A map showing cities in a swath of northern California. (Photo: BestStockFoto, via Shutterstock.More than 7,100 people have applied to be on California’s independent redistricting commission, the 14-member panel that will draw new political boundaries based on population counts from the 2020 census. State Auditor Elaine Howle’s office said of the large applicant pool, nearly 6,000 were tentatively eligible.
Pedestrians crossing Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. (Photo: Sean Pavone, Shutterstock) OPINION: Back in 2012, then Treasurer Bill Lockyer called for an early warning system that would give state officials time to proactively address local government fiscal emergencies before they wound up in bankruptcy court. We are now five years closer to the next recession and its attendant set of local government financial crises, but the state has made little progress toward implementing Lockyer’s proposed system.
Sutter Brown at the state Capitol. (Illustration: Judd Hertzler/Capitol Weekly. Photo: Scott Duncan/Capitol Weekly)“Lists like the one you are about to read are a lot like most hairpieces: They’re probably a bad idea, but they do get a lot of people talking,” we wrote in 2009. Eight lists later, we’re still having fun – okay, not as much as before – but we think this list has value and is becoming something of an institution. At least, that’s what people tell us.
UC Berkeley students at Sather Gate. (Photo: Rightdx, via Shutterstock) In a scathing report, the state auditor says the University of California has catered to out-of-state and foreign applicants, who pay more than in-state students, and allowed thousands of nonresident students to attend UC – even though they had lower qualifications than the median for resident students.
A failure to ride herd over a major state computer project more than tripled the cost, led to numerous delays and allowed scores of warnings to slip by without being addressed, according to a sharply critical report from the state auditor.
One phone call started it all.
It was an anonymous tipster who alerted the state’s top auditor to faked overtime pay at Caltrans, but as the four-year investigation continued it turned up evidence of fudged data and safety testing violations at structures across the state.
State Auditor Elaine Howle’s 31-page report last week
Ricardo Lara is viewed in the Capitol as something of a rising star — a trajectory that ironically was helped by the still-unfolding scandals involving the city of Bell, which is in his district.
During his first and only term in the Assembly, he was named chair of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, an
State health officials mismanaged a special child-protection program and violated the law when they contracted out for services instead of using in-house workers, the state’s top auditor reported in a sharply worded review.
State Auditor Elaine Howle said the state Department of Public Health and its predecessor, the Health Services Department, spent some $2.1