Gov. Jerry Brown says he may push for a delay in placing an $11.1 billion water bond before voters in November, suggesting that asking for a huge borrowing at the same time he wants voters to approve his five-year, $35 billion tax plan is risky indeed.
From Wyatt Buchanan and Marisa Lagos in the Chronicle: "Speaking after a meeting with the Orange County Business Council on Thursday morning, the governor said the statewide general obligation water bond is not immediately necessary because ratepayers in several water districts would foot the bill for a conveyance project - like a pipeline or canal - to move water through or around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. "My time frame does not require that that be done in November. ... I don't want to make that kind of decision sitting here in Orange County. But we definitely have to take a look at that project and make sure it really fits with what's absolutely needed," Brown said."
The governor seems to be a getting a positive response to his tax increase plan on the November ballot, but there was one institution that didn't have much time Thursday for his budget policies -- the courts. They rejected his plan to make cuts in in-home care services.
From Chris Megerian in the LA Times: "Advocates for the disabled said the cuts would have hurt more than 300,000 people, and they teamed with the union that represents caregivers to sue the state. Government officials argued that the cuts were unavoidable because of the budget crisis. The judge, who presided over a hearing on the matter in Oakland on Thursday, said she was prepared to keep the cuts at bay, according to both sides. Melinda Bird, senior counsel for the advocate group Disability Rights California, said Wilken directed the parties to reach a settlement."
In Orange County, a key group of business leaders were enthusiastic about Brown's budget plan that will face voters on the November ballot -- a surprising sentiment in the fiercely anti-tax region.
From Martin Wisckol in the OC Register: "Gov. Jerry Brown's call for a combination of tax hikes and massive public works projects was warmly received when he pitched it to 50 of Orange County's top business executives Thursday. On the heels of Wednesday's unveiling of the plan, Brown is touring Southern California to garner support for a temporary tax initiative, high-speed rail construction, a water project, public pension reform and key changes to education."
You don't often see attempts to override a gubernatorial veto, but that's what happened Thursday, when Republicans led an attempt to override Gov. Brown's veto of bill to allow local governments to take control over state parks that had been forced to close.
From the AP's Don Thompson: "Had the attempt succeeded, it would have been the first override of a veto in California since Brown was first governor in the 1970s. As many as 70 of the state's 278 parks, beaches and historic sites had been scheduled to close July 1 to save $33 million over two years. During the past few months, however, a variety of arrangements have been worked out that will allow nine of those to remain open, said Roy Stearns, a spokesman for the California Department of Parks and Recreation."
The University of California at San Francisco is pondering splitting away from the rest of the university system, a move that is less dramatic than it sounds because of the way the institution is set up. From Nanette Asimov in the Chronicle: "Unlike the other nine campuses of the University of California, UCSF enrolls no undergraduates, offers no history classes and gets so much money from government grants that it barely depends on the tuition its students pay to attend the medical school on a windy San Francisco hill. Yet UCSF is attached like Velcro to the other campuses, required to spend millions of dollars to help support them and send officials to countless meetings where students protest rising tuition and regents debate educational policy."
