Political players have figured out ways around campaign contribution limits with the use of a system known as 'ballot measure committees'.
Jessica Calefati and Kaitlyn Landgraf with Mercury News write: "Hamstrung by strict limits on political contributions, California lawmakers have found a way to continue to extract large sums from some of Sacramento's most powerful special interests."
"Increasingly, they're using "ballot measure committees," little-known and barely regulated accounts that are supposed to promote or oppose state and local initiatives, but in practice are paying for consultants and polling firms, new suits and trips to Mexico. And the money for the politicians' perks comes in the form of five-figure donations from the same special interests that state rules were intended to curtail."
"A Bay Area News Group analysis shows that the number of candidate-controlled ballot measure committees has skyrocketed from six to at least three dozen over the past decade. Of the nearly $3 million spent by these committees since 2013, only $1 out of every $4 was used to help pass or kill measures that actually made it to the ballot."
If you're a city worker, you could be losing out in comparison with wages paid to your suburban counterpart.
Phillip Reese with Sac Bee writes: "The city of Sacramento has more people, employees and demand for services than any other city in the region. But Sacramento generally pays its employees less than workers in nearby suburbs, potentially creating recruitment and retention problems, according to a Sacramento Bee analysis of more than 13,000 local government employee salaries."
"The analysis looked at pay rates – including overtime, bonuses and vacation cash-outs upon retirement – for the 10 largest suburbs in the region and for the city of Sacramento using data from the State Controller’s Office. It drew on a new online database The Bee has compiled that allows readers to search the salaries of all 30,000 city and county government employees in the four-county Sacramento region."
Meanwhile, some Democratic candidates in California are linking their opponents to Donald Trump, who continues to lose support from members of his own party.
O.C. Register's Martin Wisckol writes: "In some races, Democrats are trying to sully their opponent by highlighting the candidate’s support of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump."
"Take Democrat Doug Applegate’s challenge of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, a Trump convention delegate."
"“Darrell Issa is supporting someone who experts agree is too reckless and dangerous to be president,” reads a recent email blast from Barb Solish of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee."
The Oakland P.D. has been engaging in racial bias when enacting stops and searches, according to a court-appointed monitor report spanning a decade.
Bob Egelko in The Chronicle: "After more than a decade of federal monitoring, police in Oakland are still showing signs of racial disparities in enforcement, according to the latest report. Officers, it said, were much more likely to stop and search African Americans than whites, but found suspected contraband more often on whites."
"The monitor’s report, released Thursday, said Oakland police stopped 15,407 vehicles between mid-November and mid-May. Blacks were at the wheel 57 percent of the time, whites 11 percentand Latinos 21 percent. During the same period, officers stopped 1,858 pedestrians: 69 percent of them black, 10 percent white and 15 percent Latino."
"Oakland’s population, according to the 2010 census, was 28 percent black, 34.5 percent white and 25.4 percent Latino."
SEE MORE in Public Safety: Mom goes bankrupt paying for son's incarceration, court scolds O.C. for pursuit of debt -- Jordan Graham with O.C. Register
And in tech news, Silicon Valley eyeballs Phoenix, AZ as a potential oasis for IT startups.
CONOR DOUGHERTY with N.Y. Times writes: "Three years ago, Kate Rogers was caught in the Bay Area struggle. She paid the astronomical rents. She did the crushing commute. She lived the frustration of always thinking about money even though she was a well-paid professional in the booming technology industry."
"And then, just like that, the stress went away. All she had to do was move to Arizona."
"I didn’t want to have to decide between picking my son up at school and being successful at my job,” said Ms. Rogers, who runs the Phoenix-area offices of Weebly, a San Francisco company whose software makes it easier for regular people to build websites. “In San Francisco, that would not have been possible."
For those watching the water, algae blooms this summer are proving to be some of the worst yet.
Lesley McClurg with KQED reports: "Algae blooms are a natural feature of summer, but the record levels ofcyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, are rattling state officials this year."
"Everyone’s on edge,” says Bev Anderson, a scientist with California’s State Water Resources Control Board. “We are seeing more than we’ve ever seen before."
"She says her inbox overflows with reports of new algae sightings every morning. In some parts of the state, it looks like someone poured a giant can of green paint into the water. And the smell can be rank. When a bloom dies, it reeks of rotten eggs."
As the new Arena in downtown Sacramento nears completion, residents are wondering: 'what about the rest of the development?'
Ryan Lillis and Tony Bizjak with Sac Bee report: "Sacramento city leaders justified contributing roughly a quarter of a billion dollars to the new downtown arena on the promise that it would serve as the defibrillator to a sluggish downtown. It may end up doing just that, but it’s going to take time. Some development projects in the urban core are well underway, while others seem years away."
"Some are well on their way toward completion, most notably the transformation of the 700 block of K Street into a strip of apartments and restaurants. Others remain on the drawing board or in limbo while owners and developers look for money or wait for the right moment to make their move."
And now for a page from our "Bare Necessities" file ..
A massive 10 foot shedded snake skin discovered on the east coast has many in Maine in a tizzy.
HuffPost: "An elusive 10-foot-long snake dubbed “Wessie” is giving a Maine community the shakes for the second time in two months. But not everyone is convinced the creature is even real."
"Police have announced the find of a giant snakeskin near a Westbrook river park on Saturday. The skin was reported to police around 3 p.m. along Presumpscot River, near a boat launch area in Riverbank park, Westbrook police said in a Facebook post."
"It is close to the area where, in June, two local officers reported seeing a roughly 10-foot-long snake eat a large mammal and swim away."