Posts Tagged: invest

California can cut wildfire risk by investing in resilient forests

A path into a Northern California redwood forest. (Photo: C. Levers, via Shutterstock)

by CHRIS PAULUS posted 02.25.2021

OPINION: As a 34-year employee of Cal Fire, I am deeply familiar with the consequences of state policy that for too long emphasized putting out all wildfires, rather than emphasizing the natural restorative role fire plays in California’s landscapes. With Gov. Newsom’s new $1 billion wildfire budget, we have an opportunity to prioritize wildfire resilience rather than just wildfire suppression.

Proposition 23 and the politics of big money

A dialysis nurse checks his equipment. (Photo: Saengsuriya Kanhajorn, via Shutterstock)

by JASON FIKE and PAUL LICHSTEIN posted 11.17.2020

Close your eyes. Think about all the problems facing California. Think about the top 10 problems. Now think about the top 100 problems. Now open your eyes. We doubt anyone reading this thought about staffing in kidney dialysis centers. Yet this year proposition 23 was asking voters in California to have a say on the staffing requirements for kidney dialysis centers.

Fair ‘exit fee’ critical to renewable energy future

A concentrated solar energy thermal plant in the Mojave Desert. (Photo: Piotr Zajda, via Shutterstock)

by BETH VAUGHAN posted 09.06.2018

While utility responsibility related to California’s devastating wildfires is dominating headlines and the agendas of policymakers, flying below the radar is a pending decision from the California Public Utilities Commission to change the formula for a fee charged to energy consumers who leave the power supply of investor-owned utilities (IOUs) like PG&E and instead get power from local community choice aggregation programs, also known as CCAs.

The apparent suicide last week of Alfred Villalobos, who faced a bribery trial next month, is a sad end for a former CalPERS board member paid more than $50 million by firms seeking money from the big pension fund. Most of his fees came from private equity firms during the years leading up to the financial crisis in 2008. Some call the period private equity’s “golden years,” when leveraged buyouts of corporations yielded huge profits.

Brown: State workers should pay more for retiree health care

Gov. Brown unveils his 2015-16 budget draft in the Capitol. (Photo: State of California)

by ED MENDEL posted 01.16.2015

Gov. Brown wants state workers to begin paying half the cost of their future retiree health care — a big change for workers making no payments for coverage that can pay 100 percent of the premium for a retiree and 90 percent for their dependents. The governor also wants state workers to be given the option of a lower-cost health insurance plan with higher deductibles.

OPINION: Our schools are partners in securing the health and well-being of our children. Other than their homes, Sacramento kids spend more time in school than anywhere else. That’s why we, as a community, invest in things like nutritional meals, physical education, and basic health care and counseling at schools—because we know healthy students are better learners.

As California first lady, Maria Shriver spent years dealing with the issues of California. Now she has a new role: improving the struggling status of American women. She returned to Sacramento for her first public event in more than three years last week to promote efforts in The Shriver Report — a multimedia project — into the studies of gender inequality, poverty and an array of social issues

Los Angeles has the best-funded retiree health care among the nation’s big cities, a new study found, and it’s also paying a big price for a policy praised by many but practiced by only a few.

The city’s rare attempt to set aside money now to pay for retiree health care promised in the