Looks like prison reform is on the fast track.
the Bee's Kevin Yamamura reports, "
Over objections
from Republican lawmakers, the Legislature plans to take up a
majority-vote prison package Thursday that is designed to reduce the
state's inmate population by 27,300 and is backed by Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
"The
overall package would save $1.2 billion in part by reducing certain
property crimes to misdemeanors, placing low-level parolees on global
positioning system monitoring and sending older, infirm
prisoners to
house arrest or medical facilities to serve the final
12 months of
their sentences.
"Republican lawmakers particularly oppose the
transfer of prisoners during the final year of their
sentences, which
they consider "early release" and believe would threaten public safety.
Schwarzenegger officials dispute that characterization
and have said
those prisoners would be monitored by GPS or other
means.
"State lawmakers last month approved a $1.2 billion corrections cut in a
budget revision that tackled the state's $24 billion deficit. But those
lawmakers, including some Republicans, did so without
specifying
exactly how the state would save that money in its
prison system."
Meanwhile, Eric Bailey reports,
"Two weeks after federal judges ordered California to
reduce its prison
population, an arm of the Schwarzenegger administration
is set to vote
on increased funding to police anti-drug units, potentially putting
even more offenders behind bars.
"An
advisory board for the California Emergency Management
Agency is
expected to decide today whether to channel $33 million in federal
money to narcotics task forces around the state that
have proved
particularly adept at apprehending drug criminals.
"Critics of
government drug policies say that money should instead
be directed to
drug-treatment programs whose funding has been sliced amid
California's
budget woes."
That in a nutshell is the logic of California politics,
boys and girls.
The LAT's David Kelly reports, "The state attorney general's office will join an expanding probe of
political corruption in San Bernardino County centered largely on the
past activities of the assessor's office, officials said Monday.
"So far the investigation has led to the arrest of former Assessor Bill Postmus and four
former employees in his office.
"Allegations
include using the assessor's staff to do political work, forgery, grand
theft, perjury and failure to report gifts from a developer.
Postmus
was arrested in January on drug charges."
Stu Woo ponders the possibility of Gov. Tom Campbell.
"California's fiscal crisis is giving Tom Campbell, an ex-congressman
with few resources, a fighting chance to become the
state's next
governor.
"In a normal year, the 57-year-old would be a poor bet to win the
2010 Republican primary, political analysts say. Mr. Campbell
lacks the
riches of his GOP opponents, former Silicon Valley
executives Meg
Whitman and Steve Poizner, who can tap their fortunes
to get themselves
elected.
"Yet analysts say Mr. Campbell has an equalizer: a state-budget mess
that plays to his strengths as an economist. When Sacramento
lawmakers
this year slashed spending and raised taxes to close
a cumulative $60
billion budget shortfall, the candidate traveled California
to tout
alternative solutions that rankle loyalists in both
parties, but which
he said are longer-lasting and less harmful to the state's economy."
The LAT's Rong-Gong Lin looks at the state's efforts to overhaul the nursing system . "
Despite the governor’s pledge to better discipline errant health professionals
there are signs that it will be difficult to enact
sweeping changes as quickly or easily as the administration
has suggested.
At meetings in Sacramento on Monday and last week,
regulators and state
attorneys generally spoke of the need for reform but
picked apart
potential solutions presented to them. They offered
no concrete time
frames for having a workable system in place."
Even officials within the same agency couldn't agree on solutions. One
lawyer within the state attorney general's office on Monday cited the
benefits of having investigators who are looking into
complaints
against health professionals work alongside the lawyers
who try such
cases. But another lawyer in the office said the change
wouldn't be any
more efficient.
Jerry Hirsh reports California's citrus crop is being threatened by a Mexican pest.
"Leaders of California's $1.6-billion citrus industry said Monday that a
disease that was killing orchards worldwide was now
rooted in Mexico,
and experts warned that it was headed toward the state.
Citrus
greening disease has infected six citrus trees on Mexico's Yucatan
Peninsula, spread by an infestation of the Asian citrus
psyllid.
There's
a virtual insect highway across the width of Mexico,
and once the
aphid-like insect hops on, California is in trouble, said
Beth
Grafton-Cardwell, a UC Riverside entomologist and director
of the
Lindcove Research and Extension Center, east of Visalia."
Here's a good way to get pulled over -- driving a snowmobile. In August.
"Police said around 1:13 a.m. on Saturday -- one of the hottest days of
the year so far -- an officer saw a snowmobile traveling on Porters
Point Road in Colchester. The officer followed it for
a short distance
before the driver left the snowmobile in a yard on
Macrae Road and ran
off into the woods.
"With the help of Police K9 Tazor,
Joseph Quigley was tracked down and arrested the 31-year-old him for his fifth DUI offense."
