Posts Tagged: council

Following the city charter, a reluctant San Bernardino city council last week approved a police pay raise costing about $1 million, the second $1 million police salary increase since the city filed for bankruptcy last year. The four council members who voted for the 3 percent pay hike all criticized a city charter provision linking San Bernardino to the average police pay in 10 other cities, most much wealthier with higher per-capita income.

Desert Hot Springs is considering bankruptcy for the second time in 12 years. On Tuesday, the city council unanimously approved a fiscal emergency. An emergency declaration is a preliminary step in filing for bankruptcy protection, although there was no indication from council members that a bankruptcy action was coming.

This time, it’s the Arts Council that benefits

The Affordable Care Act not only drastically changes how health care is delivered but sharply alters the underpinnings of California’s economy. To get a deeper sense of health care reform’s impact on the Golden State, Capitol Weekly talked to Micah Weinberg, PhD, a senior policy advisor at the Bay Area Council and CEO of Healthy Systems Project, a health care consulting firm based in Sacramento.

California’s pioneering Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) requires fuel producers such as oil firms and refiners to gradually reduce the average “carbon intensity” of the state’s transportation fuel mix, cutting greenhouse-gas emissions that increase the risks from climate change. The LCFS will provide credits to make electric vehicles even more affordable. Despite a fierce campaign by the fossil fuel industry to delay it, the clean fuel standard is already helping California transition to clean, non-petroleum transportation fuels, while attracting new investment and creating new jobs.

Well over half of California’s 120 state legislators come from local government – the 450-plus city councils, the 58 boards of supervisors, the 1,100 school districts and the other local bodies that do the heavy lifting of day-today governance.

But once they get to Sacramento, the perspective changes. And if blaming Sacramento is common at

This is arguably the most Republican Assembly District in the state, yet the candidates are not overly partisan in nature. They all have fiscally conservative beliefs, but understand they are running to govern in a state that is heavily dominated by Democrats and are determined to create a more family and business friendly environment.

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Two special elections viewed as make-or-break contests for the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority had something in common Tuesday night – miserable turnout.

In the southern Central Valley, the high-stakes battle for the 16th Senate District pitted Kern County Supervisor Leticia Pérez, a Democrat, against Republican Andy Vidak, a Hanford cherry farmer.

With all the precincts at

Science and common sense, not ideology, needed in hydraulic fracturing discussion

Science and common sense are in a pitched battle against ideology here in California, where activists are pressuring state and local officials to ignore science and common sense and ban a hydraulic fracturing — a safe and proven technology that’s been used to

Phil Isenberg is a former state lawmaker, mayor of Sacramento and big-time lobbyist  —  someone who’s been in a lot of political street fights but whose latest battle may be his biggest.

The 50-year veteran of California politics heads the  Delta Stewardship Council and he is now the guy with his hand on the