A coalition of unions, churches and other liberal groups has launched a campaign to enact a “split roll” for Prop 13, removing tax limits on business property – residential property taxes would not be affected. Dan Walters has the story for the Bee:
“The organization, Make It Fair, is headed by unions, including the California Teachers Association and the Service Employees International Union, which would be the main source of millions of dollars to qualify the initiative for the 2016 ballot and campaign for its passage.
“The proposed measure would remove Proposition 13’s limits on what the organization considers to be commercial property – industrial, retail and office complexes, mostly – while leaving them in place for owner-occupied homes, residential rental properties and agricultural land.
“If enacted, the Proposition 13 revision would raise as much as $9 billion a year that advocates say are needed to adequately finance schools and improve local government services.”
News broke yesterday that the publisher of the Los Angeles Times is buying U-T San Diego (formerly the San Diego Union Tribune) for $85 million. Elliot Spagat, AP:
“Tribune Publishing Co., owner of the Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and other publications, said Thursday that the 145-year-old U-T would remain a separate newspaper.
“Executives were examining how operations might be consolidated, with one possibility being that the Times would print the San Diego paper, the Times reported. The U-T said the newspapers would share some stories, photos, video and other content.
"’We can take the best of what each newsroom can offer, and offer it to a broader customer base,’ Austin Beutner, the Times' publisher and chief executive, told the newspaper.”
Republicans and Democrats are recalibrating their messages to target an elusive voting block: Millennials. Carla Marinucci has the story at SFGate:
“The issues that matter most to Millennials — student loan debt, jobs, climate change — are forcing Republicans and Democrats alike to push the boundaries of technology to attract America’s youngest voters, a likely key to the 2016 elections…
“On both sides of the aisle, the efforts underscore a tech-fueled effort to catch the attention of the largest generation in U.S. history — the estimated one-third of all Americans born between 1980 and the mid-2000s. This voting segment has been frustratingly elusive and was largely disinterested in the 2014 midterm elections.”
Bad news for CalTrans (well, and the rest of us, too): a 25’ tower rod on the Bay Bridge has failed a stress test, indicating that it is may have fallen victim to corrosion. Expensive corrosion. From Jaxon Van Derbeken at SFGate:
“One of the steel rods anchoring the tower of the new Bay Bridge eastern span has failed a key integrity test, suggesting it became corroded and broke during years when it was soaking in water, The Chronicle has learned.
“The test result raises the possibility that hundreds of other rods that have been steeped in water in the bridge’s foundation in recent years are in danger of cracking, which could reduce the stability of the 525-foot-tall tower in a major earthquake…
“Experts say that if the rod that Caltrans is removing this week is indeed fractured, many of the other rods could be in jeopardy. There is precedent for that: Thirty-two similar steel rods failed on the bridge’s seismic-stabilizer structures in 2013 after they were exposed to rainwater for several years, forcing Caltrans to engineer a workaround that cost $45 million.”
The Senate yesterday approved a bill that takes police shooting and excessive force cases out of the hands of grand juries. The bill now heads to the Assembly. Melanie Mason, LAT:
“Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) said her bill aims to ‘increase confidence of Californians in the judicial process,’ adding the current process is ‘a non-transparent process that is really antiquated and it calls into question whether the grand jury system is relevant anymore.’
“The system been under increased scrutiny in recent months after grand juries declined to pursue charges in high-profile police killings in Staten Island, N.Y. and Ferguson, Mo. In March, a federal investigation into the Ferguson shooting largely agreed with the decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the slaying of Michael Brown.“
The Senate also passed SB 323, a scope of practice bill by Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) that expands the ability of nurse practioners to treat patients. Patrick McGreevy: Los Angeles Times:
“Addressing a doctor shortage that is especially dire in rural parts of California, the state Senate voted Thursday to let nurse practitioners do much more for patients, including diagnosing and ordering treatment and prescribing drugs, without supervision by a physician.
“Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) said his bill will make sure that Californians have easier access to primary healthcare by giving more responsibility to nurse practitioners in certain settings, including medical clinics.
“’More than 18,000 of them are in California and stand ready to help meet our healthcare needs,’ Hernandez told his colleagues before the 25-5 vote.”
The Contra Costa County Elections Division wants to make sure you don’t forget about next week’s Special Election in SD-7, so they produced an action-movie-style trailer – sadly, not called “The Glazer’s Edge” or “Desperately Seeking Susan.”
It’s Friday, meaning that today we hand out the Singin’ the Golden State Blues award for the Worst Week in California politics. While we’re sure that CalTrans Director Malcolm Dougherty has consumed his share of Alka Seltzer over the failed rod test noted above, our vote has to go to Congressman Ami Bera - when you headline Buzzfeed, you’ve hit the big time.
Buzzfeed’s Evan McMorris-Santoro noted that a recently-published Bera Op-Ed supporting President Obama’s quest for fast-track trade authority contained text “borrowed” from several sources. Lucky for Bera, “borrowed” is still a lot better than “plagiarized.”
“’I don’t know if this cut-and-paste job rises to the level of plagiarism,’ said Jason Stanford, a top official at the Coalition To Stop Fast Track, a labor-backed effort to pressure Democrats to vote against the White House on trade, ‘but Congressman Bera sure comes across like someone whose [sic] spending more time listening to corporate lobbyists than speaking for the thousands of his constituents who have asked him not to vote for fast track.’
“Bera’s staff said the op-ed resulted from meetings with people on all sides of the trade debate.”
Oopsie….