With the drought getting worse, some communities are poised to run out of water within the next four months, according to a state tally.
From Paul Rogers in the Mercury-News: ""As California's drought deepens, 17 communities across the state are in danger of running out of water within 60 to 120 days, state officials said Tuesday. In some communities, wells are running dry. In others, reservoirs are nearly empty. Some have long-running problems that predate the drought."
"The water systems, all in rural areas, serve from 39 to 11,000 residents. They range from the tiny Lompico County Water District in Santa Cruz County to districts that serve the cities of Healdsburg and Cloverdale in Sonoma County."
Sen. Rod Wright, D-Inglewood, was convicted by a jury in Los Angeles of voter fraud and perjury. He faces a maximum of more than eight years in prison.
From Capitol Weekly's John Howard: "Sen. Rod Wright, the chair of the powerful Governmental Organization Committee and the Legislature’s leading expert on online gaming, was convicted of eight felony counts of perjury and voter fraud in a case spanning nearly seven years."
"He was convicted of lying about his true address – which under California law must be in the district he represents — and lying on registration and candidacy documents."
"An attorney for the Inglewood Democrat said his client would appeal the Superior Court jury’s verdict, which came swiftly Tuesday after testimony in the case concluded the day before. The trial began Jan. 8. Sentencing was scheduled March 12 for Wright, who faces up to eight years four months in prison."
A bill to ban the manufacture of real-looking toy guns as emerged from the Senate. Next stop, the Assembly.
From Reuters' Sharon Bernstein: "Toy weapons would no longer be allowed to resemble real guns in California under a bill that advanced in the state legislature on Tuesday aimed at preventing children engaged in harmless play from being mistaken as armed and dangerous."
"The bid grew out of public outcry that erupted last year after a Northern California sheriff's deputy shot and killed a 13-year-old boy as he carried a plastic replica of an assault rifle, in an interaction that played out in mere seconds."
""It is increasingly much more difficult for a police officer to distinguish the real thing from the fake thing, and often-times these have very tragic consequences like the death of a child or a teenager," bill sponsor Democratic Senator Kevin de Leon told Reuters. "It's much more common than people think."
Republican Ron Unz, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who battled bi-lingual education is back, this time advocating for a higher minimum wage.
From the LAT's Anthony York: "The software engineer who authored a 1998 ballot initiative to end bilingual education, and challenged Gov. Pete Wilson in the 1994 Republican primary, is now out to make the conservative case for increasing the state’s minimum wage to $12 per hour."
"Gov. Jerry Brown signed a measure last year that will make California’s minimum wage the highest of any state at the nation -- $10 per hour by 2016."
"But that, Unz says, is not enough. He has a new ballot measure that would raise the state minimum wage to $12 per hour, a move Unz says could save the state tens of millions of dollars in welfare payments."
Issues surrounding California's new law allowing drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants arose at a Capitol hearing, with privacy and documentation the key concerns.
From the Bee's Jeremy White: "The question of documentation was a dominant theme. Many speakers urged the DMV to accept a broad range of evidence establishing California residency, noting that many immigrants lack other forms of identification. Ideas included utility bills, baptismal certificates and union identification cards."
"You can put together where people live and that they're part of a community by taking a flexible approach," said Eric Vega, a professor at California State University, Sacramento and a member of the Sacramento Immigration Alliance."
"Countering that call for a broader approach was Shelia Byars, a DMV driver safety hearing officer who warned of seeing "fraud out of control" during her 18-year career."
