The one piece of legislation that survived, Senate Bill 3, was one of two bills, along with Senate Bill 2, which constituted the “Sunshine in Campaigns Act.” It requires extra training for campaign treasurers and orders a study to consider the possibility of replacing the state’s woefully lacking campaign finance information website.   read more

The Orange County Register reported last week that Edison formally asked California’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to ding ratepayers $2.4 billion over the next seven years to pay for the power they won’t be getting from the plant that Edison ran into the ground. Minority owner San Diego Gas & Electric asked for $808 million in a separate filing.   read more

The dispute arose after the California Legislature passed reforms in 2012 that required, among other things, that public employees contribute more money to their pensions. That ran afoul of a 50-year-old federal law that says changes to transportation worker pensions can’t be made outside of collective bargaining.   read more

That’s not exactly the way California Attorney General Kamala Harris characterized the settlement that, as usual, did not include an admission of wrongdoing. “I am pleased this settlement forces these officials to resign, in addition to paying restitution,” she said. The complaint reportedly included accusations that the charity made false statements on tax filings and unlawfully diverted money to start another non-profit organization.   read more

The decision to add another potential $38 million to its tab just a few months after making a commitment to spend voter-approved school construction bond money on the computers raised questions about whether LAUSD had thought through the ramifications of its decision.   read more

The Little Hoover Commission noted that Texas drew down 30% more in benefits per veteran that California. It's the tiny services division, which gets 2.6% of the CalVet operations budget, and other lackluster providers where the commission sees a lost opportunity to capture federal dollars. The bottom line was this: pay a few extra dollars to find out who needs assistance and hire people to go get the money from the federal government.   read more

McClintock does not believe that funding cuts to the Forest Service contributed to the fire. But he did have a culprit in mind—anti-logging interests. McClintock is an enthusiastic supporter of the logging industry, and used the fire as an opportunity to pitch for more commercial activity near the Stanislaus Forest and the Lake Tahoe area, just to the north.   read more

Six years later, only one of the construction projects has been completed and only a handful have been started.The state Legislative Analyst’s Office reported in February that three of the 22 approved projects were scheduled to be completed this year, another in 2014, four in 2016 and one in 2018. When complete, the projects would add 10,894 beds in county jails.   read more

Edison sent a cease-and-desist letter (pdf) two weeks ago to presente.org, the creator of a video that mocks the utility. The letter claims that “Edison Hates Rooftop Solar” constitutes false and misleading advertising by saying the utility’s business plan is to force people to buy “dirty energy” from “dirty power plants” that “poison poor communities.” If truth is a defense, the utility might have trouble making that allegation stick.   read more

“I don't think anyone in this courtroom seriously thought the city was anything but insolvent,” Judge Meredith Jury said Wednesday in granting San Bernardino bankruptcy protection, and then set her sights on the city’s largest creditor, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS). “If CalPERS gets all the money they want, under what they say is their statutory right, who isn't going to get paid? All the employees? How is that going to help CalPERS?” she said.   read more

Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter is reportedly exploring a bid for the beleaguered newspaper, which is about to be cut loose by parent Tribune Corporation. His interest comes just days after the ultra-conservative billionaire Koch brothers indicated that they considered Tribune newspapers a hopeless business investment and were no longer contemplating buying the Times or a package of Tribune-owned publications.   read more

Although state officials are hopeful that the numbers are a worst-case scenario, the latest information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is that 5,611 children will be lopped off the school rolls this fall. In addition to cuts in Head Start enrollment, various services are also being whacked. Besides feeding the kids two meals a day, Head Start provides a range of services including day care, social workers, health care and special help for children with disabilities.   read more

The auditor took note that the range of programs, many innovative in nature, drew media attention and raised questions about whether funding yoga classes, acupuncture treatments, anti-bullying programs and the like was a good idea while more traditional mental health care was being eviscerated by a decade of brutal budget cuts. That’s why it was essential to measure the efficacy of programs in a way that could be independently checked.   read more

A lawsuit filed by the state Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) to find out what mystery donor contributed $100,000 to a campaign against a proposed new Sacramento sports arena smoked out a Seattle businessman who had tried, and failed, to lure the city’s basketball team to his town. A key to the Sacramento bid was the city’s offer to subsidize construction of a new downtown arena to the tune of $258 million.   read more

Judge Michael P. Kenny ruled that the agency overseeing the bullet-train “abused its discretion” by failing to comply with funding and environmental review requirements in the 2008 ballot initiative that authorized the state to sell $9.9 billion in bonds for its construction. The judge said the state has failed to say how it is going to finance the cost of the route’s first extended leg, around $31 billion, and has not received the required environmental clearances.   read more

This is how sausage—and conservation policy—get made. It’s also how an environmental leader gets called “Judas” by a county supervisor and former ally. An environmental group that had been leading a community revolt against plans by the city of Whittier to allow oil drilling on land purchased with public funds for use as a nature preserve reversed course and signed an agreement to drop its opposition in exchange for money.   read more