The Bee's Kevin Yamamura reports "The California Republican Party launched two ads Friday in the governor's race,
one of which trumpets [Steve] Westly's tax-hike accusations against [
Phil] Angelides during the primary.
"The negative ad goes through a list of Westly comments, such as his statement in May that Angelides is proposing a 'tax on darn near anybody.' It concludes by asking, 'What if Steve Westly was right?'"
"...Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata must have been dreaming last week when he said Angelides and Schwarzenegger should join hands across the state to campaign for public works bonds."
"Perata admitted his plan is a long shot, but he wasn't kidding about getting the gubernatorial foes together to help sell bonds for roads, housing, levees and schools on the November ballot."
"'You could bring Phil and Arnold together, which would really confuse the hell out of people," Perata told the Sacramento Press Club last week. 'Or you could just say Thursday next week is going to be bond day and there will be no campaigning.'"
Well, OK. But Wednesday is still
Prince spaghetti day.
Dan Walters looks at this year's summer list of
"job killer" bills identified by the state Chamber of Commerce. "This year's list, issued last week by the Coalition for California Jobs, contains 32 bills, several of which have received substantial media and public attention on their own, such as those increasing the state's minimum wage with an automatic cost-of-living escalator."
"The annual Sturm und Drang notwithstanding, when the final scorecard of the 2006 legislative session is calculated, chances are that none of the 32 bills will have become law. Some will fall by the wayside in the legislative process, and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would almost certainly veto any that reached his desk as now written."
"'Since Arnold Schwarzenegger has been governor, virtually no 'job killer' legislation has been enacted into law and there has been a corresponding trend of economic growth, increased state revenues and job gains,' Chamber of Commerce President
Allan Zaremberg said."
But it sure is fun to look at that list, anyway.
"'
Just as sure as the sun comes up the morning, the California Chamber puts out its annual 'The sky is falling, the sky is falling' list of legislation it claims will harm California's economic climate,' said
Steve Maviglio, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez. 'The only problem is, study after study shows that investment in California's work force, environment and education -- the very things the chamber opposes -- is what gives our state its competitive edge.'"
Is this the part where we all start working together, Sen. Perata?
While the Capitol continues to look for a way to tweak term limits, a coalition is coming together in Los Angeles to
support extending council term limits from two to three. "The push for reform is coming from the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters, a formidable combination of civic and business leaders who have experience shaping arguments and raising money for campaigns," report Steve Hymon and Jim Newton in the Times.
"Armed with a privately commissioned poll suggesting that voters might be open to their idea, the groups plan to ask the City Council to place a referendum on the November ballot. A third group, the Los Angeles Civic Alliance, may also join the partnership. With members who include former Secretary of State
Warren M. Christopher and
Elise Buik, president and chief executive of United Way of Greater Los Angeles, the alliance would add heft to the effort."
"The council is expected to comply with the request. Seven of its 15 members are scheduled to leave the council in 2009 because of term limits in 2009; five more would have to leave in 2011."
A "
proposed ballot measure would require governments that seize property either to occupy it themselves or rent it out for public use; they could not seize it for private development. The measure also would increase how much governments must pay for seized property, and it would require governments to compensate landowners if regulations not directly related to public safety hurt their property's value -- unless the property is exempted from the new restrictions," reports the Chron's Patrick Hoge.
"Redevelopment officials, other city leaders and environmentalists said these provisions would increase prices so much they would limit governments' ability to acquire property for any purpose. And they said the proposition would undermine efforts to redevelop blighted areas and regulate land use in general."
"
Max Neiman, director of the government and public finance program at the Public Policy Institute of California in San Francisco, said the national debate over property rights "certainly is heating up."
"'The [Supreme Court's] Kelo decision basically triggered a kind of social movement across the United States,' Neiman said. 'But it will probably have its most glorious and baroque manifestation here in California.'"
SF Mayor
Gavin "Newsom hopes to ride the energy wave of the future
by sinking turbines under the Golden Gate Bridge and current-catching generators off Ocean Beach. The idea: Produce electricity for the city to sell or use, or both," report Matier and Ross.
"'They're just huge -- they've never been done in America,' Newsom said of the generators that can convert water power to juice."
"The ocean energy idea -- which already is taking hold in other parts of the world -- got its first strong push three years ago locally when Newsom's archnemesis, then-Board of Supervisors president and Green Party member
Matt Gonzalez, won approval of a resolution calling for a tidal-energy power project."
But can they propel Newsom past Antonio Villaraigosa in 2010?
Meanwhile, Matier and Ross also write "One of the real head-scratchers in the bribery indictment of San Jose Mayor
Ron Gonzales in the city's garbage contract scandal is what, if anything, he got out of the deal."
"Prosecutors aren't accusing Gonzales of having taken any money or gifts, or even receiving special favors, from Norcal Waste Systems when the city's garbage contract was negotiated in 2000."
"Gonzales allegedly secretly promised to use city money to cover the cost of a Norcal subcontractor using Teamsters rather than cheaper employees represented by another union."
"'
It's the first bribery case I've seen in my life where no one can answer the question who got the bribe and what it was,' said
Cris Arguedas, one of the state's top defense attorneys."
"Colleagues and longtime friends of UC Santa Cruz Chancellor
Denice Denton were
struggling on Sunday to make sense of her apparent suicide jump off the roof of a 42-story San Francisco apartment building, describing a woman who had been having a difficult time in recent months but who was known to be resilient in the face of adversity," writes Demien Bulwa in the Chron.
"'It's really hard to believe Denice is gone because she was like a force of nature -- a hurricane, unstoppable,' said
Vicki Bier, a professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Denton taught from 1987 to 1996. 'I've heard from people that she did not sound good (recently). She sounded upset or despondent, not her usual self. But I don't think anyone expected this.'"
"'The particularly tragic thing for me,' said
Ed Lazowska, a computer science and engineering professor at the University of Washington, 'is that she faced adversity everywhere she's been, and each time she triumphed and emerged a winner. Somehow the situation down there got the better of her, and that's a shame. I can't imagine what was monumental enough to cause this to happen.'"
