A proposed constitutional amendment that would require all major public works projects to be funded by revenue bonds has qualified for the 2016 ballot. The amendment, funded largely by wealthy Delta farmer Dean Cortopassi, if passed, could derail the governor’s twin tunnels project. Jim Miller, Sacramento Bee:
“Wealthy Stockton-area farmer and food processor Dean Cortopassi and his wife, Joan, have bankrolled the No Blank Checks Initiative ballot effort, pumping $4 million million into the petition drive, consultants and other expenses since March.
“Under his proposed ballot measure, any revenue bonds for public works involving the state would have to go to a public vote. That would complicate Brown’s planned strategy to pay for the twin tunnels, which rests on water users financing bonds to help fund the $15 billion project….
“The measure also poses problems for other public-works projects, with critics saying it would block repairs to roads and bridges and force statewide votes on many types of local borrowing proposals. Construction unions and business groups created Citizens to Protect California Infrastructure, which last week reported that it had raised $122,000 during the summer and had $73,000 on hand as of Sept. 30.”
Newly filed lobbying disclosure documents show that the oil industry spent nearly $11 million at the height of the battle over SB 350, a major climate change bill eventually signed by the Governor. Jeremy White, Sacramento Bee:
“A pair of industry associations and a handful of oil companies combined to spend $10.7 million in the third quarter.
“Leading the way was the Western States Petroleum Association, which spent $6.7 million, more than double what it had spent in the prior two quarters, to bring its total on the year to $9.2 million.
“Valero spent $582,000, up from the comparatively paltry $48,000 it had spent earlier in the year. Exxon spent around $414,000 in the final quarter, just under double the $223,000 it had deployed earlier.
“Combined with the $5.4 million that oil companies that lobbied on SB 350 reported spending earlier in the year, the new figures bring the industry’s total influence outlay for 2015 to $16.1 million.”
Incoming Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) says he will make education a centerpiece of his agenda – and remembers when he nearly flunked high school. George Skelton has the story at the Los Angeles Times:
"’I was a terrible high school student,’ Rendon, 47, told me. ‘My grade-point at one time was 0.83.’
“How, I asked, could it be so low — essentially failing?
"’I don't know that I had tremendous intellectual curiosity back then,’ he answers. ‘I didn't know a lot of people who went to college. I never thought about it. I wasn't sure what it was all about.’
“…After high school, Rendon worked the graveyard shift loading trucks at a warehouse ‘for lousy pay,’ he says. ‘People didn't get treated real well.’
“Every morning, he'd ride a bus home that stopped at Cerritos Community College. ‘Kids were getting off excited while I was tired and falling asleep,’ he says.
“Why not get off himself, he decided. And the rest is history. After Cerritos, he earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Cal State Fullerton, then a doctorate in political science at UC Riverside.”
Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom has endorsed the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, a proposed ballot initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana that is backed by a number of high profile supporters, including billionaire Sean Parker who has said he will fund the measure. Joe Garofoli, SF Gate:
"’I am pleased that this thoughtful measure is aligned with the Blue Ribbon Commission's recommendations, and presents California its best opportunity to improve the status quo by making marijuana difficult for kids to access,’ Newsom said Monday. ‘It is backed by the broadest coalition of supporters to date and I believe that Californians will rally behind this consensus measure, which also serves to strengthen law enforcement, respect local preferences, protect public health and public safety, and restore the environment.’"
California’s state Board of Education wants to replace the state’s Academic Performance Index with a more flexible testing system. Dan Walters has the story at the Bee:
“The struggle over how – and if – California schools will be held accountable for results of a revised school finance formula will be rejoined this week in the state Board of Education.
“The board and its president, Michael Kirst, want to kill the state’s test-based Academic Performance Index and replace it with a “multiple measures” system that is much less confrontational.
“The state’s education establishment, contending that the old system is too simplistic and punitive, likes the switch.
“However, education reform and civil rights groups continue to press for stricter monitoring of how schools are spending the billions of extra dollars they are receiving to upgrade achievements of poor and English-learner students.”
We may complain about the effects of the drought, but imagine living in the Mojave Desert without air conditioning - or anything else, except stone tools. Archaeologists exploring the Mojave near Twentynine Palms have discovered nearly 9000 artifacts going back 12,000 years.
“The artifacts, found at multiple sites across the [military] base, include more than 8,830 stone tools, flakes, ground stone, pieces of ceramic, and bone, as well as a single large biface blade that researchers say is a “classic” example of the 13,000-year-old style known as Clovis.
“The relics were just part of the finds produced by a comprehensive survey of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC), a training base covering more than 2,400 square kilometers (930 square miles) of desert near the town of Twentynine Palms, California….
“[The] most productive site that the team studied was by an outcrop of lava from the Mojave’s extinct Pisgah volcano.
“Test excavations at a rocky blister of lava turned up 8,830 artifacts, discovered in several layers that together span up to 9,800 years of human occupation.
“The uppermost layer, on and just below the surface, revealed stone flakes and other artifacts dating from around the 13th century, [archaeologist Dr. Ryan Byerly] noted.
“’Surface artifacts, and likely many of those extending to 30 or 40 centimeters below the surface, reflect one or more occupations that, based on radiocarbon analysis of a surface hearth, date to around 1290 AD,’ he said.”
