Gun advocates sue over California concealed-carry restrictions hours after new law passes
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "Hours after California lawmakers voted to limit the areas where firearms could be carried in public, gun advocates filed suit in federal court saying the proposed law would endanger gun owners, harm businesses and violate the constitutional right to bear arms.
SB2 by Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge (Los Angeles County), won final legislative approval in the state Senate on Tuesday and will not take effect until January once it is signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a sponsor of the measure. But later in the day, lawyers for the National Rifle Association’s California affiliate, other firearms organizations and a number of legal gun owners asked a federal judge in Santa Ana to prohibit the state from enforccing the measure."
California lawmakers move to ban irrigation of some decorative lawns
CALMatters, RACHEL BECKER: "California businesses and institutions will have to stop irrigating decorative grassy areas with drinkable water under legislation approved by state lawmakers.
The bill now goes to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature. Newsom’s office declined to comment today, but he previously called for an irrigation ban that led to a similar emergency measure that’s in effect until next June."
CEQA-gutting bill threatens California’s public health, communities (OP-ED)
Capitol Weekly, J.P. ROSE: "Repeated efforts by developers to gut the California Environmental Quality Act sometimes seem like a hydra — cut off one head and two more grow in its place. Even when one anti-CEQA bill is defeated, profit-driven interests put forth more bills to weaken our state’s landmark environmental law and the critical protections it provides to our communities and ecosystems.
This year is no exception. The most recent CEQA attack is AB1633, a blatant giveaway to developers and one of the gravest threats to the environment and public health that California has seen in years."
Letter to the Editor: SB 43 (OP-ED)
Capitol Weekly, SEAN KIERNAN: "California lawmakers have again decided that veterans’ voices don’t matter. But this time, the consequences stretch far beyond my community.
Senator Eggman’s SB 43 would expand the reasons someone can be held involuntarily and placed into a conservatorship. Simply put, conservatorships strip the “gravely disabled” of their civil rights and bodily autonomy, placing it in the hands of court appointees. By expanding the definition of “gravely disabled”, she is sacrificing the rights of too many to fix the blight created by politicians’ failed policies."
$10 million in service cuts could soon come to San Jose, mayor warns
BANG*Mercury News, GABRIEL GRESCHLER: "A fierce San Jose City Hall debate this summer between business and labor interests that resulted in wage increases for thousands of municipal workers and avoided a major strike is now raising concerns over what the long-term financial impact of the pay bumps could portend.
The salary hikes forced city councilmembers on Tuesday to make a meager $2.8 million in service cuts — trims that aren’t catastrophic but include a reduction in funding for a major city-run outdoor event."
PG&E customers face big bill increases due to state regulatory proposals
BANG*Mercury News, GEORGE AVALOS: "PG&E customers, already hit with big increases in their monthly bills in recent years, face a fresh round of price hikes.
On Wednesday, officials with the state Public Utilities Commission that regulates PG&E issued two proposals that would allow the utility to increase the amount of revenue it can extract from ratepayers in 2023. One proposal was fashioned by one of the five powerful commissioners with the state PUC while a second proposal was crafted by PUC administrative law judges."
Regulators question details of PG&E plan that would raise monthly rates by $40
The Chronicle, JULIE JOHNSON: "State regulators pushed back Wednesday against Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s plans to bury thousands of miles of power lines, a top expense in the utility’s four-year budget that would add nearly $40 onto typical monthly customer bills each month.
Instead, the California Public Utilities Commission said the company could prevent wildfires for billions of dollars less than proposed."
Wildfires knocked out power to an entire county. A microgrid of generators brought it back
LA Times, GRACE TOOHEY: "After an onslaught of about 150 lightning strikes hit one of California’s most drought-stricken regions last month, sparking more than two dozen fires, the flames spread quickly across the rugged wilderness of the state’s northwest corner.
Over the ensuing days, the fires, growing dangerously close to rural communities and a major thoroughfare, also threatened a piece of crucial infrastructure: the only transmission lines that provide power to Del Norte County’s 27,000 residents."
Tuition hike of 34% across five years coming to California State University
CALMatters, MIKHAIL ZINSHTEYN: "The California State University system voted today to raise tuition 6% annually for the next five years, a decision that seemed destined when its leaders revealed in May that Cal State brings in far less revenue than it needs to educate its nearly half a million students.
The system’s board of trustees voted 15 to 5 to approve the hikes, choosing financial stability over the collective outcry of students and the faculty union that denounced the move."
CSU tuition hike approved despite student, faculty protests. Here's how much costs will rise
The Chronicle, NANETTE ASIMOV: "Over protests from students, faculty and some state leaders, California State University trustees on Wednesday voted to raise tuition by 34% over five years beginning next fall, with an annual increase of 6%.
The price hikes are the first since 2017 and will infucSan Jose Unified discriminated against Christian student club, Ninth Circuit rulesEdScccse CSU with $840 million through 2028-29. A third of the money will be used to buy back tuition entirely for about 60% of undergraduates."
SEE ALSO -- Cal State students will see 6% tuition hike -- EdSource, ASHLEY A. SMITH
San Jose Unified discriminated against Christian student club, Ninth Circuit rules
The Chronicle, BOB EGELKO: "San Jose public schools committed religious discrimination by refusing to recognize the Fellowship of Christian Athletes as an official student group because of its denial of leadership positions to LGBTQ students and their supporters, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The 30,000-student San Jose Unified School District has required organizations since 2019 to be open to all students in order to qualify as an official student group, allowing it to keep funds in a school bank account and to be listed in a student yearbook. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes requires its thousands of members nationwide to endorse a “sexual purity statement,” declaring that “the biblical description of marriage is one man and one woman in a lifelong commitment.”"
Fallout from Sunol school ban on Pride flag, as parents keep kids home and consider recall
BANG*Mercury News, WILL MCCARTHY: "After a contentious board meeting on Tuesday night in which the tiny Sunol district approved a controversial resolution to prevent the town’s single elementary school from flying a Pride flag, some local parents kept their kids home on Wednesday out of fear for their safety, concerned that the hostility would continue.
“It’s disconcerting, it’s scary, it’s not right. We’re reeling and trying to figure out how to push back against this,” said Matthew Sylvester, a parent at the school."
Allison Gamlen’s journey from actor to arts educator
EdSource, KAREN D'SOUZA: "Allison Gamlen has always believed the show must go on. During the depths of the pandemic, when schools were shuttered and many children were suffering from fear and isolation, the arts educator fought to keep her students engaged.
When she realized some kids were turning their cameras off and playing video games during her Zoom drama class, she decided to hold some rehearsals in person, in the park. It was important to her that her students keep learning about the arts but it was even more important to give them a space to connect. These outdoor rehearsals were entirely optional. Students kept their distance and they wore masks but they still found great comfort in that bond."
The ratings fight at the heart of the strikes: Will Netflix and others share more data?
LA Times, WENDY LEE: "Years ago, at the beginning of the streaming wars, writers like “One Day at a Time” reboot co-showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett called Netflix a “black hole” because, unlike with broadcast TV, she didn’t know how many people were watching the show.
Rivals such as Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Paramount+ adopted a similarly opaque approach to viewership, rarely revealing exactly how large a show’s audience was."
Will this hot new sport displace pickleball? First padel court in NorCal to open in S.F.
The Chronicle, ANNIE VAINSHTEIN: "Padel, a racket sport gaining popularity across the world, is coming to San Francisco this fall.
Two courts dedicated to padel — often described as a hybrid between tennis and squash — are set to open in Embarcadero Plaza in October, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department announced Wednesday."
Marc Benioff: S.F. doesn’t always take safety ‘as seriously as it does during Dreamforce’
The Chronicle, ROLAND LI: "Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff complimented San Francisco’s cleanliness and safety at the company’s Dreamforce megaconference on Wednesday — but said the city should do better the rest of the time.
“When the city of San Francisco wants to look good and look shiny and safe, it can do it,” he told reporters at the event. “It looks great. It looks very safe right now.”"
One stat shows the peculiar state of San Francisco’s current housing market
The Chronicle, CHRISTIAN LEONARD: "The San Francisco metropolitan area has some of the most expensive homes in the country. But recently, it’s also been where the most homeowners have sold their properties at a loss.
More than 12% of homes — about one in every eight — that sold in the San Francisco metro area between May and July went for less than the seller purchased it for, according to a new report from real estate brokerage site Redfin. That share was higher than that of the 50 most populous United States metros, and more than four times the national rate of 3%."
Can licensed tent villages ease California’s homelessness epidemic? This nonprofit thinks so
LA Times, DOUG SMITH: "The rows of white canvas cabin tents newly erected in an out-of-the-way quarter of Culver City, along the bank of Ballona Creek, have the ambiance of an Army field base.
Miles to the east in South Los Angeles, more modest camping tents — like one might buy at a sporting goods store — line the parking lot of the shuttered Lincoln Theater, evoking something more like a Boy Scout jamboree."
Judge refuses to extend temporary ban on Sacramento officials clearing homeless camps
Sacramento Bee, SAM STANTON: "A federal judge on Wednesday refused to extend his injunction barring the city of Sacramento from clearing homeless camps.
Advocates for homeless residents had asked U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley to extend his injunction through the third week of September because of concerns about high temperatures, but Nunley ruled that “a further preliminary injunction prohibiting the clearing of all homeless encampments in Sacramento would be overly broad.”"
Landlord party celebrating end of Berkeley eviction ban turns violent after protest
The Chronicle, MEGAN FAN MUNCE: "Clashes between housing advocates and landlords turned violent outside a party thrown by landlords to celebrate the end of Berkeley’s eviction moratorium.
The Tuesday event was organized by the Berkeley Property Owners Association in order to celebrate the end of the “severe financial hardship for small family-owned businesses” being imposed by the moratorium, the BPOA said in a statement. The pandemic-inspired ordinance banned landlords from evicting tenants due to unpaid rent. It was passed in March 2020 and expired Aug. 31, 2023."
Bill to restrict solitary confinement in California stalls out in Sacramento
LA Times, HANNAH WILEY: "In a blow to criminal justice reform advocates and a win for corrections officials, California lawmakers delayed legislation on Wednesday to restrict the use of solitary confinement in prisons, jails and immigration detention centers, to buy time to negotiate with Gov. Gavin Newsom over safety concerns.
Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) agreed to hold Assembly Bill 280 in the final days of this year’s legislative session amid opposition from sheriffs and prison officials and skepticism from Newsom over its sweeping application and definition of segregated confinement, known as solitary. The legislation may be considered in 2024."
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao threatens to declare emergency as she waits for police chief finalists
The Chronicle, SARAH RAVANI: "Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao vowed Wednesday to declare a state of emergency by the end of the year if the city’s police commission fails to send her a list of finalists for police chief, escalating the battle between her and the group’s leadership.
Thao has previously criticized the commission, saying that the body is taking too long in its process to select a new police chief as the city confronts a wave of violent crime. The police commission is in charge of finding the top three candidates for the job to send to Thao, who makes the final selection."
The $1 ride that costs Metro $43. Why some want to keep it going
LA Times, RACHEL URANGA: "Ana Castro thumbs through her phone as the Metro Micro van pulls up next to her retail job at the Lynwood shopping center Plaza Mexico. Nervous about driving after her car was totaled and wary of traveling alone on the bus, the cheap ride-share service has been a lifesaver for the Watts teenager.
It’s clean, air-conditioned, picks her up near her front door and takes a fraction of the time it would to travel by bus to school or work. It’s like a Lyft or Uber ride-share with one huge difference: it costs a buck."
