The federal oversight of California's prison health-care system is costly and useless, a drain on the state's critical resources and it's long past time to get rid of it. So sayeth Gov. Brown, who heads to federal court later this month to do battle.
From the Bee's Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton: "During the life of these lawsuits, the prisonhealth care budget has gone from $700 million to $2 billion," Brown said in an interview with The Bee, his first on the issue since the state filed court documents in January seeking to regain control of its prisons..."
"These are good people doing their level best," Brown said. "All the second-guessing and Monday-morning quarterbacking are just making the job more difficult. You've heard it. No matter what they do, it's wrong."
"That line is getting old, and it's not right. It's not Sunday school out there, but they're doing a hell of a job, and it's constitutional."
The governor's budget office wants another $15.2 million from San Bernardino in former redevelopment funds, and if the city doesn't fork it over, unprecedented penalties loom.
From the Press-Enterprise's Imran Ghori and Jim Miller: "The state Department of Finance is warning that it could dock some of San Bernardino’s future tax proceeds if the city does not hand over $15.2 million in former redevelopment funds — a dispute that could cause the city to become the first in California to face costly post-redevelopment penalties."
"In a strongly worded letter, the city’s attorney threatened a court fight if the state seeks to collect the money. City Attorney James Penman said San Bernardino’s pending bankruptcy case supersedes the state’s authority to extract former city redevelopment money."
"The order by the state Finance Department to comply by April 3 is the latest financial blow to a city that has struggled to fund its daily operations since declaring bankruptcy last year. City officials have slashed services and deferred millions of dollars in debt in order to erase a $45.8 million deficit."
The days of the great meritocracy are over, that dream has died, and there's a new four-letter word at UC -- "fees."
From the Chronicle's Nanette Asimov: "It used to be that if you wanted to get something for nothing - something really, really good - all you had to do was enroll in the University of California. Now, if any UC student doubts that the days of something for nothing are long gone, a plan for the UC regents to renew a certain $60 fee on Thursday should end all doubt."
"The seemingly minimal yearly fee, first charged in 2007, will add up to $91 million for UC by the time it expires in 2018, if the regents renew it as expected this week in San Francisco. It's money that students are paying to reimburse UC for tuition refunds to past students that they were entitled to after courts found that the university had improperly raised fees in 2003 and 2004."
"Put another way, students are paying for what they weren't supposed to pay for because of the improper way they were told to pay for it. Think of the impossible loops in surrealist M.C. Escher's works, and all will be revealed."
California wouldn't be California without a water war, and in 2013 that's exactly what we're going to have.
From News10's John Myers: "You can just feel it coming," says Phil Isenberg, chair of the Delta Stewardship Council and a veteran of the last three decades in the state's water wars."
"In part, that sense of a rising tide in the water battle may stem from two major issues both making their way to the stage: details on Gov. Jerry Brown's call for twin tunnels that would dig under the periphery of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the deadline-driven push at the Capitol to downsize an $11.1 billion bond measure before it appears on next November's statewide ballot."
"Though it's the one with the longer timeline, the governor's tunnels proposal will get the first return to the spotlight. State water officials are expected to unveil new details by week's end on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which includes the proposed 35-mile Sacramento County to Contra Costa County infrastructure mega-project."
The folks of La-La-Land are going to be much older and more settled as demographic changes kick in over the nexth few decades Hey, it's about time.
From the LAT's Emily Alpert: "The future of Los Angeles will be a grayer one, as aging boomers, slowing immigration and shrinking birthrates radically change the face of the county, a new study from USC predicts."
"Seventeen years from now, senior citizens will make up nearly one-fifth of the county population, almost twice as many as at the start of the millennium, say Dowell Myers and John Pitkin of the USC Population Dynamics Research Group."
"At the same time, the number of births will fall as families choose to have fewer children, the study predicts. Birthrates are already dwindling because immigration has plunged, sharply reducing the flow of newcomers who historically have had bigger families."
And finally, from our bulging "Lifestyles" file, comes word that the NIH is funding a study to determine why many gay women are overweight and many gay men are not. The idea is to see if there is a connection between sexual orientation and obesity.
"The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $1.5 million to study biological and social factors for why “three-quarters” of lesbians are obese and why gay males are not, calling it an issue of “high public-health significance."
"Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., has received two grants administered by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to study the relationship between sexual orientation and obesity."
“Obesity is one of the most critical public health issues affecting the U.S. today,” the description of the grant reads. “Racial and socioeconomic disparities in the determinants, distribution, and consequences of obesity are receiving increasing attention.”