The Bee's Kevin Yamamura sets the scene for the new year, and the same old budget problem.
"With budget talks trudging along, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's aides are preparing a January budget plan that attempts to bridge California's entire $40 billion gap by June 2010.
"The Republican governor and Democratic leaders had hoped to agree on a midyear budget solution to wipe away $18 billion of the general-fund deficit before Schwarzenegger's annual spending plan release, but they have made little progress since their last in-person meeting a week ago.
"Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said Friday that Democrats were "moving closer" to the governor's demands for deeper spending cuts and an economic stimulus package, but reported Monday that the leaders are still "far away" from a deal.
"State Controller John Chiang was undergoing
tests at a Texas hospital Monday after experiencing
chest pains while
visiting family for the holidays," the LAT reports.
"Spokeswoman Hallye Jordan
said Chiang checked himself into Harris Methodist Hospital
in Fort
Worth on Friday and was resting comfortably.
"She said she did not know whether the 46-year-old controller had any past medical problems."
Maybe he got a sneak peak at the governor's January budget...
The Chron's Matthew Yi adds , "If the controller becomes incapacitated, Deputy Controller Collin Wong-Martinusen would take over until the governor nominates and the Legislature approves a replacement to serve the remainder of the term, she said.
Chiang, a Democrat, was elected in 2006. He became more widely known during the summer's record-setting budget impasse when he refused to follow Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's executive order to slash pay for thousands of state workers to federal minimum wage as a cash-saving measure.
Dan Walters writes the governor is still sighting a war with public employee unions. "Four-plus years later, the budget is hemorrhaging even more red ink, Schwarzenegger is still battling with Democrats over what to do about it, and a powerful subtext is his scarcely concealed desire to compel them to adopt policies that public employee unions find noxious.
Despite all the media attention given the centrist governor's ideological conflicts with his fellow Republicans, his struggles with the unions and their Democratic allies have been more important factors in his governorship."
"Schwarzenegger won re-election in 2006, but the past two years have seen a steady re-escalation of the mutual animosity between the governor and the public worker unions, especially the California Teachers Association and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. He's locked into perpetual battles with the former over school finances and with the latter over a new contract for prison guards and control of the prison system.
"Currently, while Schwarzenegger appears to have a broad agreement with Democrats on a plan to reduce the budget deficit by $18 billion, they've balked at his insistence on measures that public unions abhor, such as furloughing state workers, privatizing some functions and trimming unionized in-home health care services.
The LAT's Dana Parsons can't understand why former Orange County Sheriff Mike
Carona did not accept a plea bargain deal . "this is a case largely built around the testimony of
former Assistant
Sheriff Don Haidl, a onetime Carona confidant who became
the
government's chief witness. Haidl's testimony, combined with the
secretly recorded conversations involving him and Carona,
are the guts
of the case.
"Only Haidl testified about cash payments he allegedly
made to Carona over a four-year period ending in 2002. He even testified that Carona refused the last payment
because he felt bad about the legal trouble then enveloping
Haidl's son. If Haidl made up the cash-payment story, you've got to give him credit for adding a creative flourish."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants more air traffic controllers
at LAX."
Reiterating
her call for more air traffic controllers, Sen. Dianne
Feinstein
(D-Calif.) on Monday warned President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for
Transportation secretary that chronic staff shortages
at Los Angeles
International Airport and the main radar facility that
guides aircraft
between airports pose an "alarming risk" to aviation safety in Southern
California.
In a two-page letter to Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.),
Feinstein recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration
take
immediate steps to hire more controllers at LAX and
the Southern
California Terminal Radar Approach Control in San Diego."
Ellie Nesler, who sparked a national debate about vigilantism after killing her son's accused molester in a courtroom in 1993 , has died of cancer," the Union-Trib's Tracie Cone reports.
"Nesler died Friday morning at UC Davis Medical Center
in
Sacramento, according to hospital spokeswoman Phyllis
Brown. She had
battled breast cancer since 1994.
"Nesler made headlines when she shot Daniel Driver five times in the head in a Tuolumne County courtroom during a break in his preliminary hearing for allegedly molesting four boys, including her then-6-year-old son William, at a Christian camp. Some hailed her for exacting her own justice, while others condemned her for taking the law into her own hands."
And finally, from our Flyover State Files, "A new Web site for campaign finance information in Wisconsin includes the state Capitol in Madison in front of a striking skyline — of Minneapolis. State Sen. Jeff Plale noticed the geography gaffe after looking at the site created by the Government Accountability Board. "I'm looking at that thinking, 'What the heck?'" the South Milwaukee Democrat said. "I don't think a lot of Minnesota legislators care about our Government Accountability Board."
"The board said it's paying Bloomfield, Conn.-based PCC Technology Group about $1 million to develop the site as part of a new system for tracking campaign fund raising and spending."
Worth every penny...