City of Bell lent employees, elected officials nearly $900,000
Posted in News, what on August 18th, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
The city of Bell gave nearly $900,000 in loans to former City Administrator Robert Rizzo, city employees and at least two council members in the last several years, according to records reviewed by The Times.
The documents show that Bell’s former assistant city manager, Angela Spaccia, received two loans of at least $100,000 each and that council members Oscar Hernandez and Luis Artiga received $20,000 loans. Rizzo, whose huge salary sparked a scandal that forced him and other city officials to step down, received two loans for $80,000 each, city officials said.
Neither Hernandez nor Artiga reported the loans on their state financial disclosure forms for 2009, which is required under state law.
California pension reform effort loses support
Posted in Education, News, Politics, what on August 18th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffLegislation intended to curb pension spiking has become so watered down that it would now do little to prevent California public employees from boosting their end-of-career paychecks, critics say, prompting reform advocates and bill sponsor state Controller John Chiang to withdraw support.
Assembly Bill 1987 had been touted as an end to the pension boosting that occurs when public employees add unused vacation, sick time and other benefits to their final year’s compensation in order to drive up pensions.
But as debate over public pensions flares in the wake of reports of inflated salaries and pensions in scandal-plagued Bell, reform advocates say that union-backed amendments to the bill have neutered its beneficial effects.
A desert city that didn’t fan out
Posted in Education, News, economy, what on August 14th, 2010 by admin – Comments Off
California’s third-largest city by size exists largely in the imagination. Drive its wide boulevards and cozy cul-de-sacs. Listen to squealing children splashing in backyard pools. Watch men glide by in their steel behemoths and stay-at-home moms push strollers along tree-lined sidewalks.
It’s all a mirage.
In 1958, Nathan Mendelsohn, a Columbia University sociology instructor turned developer, acquired 82,000 acres of desert in eastern Kern County, 100 miles from Los Angeles.
Fiorina, Whitman court Central Valley voters
Posted in Education, Health, News, Politics, Science, Tech, economy, what on August 13th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffThe two Republicans at the top of California’s November ticket fanned out across the Central Valley this week, denouncing government dysfunction and asserting that their business experience would help them rescue the region’s unemployed workers, small firms and struggling family farms.
“I have spent a lot of time in the valley, and what is going on here due to lack of water is a humanitarian crisis,” gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman told scores of supporters on a recent afternoon in a sweltering feed warehouse in Lemoore, about 30 miles south of Fresno. “It just breaks my heart.”
A hundred miles south at a technology company in Bakersfield, Senate nominee Carly Fiorina ticked off statistics about the slowing recovery and Kern County’s unemployment rate — contending that incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer had failed the region by neglecting its water woes and by embracing what Fiorina described as the failed federal stimulus program.
Bell council used little-noticed ballot measure to skirt state salary limits
Posted in News, what on July 23rd, 2010 by admin – Comments OffThe highly paid members of the Bell City Council were able to exempt themselves from state salary limits by placing a city charter on the ballot in a little-noticed special election that attracted fewer than 400 voters.
Since passage of the measure, salaries for council members — part-time employees — have jumped more than 50%, from $61,992 a year to at least $96,996. The Los Angeles County district attorney has opened an inquiry into whether the salaries are lawful.
A state law enacted in 2005 limits the pay of council members in “general law” cities, a category that includes most cities in Southern California. That law was passed in reaction to the high salaries that leaders in South Gate had bestowed on themselves earlier in the decade.
Leaving old drilling-rig pieces in the ocean has big support in Legislature
Posted in News, Politics, Science on July 11th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffA plan to let oil companies leave large parts of decommissioned drilling rigs in the ocean off California’s coast, saving them hundreds of millions of dollars, is sailing through the Legislature at a time when the Gulf of Mexico spill has made the industry politically toxic.
The “rigs to reef” idea, which proponents say would create marine habitat, has been around for more than a decade. Former Gov. Gray Davis vetoed such a proposal in 2001, citing a lack of proof that abandoned oil rigs help the environment.
California utilities struggle to meet renewable-power requirement
Posted in News, Tech, economy, what on July 10th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffCalifornia boasts some of the toughest standards in the nation for boosting the use of renewable power. Getting utilities to meet those mandates is proving to be even tougher.
State law requires the Golden State’s three large investor-owned utilities to procure 20% of their retail electricity sales from clean sources by the end of 2010. But with less than six months left to meet that requirement, even government watchdogs don’t expect the power companies to make it.
Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. are likely to end this year with a combined 18% of their retail sales coming from clean sources such as wind, solar and geothermal power, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.
California lawmakers have less motivation to pass a budget
Posted in Health, News on July 4th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffMany of the pressures that can push California’s leaders toward a budget accord are absent this summer as the state lurches into yet another budget year without a spending plan.
The lack of acute suffering from the budget stalemate may help explain why talks between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers show no signs of agreement on how to tackle California’s $19.1-billion deficit.
Schwarzenegger wants $11-billion water bond off the November ballot
Posted in News on June 30th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffAfter an exhausting political fight to put an $11.1-billion plan for shoring up the state’s water supply before voters, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now wants to yank the measure from the November ballot.
The governor is working with legislative leaders to postpone the water bond proposal as its prospects appear increasingly dim. Polls suggest voters may not have the appetite for such borrowing at a time when the state budget is in continuing crisis.
And the governor’s vow to aggressively fight another measure on the November ballot, one that would roll back the landmark global warming bill he signed in 2006, threatens to distract from the effort to get the water bond passed.
CHP death toll a grim reminder of job’s dangers
Posted in News, what on June 29th, 2010 by admin – Comments OffThe deaths of five officers in the line of duty — including two who died in separate accidents Sunday — have shaken the California Highway Patrol and again raised questions about safety procedures when officers stop cars on the highway.
Officials said they can’t recall this many officers dying in such a time. Three of the officers were killed in accidents on freeway or highway shoulders, where they were struck by cars.
CHP officials and traffic experts said the deaths are the latest reminders of how dangerous the job of a CHP officer is — particularly when they are on the side of a freeway with no barriers or protection against fast-moving cars.
