California’s minimum wage is going up again. Here’s how much it will be in 2022
ANDREW SHEELER , SacBee: "California’s minimum wage is set to go up again in January, hitting a major milestone sought by labor advocates and activists.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2022, California’s minimum wage will increase to $15 an hour for employers with 26 or more employees. For employers with 25 or fewer employees, the minimum wage rises to $14.
With this latest increase, California now has the highest statewide minimum wage in the country. California’s minimum wage is now more than double the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour.
What you need to know about California’s new composting law — a game changer for food waste
LA Times, JAMES RAINEY: "Californians will ring in the new year with the unfurling of a groundbreaking law that will change how they dispose of their organic waste, particularly leftover food and kitchen scraps.
Senate Bill 1383 requires all residents and businesses to separate such “green” waste from other trash, but the program will be rolled out gradually for homes and businesses in the coming months, with the actual startup date varying, depending on the location of your home or business.
Fines can be levied for failing to separate organic refuse from other trash. But those charges aren’t scheduled to begin until 2024. CalRecycle, the state agency overseeing the change, has lots of information about the new requirements on its website."
Column: Gerrymandering still exists in California. But reforms did away with the old, ugly system
GEORGE SKELTON, LA Times: "Gerrymandering was supposed to be cured by redistricting reform. No chance. It’s still alive and well in California.
That was evident in the just-completed once-a-decade redrawing of California congressional and legislative districts.
But the latest gerrymandering wasn’t about crafting weirdly shaped districts to benefit the political party in power. Neither was its purpose necessarily to protect incumbents from election defeat or to carve them friendly districts to run for another office."
Will California’s Central Valley send a Latino to Congress in 2022? New voting maps could help
GILLIAN BRASSIL, JEONG PARK and ANDREA BRISEÑO, SacBee: "California’s new congressional districts give the state two more Hispanic-majority congressional districts, including seats in the Central Valley that have never sent a Latino lawmaker to Washington.
Sixteen of California’s new districts are more than 50% Latino, up from 14 districts prior to redistricting, according to census data gathered in 2015. Latino voters constitute the largest ethnic group, though not the majority, in two other districts.
Altogether, California’s congressional delegation will include 52 lawmakers next year. California’s population growth slowed over the last decade, leading the state to lose a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The little growth there was largely came from the Latino and Asian communities, census data showed, with Latinos becoming the state’s largest ethnic group.
Opinion: Fruitless recall boosted Newsom’s political position
GARRY SOUTH, Capitol Weekly: "“Never strike a king unless you are sure you shall kill him,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1843. He couldn’t have foreseen the attempted recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom. But it is apropos: The recall not only failed miserably to yank Newsom from office, but actually immeasurably strengthened his political position.
The Newsom campaign, as a strategic objective, successfully sought to avoid having a well-known Democrat jump into the race in case he was recalled. This effort was aided by some of us who actually had gone through the successful 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis. In that race, Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante reneged on a solemn public pledge not to run and opportunistically jumped into the race late in the game, seriously compromising Davis’ ability to beat the recall.
I was puzzled during the recall when reporters kept asking me about supposed Democratic “disaffection” with Newsom. I suspected this perception was driven mainly by off-the-record conversations with Democratic legislators unhappy with Newsom over one thing or another, because credible polling never showed this. Newsom’s approval ratings among Democrats all during 2021 remained strong in the mid-80s, even during the worst of the pandemic."
Five California races to watch in 2022 that will say something about national politics
The Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI: "The top California races in 2022 likely won’t be the ones at the top of the ballot — as neither Gov. Gavin Newsom nor Sen. Alex Padilla has a big-name opponent yet.
Instead, the real action for California voters will be further down the ballot, and those campaigns will be driven by crime, gambling, abortion and inflation.
It is still a little dicey to pick which House or Legislature races to watch until California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission finalizes the state’s new political districts — and, upon viewing them, incumbents are overcome with a sudden desire to retire or move to a politically friendlier district a few miles away."
Snow hits Bay Area’s higher elevations over wet weekend, and more could come
The Chronicle, JD MORRIS: "After a wet Christmas weekend that even dumped some snow on the higher parts of the Bay Area, more rain and possibly even more snowfall is on its way in the coming days.
Mount Hamilton in Santa Clara County was among the places that got a dose of snow over the weekend. A layer of white powder covered hillsides around the mountain and its Lick Observatory, with social media images and the Bay Area’s network of wildfire-detection cameras showing the rare snowy blanket on Sunday.
The observatory said on Facebook that it “got a white Christmas,” noting that nearby roads were “dangerously slick due to snow and ice.” The observatory was closed through Monday."
Did California get its money’s worth from $1.7 billion COVID test contract?
The Chronicle, KRISTEN HWANG/ANA B IBARRA: "A patient sample that wasn’t processed for more than 30 days. A test used without proper validation of its accuracy. Patient results changed without notification. Safety and disinfection procedures called into question.
These are just a few of the myriad problems at the Valencia Branch Laboratory, a public-private COVID-19 testing lab operated by PerkinElmer that the California Department of Public Health hired in a no-bid, $1.7 billion annual contract.
An inspection report released last month by the health department outlines major problems dating back further than a year ago, raising new questions about how the state is spending taxpayer dollars to combat the pandemic. The report shows the lab has routinely underperformed, failing to meet the contract’s goals for turnaround times and numbers of processed tests. But the state auto-renewed the yearlong contract at the end of October."
New coronavirus cases reach nearly 9,000 in L.A. County as Omicron surge continues
LA Times, MARIS GERBER: "Los Angeles County on Sunday reported nearly 9,000 new coronavirus cases and seven related deaths — marking a continued wave of infections propelled by the highly contagious Omicron variant that recently spurred officials to expand testing options and that has upended a second year of holiday plans for many families.
L.A. County announced 8,891 new cases Sunday compared with 11,930 on Saturday, but officials cautioned that the latest figures might not be complete because of reporting delays over the holiday and weekend. The newest figure represents a significant increase from the case count early last week, when officials on Monday reported 3,258 new cases.
Officials have repeatedly urged caution in recent days, encouraging people to scale back holiday plans, test before gathering with family and, above all, to continue to rely on the best tools available: vaccines, boosters and masks."
As western states pledge to take less water from Colorado River, tribes seek a bigger role
LA Times, IAN JAMES/JAWEED KALEEM: "When officials from California, Arizona and Nevada signed a deal this month to take less water from the shrinking Colorado River, a large portion of the water savings came through agreements with two Native tribes.
Indigenous leaders have also been invited by the Biden administration to play a key role in future negotiations on coping with shortages.
The rising involvement of tribes in discussions about managing the West’s scarce water supplies marks a dramatic turn in a century-long history of being left on the sidelines."
Desmond Tutu, cleric who campaigned against apartheid in South Africa, dies at 90
LA Times, BOB DROGIN: "Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his impassioned campaign against apartheid in South Africa while Nelson Mandela languished in prison, died early Sunday.
Tutu, 90, died of cancer at a care center in Cape Town, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Trust said in a statement. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1997 and had been hospitalized several times in recent years.
A moral beacon in a deeply troubled land, the impish priest in the purple cassock stood for decades as an inspiring symbol of courage, dignity and hope in a nation that at times seemed doomed to civil war. His fervent pleas for peace and racial justice, along with his irrepressible sense of humor, were a constant balm to a country on the edge."
Wayne Thiebaud, famed Pop art painter, dies at 101
The Chronicle, SAM WHITING/KENNETH BAKER: "Wayne Thiebaud, internationally known as the dean of West Coast Figurative painters who also was credited with originating Pop art, died Saturday, Dec. 25, in Sacramento, his principal residence since the 1950s. He was 101.
His death was confirmed by his gallery, Acquavella.
“Even at 101 years old, he still spent most days in the studio, driven by, as he described with his characteristic humility, ‘this almost neurotic fixation of trying to learn to paint,’ ” the gallery’s statement said."
