The rules were changed for a piece of the multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project that enabled a specific entity to be listed as the top candidate after the bidding.
From the LAT's Dan Weikel and Ralph Vartabedian: "State high-speed rail officials acknowledged Thursday that they changed their rules for selecting a builder for the bullet train's first phase in the Central Valley, a shift that subsequently made it possible for a consortium led by Sylmar-based Tutor Perini to be ranked as the top candidate despite receiving the lowest technical rating."
"The California High-Speed Rail Authority announced last week that the Tutor Perini-Zachry-Parsons joint venture was the top-rated contender among five bidders seeking to build the initial 29 miles of track between Madera and Fresno."
"While it offered the lowest price at $985.1 million, the Tutor Perini team's technical score ranked last. Ferrovial and Acciona, two Spanish firms with significant high-speed rail experience, had the highest technical mark but bid almost $1.4 billion. The rail agency board is expected to select a contractor in the coming months after additional negotiations."
Speaking of high-speed rail, a settlement has been reached in a lawsuit targeting the bullet train.
From the APs' Juliet Williams: "The California agency overseeing the state's effort to build the nation's first high-speed rail line received a boost Thursday when a judge approved a settlement in a major lawsuit that sought to block the project."
"However, the rail authority also faced a setback that could delay work and add to the project's soaring costs."
"The rail authority reached the settlement with a group of Central Valley farmers who sued to block the bullet train on environmental grounds. The approval by a Sacramento County Superior Court cleared the last legal hurdle for the $68 billion project to break ground this summer."
The money raised from speciality license plates hasn't penciled out and the problem has been going on for years.
From the AP's Don Thompson: "State auditors reported significant problems on Thursday in how California agencies collect and spend money from certain specialty license plate funds, including the loss of more than $22 million in revenue that could have been used for programs to help veterans, college students, firefighters and others."
"Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers sought the audit after an investigation last year by The Associated Press. In part, the AP found that money in a Sept. 11 memorial license plate fund that was intended to help victims' families and law enforcement had been diverted to other programs."
"In addition, Brown and former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger diverted $3 million of the $15 million raised for the California Memorial Scholarship Program to help close the state's budget deficit and never paid the money back."
Those redevelopment agencies may be gone but the battle over the money continues, as the locals scramble to balance their books.
From Capitol Weekly's John Howard: "Two years after the agencies were abolished and 16 months after the state Supreme Court upheld the decision, the reverberations from the landmark action continue. The agencies handled about $5 billion annually and Brown hoped to tap about $1.7 billion for schools and other services."
"The court actually went further than Brown's original plan, which abolished the agencies but allowed them to stay in existence if they paid fees to the state. That option was rejected by the courts, with the result that the agencies wound up getting eliminated entirely. Efforts to resuscitate them thus far have failed."
But while the issue of the legality of abolishing the agencies essentially has been settled, the division of funds that stemmed from their operations remains in lively dispute across the state.Local entities -- the so-called "successor agencies" -- that handle those revenues now often are in conflict with the state, which mainly uses the funds to meet education costs ordered by voter-approved Proposition 98. "
CalPERS is a huge player in the health-care industry because its health-care providers -- such as Blue Shield -- compete to provide coverage for CalPERS' members and the huge pension fund can negotiate favorable costs. But changes are coming.
From the Bee's Dale Kasler: "In a bid to curb health care inflation, CalPERS is splitting up its multibillion-dollar HMO contract among five different companies."
"The decision Wednesday by CalPERS' governing board ends a quasi-monopoly enjoyed by Blue Shield of California. The company will continue to run CalPERS' HMO plan but will now have to share the business over the next five years with Anthem Blue Cross, Health Net, Sharp and United Health Care."
"About 400,000 members, one-fourth of the CalPERS population, will be affected."
