Jerry Brown now is different than the Jerry Brown circa
1975: He takes risks, fiscal and political, and he courts
pols on both sides of the aisle. Quite a change from his predecessor, notes the LA Times' George Skelton.
"Schwarzenegger was always pitching, promising cure-all budget remedies such as a rainy-day fund. The scary thing was he actually seemed to
believe that what he was selling was the total solution
to red ink."
"Brown was like an old physician calmly prescribing
pills and pain. If the patient didn't want to undergo
the treatment, well, that's no skin off his nose. The
patient's condition would get worse. The doc's life
would go on."
"It is better to take our medicine now and get the
state on a balanced footing," Brown told reporters."
One result of those risks is that his budget proposals may face an array of constitutional
court challenges, reports Capitol Weekly's John Howard.
"California cities and redevelopment agencies denounced
the proposal, while the counties remain wary. No decisions
have been reached by anyone on whether to go to state
or federal court – or both - to try and block the plan, which would shift $5.9 billion in state programs to the counties and raise
$5.9 billion in taxes to finance it. As the proposal unfolds,
it would shift $7.3 billion by 2015 and ultimately $10 billion, the administration said."
"But those discussions are under way, and in the end
they likely will depend on the outcome of negotiations
in the coming weeks with the Brown administration.
Barring a breakthrough, a court fight is likely. Brown,
the former mayor of Oakland, is considered well versed
in redevelopment issues."
California's parole board is proving to be an obstacle
to the orderly release of lifers, even those who are legally entitled to have a date
set. Capitol Weekly's Jennifer Chaussee has the story.
"It is an issue that does not draw much public support
– incarcerated criminals have few advocates in the outside
world, and those sentenced to life have fewer still.
Increasingly tougher sentencing and longer periods
between parole hearings mean relatively few inmates
are actually released, even if they are eligible under
the law for dates."
"Since California law requires all parole grants to
be made by BPH, not the courts, the courts often suggest
that BPH hear the prisoners’ cases again. The process can take anywhere from two
to nine years and most lifers rely on public defenders
to represent them in court. Of California’s 166,000 inmates, roughly 20 percent, or about 33,200 are sentenced to lifers and many of those are eligible
to apply for release dates."
The father of a young man slain in a knife fight involving
the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez got a letter of apology from Arnold Schwarzenegger,
who partially commuted the younger Nunez's prison sentence.
The father is not pleased
From the Bee's Susan Ferriss: ""As a father," Schwarzenegger wrote, "I believe there
is no sentence too harsh for the death of your son.
But our system of justice demands that the facts of
this case be weighed without the passion of a father's
rage."
"Santos said the letter "was a little too late" and
struck him as a response to the criticism he and others
leveled at Schwarzenegger after the order was announced."
"This is a letter of apology written by some professional
writer," he said. "We would have liked to have known
about this in December. It would have given us a chance
to try to talk him out of it (the commutation)."
Bucking a national trend, foreclosures are on the decline in recession-ravaged California, reports the LAT's Alejandro Lazo.
"The 14% drop in foreclosure activity contrasted with a 2% rise nationally, according to data tracking firm RealtyTrac.
Analysts noted that California's housing market was
among the first to falter and may now be among the
first to recover. Home prices here hit bottom in April
2009, and have gradually risen since then."
"There are a lot of risks out there, but I think the
trend is improvement — not dramatic, but substantial," said Kenneth Rosen,
a professor at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business."
And now we turn to oujr "Death with Dignity" file to learn about the woes of the Cook County Morgue,
where people are just dying to get in.
"Cook
County Medical Examiner Nancy Jones is blaming a confluence
of unusual
circumstances for causing the morgue to become so crowded
recently that bodies
were being doubled up on some cooler trays."
"Jones
attributed the overcrowding to a “collision” of factors: a spike in deaths
during the recent holidays, a slow down in pickups
from funeral homes in late
December and early January and a delay in receiving
coffins to hold the remains
of the indigent."
