow's favor earlier in the case. "The pledge is constitutional," Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the majority, which found the pledge is a statement of patriotism, not religion. The 9th Circuit previously stunned the nation with a different ruling in 2002, when a divided panel sided with Newdow and concluded that the pledge indeed is a government endorsement of religion. The U.S. Supreme Court later wiped that ruling off the books on procedural grounds, and Newdow renewed his legal challenge. Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who joined in the 2002 ruling, dissented from today's decision. Schools in the western states have continued to recite the pledge in public schools as the years of legal battles have unfolded in the federal courts. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
Have you seen government cutting spending by large amounts? Time for massive spending cuts, along with tax cuts to get the economy moving again. Until we cut taxes and spending, repeal AB32, we will continue the California Depression. BY GERALD CARROLL, Visalia Times Delta, 3/11/10 Sales-tax revenue for California cities and counties plummeted by more than 47 percent in 2009, but local officials hope to see a rebound in the first quarter of 2010. A slight increase in "I'm hopefully optimistic that the [sales-tax] reductions are at an end," said Ted Smalley, director of the Tulare County Association of Governments. The recession led to statewide sales-tax reductions in all four quarters of 2009, but the decline flattened as the year progressed from 18 percent in the first quarter to 3.5 percent in the fourth. The state Board of Equalization this month released its fourth-quarter sales-tax allocations for local jurisdictions. Visalians pay a 9 percent sales tax 8.25 percent required by the state plus the Measure T and Measure R taxes. The sales-tax decline created huge holes in local budgets, but federal stimulus funding helped close the gaps, "We wouldn't have been eligible otherwise," Coyne said. The combination of Measure R and stimulus dollars which municipalities must actively pursue, with the most aggressive applicants receiving the bulk of the funding fueled construction projects around Visalia and Tulare County. And lower-than-usual construction bids have saved the county and cities millions of dollars, officials said. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
"The recycling centers are owed more than $20 million by the State of The money stolen from the recyclers is but a small amount of the billions stolen from other trust funds to cover the out of control Capitol spending and deficits. By Don Regan, Capitol Weekly, 3/11/10 It isnt easy being green these days, especially if youre a As a small independent recycler in But Californians now have a tougher time finding convenient centers after more than 100 facilities were forced to close in recent months. The recycling centers are owed more than $20 million by the State of I operate my business on a shoestring budget, out of my modest home. If you were to visit my cramped office, you would see stacks of unpaid invoices totaling more than $50,000 money owed to my company by the State of I dont want to close. Though my business does not provide much of an income, it does offer a valuable and popular public service for which I am proud to provide. I witness the positive benefits to consumers and the environment every day. Californians purchase more than 20 billion recyclable containers every year and nearly onethird of those are recycled through centers like mine. These centers have a successful track-record of reducing litter, increasing recycling rates and helping the environment. The current situation defies common sense, and creates a long list of ironies. By causing neighborhood recycling centers to close, the state is forcing hard-working Californians to drive long-distances to redeem their deposits, requiring cash-strapped consumers to spend more on gas while their cars generate unnecessary emissions. The recycling center closures are also eliminating green jobs. More than 200 recycling jobs have been eliminated so far, while politicians claim to be focused on stimulating a green-based economy. Still, I remain hopeful there will be a legislative fix. The State Legislature approved and the governor signed a short-term solution in AB 8x 7, to provide recyclers with a partial repayment of their overdue handling fees. Recycling businesses like mine are counting on that bills passage to stay afloat another six-months. But the program still needs a long-term fix approved this legislative session. At a time when voter cynicism is high and mistrust of government rampant, the State of Californians want to do their part to help the environment, but being green shouldnt be such a struggle, and it certainly shouldnt force -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
Want to know why "Businesses from The penalty will begin in 2012, unless the Valley manages to achieve the unlikely goal of just a few ozone violations over the next three years. Deciding how to pay it will be the biggest issue of the year for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, officials say." Jobs will be lost. Revenues will be lost. Families will be harmed--all based on smears, lies and corruption. Shame on us for continuing laws based on know corruption by Al Gore and the phony scientific community. By Mark Grossi, Fresno Bee, 3/11/10 Businesses from The penalty will begin in 2012, unless the Valley manages to achieve the unlikely goal of just a few ozone violations over the next three years. Deciding how to pay it will be the biggest issue of the year for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, officials say. Businesses say the penalty which would be spent on air cleanup measures in the Valley is unfair because they have invested billions of dollars over the last two decades to reduce their emissions. So the air district is considering a plan to pass 80% of the tab to motorists instead in an extra $10 vehicle registration fee. Vehicles create 80% of the Valleys ozone problem, officials said. Its a question of fairness, said district executive director Seyed Sadredin. We dont want to further penalize the businesses, especially in this economic climate. Air cleanup penalty $29M, but who pays? Environmentalists, however, say the penalty should be pointed at businesses because it is structured in a way that it provides an air-cleanup incentive. The more businesses reduce pollution, the lower the penalty becomes. The air district will schedule public meetings in the next few months to discuss the options. A decision is expected in the next year. Ironically, the penalty is coming because the Valley missed a deadline to achieve a standard that is now obsolete. The Valley is among the countrys worst offenders for ozone pollution, a corrosive gas that forms in warm weather when exhaust from vehicles combines with fumes from paint, gasoline or dairy waste. It can trigger lung problems, such as asthma. Each air basin is judged on an eight-hour average of ozone readings; a standard set for one-hour readings was abolished in 2005. But because the U.S. Clean Air Act forbids backsliding on any abolished standard, the Valley faces penalties for missing the cleanup deadline this year. The Valley never has achieved the one-hour standard, but violations have decreased in the last 20 years. There are fewer than five violations each year, compared to an average of 50 in the early 1990s, officials say. The region still can escape the $29 million penalty by having no more than one violation in each of the next three years. But district officials consider it unlikely. If the air districts governing board doesnt come up with an approach to pay the money by 2011, there will be federal sanctions on top of the $29 million penalty. The sanctions would include freezing billions of dollars in federal road-building funds and raising costs for new and expanding businesses. In addition, penalty money would be collected and kept by the federal government, instead of being spent locally to clean the air. What would the penalty mean to businesses? They would have to pay about $8,000 for each ton of ozone-making emissions above a threshold set by law. That would amount to an estimated $29 million in the first year, but would decline as businesses reduce their emissions. Some companies would benefit from the penalty. The district would spend the money helping businesses replace diesel trucks, buses and off-road vehicles, such as tractors, Sadredin said. But many feel the penalty is unfair. Guardian Industries, which operates a glass plant in Kingsburg, for example, has been among the countrys cleanest-operating facilities for many years, said Phil Newell, a company engineer. In 2007, Guardian invested $10 million in pollution control, trimming ozone-causing emissions by more than half. Now he faces more than $500,000 in annual penalties starting in 2012. This is how we are rewarded for building the cleanest glass plant in Under the alternative plan the district is considering, businesses like Guardian that have aggressively pursued cleanup measures wouldnt pay any penalty. Other businesses, however, would share the penalty along with motorists. Heres how it would work: The air district, which has the authority to levy an extra fee on vehicle registration, would get about $23 million of the penalty from motorists. The remaining $6 million would come from businesses that still need to improve their pollution control. Environmentalists say that some businesses are not doing as much as possible to reduce pollution. They say the law was intended to make all businesses as efficient as possible in reducing pollution. Lawyer Paul Cort of the legal watchdog Earthjustice, based in Instead of looking for ways to give businesses a break, the district should focus on keeping those incentives in place and adding more for mobile sources, like vehicles, Cort said. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
The special windows stop the bracelets from working. Looks like another reason Enviros harm our society. "The rules would require special windshield coatings on new cars to reduce air conditioner use. It's meant to be green-friendly, but law enforcement groups are seeing red, worried the coating will block signals. A letter from the Peace Officers Association said, "The crippling of important GPS monitoring and the utility of cell phones to seek emergency assistance is not helpful." Any common sense left in Cool-Car Rules May Affect GPS
New Rules Require Special Windshield Coatings On New Cars KCRA.com, 3/11/10 Some new so-called cool-car rules from the state are making law enforcement hot under the collar. There are worries that the rules will hurt global positioning system technology. GPS is used extensively by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to monitor parolees statewide. GPS ankle bracelet technology has been in the news since the arrest of parolee and accused kidnapper Phillip Garrido. Questions center on whether those devices could be compromised, resulting in a threat to public safety. "I've got letters from law enforcement, the sheriffs, crime victims," said Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks. Strickland is among those upset with cool-car rules from the state Air Resources Board. "I would prefer that they scrap it until they know 100 percent, that they can say 100 percent, this is safe and doesn't put lives in danger," Strickland said. The rules would require special windshield coatings on new cars to reduce air conditioner use. It's meant to be green-friendly, but law enforcement groups are seeing red, worried the coating will block signals. A letter from the Peace Officers Association said, "The crippling of important GPS monitoring and the utility of cell phones to seek emergency assistance is not helpful." "This regulation should be halted immediately, as it will result in even greater problems for the state in monitoring its GPS population," Crime Victims United said. Air regulators said the worry is overblown. "We did our own study, as you know, and we found that there was little, if any, attenuation," said Stanley Young, with the Air Resources Board. Attenuation is another word for "signal drop off." Although air resources chief Mary Nichols said last fall that none of the testing "would raise any concerns" for parole agents, corrections has not signed off on the rules. "I think right now it's too early to determine specific results on how it may impact equipment, 'cause it's still early on in the testing," said Gordon Hinkle, with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Hinkle said from their standpoint it's fair to say it's an open question. The new rules are still being tweaked, and won't be final until May. The Air Resources Board spokesman said they want to be sure the rules don't compromise GPS and cellular technology. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
Ending the national Recession will not end the California Depression. "In some of the articles Ive written for CalWatchdog, Ive devised new ways of looking at policies and their consequences, such as my California Jobs Gap calculation here and here. It showed that Our policies are the cause. Time for adults to run By JOHN SEILER, Cal Watchdog, 3/9/10 In some of the articles Ive written for CalWatchdog, Ive devised new ways of looking at policies and their consequences, such as my California Jobs Gap calculation here and here. It showed that Ive come up with a new measure I call the California Jobs Crash. It looks at how much more the recession has dropped employment here than in most states. It compares data from three years: 2007: The base year. The recession began that year in December, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. So its a good year to start: the last year of prosperity before the crash. 2008: The recession dug in. 2009: The recession continued, becoming the worst since World War II. On March 3, 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its updated Regional and State Unemployment 2009 Annual Average Summary. (Data for 2009, as well as 2008 and my calculations, are provided in the Appendix, below.) So we now have comprehensive, accurate data for three years: one in prosperity, two in recession. Jobs Crash Defined My new definition is Jobs Crash. Its the increase in the unemployment rate during a recession. * 5.4 percent in 2007 to 7.2 percent in 2008; an increase of 1.8 percentage points (the Jobs Crash); * 7.2 percent in 2008 to 11.4 percent in 2009; an increase of 4.2 percentage points (the Jobs Crash); * 6 percentage points is the total increase for the two years (1.8 + 4.2). Put my way, its a 6-point Jobs Crash. Its the seventh-highest Jobs Crash among the 50 states and the The highest Jobs Crash states were: State____ Jobs Crash Points Nevada 7.1 Michigan 6.6 Alabama 6.4 Florida 6.3 Rhode Island 6.2 S. Carolina 6.1 California 6.2 As you can see, three of the four so-called Sand States most slammed by the mortgage boom/bust were especially hit hard by the Jobs Crash: Florida, Nevada and California. Budget considerations The implications of this for the state budget should be taken into account. The state government, by raising taxes last year, had something to do with the high unemployment rate, Esmael Adibi told me; hes director of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research and Anderson Chair of Economic Analysis at Chapman University. Down the road, we wont do as well, because of the same problem, he added. The potential for raising taxes makes us perform much weaker than other states. He also pointed to the continued problems in the housing market from the housing crash. John Seiler, an editorial writer with The Orange County Register for 19 years, is a reporter and analyst for CalWatchDog.com. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
"In exchange for boosting CalSTRS payments to retirees, the state has saved money by cutting its annual contribution to the pension fund with two different legislative deals during the last dozen years. Its not the main reason the nations second largest public pension fund is now seriously underfunded. Investment losses in the stock market crash get the bulk of the blame. But the need to cut deals, giving something to get something, shows how the California State Teachers Retirement System is different from nearly all of the other public employee pension systems in At what point will we demand honesty and competence, not politics, to run our government pension systems? This is the problem: "The benefit increase, AB 1150, gave older teachers an incentive to stay in the classroom during a time of teacher shortages. A pension that paid 2 percent of final pay for each year of service at age 60 was boosted in small steps to 2.4 percent at 63. The benefit increase was expected to cost $363 million in fiscal 1999-00. The state Department of Finance opposed the bill, saying benefit increases were premature because CalSTRS still had a $1.9 billion unfunded liability. Another bill in the package (AB 1102) made a smaller pension boost, allowing unused sick leave to count toward years of service. Members who joined CalSTRS and CalPERS prior to 1980 already had the unused sick leave provision." By Ed Mendel, Capitol Weekly, 3/11/10 In exchange for boosting CalSTRS payments to retirees, the state has saved money by cutting its annual contribution to the pension fund with two different legislative deals during the last dozen years. Its not the main reason the nations second largest public pension fund is now seriously underfunded. Investment losses in the stock market crash get the bulk of the blame. But the need to cut deals, giving something to get something, shows how the California State Teachers Retirement System is different from nearly all of the other public employee pension systems in Most public pensions funds have the power to set the amount of the annual payment they get from government employers. But CalSTRS needs legislation to set its contribution rate. A common complaint about other public pension funds is the tendency, when investments are doing well, to increase pension benefits without properly funding the higher costs, leaving taxpayers with the bill later. A nationwide study of 213 state retirement systems issued by the The other big But state payments to the California Public Employees Retirement System have soared, going from $150 million a decade ago to an expected $3.5 billion in the new fiscal year that begins on July 1. Critics are putting much of the blame on the pension increases in SB 400. But part of what happened is that state contributions to CalPERS in the late 1990s had been dramatically lowered from more than $1 billion in previous years. Investment earnings in a strong economy had given CalPERS a surplus. So the CalPERS board gave the state what amounted to a contribution holiday, another nationwide tendency of public pension funds mentioned in the Pew report. In a reply to critics, CalPERS says only 27 percent of the increase in the state pension contribution from 1997-98 to 2090-10 is due to SB 400. Half of the increase is attributed to payroll growth, 8 percent to other benefits, and 14 percent to other changes. It seems likely that joining the other big pension fund in giving the state a break, though not a complete holiday, may have been part of the thinking when legislation in 1998 increased CalSTRS benefits and cut the state contribution. The CalSTRS funding level, about 30 percent in the 1970s, had slowly climbed to nearly 100 percent of the estimated amount needed to pay for obligations during the next 30 years. The main bill, AB 2804, cut the state contribution to CalSTRS and was expected to result in general fund savings of $577 million in fiscal year 1998-99, according to a legislative committee analysis. The benefit increase, AB 1150, gave older teachers an incentive to stay in the classroom during a time of teacher shortages. A pension that paid 2 percent of final pay for each year of service at age 60 was boosted in small steps to 2.4 percent at 63. The benefit increase was expected to cost $363 million in fiscal 1999-00. The state Department of Finance opposed the bill, saying benefit increases were premature because CalSTRS still had a $1.9 billion unfunded liability. Another bill in the package (AB 1102) made a smaller pension boost, allowing unused sick leave to count toward years of service. Members who joined CalSTRS and CalPERS prior to 1980 already had the unused sick leave provision. The California Taxpayers Association opposed the bill, arguing that the change was first proposed as a savings for employers but studies in the late 1970s found that allowing unused sick leave to count as a pension service credit was more costly. A fourth bill (SB 1528) provided $200,000 to study giving CalSTRS members retiree health care. Many school districts, if not most, do not provide retiree health care for teachers. Unlike most government employees, The backers of the retiree health study bill in 1998 said lack of access to affordable health benefit coverage for many retired teachers in California is alarming, according to a legislative analysis. Now a dozen years later the state contribution to CalSTRS, which was 4.43 percent of payroll in 1998, has been cut by more than half to 2.017 percent of payroll. Teachers contribute 8 percent of pay, school districts 8.25 percent. The CalSTRS funding level, 87 percent before the stock market crash, is now 77 percent when losses are smoothed over a three-year period, 58 percent if there is no smoothing. Ed Derman, the CalSTRS chief deputy executive, told the board last month that if there had been no market crash and average annual earnings had hit the 8 percent target, the funding level would have been 109 percent at the end of last year. Overwhelmingly its clear that it was the market which caused the issue and not the benefit enhancements, Derman said. This year the proposed state budget would give CalSTRS $1.2 billion, about half for the regular pension fund and the rest for a special account used to help payments to retirees keep pace with inflation. The inability of CalSTRS to raise contribution rates allowed state lawmakers, without fear of immediate retaliation, to withhold a $500 million payment to the inflation or supplemental benefit maintenance account in 2003 to help balance the state budget. The courts later ordered the state to repay the $500 million along with $200 million in interest, making the withholding of the payment to the pension fund a very expensive loan. Two years ago state budget writers tapped into the CalSTRS inflation account again, but this time in a smaller way and with a deal. A state budget trailer bill (AB 1389) increased pension benefits, moving the target of the inflation account from maintaining 80 percent of original purchasing power to 85 percent. In exchange, the bill also reduced the state payment to the supplemental benefit maintenance account by $66 million in the first year, an annual cut increasing to $72 million in fiscal 2011-12. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
"Hundreds of Why the hike? "In the last decade, government worker pension costs (not including health care) have risen to $3 billion from $150 million, a 2,000% jump, while state revenues have increased by 24%. Because the stock market didn't grow the way the legislature predicted in 1999, the only way to cover the skyrocketing costs of these defined-benefit pension plans has been to cut other programs (and increase taxes)." If the students took a logic course, an economics course, or a course in common sense, they would know that their support of bigger government, big wage/benefit increases and support of things like AB 32 would raise the cost of their education. This is suicide by the students. When will students figure out the politicians have sold them out? Wall Street Journal, 3/10/10 Hundreds of University of California students rallied against a 32% tuition hike last week. Let's hope their future employers get a better work product. With just a little research, the students could have discovered that compensation packages won from the state by unions were a big reason for the hike. Last year, the state cut funding to the 10-campus system to $2.6 billion from $3.25 billion. To make up for the reduction in state funding, the UC Board of Regents increased tuition to $10,300, about triple 1999's cost. Understandably, students have gone wild. The UC system is supposed to offer low- and middle-income students a cheaper alternative to a private college education. Now a year at a UC school can cost students as much as at many private schools. Who's to blame? UC President Mark Yudof rightly notes he had no other means of closing the university's budget gap. The university used $300 million in reserves last year and cut staff salaries by furloughing them between 11 and 26 days this year. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says "we've done everything we could, but the bottom line is it's not enough. We need to put pressure on the legislature not only this year in a year of crisis, but in the future." The The bill refigured the compensation formula for pension benefits of all public-safety employees who retired on or after January 1, 2000. It let firefighters retire at age 50 and receive 3% of their final year's compensation times the number of years they worked. If a firefighter started working at the age of 20, he could retire at 50 and earn 90% of his final salary, in perpetuity. One In 2002, the state legislature further extended benefits to many nonsafety classifications, such as milk and billboard inspectors. More than 15,000 public employees have retired with annual pensions greater than $100,000. Who needs college when you can get a state job and make out like that? In the last decade, government worker pension costs (not including health care) have risen to $3 billion from $150 million, a 2,000% jump, while state revenues have increased by 24%. Because the stock market didn't grow the way the legislature predicted in 1999, the only way to cover the skyrocketing costs of these defined-benefit pension plans has been to cut other programs (and increase taxes). This year alone $3 billion was diverted from other programs to fund pensions, including more than $800 million from the UC system. It is becoming clear that in the most strapped liberal states there's a pecking order: Unions get the lifeboats, and everyone else gets thrown over the side. Sorry, kids. Get ready for more. The governor's office projects that over the next decade the annual taxpayer contributions to retiree pensions and health care will grow to $15 billion from $5.5 billion, and that's assuming the stock market doubles every 10 years. With unfunded pension and health-care liabilities totaling more than $122 billion, Mr. Schwarzenegger has routinely called for pension reform, but the Democratic legislature has tossed aside the Terminator like a paper doll. Last year, he proposed rescinding the lucrative pension pay-off for new employees, which he estimated would reduce pension pay-outs by $74 billion and health-care benefits by $19 billion through 2040. More recently, he called for doubling state worker contributions to their pensions to 10% from the current 5% of their pay. But these propositions have little traction in the legislature. Memo to marching students: The governor can't save you. You guys need a new legislature. This one is selling you out. Organize an opposition and vote them out in November. Plan B is quit school and become a state billboard inspector. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
FDR did not want an independent Supreme Court,nor does Obama. FDR spent money not in the Treasury--as does BO. FDR played footsies with Hitler--Obama apologizes to terrorists. "In the three years following the implementation of Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been." With trillions in new deficits, By Meg Sullivan, UCLA Newsroom, August 10, 2004 Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After scrutinizing "Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies." In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that "President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies." Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression. By adjusting for annual increases in productivity, they were able to use the 1929 benchmark to figure out what prices and wages would have been during every year of the Depression had Roosevelt's policies not gone into effect. They then compared those figures with actual prices and wages as reflected in the Conference Board data. In the three years following the implementation of Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been. "High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns," Ohanian said. "As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces." The policies were contained in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which exempted industries from antitrust prosecution if they agreed to enter into collective bargaining agreements that significantly raised wages. Because protection from antitrust prosecution all but ensured higher prices for goods and services, a wide range of industries took the bait, Cole and Ohanian found. By 1934 more than 500 industries, which accounted for nearly 80 percent of private, non-agricultural employment, had entered into the collective bargaining agreements called for under NIRA. Cole and Ohanian calculate that NIRA and its aftermath account for 60 percent of the weak recovery. Without the policies, they contend that the Depression would have ended in 1936 instead of the year when they believe the slump actually ended: 1943. "This is exciting and valuable research," said Robert E. Lucas Jr., the 1995 Nobel Laureate in economics, and the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the NIRA's role in prolonging the Depression has not been more closely scrutinized because the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional within two years of its passage. "Historians have assumed that the policies didn't have an impact because they were too short-lived, but the proof is in the pudding," Ohanian said. "We show that they really did artificially inflate wages and prices." Even after being deemed unconstitutional, The number of antitrust cases brought by the Department of Justice fell from an average of 12.5 cases per year during the 1920s to an average of 6.5 cases per year from 1935 to 1938, the scholars found. Collusion had become so widespread that one Department of Interior official complained of receiving identical bids from a protected industry (steel) on 257 different occasions between mid-1935 and mid-1936. The bids were not only identical but also 50 percent higher than foreign steel prices. Without competition, wholesale prices remained inflated, averaging 14 percent higher than they would have been without the troublesome practices, the UCLA economists calculate. NIRA's labor provisions, meanwhile, were strengthened in the National Relations Act, signed into law in 1935. As union membership doubled, so did labor's bargaining power, rising from 14 million strike days in 1936 to about 28 million in 1937. By 1939 wages in protected industries remained 24 percent to 33 percent above where they should have been, based on 1929 figures, Cole and Ohanian calculate. Unemployment persisted. By 1939 the Recovery came only after the Department of Justice dramatically stepped enforcement of antitrust cases nearly four-fold and organized labor suffered a string of setbacks, the economists found. "The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole said. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened." -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
He has used his office to promote and protect voter fraud, bullying of voters, massive of tax dollars and other crimes by ACORN. "Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) detailing federal investigations into the alleged corrupt activities of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The documents reference serious allegations of corruption and voter registration fraud by ACORN as well as the Obama administration's decision to shut down a criminal investigation without filing criminal charges." Obama is tearing apart our freedom, rights and liberties. When the White House gives a"Get Out of Jail Free" card to criminals, we are all endangered. "The FBI and Department of Justice opened an investigation. However, the Obama Justice Department, while noting that ACORN had engaged in "questionable hiring and training practices," closed down the investigation in March 2009, claiming ACORN broke no laws. By contrast, the documents also include records related to a federal investigation of ACORN corruption in Some will argue that Obama is trying to end free, honest elections in the What do you think? Obama Justice Department Shut Down Federal ACORN Investigation According to Documents Obtained by Judicial Watch
Breitbart, 3/11/10 Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) detailing federal investigations into the alleged corrupt activities of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The documents reference serious allegations of corruption and voter registration fraud by ACORN as well as the Obama administration's decision to shut down a criminal investigation without filing criminal charges. The documents include background information on two specific complaints filed in October 2008 by Lucy Corelli and Joseph Borges, Republican Registrars of Voters in Stamford and Bridgeport, Connecticut, respectively, during the 2008 election season. According to Corelli, on August 1, 2008, her office received 1,200 ACORN voter registration cards from the Secretary of State's office. Over 300 of these cards were rejected because of "duplicates, underage, illegible and invalid addresses," which "put a tremendous strain on our office staff and caused endless work hours at taxpayers' expense." Corelli claimed the total cost of the extra work caused by ACORN corruption was $20,000. Likewise, Borges contended that: "The organization ACORN during the summer of 2008 conducted a registration drive which has produced over 100 rejections due to incomplete forms and individuals who are not citizens..." Among the examples cited by Borges was a seven-year old child who was registered to vote by ACORN through the use of a forged signature and a fake birth certificate claiming she was 27-years old. The FBI and Department of Justice opened an investigation. However, the Obama Justice Department, while noting that ACORN had engaged in "questionable hiring and training practices," closed down the investigation in March 2009, claiming ACORN broke no laws. By contrast, the documents also include records related to a federal investigation of ACORN corruption in St. Louis, Missouri, involving 1,492 allegedly fraudulent voter registration cards submitted by Project Vote, a liberal non-profit organization affiliated with ACORN on voter registration drives, during the 2006 election season. Assistant United States Attorney Hal Goldsmith initiated the investigation with "concurrence" from the Department of Justice and the participation of the FBI. According to a Justice Department memo, Goldsmith "advised he would prosecute any individual responsible for submitting fraudulent voter registration cards." Goldsmith identified the statute for prosecution: Title 42, USC 1973 (gg), which provides for criminal penalties for fraudulent voter registrations. In April 2008, eight former ACORN employees from the St. Louis office pled guilty to voter registration fraud. Other documents show that the Bush Justice Department failed to prosecute ACORN voter registration fraud of non-citizens in Phoenix, Arizona in 2007 because the allegations that led to the opening of the investigation were "unverifiable." Notably, the FBI document detailing this questionable decision reveals that a "draft Intelligence Bulletin... concludes that ACORN's employment practices perpetuate fraudulent voter registration." The ACORN documents uncovered by Judicial Watch include internal FBI memoranda, signed affidavits, subpoenas, fraudulent voter registration cards, and publications describing ACORN's policies and practices. The documents also include details regarding numerous allegations of corruption extending beyond voter registration fraud, to include attempts by ACORN employees to coerce workers to participate in campaign activities on behalf of Democratic candidates. "These documents reflect systematic voter registration fraud by ACORN," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "It is a scandal that there has been no comprehensive criminal investigation and prosecution by the Justice Department into this evident criminal conduct. Given President Obama's close connections to ACORN, including his campaign's hiring of the ACORN's Project Vote organization, it seems rather obvious why Attorney General Holder has failed to seriously investigate these and other alleged ACORN criminal activities." Visit www.JudicialWatch.org to read the ACORN documents obtained by Judicial Watch. Wiccanwolf
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
The San Jose Mercury is nuts. "Despite another month of good news for California's slowly recovering tax revenues, finance officials are preparing to delay hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to the state's trial courts, community colleges and universities."
Since January the deficit of the State went up by $10 billion--but they call this "good news". See story here. With all this "good news", payments will be delayed. "As much as $600 million in payments due this month and beyond could be delayed until after income tax receipts spike in April." California can not afford this much good news. By Denis C. Theriault, San Jose Mercury News, 3/11/10 SACRAMENTO Despite another month of good news for California's slowly recovering tax revenues, finance officials are preparing to delay hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to the state's trial courts, community colleges and universities. The deferrals, approved in a special legislative session last month, are part of an ongoing effort to keep the state's checking account safely in the black. Officials are poised to pull the trigger on at least some of the deferrals, even after the State Controller's Office on Wednesday reported that tax revenues for the 2009-10 fiscal year are now nearly $2 billion over budgeted estimates. With a projected deficit of about $20 billion still looming, a final decision on whether to defer payments is expected in the next couple of days, while officials in the state controller's and treasurer's offices, plus the Department of Finance, refine their figures. As much as $600 million in payments due this month and beyond could be delayed until after income tax receipts spike in April. "It could conceivably be smaller," stressed H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the Finance Department. But even if the state avoids this round of deferrals, lawmakers have given the green light to an even larger one, starting in July, that would extend to local governments and K-12 schools. For schools alone, the hit could reach $2.5 billion next year, on top of billions more in previously enacted deferrals and budget cuts. While larger school districts, like San Jose Unified, say they have enough reserve money socked away to help them weather any new payment gaps, advocates fret for smaller school districts whose budgets aren't as flexible. "The current deferrals are creating problems" for districts, said Dave Walrath, legislative advocate for the Small School Districts' Association. And "this law puts further strain on their ability to maintain programs." And while the deferral program does allow districts and local governments to apply for hardship exemptions, Walrath said the waivers don't go far enough. "In essence, you have to be bankrupt to be eligible," he said. "But no district wants to be in that position, so it's a waiver without real meaning." Lawmakers and state finance officials have acknowledged the inconvenience that deferrals pose. But they also defend them as an important tool for ensuring the state can continue to pay its bills. The state relies on bond markets to borrow billions of short-term dollars each year. Having the flexibility to defer payments, officials say, makes investors happy and lowers the cost of borrowing that money. Others, though, suggest the state is only pushing that expense downstream. Chris Yatooma, the fiscal planning director for In recent years, Yatooma said, state deferrals to community colleges have ballooned to $703 million annually, even before the new deferrals were approved. Borrowing costs for some colleges, including interest, can add up to tens of thousands of dollars that otherwise would be spent on classes and programs. Whether those campuses will see that burden grow over the next several weeks will depend on how quickly the state's finances improve. Controller John Chiang, reversing months of pessimism, declared And he guaranteed at least one group in -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
The slush fund needs to be totally cut. End the corruption of using tax dollars for re-election. This is nothing but tax paid for campaign funds--the buying of votes. Obviously Two supervisors call for cutting embattled donation program
Proposal would slash $5 million from annual $10 million giveaway fund By MARK WALKER, North County Times, 3/11/10 Two of five San Diego County supervisors say it is time to halve funding for a widely criticized program board members use to make cash awards to groups and initiatives they favor. But at least one North County supervisor said he opposes the idea. The proposal to cut the Neighborhood Reinvestment Program from $10 million to $5 million a year in the fiscal year beginning July 1 comes from Supervisors Dianne Jacob and Greg Cox. The two say the cut is appropriate in light of county budget pressures. "Given the current grim economic realities, including the serious reduction in county revenues that support core county services, it is logical to reduce funding for even the most worthwhile of county programs," they wrote in a Wednesday memo to fellow supervisors. Continuing reductions in sales and property tax revenues led the county to trim about 800 positions from its work force last year and to privatize some health and human services programs. Those cuts have added weight to the calls to kill the program, which has seen the supervisors hand out more than $68 million since it was established in 2003. The proposal, which is slated for consideration by supervisors on March 23, is meeting resistance from North County Supervisor Bill Horn, who is up for re-election this year. "If they (Cox and Jacob) don't have enough places to spend the money in their districts, I certainly do," Horn said. Horn's district includes numerous unincorporated communities that he said have their own economic woes and, in his view, don't get back enough of the sales tax dollars they have to pay. Those communities see the reinvestment fund as an important tool to maintain libraries, arts and other projects, Horn said, adding that roughly half of his annual appropriations go to law enforcement measures. The districts Cox and Jacob represent include San Diego and other large municipalities where sales tax revenues are readily available. That's not true for the mostly unincorporated area that he represents, Horn said. "I'd hate to have to pull back," he said. Horn added that he will seek to delay consideration of the proposal to allow more time to study its impacts. Lani Lutar, head of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, which has worked to bring more openness to the process resulting in the grants, said she will testify in support of the plan. Her nonpartisan group has suggested it be shelved altogether until the economy improves. "While our position remains that the program should be suspended, I also applaud Supervisors Jacob and Cox for taking a step in the right direction," she said. The program has been the subject of repeated criticisms that each supervisor uses it to reward political supporters and that it gives them an unfair advantage at election time. Supervisors have rejected those arguments, contending it serves the public good by helping pay for parks, libraries, firefighting equipment, educational programs for low-income children and services for the poor. They've also justified it by saying it results from their good fiscal discipline, which resulted in the surpluses that fund the reinvestment program. The proposal to halve the program's funding comes a week after North County's other supervisor, Pam Slater-Price, was faulted for accepting free tickets in recent years to performances at the Old Globe Theater and the San Diego Opera. She has favored those two entities, giving them more than $3 million combined. Slater-Price has apologized for what she said was an oversight in reporting receipt of the free tickets. She wrote checks from her personal account for $1,450 to reimburse the theater and opera. John Weil, spokesman for Slater-Price, whose district includes coastal North County and Escondido, hinted she may endorse the plan. Slater-Price is chairwoman of the board this year. "She is open to the idea and will give it full consideration," Weil said, adding that if it's approved, the question then becomes where the $5 million would be best spent. Supervisor Ron Roberts also is interested in the idea and looks forward to discussing it, said Tim McClain, his communications director. Roberts is also up for election this year. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
Special interests spent a billion dollars over the past decade on politics in California.Two bribe takers,the CTA and the SEIU, spent about a third of that total.
Time to end the union corruption, don't you think? 15 groups spent more than $1 billion on California political efforts
Casino operators, drug firms and unions for teachers and public employees spent the money over the last decade to influence voters and officials, the state Fair Political Practices Commission said. By Patrick McGreevy, LA Times, 3/11/10 Fifteen special interest groups including casino operators, drug firms and unions for teachers and public employees spent more than $1 billion in the last decade trying to influence California voters and officials, the state's political watchdog agency reported Wednesday. The money from the top 15 spenders went to lobbying, contributions to state politicians, and campaigns for ballot measures that advanced the groups' agendas, according to the report by the state Fair Political Practices Commission. "This tsunami of special-interest spending drowns out the voices of average voters and intimidates political opponents and elected officials alike," said commission Chairman Ross Johnson, a former state senator. The following five interest groups are responsible for more than half of the billion dollars spent since 2000: * California Teachers Assn., which spent $211.8 million. * California State Council of Service Employees, $107.4 million. * Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, $104.9 million. * Morongo Band of Mission Indians, which operates a casino under a state-approved compact, $83.6 million. * Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, which also has a casino, $69.2 million. Pacific Gas & Electric, Chevron, AT&T, Philip Morris USA and Southern California Edison are also among the top 15 political spenders, according to the report. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
"New county-by-county figures released by the state Wednesday showed that in eight counties, more than 1 in 5 people were out of work. Moreover, revised numbers for last year show that fewer people were employed than was previously believed." Until we change policies, the number of counties with 20% plus unemployment will grow. Unemployment tops 20% in eight California counties
The state's jobless rate of 12.5% in January was its worst on record and fifth-highest in the nation. By Alana Semuels, LA Times, 3/11/10 http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cal-jobs11-2010mar11,0,7898943,print.story For many California areas, unemployment rates moved persistently higher in January, indicating that the national economic recovery hasn't yet translated into jobs for the Golden State. New county-by-county figures released by the state Wednesday showed that in eight counties, more than 1 in 5 people were out of work. Moreover, revised numbers for last year show that fewer people were employed than was previously believed. The state was one of five, along with Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, that reached their highest unemployment rates since the government began keeping track in 1976, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. California's was 12.5% in January, up from 12.3% in December. "The unemployment rate will be persistently at this high level for at least a few more months," said Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University in Orange. The unemployment rate for the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metro area reached 15% in January, its highest since 1990, the earliest year for which the state has comparable data available. Unemployment in Orange County reached 10.1%, up from 9.1% in December. The state's revised data for last year showing elevated unemployment indicate that a recovery could take longer than previously predicted. "The impact on the labor market was much more severe than what we had estimated," Adibi said. Most counties were still struggling under the burden of joblessness, especially the eight counties where rates were higher than 20%. Merced County, for instance, had an unemployment rate of 21.7% in January, and Imperial County's rate was 27.3%. The national unemployment rate in January was 9.7%, and the country experienced a strong 5.75% annualized increase in gross domestic product in last year's final three months. "The real mystery now is why we aren't getting job growth when the GDP has been positive," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. Budget problems in state and local government are expected to further drag down the state's recovery, Levy said. Even if they don't get pink slips, state employees are earning less money because of furloughs and salary reductions, which reduces consumer spending in the state. The government sector, which includes public education, lost 4,500 jobs from December to January. Nancy Hack lost her job as a gardener with the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks a year ago, and said that finding work has been a challenge at her age, 54. "I'm like a fish out of water," she said. Los Angeles County, with an unemployment rate of 12.5%, was hard hit by declines in the trade, transportation and utilities sector, which shed 21,900 jobs, and professional and business services, which lost 16,300 jobs. The same sectors were hit in the Inland Empire, losing 7,700 and 3,600 jobs, respectively. Orange County lost 5,700 jobs in trade, transportation and utilities and 3,000 in professional and business services. San Diego County's unemployment rate reached 11% in January, up from a revised 10.3% in December. The unemployment rate in Ventura County was 11.6% in January, up from a revised 10.9% in December. California's unemployment rate was the fifth-highest in the nation, behind Michigan, Nevada, Rhode Island and South Carolina. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
"As Each supervisor receives $3.4 million a year to spend as he or she sees fit, without any public vote or scrutiny. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, for example, has spent more than $200,000 to support his new website along with Facebook and Twitter accounts, according to interviews and a Times review of documents obtained through the state Public Records Act." Facebook, chauffeurs and parties--with your tax dollars. Corruption comes in many forms, this is one of them. From chauffeurs to charities to parties, the five-member board hands out money from its discretionary accounts with little oversight. By Garrett Therolf, LA Times, 3/11/10 As Los Angeles County supervisors prepare to carve deeply into everything from public safety to social services, they also are spending millions in taxpayer dollars to burnish their public images, pay for chauffeurs, hold parties for friends and lobbyists and support pet projects. Each supervisor receives $3.4 million a year to spend as he or she sees fit, without any public vote or scrutiny. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, for example, has spent more than $200,000 to support his new website along with Facebook and Twitter accounts, according to interviews and a Times review of documents obtained through the state Public Records Act. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas used $25,000 to buy a place in Whos Who in Black Los Angeles. And Supervisors Mike Antonovich, Don Knabe and Ridley-Thomas used some of their money to pay for cars and chauffeurs. Knabe's armed driver makes $90,000 annually. The supervisors don't spend all they get and are sitting on a large sum. As of November, the balance in the five supervisors' office accounts totaled $27 million, enough to cover the salaries of 216 social workers for a year. In addition to their discretionary office accounts, supervisors have tapped millions more for what the county calls capital improvements, including a media center, largely for their use, at the county Hall of Administration, records and interviews show. Although the office money is a small part of the county's $23-billion budget, it allows supervisors to spend more lavishly -- and with less accountability -- than others in the bureaucracy they oversee. They use it to cover staff salaries, expenses, travel, special programs and donations to outside groups. Most goes to staff salaries, and some to projects that appear to be good, popular causes. Yaroslavsky donated $12 million for a library and Supervisor Gloria Molina donated $7 million to build a culture and arts center. Antonovich has given to youth soccer groups. Other jurisdictions have frozen or trimmed discretionary accounts. "Otherwise, the belief is that it would be an illegal gift of public money," said Molina, for instance, has given $200,000 to the Sheriff's Department over the last 28 months, as well as small amounts to various community groups and causes. But like Antonovich and Yaroslavsky, she declined repeated requests to discuss the allocations. (Yaroslavsky made an aide available for limited questions about his website.) Ridley-Thomas and an aide to Knabe said recipients are thoroughly screened and serve causes important to constituents. Patrick Ogawa, who works for the Board of Supervisors' executive office, denied The Times' request for documentation on the subject, saying compiling it would be too arduous. At Ridley-Thomas' request, however, Ogawa agreed to supply documents for the supervisor's district. More than six weeks later, he has released nothing. The Times was able to obtain only the names of recipients and the amounts they received from July 2007 to November 2009, with nothing to explain the expenditures. According to the records, Antonovich's name is emblazoned on the schedules of the soccer leagues he supports, and Knabe is listed as a benefactor in many nonprofit newsletters. Ridley-Thomas has supported charities whose mission is to get voters to the polls. The supervisor contributed $1,000 to the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and $2,500 to Acorn, two groups with major voter registration drives targeting Latinos and low-income people, respectively. The supervisor also has donated to friends and political allies. Ridley-Thomas gave $25,000 last year to throw a reception for a for-profit exhibit on the African American experience organized by TV and radio host Tavis Smiley, a longtime friend. He also donated $25,000 last year to the Diva Foundation, whose mission is to support groups that conduct AIDS research, education and support. Its president, Tony-nominated Sheryl Lee Ralph, emceed his 2008 campaign kickoff. The charity holds one main event each year, a concert in "Given the impact of AIDS and its unproportionate impact on the African American community, we have to work very hard on this issue," the supervisor said. "This was a creative venue where that message was delivered." Ridley-Thomas said his personal relationship with Ralph, who originated the role of Deena in Broadway's "Dreamgirls," played no role in his donation. "I know some of the recipients very well. The vast majority, I do not," he said. Ridley-Thomas declined to describe his vetting process for such groups, referring the question to county attorneys, who did not respond. In the case of the Diva Foundation, a thorough vetting would have been difficult because it had no audited financial statement -- often a key requirement for large donors. The organization claimed on its tax return that it had one. "Oops, we didn't intend to mark that we had an audited financial statement," said Paul Papile, the foundation's treasurer when asked for a copy. Ridley-Thomas came under fire late last year when plans surfaced to use $707,000 in his discretionary account to renovate his eighth-floor office. Those plans now are on hold. Public records show that In recent weeks, the county's chief executive ordered each department to find ways to reduce their budgets by 9%. "Very soon this room is going to be filled with people who may potentially lose their jobs because we're not going to have the funds in our budget to sustain the jobs," Molina said at last week's regular meeting. One area of county government is still growing: the media apparatus. "With newspapers cutting so deeply, we can't rely on places like The Times to get the story out anymore," said Joel Bellman, a spokesman for Yaroslavsky. Yaroslavsky, who is running for reelection this year without a campaign website, has used his discretionary account to hire three staffers to launch his online projects. The staffers write articles about Yaroslavsky's initiatives and policy positions, and upload photographs chronicling his life and career, including a shot of Yaroslavsky chatting with Hugh Hefner at the Playboy mansion in 1981. In its first four months, Yaroslavsky's new site had 19,000 unique visitors. The daily tally appears to be half what it was before the makeover. Yaroslavsky deputy Joel Sappell said the drop-off is due to a change in the way visitors are counted. As of Wednesday afternoon, Yaroslavsky had 138 fans on Facebook and 70 followers on Twitter. Sappell, a former Times editor who heads the effort and other special projects, earns a salary of $142,000, plus benefits. He recently got a 5.5% raise. Meanwhile, department heads' salaries are frozen. The supervisors launched another media project collectively, earmarking $3.8 million from a discretionary capital account to construct a new television studio and remodel surrounding media offices on the fourth floor of the Hall of Administration. The project is designed mostly to allow supervisors to host cable television spots featuring county initiatives. Such capital accounts are scattered throughout the county budget. Technically, the money is controlled by the county chief executive and department heads, but a recent internal audit noted a "long-standing board-office practice of approving discretionary fund expenditures" from such accounts. Unlike supervisors' office expenditures, a capital outlay must ultimately come to a public vote. Until then, millions of dollars in these accounts may accumulate, with little or no open discussion of its possible uses. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
The only way the SEIU gets a dime is through extortion. The SEIU tells people, either pay us a bribe (they call it dues) or you are not allowed to work for government or firms we control.
The pension crisis, the government over employment problem, the failure to cut employees--all of this because unions own local and State government. Maybe now we will end the corruption of the union monopoly. SEIU to focus on California races
Joe Garofoli, SF Chronicle, 3/10/10 The leader of one of the nation's top campaign donors - the 2.2 million-member Service Employees International Union - said Tuesday the union will have less enthusiasm for congressional campaigns this year out of frustration over Washington's political gridlock, a move that may have major implications in California. SEIU president Andy Stern told The Chronicle that the focus of its 700,000 California members will be on state races, including the governor's race, where Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown will square off against the winner of the Republican primary in June between state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. But if other unions follow the lead of the SEIU, it could affect what are expected to be tough re-election campaigns for Democrats like Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Jerry McNerney of Pleasanton. Organized labor not only provides cash to candidates - predominantly Democrats - but its membership has traditionally done the door-to-door, neighbor-to-neighbor campaigning that is the lifeblood of any political campaign. "I think you'll see a little less enthusiasm for congressional races, particularly in the Senate," Stern said Tuesday in Oakland. He was in the East Bay to walk off the job with health care workers at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin to protest what they feel are unfair labor practices there. "But I think you'll see a lot of enthusiasm in the statewide races," Stern said. "I think our members totally understand what the Legislature, what the governor mean to the future of the state." Independent expenditures Asked if there was enough money to pay for independent-expenditure campaigns aimed at Brown's opponents - much of the estimated $40 million in funding expected to come from organized labor - Stern laughed and said, "I hope they don't ask me for any." But he said he is confident that enough money would be found to finance a competitive effort. The significance of Stern's comments might not be seen until other unions decide their 2010 political priorities in the coming months. "The SEIU is a significant player in California," said Ken Jacobs, chair of the Center for Labor Research and Education at UC Berkeley. "But right now, it is just the comments of one leader of one union." The SEIU spent $85 million nationally during the 2008 campaign season, and was one of President Obama's biggest backers. Stern remains a confidant of the president. Last month, he was appointed to the federal deficit-reduction commission However, the union's support came with a price: The union took out $25 million in loans to be able to campaign that hard. Since then, Stern has become frustrated "that the Congress - particularly the Senate - has been a tar pit where everything gets stuck and disappears," he said Tuesday. Top union priorities such as health care insurance reform legislation and the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize, are mired in Washington. Shifting priorities "California is a perfect illustration" of how his union's campaign priorities are shifting in general this year, Stern said. "People like Barbara Boxer; they always have," Stern said. "But I think their enthusiasm is - we've got to fix the state government. We've got to fix the college tuition issues. We've got to fix our home care system. We've got to fix our public financing. The enthusiasm is not going to be toward Congress, where there is a lot of frustration." Boxer campaign spokesperson Rose Kapolczynski said: "Barbara Boxer's top priority is getting the California economy back on track. Once SEIU members hear about her work to create jobs and turn the economy around, I'm sure that she will earn their support in November." Warm reception Boxer enjoyed a warm reception from 600 union leaders and members she addressed Monday at Labor's Joint Legislative Conference in Sacramento. Other representatives of organized labor - like the 2.1 million-member California Labor Federation - remain "very enthusiastic about Boxer's re-election," said spokesman Steve Smith. The Senate "race is absolutely a priority for labor," said Smith, who said the union plans an aggressive campaign on her behalf both to its members and as part of a forthcoming independent expenditure effort. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
"DURING THE past two years, no one in the Concord Police Department collected more overtime than Ron Bruckert, the president of the police officers association, who took home an extra $101,120. City payroll data show that Officer Bruckert collected about 3 percent of all the overtime pay for the entire Police Department, which includes about 150 sworn officers and about 50 other full-time employees." When will common sense govern our cities. A Police Chief can not receive “overtime"--they are always on duty. Now you know why government has too much money. By Daniel Borenstein, Contra Costa Times, 3/8/10 DURING THE past two years, no one in the Concord Police Department collected more overtime than Ron Bruckert, the president of the police officers association, who took home an extra $101,120. City payroll data show that Officer Bruckert collected about 3 percent of all the overtime pay for the entire Police Department, which includes about 150 sworn officers and about 50 other full-time employees. His overtime sparked questions within the Police Department and led to a review of his timecards. But that inquiry was quietly stopped last year, months before his boss, Police Chief David Livingston, a candidate for Contra Costa County sheriff, sought, and received, the endorsement While there's no evidence directly linking the end of the investigation and the endorsement, the two events raise ethical questions about the common practice of politicians seeking campaign support from government employees under their command. How can they discipline employees one day and seek endorsements from them the next? Our leaders should be protecting the public dime without worrying about their political careers. Clearly, Bruckert was someone who could be counted on to work a fill-in shift when there was a shortage of officers. But, Roloson says, there were concerns that Bruckert went beyond that, modifying his schedule to receive overtime when the work could have been done in a normal work day for straight pay. Roloson says there were also concerns that Bruckert had claimed extra overtime for meetings at the end of his work shift. The investigation of timecard fraud was launched in February 2009, according to an employment discrimination lawsuit filed by the department's only female lieutenant. Two weeks later, the suit says, after substantial evidence documenting timecard abuse by Bruckert had been collected, the investigation was canceled at the order of one of Chief Livingston's captains, Daniel Siri, At the end of the year, Livingston went to Bruckert and his four fellow police officer association board members seeking the politically influential group's endorsement. Bruckert did not return a call and an e-mail seeking comment. Siri, considered a likely applicant to replace Roloson said he had the chief's approval when he directed then-Lt. Brian Wiesendanger to review Bruckert's computerized time sheets. Wiesendanger was asked because he had previously conducted a similar investigation of another officer. Roloson says Weisendanger, after an initial look at the records, said they looked problematic. But Roloson soon had a falling out with the chief and was transferred to another assignment. Siri replaced him. Weeks later, Roloson said, Wiesendanger told him the investigation had been "put on hold." Wiesendanger, who was later promoted to acting captain, declined to comment. Citing state law secrecy protections for internal police department investigations, Assistant City Attorney Mark Coon has refused to clarify whether there was an inquiry and has turned down my request to see documents from it. But the payroll data showing Bruckert's overtime are public records. Bruckert leads a union that has a long tradition of flexing its political muscle in city politics. According to recent membership minutes, the group is looking for "law enforcement supportive candidates" to run for City Council "beneficial ... candidates that we can have a strong relationship with." And it clearly is displeased with City Manager Dan Keen, who, like top administrators of most cities, is looking for ways to control costs in an era of declining revenue. "It is obvious to the board and the negotiations committee," according to the union's October minutes, "that City Manager Dan Keen has every intention of going after the Concord Police Association membership benefits, including retirement, when our contract comes up for negotiation." It's against this backdrop that Livingston, who works for the City Council and city manager, not the officers, sought the endorsement of the police officers association. He's certainly not unique among candidates in trying to woo the people he supervises. His opponent in the race for sheriff, Brian Kalinowski, a lieutenant in the sheriff's office and a member of the Antioch City Council, has obtained the endorsements of the But, when that political line is crossed, we will wonder why union leaders such as Bruckert receive hundreds of hours of overtime pay and whether officials like -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
"San Diego City Council has approved a refinancing deal that saves the city money in the short run. But it will cost San Diegans more in the long run. Its a bit like taking out a second mortgage on your home to get some capital, except that in this case, the city is using public property as collateral to sell $185 million in bonds." Of course This is why By Alison St John,KPBS.org, 3/9/10 San Diego City Council has approved a refinancing deal that saves the city money in the short run. But it will cost San Diegans more in the long run. Its a bit like taking out a second mortgage on your home to get some capital, except that in this case, the city is using public property as collateral to sell $185 million in bonds. The new lease revenue bond package bundles several old loans into a new, bigger loan and frees up some money for the cash-strapped city. At this weeks council meeting, Council President Ben Hueso asked Jeff Kawar of the Independent Budget Analysts office a key question: How much will we be saving in revenue? As a result of refinancing the 1996 Stadium bonds, Kawar replied, youre going to save about a million dollars a year though the year 2027. So, calculated Huesao, thats a million dollars a year for 16 years. But as Councilman Carl DeMaio pointed out, the deal only creates more debt farther down the road. I dont see how extending the life of a loan is saving money, DeMaio said. Youre pushing the payment schedule back, which, by definition, costs you money because you are financing it over a longer period of time. DeMaio has other concerns. For example, he says the public 30 years from now will still be paying for road repairs that were done decades earlier. Those repairs might not even last 30 years. Councilwoman Marti Emerald put into words why a majority of the council support the plan, in spite of its drawbacks. I understand the concerns about how, if we stretch the debt out, we wind up paying more in interest, she said. But right now we are trying to find ways of getting through each year. If this helps lock in a lower payment each year, thats money that would be available to take care of other services, like keep fire stations going, and hire more police, or maintenance and provide the services that the taxpayers want to see us do. However Emerald had a question about why the stadium is no longer in the list of properties being put up as collateral for the lease revenue bonds. There was some concern about why Qualcomm didnt make the final list," she said, "and I think we all recognize that there are certain elements in the city that are looking at Qualcomm as a possible new development site. If the stadium were included as collateral for the lease revenue bonds, it would complicate any negotiations for a new stadium for the Chargers, or a redevelopment project should the Chargers decide to leave town. But Councilwoman Donna Frye was worried about using other city property in Is it your opinion that the action we are being asked to take is legal? she asked. Yes, replied Tim Fitzpatrick of the city attorneys office, it is. Fitzpatrick and the citys new bond counsel, Bob Olson, assured council members that the new lease revenue bond package is water tight. The structure of this financing is a lease financing, Olsen told the council, its a technique by which the city can borrow money thats frequently used by governmental bodies throughout the country. The final vote on the refinancing deal was 7-to-1, with only Councilwoman Donna Frye dissenting. She thought the matter should go to a public vote. I suspect, Frye said, that we will continue to see already-paid-for public assets having the equity pulled from them, and pulled from them, and the debt being passed on to 2050, 2060, 2070, and the public will never know what happened. City staff said next years budget depends on the revenue from the new lease revenue bonds. The Council will give their final approval after the package has been reviewed one more time by the citys audit committee. Staff will be back before the council next week, this time with a shopping list of projects, now that the city has a new-found source of money to spend. -
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March 11, 2010
CA Political News
Voters understand pork. They love it on the plate but hate it in government.
"More than 55 percent of 600 Californians polled would vote no on the measure, according to a study released by Tulchin Research on Feb. 19. Further analysis of the findings by Tulchin shows that nearly three times as many voters strongly oppose the bond as strongly support it: 32 percent of voters indicate they will definitely vote no on the bond if the election were held today compared to only 12 percent of voters who would definitely vote yes. We need water--but we do not need the corruption of government. This water bill is a political payoff, not about providing water. BY Rose Creasman, San Diego Newsroom, 3/9/10 Some of the most heated debates in California's water wars revolve around the Bay Delta. More than 55 percent of 600 Californians polled would vote no on the measure, according to a study released by Tulchin Research on Feb. 19. Further analysis of the findings by Tulchin shows that nearly three times as many voters strongly oppose the bond as strongly support it: 32 percent of voters indicate they will definitely vote no on the bond if the election were held today compared to only 12 percent of voters who would definitely vote yes. Voters recognize this bond as bad water policy and bad fiscal policy at a time when The Sierra Club Proponents of the measure criticize the pollsters' methods, saying that the results quoted in the press release were based on one question from a longer poll, without including information about prior questions. Passed by state legislators in November, the long-awaited bond, which includes four policy bills and one bond, aims to please everyoneincluding the fishing industry, Delta farmers and water suppliers to Central Valley farms and over 25 million people in If approved, Janette Littler, partner in Callidus Consulting Group and former campaign manager for city attorney Jan Goldsmith, said that the bonds success depends on the skill of the campaign in getting its message to voters. Voters are smart. Theyre going to decide whether or not they believe this is a good investment in infrastructure, said Littler. Statewide initiatives in Still, Littler maintains that well-informed voters may be swayed in favor of the bond as long as its supporters run a good campaign. When we preserved the two-thirds legislative vote in 2003, we were outspent 2:1 and we still won around 54 percent of the vote, Littler said. You can be outspent and still win, but its very hard. The controversial water legislation continues to polarize within Dennis Cushman, assistant general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, said the public agency is impartialif slightly ambivalentto the polls results. We dont have an opinion one way or another, Cushman said in response to touting of the polls findings by opponents of the water bond. Our job is to present the information in a fair and even-handed manner. Cushman added that the study didnt seem exhaustive, and that he had never heard of the research firm. Weve given hundreds of presentations about the water situation in -
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