Gov. Jerry Brown is miles ahead of his GOP competitors in California’s gubernatorial election.
Patrick McGreevy and Seema Mehta report in the LA Times: “Gov. Jerry Brown has built a war chest of $19.7 million to fund his bid for an unprecedented fourth term, easily eclipsing the money raised by his challengers, according to new campaign reports filed with the state.
Brown has raised nearly $3 million this year and spent nearly $95,000, his report shows.”
Assemblyman Tim Donnelly is struggling to stay afloat in the race.
Seema Mehta reports in the LA Times: “Donnelly has long argued that he was running an unconventional campaign grounded in grass-roots support, not money. But in a state of nearly 18 million registered voters, he faces a steep hurdle to reach voters before June’s “top two” primary.”
Donnelly’s Republican rival appears to have plateaued in his fundraising.
“In a financial statement Monday, Kashkari reported raising a total of $1.3 million from Jan. 1 to March 17, a figure that includes the strong numbers Kashkari posted soon after entering the race. His initial fundraising came after a year of courting potential donors. ”
Kashkari is unveiling his preliminary job plan today.
Josh Richman reports for Mercury News: “GOP candidate for governor Neel Kashkari's jobs plan, which he'll officially unveil Tuesday, takes a lot of its cues from his party's playbook: big corporate tax breaks, stepped-up oil and gas fracking, redirecting money from high-speed rail to water storage and changing the state's environmental protections, labor laws and other regulations.”
The Central Basin Municipal Water District created a secret $2.7-million fund for groundwater storage, in violation of state law.
Hector Becerra reports in the LA Times: “Aguilar testified that because groundwater storage is a “big controversy” in the region, the board wanted to go about the project in a way that would avoid attention and litigation. Aguilar said that the district’s then general counsel, Douglas Wance, was sure Central Basin would get sued so he recommended the fund be handled under “pending litigation” so that “everything would be paid and all the decisions and all the discussion would be done under closed session.”
Caltrans is planning to pay $12.7 million to put demolition of the old Bay Bridge east span back on schedule.
Dennis Cuff reports in Contra Costa Times: “Caltrans said Monday it will regain the lost time by paying the contractor extra to simultaneously tear down both halves of the cantilever section of the bridge after crews cut it in half in the next three or four weeks. The 1,400-foot-long cantilever section is about a quarter-mile east of Yerba Buena Island and has the tallest steel frames on the east side of the island.”
A Bay Area woman has been convicted of providing immigration status to foreign nationals under the front of running a fake university.
Howard Mintz reports in the Mercury News: “After two days of deliberations, the jury convicted Susan Su of 31 counts, ranging from conspiracy to commit visa fraud to money laundering to alien harboring in connection with allegations she ran a scam school in Pleasanton from 2008 until her arrest in 2011.”
According to a recent report, California seniors have the highest poverty rates.
Carolyn Jones reports in SF Gate: “California, with its high cost of living and health care, leads the nation in the percentage of older adults living in poverty, according to a 2013 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Twenty percent of California adults over age 65 live below the poverty threshold of about $16,000 annually, when taking into account the higher cost of housing and health care.”
Energy-giant Chevron is facing backlash for apologizing with free pizza coupons.
Katie Colaneri reports for NPR: “More than 12,000 people from the Netherlands to San Francisco have signed a petition demanding that Chevron apologize for insulting Bobtown, Pa., after the energy giant responded to an explosion of one of its natural gas wells by giving nearby residents coupons for free pizza.”
