"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is offering sweeping proposals on universal healthcare, global warming, transportation and prison construction this year, and
some in the business community who last year embraced him during his election campaign now have their doubts.
"'
I think there's some very real concern that he's changing his position on a lot things that got him elected,' said
Christopher Wysocki, executive director of the Consumer Alliance for a Strong Economy, a Sacramento-based advocacy group that says it represents 9,000 small-business owners, farmers and consumers.
"The governor's push for new programs is a bit unsettling to many business executives, said Jack
Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. 'My sense is that, yes, you're starting to get some dissatisfaction with some of the governor's proposals,' he said. 'There's a nervousness about the healthcare provisions, the global warming thing.'
But Schwarzenegger's plans are still unfolding, evolving and subject to much review and compromise in the months ahead. His spokesman
Adam Mendelsohn predicted that the outcome would be good for business.
"'All the new ideas he's developing are done with the consideration of how he is going to increase jobs and the economic growth of California,' he said."
From our Mailng It In Files, the Bee's Judy Lin looks at the
push by county elections officials to try all-mail elections. "During California's latest election in November, nearly 42 percent of voters turned in absentee ballots -- continuing the mailbox trend. Of the state's 58 counties, 16 received more absentee ballots than votes cast directly at polling places. Given the convenience, many elections officials say it's no surprise that absentee ballots have become so popular."
"The clerks association, along with the League of California Cities,
is lobbying the Legislature for a pilot program that would let counties test all-mail elections. The program, the groups say, would be modeled after Oregon, where ballots have been mailed statewide since 1998. Election officials there praise the program for delivering higher turnouts -- particularly among decline-to-state and minor-party voters -- and with trimming overhead costs by 30 percent.
"'I think it's the absolute best way,' said
Al Davidson, a former clerk of Marion County, Ore., who is now an elections administration consultant. "It's like anything you can do on the Internet.
You can sit in your pajamas, take all the time you need to study the issues, and read the voter pamphlet. ... You don't have that when you have five minutes in the voting booth.'"
George Skelton makes the pitch for the term limits initiative. "The initiative would reduce the total years a legislator could serve from 14 to 12, but allow them all to be spent in one house. It's more complex and generous for current members. They could spend a total of 12 years in their present house, even if they'd already served in the other. [
Don] Perata would get an extra term.
"The goal is stability and continuity, allowing leaders and committee heads to learn on the job and stay there for a while. They'd spend much more time on oversight of government agencies and planning the state's future — and a lot less plotting their next political career move.
"It's badly needed,
but has no chance of voter approval without bipartisan backing. That means Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republicans must support it. And to gain that, Democrats need to deliver on long-promised redistricting reform."
"A new plan by the state to accommodate its burgeoning population of mentally ill prisoners
has received a tepid response from a federal court monitor, with its two key proposals appearing to be in serious trouble," reports the Bee's Andy Furillo.
"Though the plan calls for adding 2,200 mental health beds over the next four years, it raised concern with Special Master
J. Michael Keating by also proposing to shift responsibility for inmate psychiatric care from the Department of Mental Health to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
"Keating, in a Feb. 7 report filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, also frowned on the lack of construction specifics in the state's 22-page proposal.
"The corrections agency wants to put the mental health beds on line in conjunction with hospital construction proposals it is anticipating from medical care receiver Robert Sillen, which have yet to be forwarded. In the meantime, there is no budget projection or construction timetable for the proposed mental health beds.
"The state's 'plan simply does not provide enough information to justify the court's approval of the two major proposed underlying changes,' Keating said in his Feb. 7 report to U.S. District Court Judge
Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento."
"Endangered fairy shrimp,
those tiny vernal pool dwellers that have bedeviled planners at UC Merced for years, are flexing their protected status again," reports Tanya Schevitz in the Chron.
The half-inch-long crustaceans are in the path of the campus' long-range development plans and, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
their environmental standing might force the university to expand elsewhere -- possibly 15 miles away.
The campus, which opened in 2005 and is 6 miles from downtown Merced, wants to grow directly to the north and east with new dorms, lecture halls, classroom buildings and other facilities needed to accommodate a projected enrollment of 25,000 students by 2030."
