Local transportation officials were left in the dark about rainwater leaks in the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge.
From SF Gate's Jaxon Van Derbeken: "An oversight committee can't oversee if it is not provided with information from the project staff," said Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. "I have made that clear in no uncertain terms."
"In his update on the bridge project last week, which was not publicized, Heminger revealed that Caltrans didn't tell commission staffers of the leak problem - which carries the risk of corrosion over the long term - until late January, though the state knew about it in early December."
CalPERS voted to go along with Gov. Jerry Brown’s call to raise rates.
Ed Mendel reports in CalPensions.com: “A divided CalPERS board yesterday approved a faster rate hike for the state urged by Gov. Brown, but opposed by unions. A proposal to give struggling cities the option of more time to phase in the rate hike, seven years instead of five, was rejected.”
“The rate hike to cover the cost of retirees living longer is the third in the last two years, following a lower earnings forecast and a more conservative actuarial method. Many local government rates could increase roughly 50 percent by 2020.”
A new report by the Congressional Budget Office says a hike in wages would result in job loss.
Zachary A. Goldfarb in the Washington Post: “President Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would increase earnings for 16.5 million low-wage Americans but cost the nation about 500,000 jobs, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday.”
Californians registered to vote has increased since the last midterm election year, but they are registering as declined to state a party preference.
John Howard writes in Capitol Weekly: “But both major parties suffered declines in their share of registrants, while those with no party preference increased.”
“But registrations for no party preference, or NPP, rose to 20.9 percent, up from 20.2 percent in 2010. The rise in NPP registrations continues a steady trend, with more than a fifth of the electorate decline to affiliate with a political party. Just over a decade ago, NPP registrations were 14.5 percent.”
Voters may soon decide whether they want to lift the state's $250,000 cap on malpractice to over a million dollars.
Melanie Mason reports for the Los Angeles Times: "A protracted political battle over California's medical malpractice law may be coming to a new front: the voting booth."
California’s congressional representative in the 35th district said she wouldn’t be seeking reelection.
Roll Call’s Emily Cahn and Abby Livingston report: “Freshman Rep. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Calif., announced Tuesday she will not seek re-election in California’s 35th District, instead opting for a bid for county supervisor back home in the Golden State.”
“I have chosen to seek election to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors and not reelection to Congress,” Negrete McLeod said in a news release. “This was a decision not made lightly. However my desire to represent this community locally, where I have lived for more than forty years, and where I have long served as an elected official, won out. My federal, state, and local experience will allow me the opportunity to effectively represent the constituents of the Fourth District.”
The state’s political campaign watchdog is getting push back from lawmakers who say they have complied with state disclosure requirements.
Patrick McGreevy reports in the Los Angeles Times: “State Sen. Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles) and Rep. Janice Hahn (D-Calif.) disputed warning letters by the state campaign watchdog group that alleged they did not meet all campaign finance reporting requirements. Representatives of both officials said they had complied and are challenging the warning letters.”
State Sen. Noreen Evans is advocating for an oil extraction tax in California.
Derek Moore writes in the Press Democrat: “The Santa Rosa Democrat is joining forces with California college students, including local product Harrison “Jack” Tibbetts, in an attempt to get a tax on oil extraction in California.”
“Evans has failed several times to get similar legislation passed. “I will keep proposing this until it is passed,” she said Tuesday.”
Legislators are considering ways to combat credit card hackers.
From the Los Angeles Times’ Marc Lifsher: “Personal information collected from credit card shoppers could best be protected by upgrading the country's entire payment system, the head of the state retailers association testified at a joint legislative hearing.”
“The Tuesday informational hearing of the state Assembly's banking and judiciary committees looked into the causes of recent massive hackings of about 70 million computerized records at Target Corp. and a smaller incident involving about 1.1 million customers at Neiman Marcus department stores.”
3-D printing is not only really cool, it could also bring the manufacturing sector back to the west. But China isn’t idly waiting.
From The Week’s John Aziz: "In fact, we're starting to see the first tremors of major shifts in global trade. For instance, laborcosts are rising in China now to the extent that it is no longer the country with the cheapest labor. But does that mean it will necessarily lose its dominance? Automation in manufacturing is increasing, so high labor costs may begin to matter much less for businesses deciding where to manufacture. And oil and thus transportation prices are also relatively expensive again, so distance to the consumer may start to matter more. Both trends seem to bode well for a resurgence in American manufacturing; we have already seen a number of American corporations, including Apple, moving some production back to the United States in part because of this."
"But don’t expect China to let manufacturing go back to the West so easily."