"The California Public Utilities Commission
voted Thursday to open talks to return California to a deregulated retail energy market, despite objections from legislative leaders that it is "not within the discretion" of the utilities panel to do so," reports the Bee's Shane Goldmacher.
"The 4-1 vote means the PUC will open hearings, tentatively scheduled to run through 2009, on whether the panel has the legal authority to deregulate the retail energy market, and if so, how to do it and what such a market would look like.
"'
Frankly, it continues to astound me that we have choice in most everything in our lives but not electricity service,' said the commission's president,
Michael Peevey, who wrote the draft decision to begin studying deregulating the retail energy market, also known as 'direct access.'"
"In the 15 months following the University of California's executive compensation scandal, UC President Robert Dynes and the governing Board of Regents have handed out
more than $1 million in extra pay and perks to about 70 top executives," reports the Chron's Tanya Schevitz.
"The extra compensation was allowed under rules that let Dynes and the regents grant exceptions to policy -- in effect overriding regulations that otherwise would not allow the payouts.
"
The extras included stipends and bonuses, auto allowances, relocation incentives, below-market home loans, and extended temporary housing for new hires."
The Chron's Matthew Yi reports in the wake of the McArthur Maze accident, "state lawmakers announced a bill on Thursday that would
toughen inspection rules on trucks that carry dangerous chemicals and tighten licensing laws for their drivers.
"Under the legislation, AB 1612, a driver applying for the special license endorsement to transport hazardous materials would need to show a record of at least three years of clean driving as a commercial driver.
Greg Lucas has
the latest on the Carole Migden story.
"
The California Highway Patrol, just hours after telling news organizations Thursday that it had determined that state Sen. Carole Migden was at fault for two crashes last week, retracted the information."A CHP spokesman had told The Chronicle on Thursday afternoon that investigators determined Migden was at fault for last Friday's accidents, one of which injured another driver. CHP spokesman Sgt.
Wulf Corrington also said the CHP was going to ask the Department of Motor Vehicles to evaluate whether Migden's driving rights should be suspended.
"After a story based on Corrington's comments appeared on SFGate.com, another CHP spokesman, Sgt.
Les Bishop, contacted The Chronicle to say the information given by Corrington was released prematurely.
"
She said in an interview that she remembers being distracted by using a cell phone immediately before the rear-end collision that injured Ellen Butawan, 31, of Vallejo. Attempts to reach Butawan, the wife of a CHP officer, were unsuccessful, but Migden said she has learned the woman also has been battling leukemia."
Dan Walters writes about the demise of competitive partisan districts and the
rise of personality contests in ideologically homogenous districts. Case number one is the fight to succeed
Juanita Millender-McDonald, and the
Carole Migden-Mark Leno fight.
"Addressing an embarrassment, state Controller John Chiang said Thursday he's
sponsoring a bill to overhaul the state's broken lost-and-found system —
days after the Bureau of Unclaimed Property was discovered listing its own lost money on its own Web site,' writes Steve Geissinger in the Argus.
"Chiang said SB919 by Sen.
Mike Machado, D-Linden, would relax current notification restrictions so that officials can more effectively contact 800,000 owners of $5 billion in lost funds and property.
"'Restrictions in the law over the past two decades have created a ridiculously ineffective program for reuniting owners with their lost or forgotten property," Chiang said in a statement.
"The controller said, 'It is mind-boggling that the state Controller's Office is prohibited from using its resources to notify Gov. (Arnold) Schwarzenegger, legislators and movie stars that the state may be holding their unclaimed property.'"
And from our
Damned Pigeon Lovers Files, AP reports, "Pigeon fanciers in three states were
accused of shooting, clubbing and gassing federally protected hawks and falcons, authorities said Thursday.
"The men were associated with clubs for enthusiasts of Birmingham roller pigeons, which because of a genetic defect do backward flips while in flight and make attractive prey for hawks and falcons."
We interrupt this Roundup for a
bulletin from our Colorado bureau.
"
A former Democratic Party activist who left dog feces on the doorstep of U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's Greeley office during last year's 4th Congressional District campaign was found not guilty Wednesday of criminal use of a noxious substance."
"
Ensz's lawyers never denied that their client left a Musgrave campaign brochure full of feces at the front door of the congresswoman's office. But they argued that Ensz was making a statement protected by free speech - the poop was a symbol of what she thought of Musgrave's politics."
Let's see:
Press, religion, assembly, speech, redress of grievances. Nope, we still don't see "poop on the doorstep" in there...
And, LA Observed reports, "Our long reptilian nightmare is over --
they caught Reggie this afternoon."
To which we say --
Boo! But we digress...
"The alligator dumped in Machado Lake way back in ought five -- and originally thought to be a caiman -- was nabbed on dry land by park rangers, firefighters and a zoo worker. They exploited his appetite for chicken and set a trap. The capture opened the way for the exclamation of the year from an excited Councilwoman
Janice Hahn: '
I'm touching the gator right now!'
Is that a euphamism for something? Oops, there we go again...
"
They fenced him in, got duct tape around his neck to close his mouth, covered his eyes and piled on top of him, Hahn said. After catching him a little after 3 p.m., they put him in a truck bound for the Los Angeles Zoo.
"Hahn estimated Reggie was about 6 or 7 feet long, and
she described him as both 'soft' and 'slimy.'
Which was nothing new of the councilwoman, since she deals with the mayor on a daily basis...