How will California’s new laws affect you?
LA Times, LAUREL ROSENHALL: "It’s January again, which means hundreds of new laws take effect in California.
Many of them are unlikely to make much difference in your life. California now has an official state bat (the pallid bat) thanks to one new law, and an official state mushroom (the golden chanterelle) thanks to another."
Judges let new California ban on guns in many public places take effect amid legal fight
LA Times, KEVIN RECTOR: "A new California law barring licensed gun holders from carrying their firearms into an array of public places took effect Monday despite an ongoing legal challenge to its legitimacy.
A federal district judge last month rejected major portions of the law as unconstitutional and issued an injunction blocking it from taking effect while gun holders challenge it in court. But a federal appeals court put a temporary hold on that injunction Saturday."
Experts Expound: Making the Capitol work better
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "We’re down to just a few days left in 2023, which makes it a good time for a bit of reflection…and one final question for the year for our stable of Capitol experts.
If you were king for a day, what would you change about the Capitol to make it work more effectively?
“Lower the number of bills allowed to be introduced to 10 per member/year (20 total per 2 year session). This would reduce the enormous amount of stupid bills introduced, give relief to overworked staff doing busy work on bills that don’t do anything, and reduce unnecessary workload on committee staff that have to “analyze” so many unbaked bills that are allowed to go through the process. It would also allow policy staff the time and focus to become experts in a specific subject matter instead of having to just know enough about a million topics in order to keep up with the outrageous number of bills they have to staff.”"
Constitutional rules for the state budget
Capitol Weekly, CHRIS MICHELI: "The annual state budget bill, as well as the “budget bill junior” and budget “trailer bills” are governed by provisions of the California Constitution. The budget bill junior and budget trailer bills are formally called “other bills providing for appropriations related to the budget bill.” The provisions of law related to the State Budget are primarily contained in Section 12 of Article IV of the state Constitution. What are these provisions?
First, within the first 10 days of each calendar year, the Governor is required to submit to the Legislature, with an explanatory message, a budget for the ensuing fiscal year containing itemized statements for recommended state expenditures and estimated state revenues. Although it can be introduced prior to or on January 10, this initial budget is referred to as the “Jan. 10 Budget.”"
New data shows a surprising demographic has joined California’s exodus
The Chronicle, NAMI SUMIDA: "California has experienced several years of population decline since the onset of the pandemic, with residents of lower incomes and education levels being the most likely to leave the state.
But an analysis of recently-released census data by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, shows that even among Californians with graduate or professional degrees, more are leaving the state than entering. Between 2021 and 2022, about 91,000 people with advanced degrees moved into the state, while about 100,000 left, resulting in a net population loss of nearly 9,000. Just five years ago, this group was more likely to move into the state than leave. The data does not include trends among international migrants."
Oakland’s Measure Q money going unspent as fire danger at parks worsens
BANG*Mercury News, SHOMIK MUKHERJEE: "Just before the pandemic helped plunge the city into financial crisis, Oakland voters did what they usually do at the ballot box: approve a new tax, this one intended to maintain and improve the city’s various parks.
Three years later, the tax has accumulated millions of dollars, but a new audit finds the city also underspends the revenue each year — accumulating about $22 million in rolled-over balance at a time when fire-safety advocates describe Oakland’s parks as lacking maintenance and being at high risk for wildfires."
War, labor unrest make an appearance; yet 135th Rose Parade rolls on, greets the new year
LA Times, STAFF: "Growing up in Texas, Donna Patton watched the Rose Parade on TV with her family, the house smelling of cinnamon rolls and coffee.
She cherished those times. But she always wanted to see the parade in person. On Monday, she made it happen."
Suffering from COVID and the flu: Double infections hit California hard
LA Times, RONG-GONG LIN II: "California’s hospitals are getting busier with more COVID-19 and flu patients, some of whom are suffering from both viruses at the same time.
The simultaneous sickness is another wrinkle in an already hectic respiratory virus season. Although hospitals are not nearly as crowded as during the emergency phase of the pandemic, they are becoming increasingly so — with Los Angeles County recently entering the “medium” COVID-19 hospitalization category outlined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the first time this winter."
A ‘pocket of hope’: This California school district made a difference on Black students’ scores
CALMatters, CAROLYN JONES: "For most K-12 student groups in California, test scores have been maddeningly flat since the pandemic. But for Black students, stagnant scores have been particularly frustrating: Black students’ math and English language arts scores inched downward for most grade levels last year, notching some of the lowest scores among any student group.
At least one district, however, has reversed that trend. Emery Unified, a small district tucked between Berkeley and Oakland in the east Bay Area, saw its Black students — who make up 45% of the student population, one of the highest rates in the state — show dramatic gains from 2022. Math scores nearly doubled over last year and English language arts scores far surpassed pre-pandemic results. Chronic absenteeism dropped 8.4 percentage points, far more than the state average."
What parents of English learners need to know
EdSource, ZAIDEE STAVELY: "When your child is an English learner, it can be confusing and difficult to understand whether they are progressing normally toward proficiency in the language and what they need to do to be reclassified as fluent and English proficient. Here’s a quick guide to how schools classify students as English learners, what they have to provide for students to help them learn English, what criteria they take into account in reclassifying them as proficient in English, and why reclassification matters.
When children are first enrolled in school, their parents or guardians are asked to fill out a survey about which language the child learned when they first began to talk, which language they most frequently speak at home and which language parents and guardians use most frequently when speaking with them."
‘Badass detective’: How one California officer solved eight cold cases — in his spare time
The Chronicle, SCOTT OSTLER: "The trash truck rumbled through the gated community in Southern California one afternoon earlier this year. Riding shotgun was Detective Matt Hutchison, an officer in the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety.
Hutchison wore the trash company’s jumpsuit, cap and reflective vest, and he sported a few days of beard stubble. He was collecting trash hoping to find something valuable: the DNA of a person who might prove to be a suspect in the sexual assault and murder of an 18-year-old security guard in Sunnyvale in 1969."
Retired Oakland judge has shocking theory about infamous Lindbergh kidnapping. And it’s catching on
The Chronicle, KEVIN FAGAN: "It’s been 91 years since celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby was kidnapped, a crime that plunged the nation into a paroxysm of anguish that ended with the capture of a German immigrant named Bruno Richard Hauptmann. Prosecutors at the time said he snatched the child to squeeze a $50,000 ransom from the family, but to the day he was executed in the electric chair, Hauptmann insisted he was innocent.
Questions about Hauptmann’s guilt have swirled ever since his death, and now respected Bay Area historians are proposing a new, macabre theory about the case: that Lindbergh offered up his child as a subject for medical experiments and faked the kidnapping to cover up the child’s death.
California Jazz Conservatory plans to cement itself as a premier music institution
The Chronicle, ZARA ISHAD: "The Bay Area’s jazz community is experiencing a period of transition, with new leadership taking root at several organizations.
In September, Darin Atwater was named the new artistic director of Monterey Jazz Festival, the third in its history, and in June, as SFJazz celebrated its 40th anniversary, the organization announced Terence Blanchard as its next executive artistic director, only the second to lead the institution after the retirement of founder Randall Kline."
