It was oh-so-polite, but an initial airing of Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget in a state Senate committee Thursday foretold election-year conflicts between the governor and legislators – particularly his fellow Democrats. Brown, both in the budget and in this week’s State of the State address, said he wants to hold down spending, with the
Retired state Senator Gary Hart has a solution. He's been working with Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg on a constitutional amendment that would give the governor the power to appoint people to empty legislature seats for the remainder of the term. That means no more special elections for seats in the Legislature. A spokesman for
If the market in housing remains strong and the rate of turnover increases, those higher values will, at some point, be reflected in taxable values and therefore in revenue to schools and local governments. Adding new construction of both housing and commercial property to the equation could result in a boom of property taxes during
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) mobilized a new drought management effort to prepare for and reduce potential impacts of what is expected to be a third straight dry year in 2014. DWR Director Mark Cowin said the department is focusing its personnel and programs “to offset potentially devastating impacts to citizen health, well-being and
The blog ReWire reports today that "despite a veritable orgy of building renewable energy generating capacity over the past year, the proportion of California's total energy consumption provided by renewable energy went up by less than one percentage point in the last 12 months. In December 2012, the seven forms of renewable energy (see article
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-desal-huntington-20131111,0,6861922,print.story
http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/CleanPowerSF-remains-mired-in-politics-4975691.php
http://www.mercurynews.com/science-environment/ci_24509392/top-climate-scientists-call-fracking-ban-letter-gov?source=rss
http://www.modbee.com/2013/11/09/3021442/groundwater-levels-falling-at.html#storylink=cpy
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/11/14/excloo-republican-neel-kashkari-edging-closer-to-2014-gov-run-on-the-issues/