Dear readers,
We had a back-end server transfer that took longer than expected due to the holiday weekend; we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
We are now back up and running and you will continue to get your daily news roundup every morning to enjoy with your cup of coffee.
Thanks for your understanding--it's good to be back!
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State asked to stop diverting iconic Mono Lake’s water to Los Angeles
CALMatters, ALASTAIR BLAND: "As trickling snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada slowly raises Mono Lake — famed for its bird life and outlandish shoreline mineral spires — advocates are pressuring state water officials to halt diversions from the lake’s tributaries to Los Angeles, which has used this clean mountain water source for decades.
Environmentalists and tribal representatives say such action is years overdue and would help the iconic lake’s ecosystem, long plagued by low levels, high salinity and dust that wafts off the exposed lakebed. The city of Los Angeles, they argue, should simply use less water, and expand investments in more sustainable sources – especially recycled wastewater and uncaptured stormwater. This, they say, could help wean the city off Mono basin’s water for good.
In December, the Mono Lake Committee, the basin’s leading advocacy group, sent a letter to the State Water Resources Control Board requesting an emergency pause on water diversions from the lake. The water board hosted an online workshop to discuss the matter in February, and it is now considering further actions to restore the naturally saline lake."
Deputy accused of being in ‘Executioners’ gang reveals tattoo in court, names names
LA Times, KERI BLAKINGER: "When he stepped up to the witness stand last week, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Jaime Juarez told the court about his first inking party — the day he got his Compton station tattoo. The intimate gathering was at a home somewhere in Pomona, and most of the people there were strangers.
But he knew the man who invited him, and knew that man sported the same ink Juarez was about to get — a design commonly linked to a suspected deputy gang known as the Executioners.
On Thursday afternoon, while testifying in a civil trial, Juarez pushed up a pant leg to reveal that tattoo: a helmet-wearing skeleton gripping a rifle. The rare and candid disclosure came in a case centered on the secretive world of deputy gangs, reports of which have plagued the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for half a century and led to an array of investigations, studies and legal settlements."
The complicated birth of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act
Capitol Weekly, DAN MORAIN: "Sen. Alan Short was the first author to denounce the legislation that bore his name, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act that led to the emptying of California state hospitals and remains all but unchanged 56 years later.
In later years, the other two principals, Republican Assemblyman Frank Lanterman and Democratic Sen. Nicholas Petris, the main drivers behind what they at one time proudly called the Magna Carta for state hospital patients, would acknowledge the flaws as well.
For more than five decades, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act has been the foundation for how California treats or fails to treat people with severe mental illness. Now, legislators from both parties seek to overhaul it in ways that reflect advances in medicine, and a better understanding of its failings."
Rising Stars: Chloe Bowman, office of Assemblymember Joe Patterson
Capitol Weekly, LISA RENNER: "In this highly polarized world, a young Republican legislative director believes it is still possible to rise above political differences.
Chloe Bowman, 27, who works for Assemblymember Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, backs it up with action. She is engaged to marry a Democrat who also works at the Capitol.
To her, politics is just one part of life, not an entire identity. “Everyone is a person outside of their political views,” she said."
Bob Lee killing: Nima Momeni's lawyer drops him as a client in mutual parting of ways
The Chronicle, KEVIN FAGAN, ANNIE VAINSHTEIN: "Paula Canny, the lawyer representing Nima Momeni, the man accused of murdering Cash App founder Bob Lee, dropped Momeni as a client on Tuesday.
Judge Loretta Giorgi granted Canny’s request to withdraw as Momeni’s lawyer at a hearing in San Francisco Superior Court on Tuesday morning.
“You’ll miss me,” Canny called to Momeni as he was led from the courtroom in his orange jail jumpsuit and yellow face mask."
Charles Manson follower entitled to parole, court says — overruling Newsom
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "A state appeals court overruled Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday and said Leslie Van Houten, the youngest follower of cult leader Charles Manson who took part in his cohorts’ deadly attacks, should be released on parole after more than 50 years in prison for taking part in two murders ordered by Manson. It is the first time a court has rejected a governor’s decision to deny parole to a Manson follower after the parole board recommended release.
“Van Houten has shown extraordinary rehabilitative efforts, insight, remorse, realistic parole plans, support from family and friends, (and) favorable institutional reports,” the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles said in a 2-1 ruling."
Santa Clara County DA found “no evidence” former Cupertino mayor violated the law
BANG*Mercury News, GRACE HASE: "The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office is ending its investigation into allegations that former Cupertino Mayor Darcy Paul dictated hiring and firing decisions, stating it found no evidence a crime was committed in the last year.
Earlier this month, the Cupertino City Council requested the DA’s office look into Paul’s actions following a city-commissioned investigation by Santa Rosa-based employment attorney Linda Daube that found the council had created a culture of distrust in city staff and “abusive and controlling behavior” from the former mayor.
Daube’s investigation also said Paul, who was termed out at the end of last year, had tried to influence the city manager’s hiring and firing decisions. The city has a council-manager structure of government where those powers belong to the city manager. Under the city’s municipal code, a violation is considered a misdemeanor."
Judge orders halt to Ballona Wetlands restoration project
LA Times, LOUIS SAHAGUN: "A California Department of Fish and Wildlife plan to introduce tidal flows into the Ballona Creek wetlands has come to a screeching halt after a judge ruled recently that the agency’s environmental impact report on the project failed to adequately account for flood risks.
In a May 17 decision, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ordered the agency to set aside its certification of the final EIR for the project because it “failed to disclose and analyze flood control design parameters” associated with proposed levees and other infrastructure.
In response to four lawsuits filed by environmental groups, Chalfant ordered the agency to suspend any project activity in the 600-acre West Los Angeles ecological refuge and prepare a new “legally adequate” environmental impact report “if it chooses to proceed.”"
'Giant' 5,000-year-old tooth was found on California beach. Here's what we know
The Chronicle, MICHAEL CABANATUAN: "A man who picked up the 5,000-year-old tooth of an ancient mastodon, an elephant that roamed the Pacific Coast, on a Santa Cruz County beach over the weekend, turned the odd-looking artifact into a museum Tuesday, ending a two-day search over the media and social media.
The man, whose name was not released, delivered the foot-long prehistoric tooth, which might resemble a hunk of gnarled driftwood, to the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History at about 2:30 p.m., said Wayne Thompson, a paleontologist, science educator and head of the museum’s paleontology collection."
What causes the May gray that stubbornly blocks the sun for days in Southern California?
LA Times, PAUL DUGINSKI: "Sunny Southern California has not been so sunny lately, with gray skies casting a dreary shroud over the region.
What causes the stubborn low clouds that muscle out the sunshine day after day?
To start with, the cloud cover is a function of the season. In May and June, the upper atmosphere is more stagnant. Troughs of low pressure, the kind that brings rain in winter, still pass over the region but are much weaker. At the same time, the sun’s angle is higher and more direct. It heats the land and air, but the ocean remains cool, because water absorbs heat."
UC Berkeley continues with People’s Park student housing development despite continued resistance
EdSource, CARA NIXON: "When they first moved from their semi-rural hometown, Rico Marisol found the bustle of Berkeley stress-inducing. In early 2021, as a sophomore at the University of California Berkeley, they found solace under the tall, old trees of People’s Park.
UC Berkeley cut down those trees last summer, in preparation for student housing construction on the site, facing pressure due to only having enough on-campus housing to support 20% of its students. Some students, like Marisol, said they are fighting against the development to defend the park’s history, green space, unhoused population and community assistance services.
The development has been shrouded in controversy since UC Berkeley announced its intentions for the park, located a tenth of a mile from the south side of campus. And most recently, a nonprofit developer pulled out of the project due to the legal limbo surrounding it."
In downtown L.A., Bass’ plan to clear encampments faces crime, addiction and resistance
LA Times, DAVID ZAHNISER: "Homeless outreach workers went to the streets of downtown Los Angeles last month and delivered what is now a seasoned sales pitch: Give up your spot on the sidewalk, and try living in a nearby hotel room instead.
David Ruther, who has a tent on Broadway near the 101 Freeway, had an emphatic response: No way.
Ruther denounced the rules that are in place at the L.A. Grand, one of the hotels being used by the city as homeless housing. He said it’s not right that unhoused residents have had their bags inspected when they walk into that hotel."
This California town was already dying. Then the state moved to close its prison
CALMatters, NIGEL DUARA: "Two things bring people here, prisons and water, and this tiny desert town is losing both.
The locals interested in keeping Blythe afloat have ideas: They’ll build a logistics center, or they’ll develop better recreation opportunities on the Colorado River, or they’ll reopen their soon-to-be shuttered state prison as an immigration detention center.
But they don’t yet have answers."
Elizabeth Holmes enters Texas prison to begin 11-year sentence for notorious blood-testing hoax
AP, LEKAN OYEKANMI, MICHAEL LIEDTKE: "Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes entered a Texas prison Tuesday where she could spend the next 11 years for overseeing a blood-testing hoax that became a parable about greed and hubris in Silicon Valley.
Holmes, 39, could be seen from outside the prison’s gates walking into the federal women’s prison camp located in Bryan, Texas, wearing jeans, a brown sweater and smiling as she spoke with two prison employees accompanying her.
The minimum-security facility — where the federal judge who sentenced Holmes in November recommended she be incarcerated — is about 95 miles (150 kilometers) northwest of Houston, where she grew up aspiring to become a technology visionary along the lines of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs."
Crime spree incites fear that ‘doom loop’ could spread from S.F. to Oakland
The Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN: "Within the first five minutes of a raucous community safety meeting Tuesday night in North Oakland, residents vented frustrations and fear over a recent crime spike — and their perception that city leaders are doing little to address it.
Over the two hours that followed, a crowd of roughly 200 gathered at Oakland Technical High School confronted a panel of city officials, the interaction ranging from volcanic heckling to stunned silence. A woman stood and delivered a wrenching personal story about being beaten in front of her house. The owner of a pizzeria said his employees had been held up at gunpoint four times in six years. One person called the city a “failed progressive utopia.”
Others described deteriorating street conditions and predicted that businesses would leave — a San Francisco “doom loop” that had migrated across the bridge."
California lawmakers urge transit bailout, pushing back on Newsom’s proposed budget cut
BANG*Mercury News, JOHN WOOLFOLK: "California lawmakers Tuesday pushed back on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget for trimming transit funding and declining to bail out transit agencies like BART, which are threatening deep service cutbacks as they struggle to rebound from a pandemic plummet in ridership.
The lawmakers, led by state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco, said the transit agencies’ money woes aren’t their fault but stemmed from from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Without a bailout, they said, service cuts will further depress ridership, worsening traffic congestion, air pollution and other woes.
“Our transit systems have been telling us for months and months and months that this fiscal cliff is happening, and unfortunately the governor’s budget had zero dollars in it to address these operational shortfalls — zero!” Wiener told reporters Tuesday in Sacramento. “Instead, the governor’s proposal slashes $2 billion in transit infrastructure money, which will kill various projects around the state and will cause us to forfeit billions of federal matching dollars if we’re taking away our own capital investment.”"
The freeway was born in L.A. But it might not always be free to drive on
LA Times, RACHEL URANGA: "Merging onto the Santa Monica Freeway at rush hour or along the infamously choked Sepulveda Pass could carry a price for Angelenos — and a promise.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is expected by the summer to release a long-awaited study that will offer a blueprint for a congestion pricing scheme similar to ones in cities such as London, Stockholm and Singapore, where commuters pay to drive in city centers.
The transit agency has zeroed in on three locations for a possible test program: a nearly 16-mile stretch of the 10 Freeway between downtown and Santa Monica, arterial streets and freeways around downtown and the canyon streets and freeways that connect the San Fernando Valley to the L.A. Basin."
Why McCarthy and Biden both stand to gain from the debt deal — if they can get it passed
LA Times, NOAH BIERMAN: "Despite the sharp rhetoric leading up to last weekend’s debt and budget agreement, both House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden stand to benefit politically.
Biden and McCarthy and their aides were working feverishly Tuesday to make sure the deal doesn’t fail when it comes before the House on Wednesday.
McCarthy was especially active, trying to stem the spread of defections among hard-right conservatives, even as he projected confidence that the bill would pass before Monday’s deadline to avert a calamitous default on the nation’s debt."
