Posts Tagged: michael

Where are they now? Mike Machado

Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden, chair of the Senate Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee, at a 2007 Capitol hearing. (Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli)

by ALEX VASSAR posted 11.01.2017

It’s been almost 70 years since Michael J. Machado was born in San Joaquin County, but he still calls Linden home. Having seen the decades pass has given him a perspective on small town farming in the Central Valley. “Linden hasn’t changed much since I was born,” Machado reflected recently, “It’s tripled in size since I was a boy, now with a bursting population of 2,500.”

ProPublica reviewed more than 450 complaint investigations undertaken by the agency between 2009 and 2014 from roughly 50 Level 14 group homes, the residential facilities for California’s most acutely disturbed children. More than half the investigations produced “inconclusive” findings, meaning that no determination of facts was reached in cases that involved sexual abuse, physical assaults, drug use or inadequate care at the facilities.

Michael Peevey’s tale of turmoil

Michael Peevey at a December meeting of the state Public Utilities Commission. (Photo: Jeff Chiu/Associated Press)

by CHUCK MCFADDEN posted 04.14.2015

It’s almost impossible these days to see the name Michael Peevey without the word “embattled” attached to it. Peevey stepped down last December after serving two six-year terms on the California Public Utilities Commission, almost all of them as PUC president. He has been subjected to withering public criticism up and down the state for fostering a too-cozy relationship between the PUC and the utility firms he was charged with regulating, most recently Pacific Gas & Electric. “Don’t shoot, I surrender,” Peevey wryly told the commission at its December meeting, a comment that drew laughs.

PUC chief to step down

A devastated zone in San Bruno following the 2010 gas pipeline explosion. (Photo: Brocken Inaglory)

by JOHN HOWARD posted 10.09.2014

Michael R. Peevey, the beleaguered president of the California Public Utilities Commission who has served under three governors, said Thursday he is stepping down at the end of the year. The move follows turmoil at the powerful regulatory agency that includes state and federal investigations amid complaints that the PUC has been too cozy with Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Bob Huff’s political career began with a building permit. While serving as chairman of the Evangelical Free Church of Diamond Bar’s building program, he tangled with the planning commission and the city council, where he eventually won the extension of the permit.

“That pulled me into the political process, where you see the things that

A federal judge suggested last week that pension cuts in the Stockton bankruptcy may not be a key issue until the city tries to negotiate a debt-cutting “plan of adjustment” with creditors, a step awaiting an eligibility ruling after a trial later this month.

Bond insurers say a city proposal to reduce its long-term