"Republican legislative leaders, vowing to block passage of a state budget until Democrats agree to more spending cuts,
have proposed in secret talks to slash $400 million from schools, according to education groups that were briefed on the negotiations Tuesday," reports Evan Halper in the Times.
"School officials say they were shocked to learn of the proposal at a briefing on the state budget impasse -- now in its third week -- by Assembly Speaker
Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President Pro Tem
Don Perata (D-Oakland).
"The officials said they were told that, under the GOP plan, the money would be cut out of cost-of-living adjustments for salaries and other expenses and funding for the growth of student populations. The cuts would apply to schools with kindergarten through high school classes and to community colleges.
"'We are very concerned,' said
Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Assn. 'We had received public assurances that education would not be cut. A lot of districts have already adopted their budget for the coming school year based on those assurances.'
"Republican leaders refused to comment on the proposal. They have repeatedly said they will not vote for a budget until Democrats, who dominate the Legislature, agree to at least $2 billion more in spending reductions. But Republicans have declined to reveal publicly what programs they want to cut to reach that go
"Environmental lawyer
Mary Nichols, the newly appointed head of the powerful California Air Resources Board,
assured state legislators Tuesday that her mandate from the governor is to 'speed up, not slow down' the state's ambitious effort to slash global-warming pollution," writes Margot Roosevelt in the Times.
"To prove the point, she told the Senate Rules Committee that she has asked the board's staff to reconsider which new regulations can be quickly adopted to cut greenhouse gases, adding that the board will reopen the issue of such early action in October, rather than in December as previously scheduled.
"Nichols testified in the wake of allegations by the board's former chairman and chief executive that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's staff sought to weaken global warming rules to placate industry critics. Specifically, Chief of Staff
Susan Kennedy and Cabinet Secretary
Dan Dunmoyer were accused of forcing the air board to limit initial global warming measures, adopted last month, to three: a low carbon fuel standard, a limit on auto refrigerant gases and the improved capture of landfill methane.
"By law, the board was required to identify 'discrete early action greenhouse gas reduction measures' by June 2007 which are to be developed into regulations and enforced by 2010. The board is working on 23 other measures to be adopted later."
While the budget debate heated up and Nichols was on the hot seat, Capitol Weekly reports on a blast from the past. Just about quittin' time Tuesday, the governor's office announced
a slew of new appointments to various fair boards, and nestled in there was this little gem, unearthed by John Howard:
"A lawyer long opposed by environmentalists and who was rejected by the Senate in 2005 as the state’s top air-quality regulator was appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger to another top state environmental job Tuesday -- this time as
undersecretary of the Environmental Protection Agency.
"
The governor announced Tuesday that he appointed Cindy Tuck, 47, to the $128,400-a-year position at the Cal-EPA. On the very day that Mary Nichols, the governor's new choice to head the air board, apeared before a Senate committee, word of Tuck's appointment brought up old memories.
"Tuck is a product of the pre-special election Schwarzenegger -- a time when Pete Wilson loyalists ran the administration, and before Schwarzenegger was a global environmental figure. Meanwhile, some Democrats are opening up a new front in the haggling between the parties. "Charging that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's record on judicial diversity has been deficient and is getting worse, the Legislature's
minority caucuses are urging that funding for new judges be deleted from the budget," reports Aurelio Rojas in the Bee."
Hey, it's been plenty diverse from a political party perspective. Just ask any conservative Republican. But we, apparently, are off message...
"Democrats have been pressuring the Republican governor since last year to make the judiciary better reflect the state's diverse population -- and the round of appointments he made last month only raised their ire.
"Of those 26 appointments, announced on a Friday as the Capitol was emptying for the weekend, none were of Asian or Pacific Islander descent, one was Latino and three were African Americans.
"'If the administration was proud of the appointments, why were they announced when they were?' said Assemblyman
Ted Lieu, a Torrance Democrat and the incoming chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus."
"'
While we support increasing the number of judges ... we believe an additional 50 judgeships for this year should not be authorized until the governor addresses the diversity issue,' the joint statement said."
With all the hulabaloo, the governor decided to do some vacationing in July outside of Stockton. The Bee's Kevin Yamamura reports: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday
promoted state actions to improve the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta after taking a brief tour of Twitchell Island along the estuary.
"The Republican governor directed the state Department of Water Resources to install fish screens at two islands to protect Delta smelt, a threatened species. He also called for the restoration of habitat at Cache Slough in the north Delta and for increased stockpiles of materials to protect against levee failure, among other actions.
"The efforts will cost an estimated $28 million, Water Resources Deputy Director
Jerry Johns said. The state will tap funds from Proposition 84 and the State Water Project.
"Schwarzenegger also called for using more than $120 million in future bond funds to pay for additional Delta restoration and studies. But he downplayed his short-term solutions on the same day he promoted them,
focusing more on a $5.9 billion bond plan to build new water storage and a possible canal around the Delta."
The Bee's Jim Sanders looks at a
bill signed yesterday cracking down on pension spikes of constitutional officers. "Former Lt. Gov.
Cruz Bustamante left office this year eligible for a lifetime pension based on an 18 percent salary hike received less than a month before his term expired.
"SB 221 received unanimous support from the Senate and Assembly. The new law will require pensions for constitutional officers to be based on the highest average salary during a 12-month period.
"Constitutional officers consist of the governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, controller, attorney general, secretary of state, superintendent of public instruction and Board of Equalization members.
"SB 221 will apply only to constitutional officers who enter the Legislators Retirement System after Jan. 1, not incumbents.
"'We would have liked it to apply to everybody from this point on,' [author
George] Runner said. 'However, we were told by the legislative counsel that for those currently in office, it would be unconstitutional because it would change the condition of their terms.'"
And it looks like
having a speaker of the house from California is starting to bear fruit for California farmers. The Chron's Carolyn Lockhead reports, "California's fruit, nut and vegetable industry -- aided by Bay Area food and environmental activists -- got its first big bite out of Depression-era federal farm programs, long the multibillion-dollar bastion of commodity barons from the South and Midwest, in a deal reached Tuesday.
"After meeting with activists in San Francisco earlier this month, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi cracked heads in the House Agriculture Committee, yielding concessions from Chairman
Collin Peterson, D-Minn., to get
more than $1.5 billion over five years for the state's specialty crops, including research for organic growers, more access to fresh fruits and vegetables in school lunch programs, promotion of farmers' markets and support for farm conservation and environmental improvement.
"Rep.
Dennis Cardoza, D-Atwater (Merced County), who negotiated the deal, called the agreement a landmark 'that will, for the first time in history, bring a market-oriented approach to the promotion of speciality crops and give California equity in the farm bill,' as well as farmers elsewhere who grow things other than corn, cotton and other crops subsidized since the 1930s."
And now, it's time for another edition of
Murder in the Outhouse.
"A spot where a pair of outhouses stood 130 years ago is proving to be a treasure trove for archaeologists who braved the lingering smell in the dirt to uncover some 19th century artifacts -- and a mystery."
No, not
those kind of artifacts...
"They uncovered a pistol, a bowie knife, whiskey flasks, a set of false teeth, two dog skulls and a blade from a set of sheep shears.
"'It might be an early crime scene,' project archaeologist
John Foster said. 'It looks like
the two dogs were decapitated. Then whoever did it dumped the skulls and the blade, thinking the women probably wouldn't be looking too hard into the bottom of the privy.'"
Lloyd Levine has launched an immediate investigation.
