Former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed announced plans Wednesday to reintroduce a ballot measure that allows local governments to cut their pension obligations.
Mike Rosenberg, San Jose Mercury News: “After being termed out of office at the end of December, Reed said he planned on following up on a 2014 effort, which never made the ballot, to give local governments a chance to cut their pension bills, likely at the expense of government workers. It followed a similar San Jose pension measure Reed championed as his signature initiative during his second term as mayor, and one that is still being fought over in the courts and City Hall.
“Reed, now a part-time lawyer, said he might submit his initiative to the state for a title and summary -- the first step in a lengthy process -- in May for the November 2016 ballot…”
Former California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey pressured a San Diego utility company to buy more than $700 million worth of electricity it didn’t need, according to testimony in a Senate hearing yesterday. Marc Lifsher has the story at the Los Angeles Times:
“Senate testimony came from Kelly Foley, a former lawyer for an affiliate of San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s parent, Sempra Energy. She recounted a 2003 telephone conference call in which then-President Michael Peevey sketched out the power deal that eventually resulted in the purchase.
“Buying the extra power constituted overkill, she said.
“Foley's remarks came as the state Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee heard testimony about deal making and improper contacts between the PUC and the state's power companies.”
The Bee’s Jon Ortiz spoke with tech wiz Alex Castro of M Corp, a Sacramento-based IT firm, for an article called, “The big reason California state computer projects fail.” The article is a fascinating look behind the curtain that’s getting shared all over Twitter.
“Why do state IT debacles happen over and over? Castro says it starts with government’s antipathy for brutal self-assessment. Without it, an organization hides its weaknesses and can’t figure out processes to fix them before they jump into making multimillion-dollar technology decisions.
“’So they run into brick walls: bad leadership, bad tech people, lack of vision, overestimation of (in-house) skill sets,’ he said, and then think that ramming through a new IT system will force needed change ‘like the software will fix everything.’”
The tobacco industry has been strangely quiet on the subject of four anti-tobacco bills (SB 591, SB 151, SB 140, AB 768) currently making their way through the legislature. Don’t expect that to last.
George Lauer, California Healthline: "’I think they're trying to figure out what's the strategy,’ said Janet Chin, director of communications for state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), author of one of the four bills.
"’I don't think there's any doubt that there's going to be a big fight. We haven't heard anything yet. I think we'll start to identify the opposition and the strategy when we have the first informational hearing.’"
As the state GOP offers education tweaks, the California Board of Education suspended reporting requirements for one year to give students and schools time to adjust to the Common Core curriculum. From KQED News Staff and Wires and Zaidee Stavely:
“The board voted at a meeting in Sacramento not to produce an Academic Performance Index for the 2014-15 school year. The index uses student results on statewide tests to rank schools and to identify those that need improvement.
“School board President Michael Kirst said the state wants to make sure it is measuring student growth, not just baseline performance, on the new Smarter Balanced tests.
“…[The change was made in order to] understand the complex mosaic of a school and not just rely on a single test number,” Kirst said.
A coalition of six California tribes has issued a message to legislators: Keep Poker Stars out.
“The six-tribe coalition – led by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians – issued a letter to Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer stating their opposition to his ‘fatally flawed’ AB 167 online poker legislation. The coalition tribes were already understood to have thrown their support behind Assemblyman Mike Gatto’s AB 9 legislation….
“The coalition notes that the gold star regulators in Nevada thought to include a strict bad actor prohibition in their online poker legislation. Nevada also slapped a five-year ban on the use of ‘covered assets’ i.e. brands, software, databases, etc. used post-UIGEA. The coalition likes this type of language, which prohibits Stars’ new owner Amaya Gaming from unleashing its new toy on unsuspecting Nevadans. Jones-Sawyer’s AB 167 contains no such language.”
Remember the other day when we reported that Senate leader Kevin DeLeon demanded the closure of Vernon’s toxic Exide battery-recycling plant? Well, done and done.
We’ve all heard that criminals return to the scene of the crime, but this story outta New Jersey takes the cake. Christopher Miller served 15 years for a 1999 armed-robbery spree. Finally paroled, he waited exactly one day before robbing the same store – and the same clerk – that he had robbed in 1999.
“Miller Monday pleaded guilty to robbing the Stride Rite store on March 22, 2014, the very same store he robbed in 1999 during a spree that included two other armed robberies and resulted in a 15-year sentence, according to the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.
“Miller, 41, had been on parole for one day for those crimes when he went back to the Stride Rite store last year and again robbed the clerk, who had been notified by authorities of Miller's release. The clerk identified Miller, who was arrested that day.
“Miller, who is in jail for violating his parole, faces between 10 and 20 years in prison when he's sentenced in May. Prosecutors plan to ask for the maximum.”
