"
Phil Angelides, the Democratic nominee for governor, charged [yesterday] that Gov. Schwarzenegger
has failed to deliver on a campaign promise to attract new power plants to ease energy shortages on summer days that lead to high electricity consumption, thus creating a new energy crisis," reports Edwin Garcia in the Merc News.
"'With this heat wave our energy grid has been strained almost to breaking,' Angelides said. '(The governor's) lack of attention on this issue, his failure to move us forward,
has resulted in the state once again playing Russian roulette with its energy supplies.'"
"Schwarzenegger's campaign countered with a statement criticizing Angelides for what it calls a '
Typical Phil: Gloom and Doom' attitude about California
"'If Phil Angelides took off his partisan shades for just a second, he would see what the rest of Californians see: a growing economy, over a half million new jobs, record levels of education funding,
and the lights in his campaign office are still on despite record power usage,' said spokesman
Matt David."
"Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nunez on Tuesday
called for a legislative audit of California State University after revelations that the nation's largest public university system had secretly paid millions of dollars to outgoing campus presidents and top executives," reports the AP's Samantha Young.
"'I'm deeply troubled by allegations that former high-level CSU officials have been given dubious positions after their tenures, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars to do no discernible work while students have seen their tuition rise almost 30 percent in the past three years,' Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said in a statement."
"'We would welcome any audit. We've followed our policy and will cooperate fully,' [CSU] spokeswoman
Claudia Keith said."
Speaking of obscene compensation, it seems that
some constitutional officers may be riding a "platinum parachute" out of office.
"Top elected officials in California who leave office in January could be eligible for lifetime pension benefits based on a salary they had earned for only about four weeks," reports the Bee's Jim Sanders.
"The oddity would apply to Democratic Lt. Gov.
Cruz Bustamante, for example, if he loses to Republican
Steve Poizner in his current campaign to become insurance commissioner."
"
Claude Parrish, currently a Board of Equalization member, also could benefit from the pension sweetener if he is defeated in the Nov. 7 election for state treasurer, state records show."
So, there's an incentive to loose. Sort of.
"Outgoing Controller
Steve Westly qualifies for the retirement boost, but he has said he will voluntarily forgo it."
Guess he still has some cash leftover after his
costly gubernatorial bid.
"The potential windfall stems from a little-known provision in state law coupled with a new 18 percent salary boost, effective Dec. 4, for constitutional officers ranging from the governor to Board of Equalization members."
"Under state law, constitutional officers have the option of participating in the Legislators' Retirement System, or LRS, or a parallel plan, CalPERS, that bases pension benefits on the highest average pay received over 12 consecutive months."
Didn't Proposition 140
do away with Legislative pensions? Obviously, we're off message...
"By contrast, LRS bases benefits on the 'highest salary received while in office,' regardless of how long that pay was received, said
Edward Fong, public affairs manager for CalPERS, which administers the LRS plan."
The LAT's Steve Lopez
takes a look at Proposition 89, the campaign finance reform initiative sponsored by the California Nurses Association. "
Although Prop. 89 is imperfect, at least one aspect of it is extremely attractive."
"It has almost everyone in Sacramento in a dither."
"The California Chamber of Commerce is aghast. The California Taxpayers' Assn. is against. Big Pharma, oil and insurance lobbyists are almost certainly hyperventilating. Legislators aren't exactly leading cheers and neither are the candidates for governor. And I just learned that the powerful California Teachers Assn. has joined the nattering naysayers."
"California Nurses Assn. Executive Director
Rose Ann DeMoro said front-line nurses gave up hope that patient care will ever improve as long as special interests are allowed to buy their way into the public policy debate and sabotage needed reforms."
'It's so fundamentally out of control that we didn't have a choice but to do this,' DeMoro said. 'This is a very serious effort at trying to get people elected who will make policy free of coercion.'"
Ventura county Star's Tim Herdt takes a look at
the governor's failure to remake the California Republican Party more moderate-friendly. "This spring, the governor again chose to sit on the sidelines — even when two of his closest legislative soulmates, Sen. Abel Maldonado and Assemblyman Keith Richman, were running for statewide office in contested GOP primaries.
And while he stopped well short of Maldonado's earlier criticism of the governor, Richman had his own criticisms of Schwarzenegger. "'
The governor has not taken any active role with regard to moving the party in a more moderate or mainstream direction,' he said. 'I don't think the Republican Party is any closer to becoming a majority than it was six or eight years ago.'"
Meanwhile, Dan Walters
blasts the deal forming to build a new arena for the Sacramento Kings. "The financing proposal that floats around is even more troublesome -- a countywide, quarter-cent sales tax to finance roughly three-fourths of the arena cost, with the Maloofs putting up the remainder. It's long been established that the sales tax is the most regressive form of government revenue because its effects are disproportionately heavy on those at the lowest income levels. A tax in Sacramento, raising about $60 million a year, would burden the poor to finance entertainment for those affluent enough to afford inflated Kings ticket prices."
"It's a bit surprising -- and perhaps telling -- that the city's liberal Democratic politicians, who profess to protect the poor, should be promoting welfare for the wealthy."
The Bee's M.S. Enkoji looks at legislation that
seeks to prevent kids from dying around swimming pools. "The goal of
Assembly Bill 2977 was to double protection around new residential swimming pools. At the same time, it required older pools undergoing even slight upgrades to be retrofitted to the same, stiff level of protection."
After being substantially watered down, "the revised bill passed the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee in late June. Three days later, 2-year-old
Jerimya Stacy was found in his family's backyard swimming pool in south Sacramento and died at a hospital."
"'We're disappointed, but we still support (it),' said Capt.
Jeff Lynch of the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District. 'We do not put a price on a child's life.'"
The
fight over the direction of the Santa Barbara News Press, where several journalists and editors have left over editorial control exerted by the paper's editor, continued Tuesday. "During a 45-minute midday rally at which journalists, community activists and the mayors of three cities spoke, the crowd erupted into cheers whenever the journalists who departed were mentioned. Some at the rally walked over to a group of reporters who remain on the job, but have been ordered not to talk, to offer hugs and words of support," reports the LAT's Catherine Saillant.
"Many at Tuesday's rally said they came to show support not only for the News-Press staff but for the larger issues at stake."
"'The press in this country has been intimidated enough,' said
Ann Bermingham, a Santa Barbara teacher. 'I won't let that happen in my community.
If we don't have a free press, how do we know what's really going on?'"
There's always The Roundup...
LA Observed reports on
the passing of former LA sports journalist Bud Furillo. "Furillo was the sports editor of the late Herald Examiner, wrote his column "The Steam Room" there for many years, and served a couple of stints as a radio sports talk host when that genre was first getting its legs in Los Angeles. His death last night at age 80 was reported today on the front office blog of the Dodgers.
Furillo's son, Andy, works for the Sacramento Bee capitol bureau. Our thoughts are with the Furillo family.