The dry bed of Ivanpah Lake in San Barnardino County, which had been filled by the 2004-05 rains. (Photo: Ed Berlen)Field Poll: By a nearly three-to-one margin (65% to 23%) Californians support Governor Jerry Brown’s call to require urban water districts to reduce their water use by an average of 25% statewide. Support for the Governor’s plan is broad-based and bipartisan, and spans all major subgroups of the state’s adult population.
Demonstrators protesting police conduct at a gathering in Capitol Park, Sacramento, October 2014. (Photo: Rachael Towne)An effort is under way to make California the first state in the nation to have its top law enforcement officer independently investigate deaths in police custody, bypassing the prosecutors in California’s 58 counties. Under the plan, the state attorney general would appoint a special prosecutor to direct an investigation when a civilian dies as a result of deadly physical force by a peace officer.
As rush hour approaches, traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. (Photo: Frontpage)Gov. Jerry Brown, who got nailed for parking in a yellow zone, is pushing an amnesty program for millions of California drivers caught in what he called a “hellhole of desperation” from spiraling legal fines and fees. Some 4.2 million California motorists – one in six drivers across the state – have suspended licenses because they can’t afford the fines, according to a recent study. Hardest hit are low-income drivers.
A free health and dental clinic. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)Covered California, the first and largest state-sanctioned health insurance exchange created through the Affordable Care Act, is going to start the new fiscal year with less money. A combination of lackluster enrollment and the loss of some federal funds that helped sustain it through its start-up period are partly the reason, said Peter Lee, Covered California’s executive director.
A homeless man in Oceanside. (Photo: David Little)With news this week that California’s tax revenues came in $6-$8 billion stronger than previous estimates, California now has an undeniable choice: a high road that lifts up all our people and strengthens our state, or a low road that ignores the nearly one in four residents who live below the poverty line in the wealthiest state in the nation.
The push back from schools hit with a huge CalSTRS rate increase, expected to be an additional $3.7 billion a year when fully phased in, is not that it’s unaffordable and will hurt students or unfairly lets the state and teachers off the hook. Instead, a coalition of school districts, including the giant Los Angeles Unified School District, wants a separate budget item for the CalSTRS rate increase within Proposition 98.
An aerial view of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.Gov. Jerry Brown went back to the future Wednesday, saying water problems have confronted him, his father’s governorship and their predecessors as they sought ways to get northern water to the south. Brown said delta-linked proposals had been studied for decades, with perhaps a million personnel-hours spent looking at the plan. “Until you put a million hours into it, shut up!” Brown, defending the proposal, told a gathering of hundreds of people at a statewide at a conference of the Association of California Water Agencies. Brown’s comment drew applause.
A powerplant at sunset. (Photo: David Crockett)Last week’s executive order on climate change from Gov. Jerry Brown offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on what Pacific Coast climate leadership is helping us achieve. As someone whose career has spanned both economic and environmental interests, I have a unique vantage point on why reducing carbon emissions is a win-win for both business and the environment.
California motorists in a traffic jam. (Photo: Shutterstock)With one in six California drivers – about 4.2 million people — having suspended licenses because they can’t pay court fines, a lawmaker has proposed reducing the suspensions in non-violent cases and setting up an amnesty program to help motorists.
Millerton Lake in Fresno County formed by the Friant Dam. Photo: K.J. KolbCalifornians in cities and towns across the state cut their water usage only slightly – 2.8 percent — during February compared with the same month in 2013, an indication that despite the severity of the drought, conservation is not taking hold. Felicia Marcus, the chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, said “the February results are very disturbing.”