California preps for climate change summit, and Jerry Brown signs clean energy bill
Sacramento Bee's BRYAN ANDERSON: "This is a big week for California, as it looks to assert itself on the world stage as a top environmental leader. The three-day Global Climate Action Summit starting Wednesday at the \Moscone Center in San Francisco comes as California continues to resist the Trump administration’s environmental actions."
"The state has blasted President Donald Trump over his Power Plan rollback, vehicle air pollution rules, offshore oil drilling expansion and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. On the website promoting the summit, Gov. Jerry Brown says “there’s been some backsliding since Paris” and that the summit he is co-chairing “aims to increase the commitments that have already been made in Paris.”
"The summit will feature a cast of national and global players, mixed with a healthy dose of California representatives."
READ MORE related to Energy & Environment: Climate summit protesters demand a place for indigenous voices in the room -- The Chronicle's MEGAN CASSIDY/ASHLEY MCBRIDE; Gov. Brown's new climate goal: less than zero global warming emissions -- The Chronicle's DAVID R. BAKER; At Jerry Brown's climate summit, one deadline will overshadow all the others -- LA Times's EVAN HALPER; Crisis at Lake Powell looms large as long-term drought reaches upstream -- Water Deeply's MATT WEISER
Ahead in the governor's race, Gavin Newsom begins bus tour to help other Democrats
LA Times's PHIL WILLON: "Gavin Newsom kicked off a statewide bus tour Monday in the Santa Clarita Valley to bolster fellow Democrats in California’s contested congressional races, saying the party’s efforts to retake control of the House with President Trump in the White House was just as critical to the state as his campaign to become its next governor."
"The Democratic front-runner headed first to the Santa Clarita Valley for a tour stop in Stevenson Ranch to support Katie Hill, who is trying to unseat two-term incumbent Rep. Steve Knight (R-Palmdale). A former director of a nonprofit assisting the homeless, Hill was praised by Newsom for providing a “positive alternative agenda to Donald Trump."
"Newsom insisted he wasn’t taking his gubernatorial bid for granted by focusing on down-ballot races — he leads Republican John Cox in the polls and fundraising. And while he groused that the governor’s race was shadowed by daily eruptions in Washington, the lieutenant governor said the future of California and the nation rests largely in the outcome of the midterm congressional elections."
OP-ED: State Water Project: Our most important infrastructure
JENNIFER PIERRE in Capitol Weekly: "Ask me what tops the list of California’s most critical infrastructure, and I’ll tell you it’s the State Water Project. It’s hard to argue with the fact that water is a prerequisite for all life and ca healthy economy."
"That’s why financing the operation and maintenance of the State Water Project in a responsible, cost-effective manner should be common sense — not a political volley that puts California’s lifeline at risk and threatens ratepayers with a surge in water rates that is easily avoidable."
Forest-thinning measures likely dead in Congress, despite Trump, California Republicans
McClatchy DC's EMILY CADEI: "For more than a month, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue have been calling for a rollback of environmental regulations on forest-thinning projects they argue will help reduce the risk of wildfires, including the ones ravaging California."
"For too long, our forest management efforts have been thwarted by lawsuits from misguided, extreme environmentalists,” Zinke and Perdue wrote in a Sept. 4 op-ed in The Sacramento Bee. “The time has come to act without flinching in the face of threatened litigation."
"The state’s Republicans in Congress have been pressing the same agenda for years."
READ MORE related to Fire Season: To reduce wildfires, Edison seeks $582M from ratepayers for improvements -- LA Times's JOSEPH SERNA; Fire crew move on California blazes: evacuation ends in Napa, I-5 open north of Redding -- The Chronicle's MICHAEL CABANATUAN; Evacuations ordered in Marin County after wildland fire breaks out at Samuel P. Taylor State Park -- The Chronicle's JILL TUCKER
Rogue billionaires are giving the GOP and Dems a migraine
McClatchy DC's ADAM WOLLNER: "Republican Richard Uihlein and Democrat Tom Steyer have poured tens of millions of dollars into the 2018 campaign. And their political parties are irritated about it."
"The two billionaires have backed candidates and causes that Republican and Democratic leaders believe are detrimental to their chances in November. Uihlein, the founder of a Wisconsin-based shipping supplies company, has boosted insurgent conservative candidates over the GOP’s choices in several races. Steyer, a San Francisco hedge fund manager, has poured cash into a campaign to impeach President Donald Trump, an effort many Democrats view as counterproductive at best."
"Both parties have never been weaker than they are at this point in time,” said Jim Manley, a longtime Democratic operative. “It allows vanity projects to dominate the process. These wealthy donors are taking over functions that have usually been left to the parties in years past."
Folk songs, tears and zippy one-liners: On the trail with the longshot canddiate trying to oust Duncan Hunter
LA Times's ROBIN ABCARIAN: "Retired FBI agent Jeff Iverson had his doubts about Ammar Campa-Najjar, the 29-year-old Democrat whose race to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter took on an unexpected importance after federal prosecutors charged Hunter and his wife with stealing $250,000 in campaign funds."
"It’s not his politics, it’s his age,” Iverson, 67, told me as we stood on the porch of a stunning home overlooking Lake Hodges in Escondido."
SF wants to use old retrofit bond money to preserve affordable housing
The Chronicle's DOIMINIC FRACASSA: "It could soon be possible for San Francisco officials to loan out $260 million in unused bond money to preserve and grow the city’s affordable-housing stock."
"On Tuesday, Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Aaron Peskin are expected to introduce legislation that would give the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development the ability to issue loans to people and organizations seeking to acquire and rehabilitate affordable units."
"Officials hope that about 1,500 affordable units that might otherwise be sold and rented out at vastly higher market rates will be preserved."
READ MORE related to Homelessness & Housing: LA County to consider temporary measure to cap rent increases -- LA Times's NINA AGRAWAL
Get out of your bubble, do your homework -- and no yelling: How to survive the election
DAN SCHNUR in a Special to the Bee: "California Influencers, a group of public policy and political experts, offer their views on these questions:"
"What advice would you give to voters trying to make sense of all the conflicting information and accusations that will be flying around this fall? How can voters make the most informed decisions possible in this year’s elections?"
Study finds increasing minimum wage does not cause loss of jobs
Daily Californian's ALYSSA BERNARDINO: "A new study conducted by UC Berkeley researchers found that significant increases to the minimum wage in a city do not result in market job loss."
"The study was conducted by economists Sylvia Allegretto, Anna Godoey, Michael Reich and Carl Nadler through the campus’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. It is one of the first studies to look at employment effects of minimum wages above $10, according to Nadler."
"We find that (minimum wage increases) are working just as intended,” Nadler said in an email. “So far they are raising the earnings of low-wage workers without causing significant employment losses."
Zhao withdraws from SF school board race after reports on transgender comments
The Chronicle's JILL TUCKER: "A controversial San Francisco school board candidate withdrew from the race Monday after recent media reports exposed derogatory comments she made in Chinese about transgender rights and the sexuality of her opponents."
"On WeChat, a Chinese messaging service, Josephine Zhao described other school board candidates as “two transgender candidates … fighting for the title of ‘first transgender commissioner’ … also three homosexuals. Their highest priority for education would be to spread ideologies,” according to translations by Mission Local."
"Zhao said she was misrepresented, although the online news site used up to nine Cantonese translators to review her comments made on Chinese social media sites, newspapers and in public appearances."
Dixon confronts a Trump trickle-down after vice mayor's anti-gay comments
The Chronicle's SARAH RAVANI: "Thom Bogue asked several dozen stone-faced residents in the City Hall chambers whether they wanted to make a comment, but the mayor of Dixon in northern Solano County was met with jarring silence. Unlike during the past several City Council meetings, when people stormed to the podium and expressed anger and disappointment, Bogue and his colleagues were met with a hushed protest."
One woman wore a rainbow T-shirt bearing the words, “Love has no labels.” Another woman gripped a rainbow flag. More than a few people stayed seated while wearing red to signify their support for gay marriage and gender equality."
"The demonstration at last month’s council meeting was the latest action Dixon residents have taken in opposing Ted Hickman, the town’s vice mayor, who declared in his weekly newspaper column over the summer that July should become Straight Pride American Month, or SPAM. He also referred to gay men as “tinkerbells” and “fairies."
Injuries are the untold part of the scooter trend, doctors and victims say
The Chronicle's RACHEL SWAN: "The crash happened in a split second, when a Lime scooter zipped down a busy sidewalk in Oakland’s Uptown neighborhood and slammed into 2-year-old Carter Sarmiento."
"He went hurtling backward, landing on the cement near Valley Street and Grand Avenue. The scooter rider apologized profusely as Carter’s mother, Siena Sarmiento, picked up and cradled her bruised toddler. It didn’t occur to her to get the man’s name."
"We were just walking out of the lobby of our apartment building, and we didn’t think to look both ways, crossing the sidewalk,” Sarmiento said."
rder. A porn star. A pair of Playboy Playmates. A lawyer and fixer with a New York swagger and wiseguy vernacular suggesting he’s seen a few too many Martin Scorsese films."
