Down in LA, there's trouble brewing at the DWP: Officials there say they are having trouble tracking some $40 million in ratepayer money that was spent on public relations-related efforts.
From the LAT's Jack Dolan: "The Joint Training Institute and the Joint Safety Institute, controlled by DWP managers and union leaders, have received up to $4 million per year since their creation more than a decade ago after a contentious round of job cutbacks at one of the nation's largest municipal utilities."
"Nearly all of the nonprofits' money comes from DWP ratepayers, records show. About $1 million per year has been used to pay the salaries of a handful of administrators, according to the limited records the utility has provided to The Times under the California Public Records Act. Separate federal tax records offer only summaries of the organizations' outlays, including more than $360,000 spent on travel from 2009 to 2011."
"Officials at the nonprofits, the DWP and the employees' union, Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, declined to be interviewed about the institutes' activities and spending."
Three members of a top political strategy and consulting firm have been fined for lobbying lawmakers and the bureaucracy without registering as lobbyists.
From the Bee's Laurel Rosenhall: "The California Strategies public affairs firm and three of its partners will pay a combined $40,500 fine for breaking the state's political ethics laws under a settlement the Fair Political Practices Commission approved today."
"The commission voted 4-0 to approve the agreement made public last week that requires Jason Kinney, Rusty Areias and Winston Hickox to pay the fine, register as lobbyists and disclose their clients. In the agreement, the three well-connected Democrats admit they lobbied the Legislature and the Air Resources Board without disclosing themselves as lobbyists and filing disclosure documents, as state law requires."
"This is the first time that the commission has ever dealt with an issue like this, of shadow lobbying," said FPPC chair Ann Ravel."
Speaking of the FPPC, the panel also established new rules requiring political campaigns to make public how much they pay bloggers.
From Capitol Weekly's John Howard: "California’s political watchdog has approved a rule forcing political campaigns to disclose when they pay bloggers to post comments on such social media sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, as well as others."
"The Fair Political Practice Commission’s decision, which has followed months of debate, requires the campaigns to publicly report payments of $500 or more to bloggers. The intent of the rule is to tell the public who is financing commentary, thus enabling voters to make informed decisions."
"But some were skeptical about the state’s ability to enforce the new rule."
And more from the FPPC and its fines: The mayor of San Jose also got slapped, but not too loudly.
From the Mercury-News' Tracy Seipel: "The state's political watchdog commission on Thursday ruled that San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and his pension reform committee violated state law when it funneled $100,000 to an independent group that supported City Councilwoman Rose Herrera's re-election."
"But the Fair Political Practices Commission, which had proposed a $3,500 fine against Reed, agreed the mayor had not intentionally violated the law and fined him $1."
"FPPC Chairwoman Ann Ravel said that "while the letter of the law was certainly not adhered to by Chuck and the committee" there were still "many mitigating circumstances to consider that justified a minimal penalty."
California, a blue state in spades, is nothing if not diverse and there's room for everybody -- including the Tea Party.
From Josh Richman in The Blotter: A new Tea Party California Caucus will make its debut at the California Republican Party’s fall convention in Anaheim early next month."
"A news release issued Thursday morning says the caucus will host “a solution-oriented seminar filled with a diverse group of policy experts and high profile Tea Party leaders and organizers” to “educate convention attendees about Tea Party principles and advance these principles by proposing policy and position resolutions to the CRP.”
"The caucus itself was announced late last month."
And from our "Confused Spies" file comes the tale of the Brazilian hacker who thought he was hacking the NSA and hit the NASA instead.
"A Brazilian hacker who took down 14 separate NASA websites last week may have gotten confused and inserted an extra letter when trying to hack the NSA website. The hack specifically targeted websites run by NASA's Ames Research Center, including a site on its Kepler space telescope. The Brazilian hacker(s) managed to post this incoherent message to the NASA domain on Friday:
"NASA HACKED! BY #BMPoCWe! Stop spy on us! The Brazilian population do not support your attitude! The Illuminati are now visibly acting!"
"Obama heartless! Inhumane! you have no family? the point in the entire global population is supporting you. NOBODY! We do not want war, we want peace!!! Do not attack the Syrians."
WeI understand perfectly ....