The new Bay Bridge should open as planned, and the problem of weakened bolts is nothing in comparison with the bridge's overall safety, scientists say.
From the Contra Costa Times' Lisa Vorderbrueggen: "The remaining punch-list items -- including the bolt-by-bolt examination that began in March when three dozen anchor rods snapped on the span -- are "minuscule compared to the overall seismic safety of the new bridge," said Frieder Seible, chairman of the Toll Bridge Seismic Safety Peer Review Panel. "There is no reason to keep traffic off the new bridge until after every last bolt has been 100 percent absolutely checked."
"There is every reason to believe (the new bridge) will open by Labor Day," added fellow peer review panelist John Fisher.
"Transportation authorities are still one month and many test results away from a go/no-go decision on the opening. But Seible and Fisher said the critical findings are already in: The bridge relies on the broken bolts only during an earthquake, they said, and even if seismic repairs are incomplete Sept. 3, the new span is far and above the safest option for the 280,000 vehicles that will cross the bridge daily."
The state Supreme Court has denied review in a major case in Alameda County, in which a school district raised money through a parcel tax. The issue is of statewide importance.
From the Contra Costa Times' Peter Hegarty: "Owners of commercial properties of less than 2,000 feet were taxed at $120 annually under the measure -- the same as residential property owners. But those owning parcels more than 2,000 square feet were taxed at 15 cents a square foot, capped at $9,500 annually."
"The ruling in the Alameda case is expected to have far reaching consequences for school districts throughout the state as similar lawsuits over parcel tax structures have been filed in Yolo, Contra Costa and Los Angeles counties."
"We believe we are heading in the right direction toward refunding tax-payers their money," David Brillant, the attorney for the property owners, said Wednesday."
As health care reform takes place in California, the expectation and the reality are different for low-income children with autism.
From HealthyCal's Dan Weintraub: "When the state decided to transition low-income kids from state-subsidized private insurance — known as Healthy Families –to the state-run Medi-Cal program, families of children with autism were promised that their kids’ treatment would not suffer. But those families soon learned that one especially promising (but expensive) form of treatment was not going to be covered by Medi-Cal."
"Since then, those families and other supporters of autism treatment have been lobbying the Legislature to require Medi-Cal to cover the treatment, known as Applied Behavior Analysis. State senators added $50 million to the proposed budget to pay for the treatment for the coming year. But the latest version of the budget approved by budget-writing conference committee deleted that money."
"The cut was especially hard to take because state regulators and the Legislature had already required private insurance companies to cover the therapy as part of their mental health benefits. So the state won’t do what it says the private sector must do."
A crucilal vote looms in Sotckton in the wake of that city's bankruptcy, but one person won't be there to see it -- the city manager.
From Calpensions' Ed Mendel: "A key planner of the Stockton bankruptcy, City Manager Bob Deis, plans to retire on Nov. 1, shortly before what could be a crucial public vote on a sales tax increase that has split the city council."
"Deis battled with a police union that bought a house next to his home and subpoenaed his wife, oversaw deep staff cuts and structured an orderly bankruptcy that was a sharp contrast to San Bernardino’s emergency bankruptcy."
"But the Stockton bankruptcy plan, which cuts bond payments but not pensions, has drawn well-funded opposition from bond insurers, who complain of unfair treatment because the city’s largest creditor, CalPERS, is untouched."
Buying home-grown goods sounds like a good idea, but there's a lot more to it than meets the eye.
From Greg Lucas in Capitol Weekly: "Perhaps a strongly worded memorandum to the procurement officers of California’s more than 1,000 school districts, various state agencies, 32 prisons, 10 UC campuses, 23 state universities and 112 community colleges. Or would the honey of a warm, handwritten note with hearts over the I’s and a pithy thought-for-today at the bottom be more encouraging? Certainly a more personal approach."
"This encouragement doesn’t appear to take the form of financial inducement. In fact, the original eight-paragraph bill would have cost taxpayers more by requiring school districts and those state-run or state-owned entities to buy California agricultural products if “California grown products or the prices quoted for them do not exceed by more than 5 percent the lowest bids or prices quoted for products produced outside the state.”
"While 5 percent doesn’t sound like much, there are 6 million kids in California public schools, 2.4 million community college enrollees, 235,000 University of California students, 436,000 state university pupils, 235,000 University of California students, some 125,000 prison inmates. When feeding a minimum of 9.5 million persons, 5 percent begins to add up."
And from our "Oh no, Now What?" file comes word that the NSA may be getting a lot more than phone-call data.
"Among the small circle of outsiders who closely follow the NSA, the agency's close, long-standing relationship with AT&T, Verizon, and other telecommunications providers is an open secret -- so it would come as little surprise to find they're serving up exabytes of daily e-mail and Web-browsing logs as well. The Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing former government officials, that the NSA "obtains access to data from Internet service providers on Internet use such as data about e-mail or Web site visits."
"What prompted Wednesday's Senate exchange was a disclosure last week by the U.K.-based Guardian newspaper of a top-secret order from the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It allows the NSA to obtain daily records of all domestic calls made by Verizon customers. Subsequent reports said AT&T and Sprint are also involved."
"The Justice Department obtained that order by claiming it was permitted by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, 50 USC 1861, better known as the "business records" portion. Section 215 allows FBI agents to obtain any "tangible thing," including "books, records, papers, documents, and other items," which some of the Patriot Act's supporters have said was never intended to cover every American's phone call logs. (Section 215 orders are far less privacy-protective, and therefore more legally problematic, than traditional search warrants backed by probable cause and signed by a judge.)"
Time to go back to paper mail ...
