High-speed rail route from San Francisco to San Jose wins approval. What happens next?
TIM SHEEHAN, Fresno Bee: "Over concerns of a pair of Bay Area cities, the California High-Speed Rail Authority board finalized its choice of a route alternative for about 49 miles of tracks between San Francisco and San Jose.
Thursday’s actions included certification of thousands of pages of environmental analysis for the stretch, in which high-speed trains will eventually share an upgraded and electrified rail corridor with the Caltrain passenger train service on the San Francisco Peninsula.
The 8-0 vote (with one board member absent) took place in a meeting held by teleconference among rail authority board members scattered across the state.
Bay Area sees nation’s largest monthly drop in home values
ETHAN VARIAN, Mercury News: "As rising mortgage rates continue to cool the housing market across the U.S., the Bay Area in July saw the largest monthly drop in home values of anywhere in the country, according to a new report from home listing site Zillow.
The average value of a single-family home in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area fell 4.5% from June to July to $1.56 million. Home values in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metro, meanwhile, decreased 2.8% to $1.44 million.
Compare that to a .01% dip in value nationwide to $357,000."
Federal officials announce $310 million in funding to combat ‘megadrought’
GABRIEL SAN ROMÁN, LAT: "On a tour of increasingly parched California on Thursday, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland visited a water recycling project in Irvine to tout her department’s allocation of more than $310 million to combat a western “megadrought” fueled largely by climate change.
Joined by Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine) and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton, Haaland stood before heavy equipment at the Syphon Reservoir Improvement Project and said she felt “overjoyed” to announce the funding of 25 water recycling projects, 20 of which are in California.
“These projects will advance drought resilience by bolstering water reuse and recycling techniques while supporting over 850,000 people in providing clean, reliable drinking water to families throughout the West,” Haaland said."
Lawmakers eye the push for pay equity, transparency
SETH SANDRONSKY, Capitol Weekly: "A broad coalition is lobbying California state lawmakers to pass a bill called the Pay Transparency for Pay Equity Act, which supporters say would bring greater transparency and fairness to workers’ and employers’ pay practices.
Existing law requires businesses with 100 or more employees to convey pay data to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. But backers of the latest bill, SB 1162 by state Sen. Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara) say the current law is inadequate.
Under SB 1162, publicly disclosing salary and wage data for median and mean hourly rate would cover each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex within each job category. This metric includes direct hires and contract staffing employees, e.g., temporary workers. [UPDATE: A provision requiring publication of pay data was removed from the bill later Thursday.]"
54 guns, over 2,000 rounds of ammunition seized from Menifee home
QUINN WILSON, Riverside P-E: "Authorities seized dozens of firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition in Menifee after they were found in the home where a person who is prohibited from owning firearms was living, officials announced Thursday, Aug. 18.
The prohibited person, who was not immediately identified, was listed in the state’s Armed and Prohibited Persons System under a mental health prohibition, the state Attorney General’s Office said in a news release. The occupants of the home were described as being a “senior” aged married couple, authorities said.
It wasn’t immediately clear how or when the firearms were discovered."
Column: California had a nearly $100-billion surplus this year. We don’t need to raise taxes with Prop. 30
GEORGE SKELTON, LAT: "If Proposition 30 passes in November, we should hang a sign at the border reading: “Welcome to California, the state with the nation’s most outrageously high income tax.”
Actually, we wouldn’t need to inform out-of-staters of that embarrassing fact. Word would spread fast across America after the election that we’ve embroidered our reputation as a far-left state drawn to tax hikes rather than setting spending priorities.
Logic says that wouldn’t be a good pitch for enticing people with money to invest here."
California advances broadest US law sealing criminal records
DON THOMPSON, AP: "California would have what proponents call the nation’s most sweeping law to seal criminal records if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs legislation sent to him Thursday by state legislators.
The bill would automatically seal conviction and arrest records for most ex-offenders who are not convicted of another felony for four years after completing their sentences and any parole or probation. Records of arrests that don’t bring convictions also would be sealed.
It would take effect in July, and excludes those convicted of serious and violent felonies, and felonies requiring sex offender registration."
Finger-pointing erupts among backers of George Gascón recall
SCOTT SCHWEBKE and JASON HENRY, LA Daily News: "A Florida-based company that was paid millions of dollars to collect signatures for the campaign to recall Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón this week blamed organizers for their failure to qualify an election, insisting “they have no one to blame but themselves for this disaster.”
David Leibowitz, a spokesman for Let The Voters Decide, claimed the recall committee failed to heed the advice of petition circulation experts, ultimately tanking the recall effort.
“This could not have been handled more like amateur hour,” Leibowitz said. “These consultants made poor decisions and ignored solid advice at every turn. You name it, they did it, from collecting signatures on the cheap to failing to pay their bills, to expensive direct mail that failed, to having zero clue how to verify signatures for submission. They have no one to blame but themselves for this disaster.”
In scathing letter, Newsom’s office threatens to pull funds from Oakland for massive homeless encampment
SARAH RAVANI, Chronicle: "Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office sent a scathing letter Thursday to Oakland criticizing the city for its handling of the sprawling Wood Street homeless encampment and threatening to withhold promised state funds for housing people at the site.
The state said Oakland is “seeking to shirk its responsibility” in providing housing to the residents of the encampment — in particular the nearly 200 people who live on Caltrans property at the site — resulting in a dangerous situation. The site has seen repeated fires and sanitation hazards.
The letter comes before a key hearing before a federal judge next week on the future of the encampment."
Lawsuit alleges utility company is responsible for deadly McKinney fire in Northern California
NATHAN SOLIS, LA Times: "Residents in the McKinney fire burn area sued PacifiCorp this week, alleging that sparks from the utility’s high-voltage transmission lines and other equipment ignited the deadly blaze last month near the California-Oregon border.
The McKinney fire has burned more than 60,000 acres in rural Siskiyou County since it began on July 29. Four people died as the fire swept through the area, and hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed, according to authorities. The official cause of the fire, which is 95% contained, remains under investigation.
PacifiCorp, which is owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy holding company, operates an electrical grid across Oregon, Washington and Northern California. The utility company reported to California regulators that it operates a power line that runs near Highway 96 in Siskiyou County where the McKinney fire is thought to have started, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported."
‘Caught red handed’: S.F. residents fume after cops let man sawing off catalytic converter walk away
HEATHER KNIGHT, Chronicle: "It’s a good time to be a thief in San Francisco.
That was the message city cops delivered in the pre-dawn hours Tuesday when they responded to a 911 call about a man cutting a catalytic converter from the underbelly of a car. The officers arrived to find the alleged thief at the scene of the crime, learned he was on probation for a previous theft and then let him walk off, car jack in hand — even giving him directions to the nearest bus stop.
Roommates Lauren Lindsay and Morgan Heller witnessed the incident and bizarre police response from their apartment at 24th Avenue and Anza Street in the Richmond neighborhood and were left dumbstruck. They’d done everything right: called the cops, kept their eyes on the person the entire time, answered all the officers’ questions and agreed to participate in the case."
Son collected dead father’s funds as body decomposed for years, officials say
SUMMER LIN, LAT: "A man who died last month in Jackson, Calif., is suspected of leaving his father’s body in a chair in their home in the Sierra Nevada foothills for years after the older man’s death in order to access his funds, authorities said.
Randall Freer, 63, died July 13 after he was exiting a business in Jackson in Amador County and experienced an undisclosed medical condition, according to Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Greg Stark.
To conduct a next-of-kin notification, a Calaveras County sheriff’s deputy arrived at about 10 a.m. on July 13 at a residence in the 9000 block of Camanche Parkway in Wallace, Stark said. The deputy thought no one was home but heard a noise that he believed to be a running fan."
