After seven years, a barrage of special elections and a deepening budget morass, the LAT"s George Skelton has come to a definite conclusion: It was a mistake to recall Gray Davis.
"Schwarzenegger wasn't an improvement except for, briefly, providing entertainment. He didn't make the state's money mess any better. In fact, it has gotten worse."
"It was not a citizen uprising that dumped Davis, a Democrat. The 2003 recall election was called because one ambitious Republican congressman, Darrell Issa of Vista, spent $1.7 million of his own money to collect the needed signatures."
The on-again, off-again sale of state buildings is off again -- at least for a month. The Chronicle's Bob Egelko tells the tale.
"The Sixth District Court of Appeal in San Jose had blocked the $2.3 billion sale on Dec. 10 in response to a lawsuit claiming the transaction was an illegal gift of state funds to private investors. On Monday, the three-judge panel scheduled arguments Jan. 26 and left the sale on hold until then."
"Schwarzenegger has asked both the appeals court and the state Supreme Court for orders that would let his administration dispose of the buildings before he leaves office Monday. Because the buildings include the Supreme Court's headquarters at 350 McAllister Street in San Francisco, all seven high court justices disqualified themselves and have been replaced by seven appellate justices, who have not yet acted."
Meanwhile, back at the transition, Brown has dismissed the director of the California Lottery, Joan Borucki, reports the Bee's Jon Ortiz.
"The incoming administration has asked Linh Nguyen, chief deputy director, to stay on as acting director until a permanent replacement is named, according to Nguyen's e-mail to lottery staff. "As we know, changes in Administration often bring personnel changes," the e-mail states. "That is the nature of appointed positions."
"Brown spokesman Evan Westrup provided no insight into the reasons behind the change. "As is common during any transition, a number of the current administration's appointees have been informed that their appointment will conclude when the current governor's term ends," he said in an e-mailed statement."
More on the transition: Jerry Brown will replace Lester Snow as the head of the Resources Agency, and the retirement of Cal-EPA chief Linda Adams is likely, reports the L.A. Times' Anthony York.
"With Snow's departure and the expected retirement of Linda Adams, a Gray Davis appointee who has also served as head of the state's Environmental Protection Agency under Schwarzenegger, Brown will be making his own mark on the state's environmental policy."
"He will also have numerous appointments to the state energy commission and the public utilities commission during his first year in office."
Questions are being raised about the practice of caging prison inmates who are under going psychiatric therapy. The Times' Jack Dolan has the story.
"About a decade ago, a federal judge ruled that it was cruel and unusual punishment to leave mentally ill prisoners in their cells without treatment. Since then, state prisons have spent more than a billion dollars delivering care to an ever-growing population of inmates diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other psychiatric problems..."
"Those cages are an abomination. They train people that they're not human, that they're animals," said Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist in Berkeley who served as an expert witness on treatment of mentally ill prisoners in the case that forced California prisons to provide psychiatric care."
And finally we open our "War is Hell" file to learn that the winners of the American Civil War have more to worry about than celebrating the 150th anniversary of its start.
"New York isn't alone. Other states saddled with similar budget woes are unable or unwilling to set aside taxpayer funds for historic re-enactments and museum exhibits when public employees are being laid off and services slashed."
"Even South Carolina, where the war's first shots were fired upon Fort Sumter in April 1861, has declined to provide government funding for organizations planning events in the Palmetto State. "State money right now is hard to find for anything," said New York state historian Robert Weible. "That's life. We're all living with that."
Call Ken Burns...