The California Coastal Conservancy, a state entity that for years has purchased land to preserve it from development. is running out of money and its big-ticket glory days may be coming to an end.
From the Press-Democrats' Guy Kovner: "Down to its last $150 million, the State Coastal Conservancy has spent most of a nearly $1 billion pot of bond funds approved by California voters and is preparing to get by with no new bond measures for the next 10 years."
"The conservancy, which has helped purchase about 40,000 acres in Sonoma County, is no longer likely to help swing big deals like the $24.5 million Preservation Ranch purchase it supported with a $10 million grant earlier this month."
"Doug Bosco, a Santa Rosa attorney who heads the conservancy’s seven-member board, was partly kidding when he told Sonoma County Supervisor Efren Carrillo at the April 18 meeting: “We don’t expect to see you back too soon.”
There is widespread gratitude to U.S. combat veterans, and when it comes to getting a job, one would think that gratitude would translate into a paycheck.
From the Mercury-News' Mark Emmons: "But when post-9/11 members of the military exchange their fatigues for business attire, that thanks doesn't always extend to being willing to hire them as civilians. Joblessness for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remains stubbornly higher than the overall population."
"That is despite an unprecedented effort -- including government tax credits and high-profile initiatives by companies such as Walmart -- to help veterans transition into civilian careers. And the problem could get worse as an estimated 1 million people leave active duty over the next five years in what remains a tough job market."
"Tyler Golightly, who was an Air Force captain who served in Iraq and has a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Southern California, has been looking for work without success since October 2011.
A problem -- one of many -- in the shift of state prisoners to local custody is that the process is interfering with crime victims' ability to receive compensation.
From the AP's Gillian Flaccus: "The California law that eases prison overcrowding by shifting responsibility for thousands of lower-level felons to county jails has made it much harder for certain crime victims to collect restitution from inmates."
"The state's 33 adult prisons have a seamless system for siphoning 50 percent of the money out of an inmate's prison account - money earned from a prison job or deposited by friends and family - to pay victims for their losses."
"But under the 2011 criminal justice realignment law, thousands of non-serious, non-sexual and non-violent convicts are now serving their sentences in county jails. Those jails do not have in-custody work programs and are not set up to collect restitution."
Speaking of realignment, it is settled state policy, but the transition of state prisoners to the locals is far from smooth.
From Monica Rodriguez in the Daily Bulletin: "The state's prison realignment program was designed to reduce overcrowding in California's prison system but some law enforcement members said the effort has resulted in increases in crime that communities are struggling to address..."
"During from the 1960s to the 1980s, the state experienced an increase in crime, but, by the late 1980s and 1990s, initiatives and legislation that took a tough stand on crime led to a growth in the state's prison population, said Kim Raney, Covina police chief and incoming president of the California Police Chiefs Association."
"The growth in the prison population resulted in lawsuits that eventually led to courts ordering the state to address prison overcrowding."
The debate over public pensions is intense indeed, but the dispute over funding retirees' health benefits is just as intense -- and the dollars involved are huge.
From Calpensions' Ed Mendel: "With pensions presumably shored up by Gov. Brown’s reform and a CalPERS rate hike, will the problem-solving trend spread to what is, by some measures, an even bigger retirement debt: health care promised state workers?"
"It was no surprise last week when a Democratic-controlled Senate committee rejected a Republican’s proposal to begin setting aside money to pay for retiree health care promised new state workers, putting a small dent in a $64 billion 30-year debt."
"Labor lobbyists told the committee they do not oppose “prefunding” retiree health care that is now “pay as you go.” This year $1.8 billion is budgeted for annual costs with no money added to invest and yield earnings to reduce long-term costs."
And from our bulging "Beltway Inanities" file we find that the nerds who put together the White House Correspondents' Dinner finally did something interesting: They commissioned a spoof of Netflix's "House of Cards" titled -- wait for it -- "House of Nerds." With so many nerds in Washington, it wasn't hard ...
