CA120: The magic and mystery of ‘electability’
From Capitolk Weekly's PAUL MITCHELL: "With the second release of the Capitol Weekly 2020 Tracking Poll we can dive into some details of the survey. Each month we will strive to find something in the data that speaks to a major topic targeted by policy wonks, pundits and political strategists, and we’ll look at the data from California respondents.
"This month: Electability."
"The idea of electability is always a subtext of political campaigns. At some level, voters want to support winners – and even if your dream candidate is running, he or she isn’t likely to earn your support if that contender’s campaign is a purely quixotic effort."
CalPERS gets candid about criutical decade ahead
From Calpensions' ED MENDEL: "Once CalPERS could shrug off low funding and rising employer costs as just another downturn, staying the course in the long-term strategy of getting most of its money from market investments that go up and down."
"This time is different."
"CalPERS is still only about 70 percent funded after a record decade-long bull market. State and local government CalPERS costs are at an all-time high and growing, amid warnings some cities may face bankruptcy."
Proposition 13 is a political third rail in California. Changing it will be a hard sell
From the LAT's GEORGE SKELTON: "There was a jarring reality check in the Legislature last week for interest groups plotting to change Proposition 13 and raise property taxes on major businesses."
"The reality is that raising any taxes will be very hard to sell voters."
"The plotters are led by some powerful public employee unions, including those representing teachers and service workers. They plan to place a citizens’ initiative on the November presidential election ballot next year."
Mountain Fire evacuations and road closures lifted as fire crews begin cleanup
Sacramento Bee's CAROLINE GHISOLFI: "Fire crews began cleanup Sunday on the approximately 600 acres burned by Shasta County’s Mountain Fire, which damaged or destroyed 21 structures and caused three injuries northeast of Redding."
"All road closures and evacuations were lifted at 5 p.m. Saturday. The American Red Cross evacuation center at Crosspointe Community Church closed later that evening."
"It’s looking very good,” Cal Fire spokesperson Cheryl Buliavac told The Bee on Sunday."
READ MORE related to Energy & Environment: Nevada border fire 'inactive' but smoldering; officials deem blaze 'human-caused' -- Sacramento Bee's DANIEL HUNT/MACK ERVIN III/CAROLINE GHISOFLI
Sheriff’s deputy lied about being shot by sniper. Signs of a hoax emerged quickly
From the LAT's RICHARD WINTON and JOEL RUBIN: "Signs it was a hoax surfaced quickly."
"On Wednesday evening, only hours after Deputy Angel Reinosa had put out a call for help over his radio that he had been shot by a sniper, investigators were beginning to doubt the rookie’s story."
"Reinosa, a 21-year-old deputy assigned to the department’s Lancaster station, said he had been on his way to his car in the station’s parking lot when he was hit by rifle fire from a nearby apartment building. He claimed the protective vest he was wearing stopped a shot to his chest, while another bullet had grazed his shoulder."
Despite soaring prices, some Bay Area homes still have recession-era property tax break
The Chronicle's KATHLEEN PENDER: "This may be hard to believe considering how far home prices have risen, but there are properties in every California county — including almost 50,000 in the Bay Area — that are still benefiting from temporary property tax reductions they got during the housing bust."
"That’s because the market value of these properties, which are mostly residential, is still below their “Proposition 13 value.” This is where they would be assessed today under Prop. 13, had they not gotten the temporary reduction."
"These properties make up a small percentage of the tax base in most Bay Area counties except Contra Costa, where they number 20,920, or 18% of all parcels. San Francisco has the smallest number — 617, or 0.3% of all parcels. Of those, 369 are condo units in the Millennium Tower, where values have sunk along with the building."
Can a Silicon Valley entrepreneur fix California's troubled DMV? Newsom is banking on it
LA Times's PATRICK MCGREEVY: "Tech entrepreneur Steve Gordon got a glimpse of how wary Californians are of the Department of Motor Vehicles when he visited an office near his San Jose home at 6 a.m. one morning and found people waiting in line — even though the doors didn’t open until 8."
"One man brought a lawn chair for the two-hour wait and told Gordon what others also shared: He was there early to avoid an expected crush of people. News reports last year detail ed horror stories of packed DMV offices where customers had to wait in line for four to six hours."
"This is six in the morning and I’m there with my Starbucks coffee,” Gordon recalled. “I’m wearing flip flops, an old pair of jeans and a polo shirt and I said, ‘ You’re probably not going to believe this. My name is Steve Gordon and I’m actually interviewing for the job as director of the DMV."
DMV employee gets nearly 2 years fed time for bribery, fraud
Sacramento Bee's ANDREW SHEELER: "A former California Department of Motor Vehicles employee will serve nearly two years in federal prison for taking money in exchange for altering DMV database records."
"Aaron Gilliam, 51, of Sherman Oaks, pleaded guilty to three conspiracy charges — to commit bribery, to commit identity fraud and to commit unauthorized access of a computer."
"Gilliam worked at the Hollywood DMV for more than a decade. Between April 2016 and July 2017, he would take money in exchange for altering DMV records to reflect that individuals received a passing score on written examinations, despite those individuals either failing or not taking those tests."
Dems sounding less aspirational, more confrontational
The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI: "During a campaign stop at a San Francisco club a few days ago, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker rhapsodized about something rarely heard during this presidential campaign: love."
"It’s not sentimentality to remind people that patriotism is love of country. And you cannot love your country unless you love your fellow countrymen and women,” the presidential candidate told 650 people at the Folsom Street Foundry. “Love is not a sentiment, it is struggle. It is sacrifice. It is always remembering that you cannot lead the people if you do not love the people."
"Booker’s soaring 30-minute speech on how to respond to this “moral moment” was an outlier in a campaign where President Trump belittles the Democrats as “losers” on Twitter and they return fire by calling him a “criminal” on the stump."
Ernie Konnyu's congresional run ends almost as soon as it started
The Chronicle's JOHN WILDERMUTH: "South Bay Republican Ernie Konnyu’s self-promoted run for an Orange County congressional seat is at an end, almost as soon as it started."
"The former congressman had announced last week that he’d be the favorite in 2020 to unseat Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine and said he had a poll to prove it."
"Couple of problems, though. At age 82, Konnyu hasn’t held public office since he was beaten by fellow Republican Tom Campbell in the 1988 GOP primary for the Peninsula congressional district that Konnyu held for exactly one term."
The state of California regrets to inform you that you can't keep beagle-sized rodents as pets
Sacramento Bee's ANDREW SHEELER: "Nutria, a giant invasive rodent originally from South America, might be the size of a beagle, but unlike a beagle you can’t keep them in your home."
"The California Fish and Game Commission is looking to correct a gap in the law that restricts what pets may lawfully be owned by including nutria among the list."
"Nutria affect the state’s wildlife by damaging wetland habitats, and put waterways, water supplies, water conveyance and flood protection infrastructure, and agriculture at risk from damage through their burrowing and herbivory of aquatic vegetation,” according to the commission."
Deputy faked being shot by sniper; Sheriff is 'appalled'
LA Times's RICHARD WINTON/JOEL RUBIN: "A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy falsely claimed last week he was shot by a sniper at the Lancaster sheriff’s station. He’ll now be the subject of a criminal investigation, officials said late Saturday."
"We are all appalled and disappointed. We took the deputy at his word at first,” Sheriff Alex Villanueva said in an interview Sunday. “We intend to hold the individual responsible for breaking the law and most importantly for betraying the community."
"We know the what and how,” the sheriff added. “We don’t know the why."
Some of these pens are more expensive than the sword
The Chronicle's STEVE RUBENSTEIN: "Fountain pens, the things people once wrote with, are getting written with all over again."
"That’s a fairly revolutionary thing for fountain pens, which for years were locked up in display cases and tucked into storage. Fountain pens are coming out of the closet. These days, people are putting ink in them and not all of that ink is leaking into their shirt pockets."
"It’s the dawn of another golden age, say the hundreds of fountain pen fans who jammed a hotel ballroom in Redwood City for the San Francisco International Pen Show."
Denise Dalton, who co-founded Fox & Goose with her husband in 1975, dies at 79
Sacramento Bee's BENJY EGEL: "Denise Dalton, who co-founded the Sacramento pub Fox & Goose Public House and ran the kitchen for its first 20 years, died in her East Sacramento home Monday at the age of 78."
"Dalton lived nearly her entire life in Sacramento from her birth on Feb. 15, 1941, until death. She graduated from Sacramento High School and Sacramento State, and taught art at Will C. Wood Middle School before leaving to open Fox & Goose with her then-husband, Bill, her daughter Allyson Dalton said."
"An artist like Denise, Bill had a studio in the W.P. Fuller Building and reached a handshake agreement with building owner Fred David (who also owned neighboring David Candy Co. and the Sacramento Solons) to rent a section on the ground floor. He built the restaurant out and she taught classes until January 1975, when Fox & Goose’s doors opened at 1001 R St."
It was sensitive data from a US anti-terror program -- and terrorists could have gotten to it for years, records show
LA Times's EMILY BAUMGAERTNER: "The Department of Homeland Security stored sensitive data from the nation’s bioterrorism defense program on an insecure website where it was vulnerable to attacks by hackers for over a decade, according to government documents reviewed by The Times."
"The data included the locations of at least some BioWatch air samplers, which are installed at subway stations and other public locations in more than 30 U.S. cities and are designed to detect anthrax or other airborne biological weapons, Homeland Security officials confirmed. It also included the results of tests for possible pathogens, a list of biological agents that could be detected and response plans that would be put in place in the event of an attack."
"The information — housed on a dot-org website run by a private contractor — has been moved behind a secure federal government firewall, and the website was shut down in May. But Homeland Security officials acknowledge they do not know whether hackers ever gained access to the data."
