Newsom’s California economic forecast: veto message edition
CALMatters, BEN CHRISTOPHER: “Loyal readers of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto messages may have noticed a new theme popping up lately.
Newsom, again and again: “With our state facing lower-than-expected revenues over the first few months of this fiscal year, it is important to remain disciplined.”
Bills to boost health insurance subsidies, exempt manufacturers from certain sales taxes, help more kids get mental health care through their schools and let some California students ride public transit for free all fell before the governor’s nearly identically worded appeals to fiscal rectitude. Of the 27 bills that Newsom has rejected since the end of the legislative session, 18 (exactly two-thirds) used some version of that now familiar line.”
GEORGE SKELTON, LA Times: "You’d never know it from the incessant TV ads, but troubled horse racing would greatly benefit from a sports betting initiative on the November ballot.
In fact, Proposition 26 is seen by some as a savior of thoroughbred racing in California.
It would allow sports betting on professional games — football, etc.— at tribal casinos and four horse racetracks: Santa Anita, Del Mar, Los Alamitos and Golden Gate.'
Inside the team pioneering California’s red flag law
CALMatters, ALEXEI KOSEFF: “There were four more requests for gun violence restraining orders on Jeff Brooker’s desk when he arrived at the San Diego City Attorney’s Office that July morning.
Officers had responded to a minor car crash at a mall where the driver, who carried a replica firearm, was rambling delusionally and threatening to kill the “one-percenters” and a public official. Another man, during an argument outside a family member’s home, had pulled a gun out of his waistband and pointed it at someone’s head as several others looked on.
It was not an unusual number of new cases for the department’s eight-member gun violence restraining order unit, which Brooker oversees. In an average week, they triage 30 referrals from local police, reviewing scenarios in which officers believe a resident is at risk of committing gun violence.”
California Health, with California HHS Secretary Mark Ghaly
Capitol Weekly, TIM FOSTER: “This is a Special Episode, recorded live at California Health, a one-day conference held in Sacramento on September 13, 2022. Capitol Weekly’s annual look at health care featured three panels looking at different aspects of health care in the Golden State.
The Keynote featured an interview with Secretary of Health and Human Services Mark Ghaly, conducted by Capitol Weekly editor John Howard.
Dr. Mark Ghaly was appointed Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency by Gov. Newsom in 2019. As the head of the largest state Agency, Dr. Ghaly has led the administration’s approach on the health of Californians, including the state response to COVID-19.”
CALIFORNIA DROUGHT AND WATER TRACKER
CALMatters: “As the climate crisis intensifies, California droughts are becoming more commonplace and more intense. Communities across the state are experiencing water shortages.
Snowpack levels are not meeting our needs. Groundwater is being drained quicker then it can be recharged. And California reservoirs are being pushed to the max.
This dashboard provides current and historical perspective on water issues facing the state using a variety of public available datasets, and explores how droughts are making those issues worse.”
LA Times, GRACE TOOHEY: “It will soon be illegal for California employers to let workers’ off-site and outside-of-work marijuana use be a factor in hiring or firing decisions, according to a new state law.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed into law a bill that makes California the seventh state in the U.S. that does not allow employers to discriminate against workers who smoke weed “off the job and away from the workplace.” The law goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024.
The law prohibits employers from making hiring, firing or other employment decisions based on a drug test that finds “nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites” in someone’s hair or urine, which do not indicate current impairment, but that someone consumed cannabis recently, up to weeks prior, according to Assembly Bill 2188 that Assemblymember Bill Quirk (D-Hayward) sponsored.”
Cal State says it can’t afford a staff wage hike even if Newsom OKs it
CALMatters, MIKHAIL ZINSHTEIN: “It will soon be illegal for California employers to let workers’ off-site and outside-of-work marijuana use be a factor in hiring or firing decisions, according to a new state law.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed into law a bill that makes California the seventh state in the U.S. that does not allow employers to discriminate against workers who smoke weed “off the job and away from the workplace.” The law goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024.
The law prohibits employers from making hiring, firing or other employment decisions based on a drug test that finds “nonpsychoactive cannabis metabolites” in someone’s hair or urine, which do not indicate current impairment, but that someone consumed cannabis recently, up to weeks prior, according to Assembly Bill 2188 that Assemblymember Bill Quirk (D-Hayward) sponsored.”
MPX vaccine eligibility expands again. Here’s how to get your shot
LA Times, JESSICA ROY/GRACE TOOHEY: “MPX vaccines are easier to get than ever before.
L.A. County has expanded eligibility for the vaccine and made it more widely available at walk-up clinics around the county.
Cases of MPX have cratered after rising exponentially in early August. An encouraging bar chart from the L.A. County Department of Public Health visualizes the steep decline: There were over 200 new MPX cases each week in L.A. County during the month of August. But in the first week of September, there were just 148, and numbers have continued to fall. Statewide data show similar trends.”
Downtown S.F. expects biggest conference since COVID. Here’s how Dreamforce 2022 could impact city
The Chronicle, ROLAND LI: “Dreamforce kicks off Tuesday in the heart of San Francisco and will be the city’s largest conference since the pandemic began in 2020, the strongest sign yet that the city’s biggest industry — tourism and hospitality — could be seeing a sustained recovery.
Salesforce, the city’s largest private employer, expects 40,000 in-person attendees — a sold-out crowd — for the company’s annual gathering of its global community. The tech event spans all three Moscone Center buildings from Tuesday through Thursday. A total of 150,000 people are registered online and in-person, not far from the 171,000 people registered before the pandemic.
Sarah Franklin, Salesforce president and chief marketing officer called this week’s event the “most important Dreamforce ever.””
What the Las Vegas Raiders’ booming franchise value means for the A’s
The Chronicle, MATT KAWAHARA: “Early returns on the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas indicate the team hit the jackpot. In the latest NFL franchise valuations by Forbes, the Raiders are worth $5.1 billion, up from $3.4 billion just last year.
As the Oakland Athletics explore making a similar move, it invites a question: What are the A’s prospects if they were to follow their former Coliseum co-tenants to Nevada?
Sports economists say any parallels to be drawn are limited. The A’s franchise value surely would increase with a new ballpark, whether it’s in Las Vegas or Oakland, but that increase wouldn’t match the magnitude of the Raiders’ jump for a few reasons.”
S.F. had bold plan to cut chronic homelessness in half in 5 years. The numbers only got worse
The Chronicle, MALLORY MOENCH/KEVIN FAGAN: “In 2017, San Francisco’s top officials announced an audacious goal: Cut the city’s chronic homelessness number in half over the next five years.
A few months earlier, the city had received a gift to help reach that goal — $100 million in private donations from a nonprofit to supplement the city’s more than $250 million annual homelessness budget.
“This is going to be huge,” then-Mayor Ed Lee told The Chronicle at the time about the donation from nonprofit Tipping Point. “I do believe we’ll be able to cut chronic homelessness in half with this help.”
A Russian megastar criticizes the war in Ukraine. What happens now?
AP, ANDREW KATELL: “A Russian megastar’s criticism of the war in Ukraine has set off intense reactions on social media, raising the question of whether the singer’s disapproving Instagram post might mark a turning point in Russian public opinion.
At the risk of being branded a traitor, Alla Pugacheva used her famous voice over the weekend to question the seven-month war, becoming the most prominent Russian celebrity to do so. Pugacheva’s post described her homeland, which gave her its highest civilian honors, as “a pariah” and said Russian soldiers were dying for “illusory goals.”
It was a remarkable moment that punched a hole in the Kremlin’s vigorously defended narrative of the reasons and goals of its Feb. 24 invasion of neighboring Ukraine and that threatens to undo months of carefully crafted war propaganda.”
Biden scrambles to shore up Latino support. Is it too late?
LA Times, ELI STOKOLS: “A few months after taking office, President Biden invited a group of top Latino leaders to the White House. As they sat around the table, the president was surprisingly earnest. He went as far as to acknowledge, two people familiar with the conversation recounted, that his five decades in politics had given him far more familiarity with the African American community and its top issues than with Latinos and their concerns.
Nearly a year and a half later, Biden and Democrats have delivered on a number of policy promises of deep importance to Latinos. But some Latino activists worry voters aren’t aware of all that’s been done, and others worry that the blinkered perspective Biden acknowledged privately has limited Latino representation in his administration.
“I believe there’s a blind spot in the White House and in the Oval Office,” said Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who pointed to a lack of Latino appointees in key roles across the executive branch. “It’s clear that the president himself doesn’t have an understanding of the Latino community.””