The double-whammy of relentless rain and driving snow may have finally brought an end to California's seemingly endless drought.
From the Chronicle's Kurtis Alexander: "They’ve had the extraordinary effect of filling reservoirs that haven’t breached their brims in years and, for much of the north state, intensifying a rainy season that is finally, mercifully, driving an end to the historic drought."
“In the very northern part of California, yes, the drought is over,” said Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “In the south, not so much.”
"This weekend, so much water fell from the sky that at one point nearly 63 million gallons of water per minute poured into the Folsom Reservoir near Sacramento, leaving dam operators at the long-dry basin opening the floodgates in an exercise that has occurred just a few times in the past five years."
READ MORE: Flooding forces thousands to flee, AP; Guerneville in Sonoma County, which seems to always flood, gets smacked again, Chronicle; Drought gets left further behind, Mercury News.
Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled his 2017-2018 budget, a cautionary document that dances around a critical question: What will the Trump administration do?
From the OC Register's Tony Saavedra: "But the $179.5 billion plan Brown unveiled Tuesday is overshadowed by the first deficit in four years – at $1.6 billion – and the uncertainties of how California might fare in a Donald Trump presidency."
"The budget reflects the governor’s attempt to keep key projects funded despite tax revenue that isn’t rising as quickly as it was two years ago. Brown said Tuesday the plan doesn’t consider what President-elect Trump might do with the Affordable Care Act and the reluctance of California’s leaders to deport immigrants – two issues that could affect federal funding to the state."
“We can’t budget what hasn’t happened yet,” Brown told a roomful of reporters."
READ MORE ON BUDGET: California girds for Trump, Politico; New budget draft includes $52 million for marijuana, LAT;
State Attorney General-designee Xavier Becerra passed his first hurdle to confirmation, with an Assembly committee giving him a thumbs up.
From the Bee's Alexei Koseff: "The friendly hearing offered few challenging questions for Becerra, even from the Republican lawmakers who ultimately voted against him, but did spark some reflective moments that illuminated more personal motivations behind Becerra’s positions."
"Becerra will take over the Department of Justice on April 4 unless the Senate or the Assembly reject him before then, a highly unlikely scenario given the Democratic makeup of the Legislature. The full Assembly is scheduled to vote on Friday. Democrats on the committee largely prodded Becerra on his willingness to serve as a warrior against the incoming Trump administration in what Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, described as a “looming long and ferocious and hard-fought legal battle with bloodshed stretching from the Golden State to Washington, D.C.”
"Becerra was eager, promising to defend the state’s advances on issues from immigrants’ rights to environmental protections while pushing for further strides at the national level."
Meanwhile, the George Lucas' $1 billion Star wars museum is set to land in La La Land -- the town, not the movie.
From Anita Bennett and Elizabeth Chou in the LADN: "After years of suspense over where filmmaker George Lucas would build his $1 billion museum to house an extensive personal collection of paintings, illustrations and movie memorabilia, Los Angeles has been chosen as the location, the museum’s board of directors said Tuesday."
“After extensive due diligence and deliberation, the Board of Directors of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is pleased to announce plans to build the museum in Exposition Park in Los Angeles,” the board said in a statement. “We have been humbled by the overwhelmingly positive support we received from both San Francisco and Los Angeles during our selection process.”
"Los Angeles City Councilman Curren Price Jr., who represents Exposition Park, called the museum a “game-changer.”
READ MORE: Lucas museum finds a new home, LAT; SF loses out as LA wins the prize, Chronicle.
Meanwhile, back to the budget, California's public schools got a minimal funding increase in the governor's budget proposal.
From EdSource's John Fensterwald: "Citing recent revenue declines and uncertainty about the future, Gov. Jerry Brown has lowered funding for schools by $500 million in the current year and is proposing little more than a cost-of-living increase in the 2017-18 budget that he presented Tuesday."
"And in a press conference surprise that will likely frustrate school districts and the construction industry, Brown said that his administration would not issue any of the $7 billion bonds for K-12 school facilities that voters approved in November until the Legislature established better auditing procedures to document how the money will be spent."
"Michael Cohen, the director of the state Department of Finance, said, “We must continue to have commitment to taxpayers that the money will be accounted for appropriately.”
READ MORE ON EDUCATION: Brown proposes more for higher ed, but phases out middle-class scholarships, EdSource; Workers stage one-day walkouts at UC Riverside, UC Irvine, UCLA, LADN.
