On Time Budget?

Lawmakers are optimistic about their chances of passing a budget by June 15th. The irony in the process? As noted by Senator Wes Chesbro, chairman of the conference committee on the budget, it is easier to say no to requests for money when the fiscal outlook is dire. Full story

58th Assembly District

The Trib reports on the 4-way Democratic primary in the race to replace Assemblyman Ron Calderon, who is running for the Senate. The lead candidate is former state Senator Charles Calderon, Ron's brother. Full story

Dan Walters: LA Has Grip On Education Pork Barrel

Writing in the Sacramento Bee, columnist Dan Walters advances the argument that recent categorical spending programs demonstrate LA's emerging dominance of pork barrel spending within California. His choice example is a $1 billion program in the infrastructure bond package which targets "hyperdense" crowding; the wording strongly favors LAUSD.

Carpool Lane Debate

The San Jose Mercury News tracks the emerging debate over the efficiency of carpool lanes and the politics surrounding them, as well as the many reports being published on the topic. Amongst the findings we already know: according to one study, carpoolers drive too slowly, impeding the freeflow of traffic.

Speaker Pelosi As A Symbol To Both Parties

The NY Times reports on the rise of the spectre of a Speaker Pelosi as red meat to both the Republican and Democratic bases, particularly as the odds of this coming true are perceived as increasing. Full story

CEO Pay In The Spotlight

According to the LA Times, the CEOs of California's 100 largest publicly traded companies earned, on average, 6.6% of their companies' annual earning. 21 CEO's made 5% or more of the companies' annual earnings in their compensation.

The Comeback Governor

Lou Cannon talks about the Governor's recent comeback in the LA Times.

Identity Theft Day

The LA Times focuses on extensive and frequent vulnerability of college and university networks, while the NY Times details the rise of identity theft methods in Arizona, the current national hot spot.

State Pay Fight Shaping Up

State employee unions are heaping scorn on the state's offer of a 3% raise and threatening to strike. The legal status of the proposed strike is at best ambiguious under current law. Full story

New Higher Ed Trend?

Students without high school diplomas or GEDs are increasingly enrolling in associate and bachelor's degree programs. Full story

Mayor Villaraigosa Travels To Sacramento

The Mayor is lobbying business and labor officials to support his LA schools takeover plan. Supt. Roy Romer and school board President Marlene Canter are also in town to oppose his initiative. Full story

Know Your Judicial Candidates

Confused about which Superior Court candidate to vote for? The Trib recommends voting for the candidates receiving the highest grades from the LA County Bar Association's Evalution Committee, and gives a list of them by office. Full story

Morning Brain Teaser

Try calculating wages and inflation over centuries. Financial Times columnist Tim Hartford has the details.

GM Offers $1.99 Premium

GM has started a program for California residents for 11 of its vehicles (4 cars, 7 light trucks and SUVs) where the automaker will guarantee $1.99 premium fuel for consumers for a year. The estimated savings for an H2 Hummer driven 15,000 miles would be $2,270. It currently takes dealers 145 days to move an H2. How does the program work?

"The automaker will issue monthly prepaid debit cards to reimburse eligible customers the difference between $1.99 a gallon and the average price of premium gasoline in California — determined by AAA's monthly survey — even if they use cheaper regular."

Full story

NY Times Details Obstacles To Diesel

Diesel engines are now cleaner and more efficient than ever, but obstacles continue to exist, including skepticism from the environmental community and a lack of refining capacity: refineries are stuck with a specific output ratio between gasoline and diesel. Diesel production has primarily increased in Europe, which exports the resulting gasoline to the US market which suffers from a lack of refining capacity. Full story

Mt. Sac Celebrates Its 60th Anniversary

The Trib writes about the college's history and upcoming events celebrating its 60 years. Full story

Tribune Praises Foothill Transit

Read the Editorial

Times Focuses on Westly's Contributions From B&N

According to the Times, bookseller Barnes and Noble hosted a fundraiser for Steve Westly at its New York offices as Westly was using his seat on the State Board of Equalization to have the retailer forgiven for $22.8 million in sales taxes, interest, and penalties for taxes the retailer did not collect on online orders shipped to California residents. Full story

Angelides-Westly Neck To Neck

LA Times' Mike Finnegan concludes that the Democratic gubernatorial election is neck-to-neck with 10 days left, with Angelides having made great strides to close the gap with Westly. Finnegan also notes that Westly is still polling better than Angelides in the general election in hypothetical match-ups with the Governor. Full story

Exit Exam Firm For 2006

The California 1st District Court of Appeals will not hear arguments over the validity of the state's high school exit exam until July 25th. Full story

South Pas Mixed Use Complex Wins Award

The Congress for the New Urbanism has awarded Mission Meridian Village in South Pasadena one of its prestigious Charter Awards. 17 were awarded to projects worldwide this year. Full list; Full story

57th District Update

The Trib provides an update on the Democratic primary race in the 57th Assembly District. The current front runner is optometrist Ed Hernandez who has raised nearly $600,000 with termed out Assemblyman Ed Chavez's wife Renee having raised just over $400,000. Full story

Recall Election Injunction Lifted

Judge Gary Klausner lifted his injunction against the recall of Rosemead Mayor Gary Taylor and City Councilman Jay Imperial. Recall proponent and Councilman John Tran anticipates that the election will be scheduled between August 15th and September 19th. Full story

SF Chronicle Joins LA Times In Opposing Prop 82

You can read the editorial urging a no vote here.

Glendora Land Swap Update

The Trib has an update on a ballot initiative in Glendora, under which the developer NJD Ltd. would swap 400 acres of foothill property in Glendora and San Dimas for the 107-acre Glendora Country Club.

Reiner Donations Closing on $5 Million

The Reiner family has donated about $4.6 million to Rob Reiner's Proposition 82 campaign. Rob himself has given $2.8 million, his wife Michelle has kicked in $1.3 million, and his father Carl has come in at $500,000.

Rick Wagoner Weighs In

What American auto company can trumpet its importance to the nation and highlight its plan to reduce its domestic production workforce by one sixth in the same editorial? The answer: GM.

Campaign Spending Totals

Democratic rivals Phil Angelides and Steve Westly have spent nearly $57 million to date in the gubernatorial primary. Of that total, $34.5 million comes from donations to Steve Westly from Steve Westly.

Yesterday, Westly donated $2 million to his campaign, while Angelides kicked in $1.5 million of his own.

World Pension Trends

From the BBC: The UK will increase the retirement age for its citizens, as well as reinstating the connection between actual lifetime income and actual pension earnings.

Prelude of things to come?

A proposed center for homeless women and children in the San Fernando Valley near Kagel Canyon is facing significant resistance. How this is resolved will have implications on the placement of other homeless centers coming out of the county's new initiative. So far, Supervisor Antonovich has not taken a position on the center, which must be permitted by the county.

School Buses and Pollution

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, America's 505,000 school buses are amongst the dirtiest diesel vehicles on the road. Apparently, a single bus produces 2-10 times as much diesel soot as a big rig truck. Refitting and replacing the national fleet would cost about $16 billion; for California the cost would be about $700 million. Read the full LA Times article.

Unfunded Pension Liabilities Update

The Orange County Register weighs in with an update on unfunded state and national pension and health benefits liabilities.

Think the trade boom will continue?

BusinessWeek details a report from Standard & Poor's Equity Research, which identifies how U.S. companies stand to gain from infrastructure projects in developing nations seeking to maximize exports and domestic development. India alone plans to build over 8,000 miles of roads in the next three years, at a cost of about $12 billion.

Workers' Comp Reform Reforms On Back Burner

According to CalChamber, business opposition has convinced Assemblyman Leland Yee to drop his attempts to roll back workers' compensation reforms from 2004.

The relevant bill numbers are AB 409 and AB 1209.

The bad and the ugly

Capitol Weekly chronicles the nastiness of campaign mailers as the June 6 primary approaches.

Surprised?

Hopefully not.

According to the LA Times, State Treasurer Phil Angelides has received $4.5 million since 1999 from "money managers and others seeking to do business with the state's two major public pension systems." As State Treasurer, Angelides has an ex-officio seat on the boards both the general state pension fund, CalPERS, and the state teachers' retirement fund, CalSTRS.

Also according to the Times, Controller Steve Westly, Angelides' primary rival, has received $1.8 million since taking office in 2003 (he also sits on the two boards). The second article also highlights the widespread skirting of state law requiring disclosures of campaign donations from pension businesses to state pension board members.

Fortunately for taxpayers, this doesn't seem to be hurting the pension funds too much: CalPERS had a 12.7% rate of return for the FY ending 6/30/05, while CalSTRS enjoyed an 11.09% rate of return for the same time period.

Glendora Toyota Expansion Approved

Glendora's City Council voted 4-1 to approve a sales-tax sharing contract, under which Glendora Toyota will undertake a $5-$8 million expansion and add 50 employees. Read the details here.

National humor

The lead paragraph says it all:

"The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal administration."

Also, Senator Hillary Clinton came out in favor of "most of the country" returning to a 55 mile-an-hour speed limit in order to conserve fuel.

Reliable sources say . . .

Senator Bob Margett will be a lead Republican negotiator on AB 2987 and other upcoming telecom legislation. This gives the Valley two key voices in the debate, as Senator Martha Escutia chairs the relevant oversight committee.

In other news . . .

Capitol Weekly's in-house Astrologist (David Jones) reviews local Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy.

McGmap

No, it's not a vile new creation from McDonald's: it's the Multi-County Goods Movement Action Plan (MCGMAP). The MCGMAP held a Stakeholders Advisory Group Meeting (SAG) at Long Beach City Hall yesterday, the project's third. For those of you not used to navigating the labyrinth of competing planning initiatives, the MCGMAP is a creation of five county transportation commissions (LA, OC, Riverside, Ventura, and the San Bernardino Association of Governments, or SANBAG), SCAG, and the local Caltrans districts. The "MC" in the name separates it from Goods Movement Action Plan (GMAP) being drafted at the state level.

The two initiatives differ in scope, as well as in their intended final use (the state plan will hopefully guide agencies in spending expected bond money after November, while the Multi-County plan will feature heavily in SCAG's Regional Transportation Plan, or RTP). The state effort is mainly staffed by CalEPA and the Business, Transportation, & Housing Agency, while the MCGMAP is mostly a consultant document (take a gander at their organization chart). In case you were wondering, the contract comes out to $975,000.

For those who ponder the efficiency of consultants vs. governments, the current state draft Plan for Action comes in at 116 pages, considerably shorter than the MC's Technical Memo #3 (Existing Conditions and Restraints) which weighs in at 153 pages.

The ostensible purpose of the meeting was to discuss Tech Memo 3. As tends to be the norm, an awkward circus ensured. Local residents and environmentalists challenged the memo, called for immediate change, accused the ports of moving too slowly on introducing cold ironing at their terminals, and repeated their clarion call that California can no longer trade human lives for trade/economic growth. This prompted SANBAG's Ty Shuiling to note that the assembled stakeholders were in complete agreement with local communities on this.

There were also the obligatory calls for Congress to wake up and start funding California's infrastructure in a way even remotely proportionate to our importance to the nation. While it would be nice if Jim Sensenbrenner, Don Young, Trent Lott, and Rick Santorum started a campaign to redistribute customs revenue and gas tax money to help California to help keep prices low at the local Walmart, I don't think that's too likely to happen.

Of course, no public meeting would be complete without a lighter side, brought out by one attendee who suggested that we "cancel Christmas" in order to highlight California's importance to the national goods movement chain. Never mind that Christmas inventory started arriving at our ports in, say, March. Once the live web camera feed was off, a member of the consulting team mused about making it a refrain. You heard it here first . . .

For those who are dying to attend the next public meeting, it will be held in Orange County (location undetermined) on July 26th. Future information should be available here.