The West Ranch Beacon - News & Commentary for the Santa Clarita Valley » State

Bell scandal has cities scrambling to ease anger over salaries

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:21:05 +0000

(From the sacbee.com) City administrators from around the state scrambled Thursday to get ahead of the unfolding salary scandal in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell. The League of California Cities took the unusual step of lambasting one of its own and said it would explore state legislation requiring that the salaries of the highest-paid employees in state and local government be made easily available to the public.

Representatives of the League met in downtown Sacramento to discuss crafting the salary legislation, as well as setting statewide guidelines for public executive pay that would be based on experience and the size of jurisdictions. Ultimately, salaries for top administrators are decided by city councils and other elected boards.

The Los Angeles Times has reported that the Bell city manager was paid nearly $800,000, making him the highest-paid government manager in the nation. The police chief earned more than $450,000 and an assistant city manager made $376,288. All three have resigned, and both the Los Angeles district attorney and the state attorney general’s office are investigating.

Schwarzenegger to California cities: post salaries

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:19:44 +0000

(From the AP) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger challenged cities Thursday to post officials’ salaries on websites if they have nothing to hide. The Republican governor said Californians were asking what their local government officials were paid after revelations that the Southern California city of Bell paid three of its top administrators a total of $1.6 million a year.

“I think if the city officials have nothing to hide, put the information on the website so people don’t even have to call,” Schwarzenegger said in a budget speech to the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Such information is already public record in California, but many cities and counties don’t display the information for the public to easily see.

That could change if the state Legislature moves ahead with proposals being drafted by the League of California Cities.

Mother Nature helping firefighters battle Tehachapi fire

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:30:27 +0000

(From the AP) Mother Nature is helping firefighters in their battle against the most destructive of two big California wildfires that have burned homes and forced hundreds to evacuate communities on the edge of the Mojave Desert and southern Sierra Nevada.

A 1,400-acre blaze in the Old West Ranch community about 10 miles south of Tehachapi is 25 percent contained. Fire officials hope to have it fully contained by Friday.

Officials say between 25 and 40 structures, most of them homes, were lost to the fire. Another 150 homes remain threatened.

About 40 miles to the north, a fire that began Monday in Sequoia National Forest has grown to nearly 16,000 acres, or about 24 square miles. It is 12 percent surrounded after burning eight homes and six outbuildings in the area of Kernville.

Schwarzenegger orders a new round of unpaid furloughs

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:21:49 +0000

(From the latimes.com) More than 150,000 California state workers will again face unpaid furloughs, beginning in August, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday declared a financial state of emergency and ordered them to take three days off per month.

Starting the second Friday in August, much of California’s government, including Department of Motor Vehicles offices, will be shuttered three times a month at least until a state budget is in place.

The governor’s critics called the order politically motivated, intended to ramp up pressure on the Legislature to pass a budget and on unions to make concessions on their pension plans. Schwarzenegger pitched the move as a necessity to avert a looming cash crunch.

“Our cash situation leaves me no choice but to once again furlough state workers until the Legislature produces a budget I can sign,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

The order says the furloughs will end when there’s a budget and the governor’s finance department determines that California has enough cash to meet its obligations.

Carbon cap-and-trade market planned in West

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:55:41 +0000

(From the sacbee.com) California and 10 other Western states and Canadian provinces took a key step forward Tuesday with plans to create a regionwide market for buying and selling pollution allowances. The Western Climate Initiative unveiled the framework for its cap-and-trade system – the cornerstone of its effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent in the Western region over the next decade.

The development comes as federal legislation to set up a nationwide cap-and-trade system has stalled in Congress.

“This is a huge step forward,” said Erin Rogers, a global warming policy expert for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“In the absence of federal action, this shows that the states and regions are willing to take the lead on global climate change.”

The WCI said its framework for a regional cap-and-trade system will be operational by January 2012.

Under a cap-and-trade system, the total amount of allowable carbon emissions from oil refiners, utilities and other big polluters will be capped.

Schwarzenegger threatens to leave office without signing budget

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:10:58 +0000

(From the latimes.com) Nearly four weeks into the fiscal year without a budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested Monday that California might have to wait until his successor is sworn in next year to get a spending plan — unless lawmakers give him everything he wants. Schwarzenegger has said the Legislature must curtail public pensions and change California’s taxation and budgeting systems before he will sign the next budget, his last as governor. He leaves office in January.

“If I do not get all of the things that we need … I will not sign a budget, and it could actually drag out until the next governor gets into office,” Schwarzenegger told reporters after an event at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, according to a recording provided by his office.

How state’s candidates for governor propose to fix job shortage

admin — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:45:26 +0000

With unemployment skyrocketing and the country recovering slowly from a painful recession, job creation is the catch phrase of the 2010 election. Every candidate, it seems, has a program to put people back to work. California’s gubernatorial candidates, Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown, each have plans they say will help create jobs. Here’s a look at what each proposes to do. Most proposals would require approval by the Legislature.

JERRY BROWN

Brown’s jobs plan to date is focused solely on investing in renewable energy technology with the goal of creating 20,000 megawatts of renewable electricity by 2020. (1 MWh of energy can power 1,000 homes for one hour.) He says the plan would create at least 500,000 new jobs and put California “at the forefront” of the industry.

He has no position on tax cuts and says he would approve a tax increase only if voters signed off. He has said little about reducing the state work force but criticized state government as “constipated and overloaded,” and noted that balancing the budget would require “a lot of cuts.”

MEG WHITMAN

Whitman’s plan has two main components: targeted tax cuts she says would spur job-creating economic activity – despite the loss of billions in tax revenues – and loosening state regulation of business.

She has ruled out tax increases and advocates a 40,000-job reduction in the state work force through attrition. She has advocated a go-slow approach on public works bonds to create jobs, suggesting that the state pay down its current bond debt before approving new borrowing.

See Brown’s and Whitman’s plans for the State of California here: How state’s candidates for governor propose to fix job shortage

California hate crimes drop 21 percent last year

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 07:35:35 +0000

Hate crimes reported in California dropped by more than 20 percent last year, continuing a trend that has held for most of the decade. A state Department of Justice report released this week says hate crimes declined by half since they peaked after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In 2009, 1,100 crimes motivated by race, religion, sexual orientation and other forms of bias were reported. That’s down from 1,397 in 2008 and 2,261 in 2001.

The decline from 2008 was led by double-digit drops in hate crimes against gays, blacks and Jews.

The 2009 report showed 245 crimes based on sexual orientation, 376 against blacks, 160 against Jews, 81 against Hispanics and 13 against Muslims.

Hate crimes have declined over the last decade, aside from a slight spike in 2007.

Poll finds offshore oil drilling support erodes among CA voters

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:04:46 +0000

(From the sacbee.com) In the midst of the worst oil-spill disaster in U.S. history, California voters’ opinion of allowing new drilling off their coast took a nose dive from two years ago, according to a Field Poll released today. Voter support for drilling in state water began to slide 30 years ago, but the poll shows it plunged from 43 percent two years ago to only 31 percent today.

Sixty-one percent now oppose it, nearly a 2-1 ratio of opposition.

The last year that voter opinion for offshore oil drilling was as low as today was in 1990 – the year after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster in Alaska.

“Events seem to matter on this issue,” said Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo. “We’re seeing a similar decline now after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.”

The poll found a partisan divide, however.

Three-fourths of Democrats are against new drilling, but a majority of Republicans – 52 percent – said they favored more.

Cash-hungry states eye online retail for tax revenue

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:00:20 +0000

(From the latimes.com) Web-savvy shoppers can often save big buying online instead of at the local mall. But a chunk of the savings comes at the expense of state and local governments, in the form of sales taxes that are never paid on many Web purchases. The losses add up for cash-starved state and local governments across the country: California alone loses out on more than $1 billion a year.

Now states are starting to get serious about collecting that money. Options under consideration include rewriting the rules on which dot-coms have to charge sales tax — or even requiring online retailers to send their customer lists to the government.

And in an ironic twist, states are getting support from tax-wary business groups, which complain that online retailers such as Amazon and Overstock are exploiting a legal loophole to undercut the competition on pricing.