Another Calif. Company Goes to Texas

Goodbye California  -  Hello Texas

Daegis Inc., the Roseville-based electronic discovery and information-management firm, said in its quarterly financial report that it will relocate its headquarters to Dallas, Texas.

Tim Bacci, CEO of Daegis, said in the report: "As we evaluate the business and optimize our cost structure to accelerate on strategies where we see the most opportunity, we have decided to open an office in Dallas, Texas, and relocate the company's headquarters there.

"Texas is a strong territory for our businesses, and we view this move as an opportunity to increase the company's operational efficiencies and access an additional talent pool, as needed."

The company, long known as Unify Corp., renamed itself Daegis in July 2011, one year after it spent $38 million to buy San Francisco software maker Daegis reports the Sacramento Bee.

In January this year, Daegis announced that Todd Wille would step down as company president, CEO and board member "to pursue new leadership opportunities."

Today, the company said it amassed a profit of $188,000, a penny a share, for its fourth quarter ended April 30.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/25/5523631/rosevilles-daegis-says-its-moving.html#mi_rss=Business#storylink=cpy

That was a sharp turnaround from a loss of $15.7 million, $1.08 a share, in the year-ago period.
For its full year, the company reported net income of $532,000, a penny a share, compared with a loss of $16.7 million, $1.16 a share, the prior year.

Annual revenue in the most recent year totaled $40.2 million, down 7.5 percent from the previous year.

Electronic discovery generally refers to discovery in civil litigation in connection with exchanging information in an electronic format.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/25/5523631/rosevilles-daegis-says-its-moving.html#mi_rss=Business#storylink=cpy

Democrat bill to drive up construction costs in California

California cities ramp up fight against union wage bill

• In a payoff for union campaign contributions Democrats would prohibit cities that ignore prevailing wages from receiving state funds.

The League of California Cities is ramping up its campaign to defeat a high-profile, union-sponsored bill aimed at preventing charter cities -- those with their own governing systems -- from bypassing the state's "prevailing wage" law on some construction projects.

The measure, Senate Bill 7, is being carried by Commie Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg on behalf of construction unions in response to a state Supreme Court decision. The court ruled that charter cities could build projects with their own money, not using any state funds, without requiring contractors to pay prevailing wages, which are generally those set by union contracts. It stemmed from a conflict over the construction of a fire station in Vista, a small San Diego County city reports the Sacramento Bee.  

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/06/california-cities-ramp-up-fight-against-union-wage-bill.html#storylink=cpy

SB 7 would prohibit cities that ignore prevailing wages from receiving state funds and would, the league says, potentially bar 51 cities from receiving state aid in 22 programs, including clean water and flood control. Proponents say that paying prevailing wages on construction ensures high-quality work.

Prevailing wages must be paid on all projects that use state funds and are applied, as well, to all projects in "general law" cities that don't have charters. Another pending bill would require prevailing wages for any private construction projects that are underwritten by proceeds from the state's new cap-and-trade fees.

"If the Legislature starts down the road of treating the valid actions of local voters with contempt, public confidence will be lost in the validity of local elections and respect for the Legislature will be further eroded," the city organization said in a letter to members of the Assembly Local Government Committee, which will hear the Senate-passed bill next week

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/06/california-cities-ramp-up-fight-against-union-wage-bill.html#storylink=cpy

The New California Real Estate Bubble

The Next Housing Crash is Coming

Make sure to thank both the Democrats and the GOP when it explodes.

By Gary;

Party labels, Liberal or Conservative. It does not matter. The liars and hacks in Washington D.C. join ranks to protect their jobs and pump endless cash into the system to "stimulate" the economy.

Inflation? Debt crisis? Housing bubble? Who the fuck cares . . . as long as it happens after the election day 2014.

You heard it here first. A new, improved and maybe BIGGER housing bubble is building up. If history is any guide the exploding bubble should be a real clusterfuck.

“We’re deep into uncharted territory: Amazingly low mortgage rates, a razor-thin inventory of homes for sale, and the release of years’ worth of pent-up demand. Plus there’s a seemingly endless stream of investors and non-investors who pay cash and thereby avoid the loan-qualification process. How this all plays out is educated guesswork at this point. Understandably, speculation continues over whether another housing bubble is forming,” said John Walsh, DataQuick president.

Welcome to double digit home price increases funded by rivers of money printed by the Federal Reserve and Congress. 

2013 California home prices when compared to 2012.

• +30.2%    -    Los Angeles County
• +24.1%    -    Orange County
• +22.9%    -    Riverside County
• +21.3%    -    San Diego County
• +28.1%    -    San Bernardino County
• +39.0%    -    Contra Costa County
• +26.8%    -    Marin County
• +25.7%    -    Santa Clara County
• +24.1%    -    San Francisco County
• +25.9%    -    San Mateo County
• +27.0%    -    Santa Barbara County
• +29.9%    -    Kern County
• +14.1%    -    Fresno County
• +32.9%    -    San Joaquin County
• +32.0%    -    Sacramento County

The massive run up in homes prices is not natural in an economy suffering high unemployment, under employment and job outsourcing to other nations. 

What goes up must come down.


See more at DQ News.com

Some economic growth for California

• In spite of massive mismanagement by both parties and huge tax increases the Golden State still has a lot going for it.  But national economic policy and the Federal Reserve is driving up housing prices and will crash them yet again just like in the 1990s and in 2006.

During the downturn, new home construction plummeted along with jobs and personal incomes. Today, a major forecast for the Sacramento region suggests these measures of economic health are poised to rise together over the next four years.

The Sacramento Bee reported that home building, an economic powerhouse in the region when it's in full swing, will return in force, rising to levels in line with population growth by 2017, according to the latest forecast by the University of the Pacific's Business Forecasting Center.

Still, Michael Strech, president of the North State BIA, said most builders agree the new home market is on track to recover.

"Collectively, the industry feels very confident that demand will continue and that this is a sustainable recovery," Strech said.

The latest projections from UOP's Business Forecasting Center provide a basis for guarded optimism.

Its May report for the four-county Sacramento region predicted sizable job growth over the next four years, along with falling unemployment. Personal incomes, adjusted for inflation, will eventually rise again at a rate faster than during the boom years, it said.

And population will increase by rates from 1 percent to 1.6 percent annually. In a region with about 2.2 million residents, that means adding 22,000 to 35,000 people a year.

Demand from those newcomers will help drive single-family housing starts from a low of about 2,000 a year in 2011 to a historically healthy level of 11,500 annually by 2017, the center predicts.

Michael said he also expects that many families who doubled up in the recession will strike out on their own and seek newly built homes.  "Household formation has been slower than what it might have been because of the economy," Michael said. "As it improves, we should see people moving out of their parents' houses."

As home prices rise, and current homeowners regain equity, many will move, industry leaders said. Some might need a bigger house because their families have grown; others will want to downsize because their children have left.

"There are people stuck in homes," Norman said. "They've been waiting. Their life has changed. They want something different. Now they're free to make other choices."

Read more here: Sacramento Bee.

.
Greater Sacramento Projections
If economists really knew anything they would be in Las Vegas placing hard money bets on the future.  But economists didn't predict that last crash and they have no clue what is to come.  Everything they say is a "projection" based on what they think might happen.  These charts are no different.
.
The non-farm employment chart above is a good example.  The economists go on about economic growth, but by 2017 maybe employment will return to 2005 levels.  Maybe.  That employment projection does not take into account the anarchy Obamacare pumps into the employment markets that turns full time workers into part time workers.  Also with population growth just returning to just above 2005 employment levels means California is staying even at best or losing ground.

Democrats vote to hide documents from the public

Democrats:  "Too much information only confuses the public."

• Scumbag Leftists pass a law making it easier for cities and counties to hide public records from the media and the voters.

Corruptus in Extremis  -  Cities and counties could dramatically restrict the information they release to the public without explanation under a bill approved by the People's State Legislature and sent to People's Republic Governor Jerry Brown as part of the state budget package.

The change makes it optional for local governments to comply with deadlines and other rules when they receive requests for public records. Current law requires them to respond within 10 days and cite reasons for needing more time or rejecting a request.
.
Open government advocates said if Brown signs the legislation into law, it would remove significant tools for the public to ensure that local governments are operating transparently reports the Merced Sun Star.

"What I think it means is for the indefinite future, any local agency that for whatever reason chooses to ignore a Public Records Act request will not suffer any particular legal pressure to comply," said Terry Francke, general counsel of Californians Aware, a group that advocates for government transparency.

The California Newspaper Publishers Association said the legislation will have a chill on open records access and could lead to expensive lawsuits from those seeking records.

"The only way that a requester is going to be able to find out why, or even if, their request is denied is to litigate it," Ewert said.

Read more here: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2013/06/17/3072478/bill-would-let-calif-cities-decide.html#storylink=cpy

Francke said most local agencies do their best to comply with the law, but some at both the state and local level "will do anything to delay or evade or resist public records requests."

"It's those people with something to hide that are going to," he said.

Read more here: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2013/06/17/3072478/bill-would-let-calif-cities-decide.html#storylink=cpy

The Feds look to dictate prison policy to California

Federal Judges overstep the Constitution again and again

• In violation of the Constitution, Federal judges have already been dictating to California how to run the state prisons and telling the state they must spend money.  In a democracy an unelected body cannot dictate spending tax money.
• Now the shark-like lawyers are looking to game the system and use Valley Fever and half-baked medical "studies" to tie the system into knots.

A Federal judge is scheduled to consider whether an airborne fungus that occurs naturally in the San Joaquin Valley presents enough of a public health danger that thousands of vulnerable state prison inmates should be moved to other locations.

Shark-like lawyers claim nearly three-dozen inmate deaths and hundreds of hospitalizations could have been caused by the fungus that causes an illness known as valley fever.

The federal court-appointed official who controls prison medical care, J. Clark Kelso, has said the problem is so severe that inmates who are particularly susceptible to the disease should be moved out of Avenal and Pleasant Valley state prisons reports the Associated Press.

A doctor hired by lawyers representing inmates' welfare went even further, saying in a sworn declaration in April that both prisons should be shut down.

FACT  -  Pay any "expert" witness enough money and he will insist that the sun orbits the earth.

Poor little criminals.
The scumbag lawyers game the system to claim it is "unsafe" to be in a Central Valley prison because valley fever exists.  Naturally they just ignore the fact that millions of Californians live in the Central Valley and as a percentage almost no one catches valley fever.

Lawyers claim that medical studies (done by who? and don't studies often contradict each other?) have found that black, Filipino (race card!) and medically "at-risk" inmates are more vulnerable to health problems from valley fever, which is a fungal infection that originates in the region's soil. Kelso said those groups should be barred from the two prisons, which would mean transferring about 3,250 of the 8,100 inmates there.

But Gov. Jerry Brown's administration says that goes too far.
 

The administration has told U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of San Francisco in legal filings that he should wait while the issue is studied by the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the affiliated National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.

Moreover, the administration argues that it is impractical to move so many inmates while the state struggles to comply with another federal court order requiring it to reduce prison crowding statewide as a way to improve conditions for sick and mentally ill inmates.

Kelso and three court-appointed medical experts argued in court filings last month that the state's resistance not only is potentially deadly to vulnerable inmates, but demonstrates that California is not yet ready to retake control of inmate medical care in the state's 33 adult prisons.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has known about what the experts called a "medical and public health emergency" at the two prisons since 2005.

 

GOP backs tax increases - Senator Bob Huff lies to Republicans

GOP Liar Bob Huff

Five GOP State Senators back $2 billion tax increase

• What is the point of a Republican Party when they vote to fuck over the people with higher taxes?  The GOP should just abolish itself. 

With a Democratic supermajority, Republican votes no longer are needed to increase taxes in the California Senate. Yet in a strange development, five GOP senators backed a tax increase anyway reports Cal Watchdog.

SB 11 is a $2.3 billion tax “extension” co-authored by a Democratic state senator, Fran Pavley of Calabasas; and by a Republican state senator, Anthony Cannella of Ceres. It passed the full Senate, 32-5, with two not voting and one vacancy.

Of the votes, 27 were from Democrats, or 67.5 percent, which was above the two-thirds supermajority threshold in the 40-seat Senate to raise taxes.

Yet in addition to Cannella, Republicans voting for it were Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff of Brea and Sens. Bill Emmerson of Redlands, Jean Fuller of Bakersfield and Mimi Walters of Irvine.

Although Cannella did not, the latter four all signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a solemn promise never to raise taxes.

Total: Out of the Senate Republican Caucus’ small membership of 11, five voted for SB 11.

The Senate Republican Caucus’ own analysis identified the bill as “the continuation of billions of dollars of vehicle registration fees and tire taxes for eight years.” Yet not a single Senator, Republican or Democrat, spoke against the bill.

None of the Republican senators who signed the anti-tax pledge responded to CalWatchdog.com’s request for comment on their tax flip-flop. A spokesman for Huff referred comment to a YouTube video (provided below), in which Huff referenced his vote.

“What we did this week was we extended fees for smog abatement, registrations, tire purchases,” Huff said in a 40-second explanation of his tax extension vote. “I wouldn’t normally do that. But the bill was tied to easing regulations, burdens imposed on gas stations, truckers, ag equipment. And so it was one of those situations where you were taking a bad situation and making it better. ”

GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Republican legislators backed Arnold's bills to
increase taxes on the people.  Looks like
nothing has changed.

GOP analysis: Tax extension is “hefty price to pay”

Huff’s argument that industry incentives are worth a multi-billion-dollar tax increase is disputed by his own caucus. An internal Senate Republican Caucus bill analysis obtained by CalWatchdog.com found:

“The continuation of billions of dollars of vehicle registration fees and tire taxes for eight years is a hefty price to pay. This bill would result in fee extensions of $8 in smog abatement, $18 for vehicle registrations, $10 on boat registrations, and $0.75 per tire on consumers annually until the year 2024.

The analysis included an all-caps warning that the bill imposed “VERY MAJOR STATE COSTS AND REVENUE INCREASES.” And it quoted this analysis from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association:

“SB 11 has been keyed as a two-thirds vote tax increase. The cumulative impact of these exactions will result in a $2.3 billion tax extension.”
 

GOP Caucus: Not a tax increase

Bill Bird, a spokesman for Huff, denied the bill is a tax increase. “The pledge states the legislator will not vote to RAISE taxes. He didn’t,” Bird said of Huff’s vote.

Patrick Gleason, the director of state affairs at Americans for Tax Reform, which organizes the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” said his group considers a tax extension a violation of the pledge that Huff, Emmerson, Fuller and Walters signed.

“Legislation that would extend a tax scheduled to sunset is a tax increase,” Gleason said in an email.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association adds that Republican legislators could face a backlash for breaking their promise to their constituents.

“We’re not sure legislators fully grasp how this vote will be perceived by all the drivers — most of whom are voters — in their districts,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “The backlash will be severe.”


For the full article go to Cal Watchdog.com

Ex-transit official made $330,000 for not working

BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger during a board meeting April 14, 2011,
at the agency's office in Oakland, Calif. (Karl Mondon, Bay Area News Group)

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Ex-BART official paid $330,000 for not working

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- A top official for the agency that manages the San Francisco Bay Area's BART system earned more than $330,000 last year - even though she didn't work a single day for the public transit agency, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Bay Area Rapid Transit general manager Dorothy Dugger resigned under pressure in May 2011, but stayed on the payroll for another 19 months and was BART's highest-paid employee in 2012,  reported the San Jose Mercury News.

Dugger, 57, cashed in nearly 80 weeks of unused vacation time, drawing paychecks and full benefits. During that period, she earned nearly two extra months of vacation, received management bonuses and medical insurance, and boosted her pension benefits by more than $1,000 a month for life. When she left BART's payroll in December, she began to draw an annual pension of $181,000, according to the newspaper.

Dugger said she was entitled to the money because she earned more than 3,100 hours of unused vacation time during two decades with the light-rail agency.

"It was time I earned my whole career at BART," she said. "It's a cost of having the option" to save the vacation until the end of a career, she said.

The value of her unused vacation days soared after she took the top job in 2007 and received a raise of nearly $100,000 a year because the unused time-off was paid at her final, highest pay rate - not her rate when the time was accrued, records show.

"She was still on the payroll? I did not know this. It's startling," said James Fang, a BART board member who tried to oust Dugger in 2011. "We have to look at this."

Some BART riders are also upset.

"I hope it becomes a big stink," said BART patron Mitch Roland, of Alameda. "This is an agency funded by taxpayers. ... They should have stricter controls."

The months of extra pay were on top of the $920,000 that BART paid Dugger to leave in May 2011 after the agency's board botched an effort to fire her by violating public meetings laws. She left amid mounting complaints about BART's service and cleanliness as well as her leadership.

Dugger told the newspaper she was proud of her time with BART. Asked if her lucrative use of vacation time exposed a fiscal flaw in the agency, she said, "I think BART's track record on fiscal management is quite solid."

Just imagine the pay scandals for the coming bullet-train.

The Corruption of "High-Speed" Rail Spending Begins

Sucking on the Public Teat

High-speed rail board OKs first construction contract

for Fresno-Madera link

 

Let the Spending Begin  -  The corrupt high-speed rail money trough of bullet train government contracts begins.  You can see the unions and businesses lining up for hundreds of miles to suck on the government teat. 

The fact that no one will take a four to five hour "high-speed" train ride when they can fly in one hour has no meaning.  The project is all about money.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority on Thursday agreed to the $985 million contract for the first stage of construction for a statewide bullet-train system in the Fresno-Madera area.

By a 6-0 vote Thursday in Sacramento, the agency's board authorized CEO Jeffrey Morales to finalize the deal with a consortium comprised of Tutor Perini Corp. of Sylmar, Zachry Construction of Texas and Parsons Corp. of Pasadena.

The Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons team was the lowest of five bidders for the contract to design and build the 30-mile segment.

The project runs from Avenue 17 northeast of Madera to American Avenue at the south end of Fresno. It will include a bridge over the San Joaquin River; elevated tracks at the north and south ends of Fresno; a tunnel under Belmont Avenue and Highway 180; and a dozen street or road overpasses reports the Fresno Bee.

Read more Thomas Fellenz, the rail authority's chief counsel, said the agency and representatives of the construction consortium will likely take several weeks to a month to hammer out details of the agreement. He said he expects the contract to be signed in July.
Authority officials have said they hope some of the first construction work -- including clearing ground, relocating utilities and building demolition -- could start later this summer.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/06/06/3330872/high-speed-rail-board-oks-first.html#storylink=cpy

here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/06/06/3330872/high-speed-rail-board-oks-first.html#storylink=cpy

Thomas Fellenz, the rail authority's chief counsel, said the agency and representatives of the construction consortium will likely take several weeks to a month to hammer out details of the agreement. He said he expects the contract to be signed in July.

Authority officials have said they hope some of the first construction work -- including clearing ground, relocating utilities and building demolition -- could start later this summer. Thursday's approval came despite concerns from some audience members that Tutor Perini Corp. represented a flawed choice for a contractor. They cited concerns over the company's work on a disputed MGM high-rise hotel project in Las Vegas and worries about the firm's financial stability.
Kings County farmers Karen Stout and Frank Oliveira, members of the grassroots Citizens for California High-Speed Rail Accountability, said a downgrade of Tutor Perini's bond rating last fall represented a "material change" in the company's fiscal health that they believed made the firm ineligible for the contract.

Oliveira likened the contract to the famous ship Titanic, which sank in 1912 after its captain failed to heed warnings of icebergs in the ship's path. "Have you really done due diligence on this contractor?" he asked. "Your bid process and the selection process was full of icebergs."

The Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons consortium was ranked by the authority as its "best value" bidder, earning the highest total score in a bid-screening process that considered both price and technical merit. The team offered the lowest price, but also had the lowest score for technical merit.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/06/06/3330872/high-speed-rail-board-oks-first.html#storylink=cpy

Strip Clubs & Fortune 500 firms get tax breaks

Corruption never looked so good.

Government favored strip clubs, a casino and Fortune 500 firms

get tax breaks while "non-approved" businesses have to

pay the full tax bill.

A rare glimpse into an embattled California tax credit program shows that Fortune 500 companies – and one casino – are its biggest beneficiaries in Sacramento County.

The state enterprise zone program offers businesses up to $37,440 in tax credits per employee as an incentive to hire workers in economically depressed areas. But the credits have come under fire from Gov. Jerry Brown and labor groups who claim they are ineffective and direct money away from more desperate state needs.


Many enterprise zone administrators, relying on advice from a state attorney, have refused to disclose which businesses use the tax credit program, citing taxpayer confidentiality.

But a Sacramento joint powers agency and West Sacramento last week provided data showing which companies claim enterprise zone vouchers in their areas reports the Sacramento Bee.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/03/5465654/state-tax-credit-beneficiaries.html#storylink=cpy

An assortment of fast-food restaurants, manufacturers and retailers are on the lists. So are two strip clubs in Rancho Cordova, which have claimed a combined 24 vouchers dating back to 2010. Opponents have seized on that fact to assail the program.

About 500,000 tax vouchers have been issued since 2009, according to the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the agency that oversees the program.

In Sacramento County alone, shipping giant FedEx has obtained 1,382 tax vouchers since 2010, by far the largest recipient, according to documents obtained by The Bee. AutoZone, a national auto parts retailer, ranked second with 159.

FedEx listed several office addresses and has a distribution center on Elder Creek Road in Sacramento. In a written statement, FedEx said the program "serves an important purpose in helping bring business and jobs into areas of California."

Shipping competitor United Parcel Service has its own distribution center in West Sacramento's enterprise zone and claims tax credits there. But West Sacramento did not provide the total number of vouchers companies obtained in its enterprise zone, which includes most of the city save for its newer Southport neighborhood.

Enterprise zone foes have questioned why large corporations are getting the tax credits. In 2009, companies worth at least $1 billion received 68 percent of those credits, according to the Franchise Tax Board.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/03/5465654/state-tax-credit-beneficiaries.html#storylink=cpy

"My boss gets a big tax break."

Sandwiched between Fortune 500 companies in Sacramento's top five was Capitol Casino, a North 16th Street card room that claimed 148 vouchers. A sampling of vouchers issued this year went toward a cook, servers and card dealers whose incomes were listed at between $8 and $10.50 an hour.

Capitol Casino officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

In Rancho Cordova, strip clubs Gold Club Centerfolds and Deja Vu Showgirls used 24 credits to hire waitresses, disc jockeys and security guards.
But Terri Carpenter, spokeswoman for the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency that administers the program in Sacramento County, said her agency doesn't determine who can receive the vouchers.

"If they are eligible, we process it. We follow the letter of the law," Carpenter said.

Though SETA and West Sacramento responded to The Bee's request for information, administrators for the Yuba-Sutter and San Joaquin enterprise zones declined to disclose their voucher lists, citing program rules and taxpayer privacy laws.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/03/5465654/state-tax-credit-beneficiaries.html#storylink=cpy

Aside from new hires, the enterprise zone program allows employers to retroactively claim credits for former and current employees. Critics contend that has given rise to a cottage industry of tax consultants who solicit businesses, promising to unearth unused tax credits from the past.

Read more here: Sacramento Bee.

Fortune 500 Tax Breaks
Well connected businesses like FedEx have tapped into tax break programs that are kept secret from the public.  These Government "favored" businesses get a tax break and a free ride while other businesses must pick up the rest of the tax bill to support police, schools, parks and fire services putting them at a competitive disadvantage.

Top Secret
Enterprise zone administrators have refused to disclose to the public which
businesses use the tax credit program.