Jordan Rau reports on
Merv Dymally's sort-of apology to Hector De La Torre. "Dymally (D-Compton), who is being investigated by colleagues for distributing pseudo official-looking badges to campaign contributors, today apologized for calling Assemblyman Hector de la Torre "the most racist legislator I have encountered." De La Torre, who is heading the inquiry, had said flashing the badges was a crime.
In a statement that Dymally's office issued this afternoon, the assemblyman said:
Events in the past weeks have caused me to reflect on my intemperate statement about race and politics.
I have been around long enough to know that you do not mix your personal feelings with public policy. I deeply regret my statement about Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, and it is my hope that this issue is now behind us.
"Bottom line seems to be: Dymally isn't disowning his characterization of De La Torre but wishes he hadn't expressed it."
Dan Walters shares
his own experience of being called a racist by Dymally. "Then-Congressman Mervyn Dymally sent the missive to this columnist in 1992 in response to a column about those retiring from California political office that year, listing Dymally among those who wouldn't "be found in the political hall of fame."
"I would have thought that time would have tempered your bigotry," Dymally wrote. "
But I am told that hatefulness is a sickness, so you are to be forgiven.
"Fortunately, the black media do not share your racist views. The fact that I have been decorated by two countries in Africa and honored in Asia are proof that the Third World recognizes my contribution to build a better life for the underprivileged."
Walters says "De La Torre should wear Dymally's epithet as, shall we say, a badge of honor."
The Bee's Andy Furillo
profiles the guv's prisons plan. "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is preparing to roll out a plan next year that will call for about $10 billion in construction for prisons, jails and medical facilities, and include support for a sentencing commission, according to sources familiar with the proposal.
Sources said the breakdown on funding would allocate about $4.4 billion to prisons and re-entry institutions, $4.4 billion for county jail and juvenile beds and $1 billion for medical facilities to satisfy court monitors in two federal cases overseeing health care and treatment of the mentally ill.
The outlines of the plan appear to closely follow the proposals Schwarzenegger laid out last year in his State of the State speech and then in his call for a special legislative session to ease California's prison overcrowding crisis."
Meanwhile, the guv's health care week continues today as the guv attends a health care roundtable. According to a release from his office, "With health care coverage a top priority in the upcoming year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will meet with small business owners, medical professionals and consumers to discuss the roadblocks to obtaining affordable health insurance."
Steve Lopez reports on the LA county Board of Supes
inability to address the local corrections problem. "The board failed to hire a national authority to help reform the county's juvenile justice system, which houses about 4,000 minors in nearly two dozen camps and juvenile halls. Many in the know call the system a mess, saying incarcerated kids are more likely to earn advanced degrees in crime than get attention for mental health issues, family dysfunction and other problems that got them into trouble in the first place.
"So several county officials got together this fall and put out an SOS to Shay Bilchik, a former U.S. Justice Department official who audited the county Probation Department last year. They wanted him to create a master plan for reforming the system.
But the proposal, scheduled for review at Tuesday's meeting, was quietly pulled from the agenda. Bilchik had gotten a good look at the way the supervisors hem and haw about everything and asked to have his name withdrawn from consideration."
Meanwhile, the board "voted Tuesday to
pay $2.8 million to a former jail inmate who was severely beaten after other inmates learned he was an accused child molester — the most the county has paid to resolve a lawsuit involving a jail attack," reports Stuart Pfeifer.
"Attorneys for Jose Beas, 41, had contended that sheriff's employees endangered the married father of three by placing him in a dormitory with 80 general population inmates instead of isolating him as department policy required.
Is
the guv looking for new digs? R.E Graswich reports, "There's been chatter in city circles, including those in position to know, that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and first lady Maria Shriver have been touring the new 15-floor hotel and condo tower under construction at 15th and L streets. Yes, there has been talk about the Austrian Oak buying the penthouse and moving in for the next four years. No, a deal has not been signed. Asked for a response, the governor's spokesman, Darrell Ng, said: "He does not own and has not bought property there. Other than that, we have no comment." The hotel is a Marriott Residence Inn with a Randy Paragary bar and kitchen. It opens in a few months."
One thing the Bee didn't mention --
that hotel is owned by a consortium of three Indian tribes...
Finally from our
It's Five O'Clock Somewhere Files" we're happy to hear that Ashley Garamendi is OK after her
one-car accident in Clarksburg yesterday. Garamendi was arrested for DUI after the crash, which according to the Bee, occurred at
10:20 a.m. 
