Because it's Friday, and only because it's Friday, we are refusing to beginning today's Roundup with anything budget related. Oh, we'll get there, eventually. We're just not going to start with it. No, today, instead, we're going to start with ... Carole Migden news!
SF Weekly's Will Harper reports, "We got a tip from a reliable source that Carole Migden is making an offer on a home in Potrero Hill -- which, not so coincidentally, is in supervisorial District 10. It has been long speculated that Migden, who lost her state senate seat to Mark Leno last year, plans to run for the D-10 supe slot next year.
And if this photo doesn't say San Francisco, we don't know what does:
Sticking with our Weekly newspaper roundup, the News and Review's Cosmo Garvin takes a look at a possible constitutional convention,
"The California Constitution is no work of art. It’s more like the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. Lots of little rooms, stairs that lead nowhere, doors that open onto blank walls and windows set into the floorboards. “We keep adding rooms, but the hallways don’t connect together,” says state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, of our state’s constitutional house of mystery. “There’s not a lot of thought given to the overall architecture.”
"Since 1879, the state constitution has been amended 512 times. Compare that to the U.S. Constitution, which you just don’t mess with. Its 27 amendments are straightforward principles concerning the essential function of government and the rights of the governed.
The California Constitution is more like a very long grocery list, on which one can scratch things out or scribble them in. The right to fish and the right the conduct stem-cell research are constitutional rights in California. The constitution divvies up vehicle license fees.
"Laws regulating low-rent housing projects are enshrined in the constitution. It’s loaded down with special taxes and spending restrictions that cannot be changed, except by a vote of the people.
Dan Walters takes a look at the pending report of the tax commission , and how it could change the state's political debate.
Obviously, we need more responsible political decision-making. But we also need a more predictable flow of revenues to discourage irresponsibility. In a few weeks, the Capitol will be given a historic opportunity to do that.
The California Commission on the 21st Century Economy, better known as the Parsky Commission for its chairman, businessman Gerald Parsky, is on the verge of proposing a massive tax system overhaul to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators.
"Although revenue-neutral – that is, not changing the amount of money now collected – the plan will probably propose abolishing corporate income taxes and the state sales taxin favor of a "net receipts" tax that's similar to the value-added taxes common in European countries, replacing the steeply progressive personal income tax with a flat tax, perhaps 6 percent, and adding a "carbon tax" to reduce fuel use.
Sounds like that one's going nowhere fast...
Meanwhile, in the wild world of video, Assembly Dems look at what the govenror's budget would mean if it was enacted.
Just out of curiosity, who funded the creation of that thing, anyway?
The Chronicle seems to think that rising home prices in the Bay Area is a good thing. "Bay Area home prices rose from April to May, the second straight monthly gain and a surefire sign that the cold-cocked real estate market is finally coming around.
"Unless, of course, it's not. The data could just as easily reflect growing distress in the high-end market that is forcing more well-to-do owners to unload their homes, distorting the statistics with discounted but still relatively expensive properties and foreshadowing greater pain to come.
"If you ignore the greater reality and look only at statistics, then you could conclude that we're at least nearing market stability," said Andrew LePage, an analyst with San Diego research firm MDA DataQuick, which compiles the figures. "But given all the forces out there, the mixed signals from the data and the unknowns, it will be at least fall before there's any clarity."
"State Sen. Mark Leno asked state energy regulators on Thursday to investigate Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s history of blackouts in San Francisco , including a recent underground fire in the city's Tenderloin neighborhood," the Chron's David Baker reports.
"As a San Francisco small-business owner, I am personally aware of the lost business I experience as a result of PG&E's performance failures," said Leno, who owns a small, sign-making shop in the city. "It's very frustrating. It's maddening."
Greg Lucas weighs in on Bull Testicle-gate, and other assorted matters.
"Unlike his past devil-may-care hijinks with the guv-doggy, Steinie sent the bull testicles back with a testy note about how the budget is serious business and, to paraphrase, he has his own already and a second set is unnecessary, thanks ever so much."
Testy note. get it? Teste. Anyway. Moving on...
"Former San Francisco Chronicle colleague, Robert B. Gunnison, often voiced this political admonition: “No matter how petty you think it is, it’s even pettier.”
Did Democrats hurriedly conclude the work of a special 10-member, two-house conference committee and jump to the budgetary equivalent of DefCon4, out of a profound sense of urgency over the state’s flagging fiscal condition? Out of a passionate desire to protect the halt, lame and impoverished – particularly those under the age of 18? Did they experience the revelatory equivalent of being struck blind on the road to Damascus?
Under the Gunnison Admonition, the more likely reason would be Steinie is pissed.
Steinie’s frustrations over negotiating with the governor during the last budget go-round in February are about as well hidden as a newspaperman lurking behind the tattered veneer of objectivity.
Let’s see: Your negotiating partner calls you “hallucinatory” and insists he will sign no budget containing tax increases – even several he himself proposed in his revised May budget and his previous budget proposal in February. He wants to torpedo a half dozen of the safety net programs you think are super-important. Who wouldn’t get a little hot?
So there. We’re taking up our budget on the floor of our Legislature and you can go pound sand, Mr. Governator Thus-and-So. Ne-ner-ne-ner-ne-ner-ne-ner."
That about sums it up.
And just in case you were ever wondering the value of a bologna sandwich, AP reports, " A man in Oklahoma City said he was attacked for his bologna and cheese sandwich . Police say 24-year-old Roger Hamilton told them he was sitting on a bus station bench Wednesday, about to put mayonnaise on his sandwich, when another man began staring at him.
"Hamilton told police that the man then punched him in the mouth and grabbed his sandwich and left.
Police said Hamilton has a swollen lip and his face was covered in blood. The police report listed the value of the sandwich at 76 cents.
