New Senate leader announces leadership team, committee membership for 2024
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "New Senate pro Tem Mike McGuire announced his Senate Democratic Leadership Team and committee membership assignments for the 2024 Legislative year. The Senate Rules Committee will ratify the committee memberships next Wednesday, February 14, 2024."
READ MORE -- California Senate leader Mike McGuire picks his team -- CALMatters, ALEXEI KOSEFF
Here’s where California reservoir levels stand after this week’s storms
The Chronicle, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA: "Nearly all of California’s major reservoirs are holding more than 100% of their historic average water levels for this time of year after recent storms across the state gave several a boost.
Average total water storage across the state’s 48 biggest reservoirs has also been climbing since the beginning of the year, topping an 70% of capacity as of Thursday, according to state data. California’s reservoirs overall are holding 118% of their average levels of water for this time of year."
Experts Expound: How can California Republicans be competitive again?
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "It’s an election year, and once again the California is not expected to do very much on the statewide level. With that in mind we posed a new question to our panel of esteemed experts.
Republicans have not won a statewide race in California since 2006. What is one change the California Republican Party can make to become more competitive in the Golden State?"
Newsom sending DOJ, National Guard attorneys to Alameda County to beef up prosecutions
BANG*Mercury News, JAKOB RODGERS: "Days after ordering 120 California Highway Patrol officers to the East Bay, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced plans to also send state attorneys to Alameda County to beef up prosecutions of numerous “serious and complex crimes.”
The move was welcomed by the county’s top prosecutor and lauded by the state attorney general — who began his political career by winning a city council seat in the East Bay — but criticized as a “terrible idea” by the Alameda County public defender."
S.F. Mayor London Breed joins GOP-led effort to overhaul Prop. 47
The Chronicle, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "San Francisco Mayor London Breed is joining a Republican-led campaign to roll back parts of a law that aimed to reduce jail populations but that critics say has emboldened thieves.
Breed on Thursday threw her support behind the proposal to increase jail time for dealing large quantities of fentanyl, make it easier to charge drug dealers with murder, and increase jail time for repeat thefts and organized retail theft. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan also announced his support for the measure Thursday morning."
READ MORE -- Bay Area mayors join move to walk back Prop 47 and crack down on thefts and drugs -- BANG*Mercury News, JOHN WOOLFOLK
Critics bash Breed’s measure to mandate drug screening for S.F. welfare recipients
The Chronicle, MAGGIE ANGST: "A group of San Francisco addiction treatment providers and medical professionals are fighting Mayor London Breed’s ballot measure to mandate drug screenings for welfare recipients, calling it a “cynical ploy to shift blame onto the poorest San Franciscans.” The group launched an opposition campaign Thursday.
“Prop F’s potential for harm is undeniable,” said Gary McCoy, a spokesperson for HealthRight 360, the city’s largest addiction treatment provider. “... It blurs the line between care and punishment. It hurts people for their illness and dangerously undermines overdose prevention and recovery.”"
Monster storm triggered hundreds of mudslides across Los Angeles. Why do they happen?
LAT, SUMMER LIN: "Steven Golightly woke up Monday morning and walked down his street in Beverly Crest to find a mudslide had entombed two of his neighbor’s cars.
The 71-year-old, who lives on North Beverly Drive, had spotted a social media post online about the mudslide but wanted to see it in person."
A bankrupt California hospital left a health care desert. Two medical groups move to reopen it
CALMatters, ANA B. IBARRA: "A bankrupt San Joaquin Valley hospital whose closure led the state to create a bailout fund for distressed providers could reopen under the banner of two major California medical groups.
UCSF Health and Adventist Health today announced that they plan to team up and submit a plan to revive Madera Community Hospital, which shut down just over a year ago."
California adding apprenticeships to teacher recruitment toolbox
EdSource, DIANA LAMBERT: "Apprenticeships are being added to the long list of initiatives California has undertaken in recent years to address its enduring teacher shortage. State leaders hope that the free or reduced-priced tuition and steady salary that generally accompany apprenticeships will encourage more people to become teachers.
Apprentices complete their bachelor’s degree and a teacher preparation program while working as a member of the support staff at a school. They gain clinical experience at work while taking courses to earn their teaching credentials."
Should California schools have to share sex ed materials online? One lawmaker says yes
Sacramento Bee, ANDREW SHEELER: "Once again, a Republican California lawmaker has introduced a bill that would amend state law to require school districts to publish sex education and HIV prevention education materials online before they are shown to children.
This time, the effort comes in the form of Senate Bill 996, by Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita."
Woke Kindergarten critic put on leave by Bay Area school district amid national backlash
The Chronicle, JILL TUCKER: "The East Bay teacher who publicly questioned spending $250,000 on an anti-racist teaching training program was placed on administrative leave Thursday, days after he shared his concerns over Woke Kindergarten in the Chronicle.
Hayward Unified School District teacher Tiger Craven-Neeley said district officials summoned him to a video conference Thursday afternoon and instructed him to turn in his keys and laptop and not return to his classroom at Glassbrook Elementary until further notice."
Nine months after opening, L.A. County’s newest juvenile hall under fire from regulators
LAT, REBECCA ELLIS, JAMES QUEALLY: "Nine months after state regulators ordered Los Angeles County officials to transfer hundreds of youths out of two troubled juvenile halls, they are now considering closing a third hall — the one that probation officials recently reopened to appease regulators in the first place.
The Board of State and Community Corrections sent a letter Wednesday to Probation Department Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa detailing numerous persistent problems inside Los Padrinos, including too few staff on hand, not enough safety checks and too little programming."
California closes thousands of farmworkers’ housing each year. A lawmaker wants them opened
Sacramento Bee, LINDSEY HOLDEN: "Thousands of California migrant farmworkers must leave their affordable housing every year when the state closes the complexes seasonally — now a Central Valley lawmaker and a legislative leader want to change that.
Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, D-Fresno, on Thursday announced plans to introduce a bill that would instruct the California Department of Housing and Community Development to keep its 24 migrant farmworker housing complexes open year-round. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, is a co-author of the measure."
Oakland’s apartment market is in distress. The abandonment of one building shows why
The Chronicle, LAURA WAXMANN: "The developer of a new rental apartment building in downtown Oakland has walked away from the project — a move that underscores the distress building in the city’s multifamily market.
On its website, developer Mill Creek Residential indicates that it “sold” its less than two-year-old, 173-unit residential building at 1940 Webster St., which until recently was known as Modera Lake Merritt, in January."
L.A.’s worst parking lots? We figured out how to fix them
LAT, DAVID WHARTON, BRIAN VAN DER BRUG: "The parking lot is a mess, cars prowling for an empty space, shoppers weaving through the tangle with overloaded carts. “Nightmare” is the word Amber Mooers uses to describe the Sunday turmoil at her local Costco in Alhambra.
“There are people literally tailgating each other,” Mooers says as she loads groceries into the back of a car. “Everyone is vulturing for a spot near the front.”"
Trump wins Nevada’s Republican caucuses essentially unopposed
AP, MICHELLE L. PRICE, JONATHAN J. COOPER, GABE STERN: "Former President Trump won Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses Thursday, a contest in which he was the only major candidate to compete.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley skipped the caucuses, the only contest in Nevada that counts toward the GOP nomination. Haley cited what she considered an unfair process favoring Trump and instead ran in Nevada’s symbolic state-run presidential primary on Tuesday, when she finished behind the “none of these candidates” option, which Trump supporters were urged to select."