Laurel Rosenhall of the Sacramento Bee reports that Fair Political Practices Commission’s chief enforcement officer Gary Winuk has resigned.
“Gary Winuk, the FPPC’s chief of enforcement for the last five years, said he’s resigning Feb. 27 to pursue other opportunities…
“Winuk joined the FPPC in 2009 and led the enforcement division as it tripled the number of cases it prosecuted. An FPPC report earlier this month said prosecutions rose from about 100 cases in 2009 to nearly 350 cases last year. Winuk went after politicians who didn’t report gifts, campaigns that laundered money and lobbyists who worked in the shadows without reporting their clients.”
There is plenty of money for California in President Obama’s budget, and some of it may even get here. Michael Doyle reports for McClatchy:
“There’s money for restoring the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, likely to survive congressional winnowing. Proposed upgrades at places like Yosemite National Park will probably find Capitol Hill favor, as well, along with funding for Central Valley flood control and dam improvements.
“The budget, for instance, offers $3.5 million to complete the Army Corps of Engineers’ design and engineering studies for protecting the Sacramento area’s Natomas Basin. It provides tens of millions of dollars to upgrade Folsom Dam northeast of Sacramento and improve the safety of the earthen Isabella Dam in eastern Kern County. These projects enjoy bipartisan support.”
Kurtis Alexander reports that as the drought worsens, state water officials are considering increased restrictions on water use. From SFGate:
“On Tuesday, the State Water Resources Control Board is scheduled to discuss whether to go beyond the current statewide prohibitions on hosing down driveways and overwatering lawns, and enact additional limits on outdoor water use such as regulating times for sprinklers. The board could also add new rules such as requiring households to be audited for leak detention…
“’Our goal isn’t to keep building a regulatory mousetrap,’ said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the water board, adding that she would rather local agencies act on their own to reduce water use. ‘Our goal is to figure out how we can get more conservation.’”
Recently released emails from former Public Utilities Commission chief Michael Peevey reveal his concerns that the Brown administration would be less favorable to industries than his predecessor. David Siders has the story at the Sacramento Bee.
“Within days of Gov. Jerry Brown taking office in January 2011, Michael Peevey, then president of the California Public Utilities Commission, told a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. executive that he was right to worry about regulatory changes the Democratic governor might usher in.
“A Wall Street analyst had raised concerns about commission appointments Brown might make, according to the executive, Brian Cherry, and PG&E was anxious about future rate-setting matters, as well.
“’You may have reason for concern,’ Peevey responded in an email, one of about 65,000 released last week. ‘Major changes coming and I fear lack of knowledge of subject matter. You will miss Arnold.’”
A precipitous drop in oil prices, combined with a drought that has wreaked havoc on the region’s farms has created a perfect storm in Kern County, which declared a fiscal emergency last week. John Howard has the story for Capitol Weekly.
“’People are looking at this and saying, “You know, these clouds are pretty dark.” The worst-case scenario is that Kern County is in a very deep hole, especially if the drought continues,’ said Michael Turnipseed, head of the Kern County Taxpayers Association...
“Of the 10 urban areas hit hardest by the drought, Bakersfield – the population hub of Kern County – was hit the hardest, according to an August 2014 report of the National Drought Mitigation Center, the USDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…
“’It’s a double whammy for us, and counties up and down the valley are getting really scared,’ Turnipseed said. ‘A lot of orchards are coming out.’”
Hot on the heels of UC Berkeley’s weekend postmortem of the 2014 election comes the final slew of campaign finance reports, filed Monday. California newsies mined the reports for nuggets; John Myers of KQED has a good overview, Marc Lifsher at the Los Angeles Times looks at spending on Prop 45, and Patrick McGreevy, also at the Times, notes that the proponents of Proposition 48 – a proposal to allow construction of a new casino near Madera – outspent opponents of the measure by a margin of 7 to 1. And lost.
And, while this news isn’t specific to California, it’s hard to see where it will have a bigger impact than here: the New York Times reports that the Federal Communications Commission is set to propose that internet service be regulated like a utility.
Steve Lohr reports: “It is expected that the proposal will reclassify high-speed Internet service as a telecommunications service, instead of an information service, under Title II of the Communications Act, according to industry analysts, lobbyists and former F.C.C. staff members.
“The change, the analysts and others say, which has been pushed by President Obama, would give the commission strong legal authority to ensure that no content is blocked and no so-called pay-to-play fast lanes exist — prohibitions that are hallmarks of the net neutrality concept.”
It would not normally be breaking news when an author announces that she will publish a sequel to her first (and only) book. But when the author is Harper Lee, and the first book was “To Kill a Mockingbird,” that’s breaking news.
Publisher Harper announced Tuesday that "Go Set a Watchman," a novel the Pulitzer Prize-winning author completed in the 1950s and put aside, will be released July 14. Rediscovered last fall, "Go Set a Watchman" is essentially a sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird," although it was finished earlier. The 304-page book will be Lee's second, and the first new work in more than 50 years…
"’In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called “Go Set a Watchman,”’ the 88-year-old Lee said in a statement issued by Harper. ‘It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, persuaded me to write a novel (what became `To Kill a Mockingbird') from the point of view of the young Scout.
"’I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told.’”
And, in a case of perfect timing, Stockton’s historic Fox Theatre will be showing the classic 1962 film of To Kill a Mockingbird on Sunday, February 8.
We'll see you there.
