Longtime environmental advocate Annie Notthoff retired from the Natural Resources Defense Council last year but still has plenty to say about California environmental issues. Capitol Weekly’s John Howard and Tim Foster asked her about CEQA exemptions for housing, what to make of the budget and the drought. Plus: Who had the Worst Week in California Politics?
Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, joined John Howard and Tim Foster to chat about a number of labor issues, including the ongoing uproar over at SEIU 1000 following the election of outsider candidate Richard Louis Brown; the latest fallout from Proposition 22; and The PRO Act: what is it, and how will it impact California workers if passed? Also: What the heck is going on at the Santa Barbara Citizen’s Independent Redistricting Commission?
We are joined today by the Governor Newsom’s Executive Secretary, (aka chief of staff) Jim Deboo. Deboo joined the governor’s office in January, just as the pandemic surged in the wake of the holidays. We spoke to Deboo about governing under such unpredictable circumstances, how the horseshoe works under lockdown rules, and asked him who HE’D put on the Top 100.
Portion of a Facebook post urging SEIU 1000 members to voteSince we posted FOUR new episodes this past week, we’re offering up an abbreviated version of our regular podcast… this time we’ll just look at who had the #WorstWeekCA. If you have been following the news, the answer should be pretty clear: SEIU 1000, home to 96,000 union state employees, saw a dramatic low-turnout election that unseated the longtime leader and replaced her with an outsider candidate who promised to cut all political spending, and told Gavin Newsom not to expect his union’s help in the Recall.
Image courtesy California State ParksWith Memorial Day – one of the biggest camping holidays of the year – coming up next Monday, we thought we’d check in on the status of California’s State Parks. We’re joined this week by Gloria Sandoval, Deputy Director of Public Affairs for State Parks who tells us how to get into your favorite park – and offers tips on what to do if your first option is booked.
Assemblyman Mike Gipson (D) represents the 64th Assembly District, which includes communities that are among some of those hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic: Carson, Compton, Gardena, South Los Angeles, Torrance and Watts. Gipson is the chair of the committee on Infectious Diseases, and introduced AB1038, a bill to create a $180 million California Health Equity Fund that would address health and social inequities that have been exacerbated by COVID-19.
We are joined this episode by Lande Ajose, chair of the Governor’s Council for Postsecondary Education – a big job as California colleges prepare to reopen campuses to students, post-pandemic. Ajose helped prepare the recently-released “Recovery With Equity” roadmap for California’s postsecondary systems to come back from the pandemic more financially resilient and positioned to more equitably serve California students.
When we invited freshman Assemblymember Alex Lee (D – San Jose) to come on the podcast we planned to discuss his ambitious policy proposals, like Universal Health Care, a Wealth Tax, and a ban on corporate donations to political candidates. What we didn’t expect was that those discussions would all be in the past tense.
Veteran journalist and university professor Sigrid Bathen, who has written extensively about California’s mental health policies, joins Tim Foster and John Howard on the Capitol Weekly Podcast to chat about what is rapidly becoming a hot political issue — having mental health clinicians accompany police officers on some emergency calls, such as family disturbances. The “cops and clinicians” movement is capturing attention.
We’re joined today by Matt Rexroad, redistricting expert and the former mayor of Woodland and member of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors. Rexroad offers his thoughts on the upcoming congressional reapportionment, the abrupt resignation of Daniel Claypool, the executive director of the Redistricting Commission and the likelihood of success for the attempt to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom.