Jerry Brown adviser becomes high paid lobbist

Gov. Jerry Brown and Gareth Elliott

The Corrupt Revolving Door

• Retroactive Bribes - Do favors for special interest groups while you hold public office and get rewarded with a high paying job when you "retire".  
• This is nothing more than legal bribery.  It is made "legal" because the politicians write the laws to their own advantage.

(Sacramento Bee)  -  A senior adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown is leaving the governor’s office to become a lobbyist with the Sacramento Advocates firm that represents corporate giants including Wal-Mart, Microsoft and Kraft Foods.

Gareth Elliott, whom Brown recently appointed to the University of California governing board, has been the governor’s legislative affairs secretary since 2011. His departure marks the first major change in the governor’s staffing since Brown was sworn in for his fourth term on Monday, and caused a ripple effect of staff changes inside the executive office. Camille Wagner has been promoted to fill Elliott’s position and will earn an annual salary of $140,004.

“Gareth has provided wise counsel and invaluable advice for the past four years, and he will continue to ably serve Californians in his new role on the Board of Regents,” Brown said in a statement Wednesday. “Camille is a trusted advisor and will step into this new role without missing a beat.”

Elliott, 44, will become a partner with the lobbying firm run by Barry Brokaw and Donne Brownsey. Sacramento Advocates is a mid-size lobbying shop that billed about $1.7 million last year. Its clients include a mix of corporations, health care companies, trade associations and one gambling tribe. Among them: Kaiser, Planned Parenthood and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.

Brokaw did not specify which clients Elliott will represent but said he expects him “to do a wonderful job representing our clients and providing good advice.”

“He’s a consummate professional. He’s got great integrity and is widely respected and liked,” Brokaw said. “We are just really thrilled that he will be joining us.”

Under California’s revolving-door law, Elliott cannot lobby the governor’s office for a year after his departure but can immediately lobby other branches of government. His career includes stints with two former state senators who have since left the Legislature: Alex Padilla and Don Perata.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article5572788.html#storylink=cp

Zero to a Desalination Plant in Six Months

(Photo: Provided photo/AP Photo/The Tribune (of San Luis Obispo), David Middlecamp)

At Last, Someone with Brains

Big Government got out of the way and poof, 

a desalination plant was built in only six months.

(The Salinas Californian) — California’s drought declaration has triggered only local limits such as restrictions on washing cars or watering lawns for most communities, but one Pacific Coast tourist town has seized it as an opportunity to build a long-desired desalination plant.

The new project will turn salty water to drinking water for the 6,000-resident town of Cambria, which hugs the cliffs of the central coast, 6 miles south of William Randolph Hearst’s famous castle at San Simeon. It is one of the biggest infrastructure projects undertaken in response to Gov. Jerry Brown’s drought emergency decree last year.

The plant is expected to go online early this month after being finished in just six months, unusually fast in California. Projects of this sort typically take years, and often decades, of environmental reviews, public hearings and lawsuits.

Dozens of other cities and towns over the years have considered desalination plants as the way out of water shortages. Critics, however, say the technology is expensive, energy intensive and produces huge amounts of brine waste that damages the environment. California has 11 other desalination plants, and another 16 proposed.

Citing Brown’s drought declaration, San Luis Obispo County and local Cambria officials announced the water-plant project in May and finished it by December.

The project, which uses a novel mix of fresh water, estuary water and highly treated sewage wastewater, will be capable of providing about a third of the town’s water demand. It makes Cambria one of the first communities in the state to recycle sewage wastewater as an eventual drinking-water source.

Brown’s emergency declaration significantly cut through the usual advance state scrutiny for projects, including the public hearings, said Harvey Packard, supervising engineer for the state’s Central Coast Water Quality Control Board. In waving the project through, water board officials had been “clear this is exactly what the governor had in mind with the proclamation,” Packard said.

A California Natural Resources Agency spokesman said the emergency decree supports Cambria’s action, but did not specifically direct it. The declaration ordered state officials to assist communities in need of water, measures called for “under the extraordinary circumstances of the worst drought in 40 years,” Richard Stapler said in an email.

Cambria desalination plant supporters aren’t apologizing for the emergency rush. Town water officials have battled for a desalination plant since the 1990s and the community has cut residential use rates by 40 percent — twice the rate Brown asked of all state residents in an emergency water-saving plan.

The drought has helped kill off one-quarter of the 3,000 acres of rare Monterey pines for which Cambria is known, and short water supplies overall have impeded development and helped keep the town’s population at a standstill this decade.

Mark Rochefort, a retired trial lawyer in Cambria, did his part, keeping a bucket in the shower and using that water to flush toilets and water plants.

“Once this project is up and operating and we have a couple weather cycles … I think people who were opposed to it will look back on it and say this hasn’t been a dramatic change for Cambria,” Rochefort said.

Cambria water officials signed a $13 million loan for the project, and district customers will bear part of the cost through rate increases.

The project for now will dump the ocean brine produced by the desalination into a man-made pond. The water district is now obtaining what’s expected to be a $2.67 million insurance policy to cover any leaks, in one of the last steps required by the state before the plant goes online for customers, district spokesman Tom Gray said.

Authorities have allowed the water district to obtain some permits as it goes and others after the plant is in operation.

A local citizens group sued the Cambria water district in October, saying authorities improperly skipped over environmental safeguards.

State Coastal Commission officials warned the water district in July that the plant raised significant policy concerns.

Some opponents say they fear the new water plant will help trigger a building boom on that stretch of the coast, particularly if surrounding communities make deals to acquire some of the newly available water.

Connie Gannon, a Cambria resident and fifth-generation Californian, says she opposes the plant as unnecessary for those prepared to live within the means of a semi-arid state.

“Whether there’s an emergency or not,” she said, “… it doesn’t have an impact on the lives of people who are used to living in California with a limited water base.”

$363,986 - San Bernardino County Sheriff highest paid elected California official

"Corruptus in Extremis"

- - - Sure these huge salaries, bonuses and pensions are "legal", but they are only legal because the corrupt political hacks scratch each other's backs.

(San Bernardino Sun)  -  San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon topped the list of highest paid elected officials in California in 2013, according to recently released data by the state Controller’s Office,

A onetime payment of $121,579 for accrued vacation and sick time that McMahon cashed out after being appointed sheriff by the Board of Supervisors in December 2012 catapulted him to the top of state Controller John Chiang’s list.

Coupled with his base salary of $225,499, McMahon’s total income for 2013 was $363,986, according to the Controller’s Office.

McMahon took office as San Bernardino County sheriff in January 2013, and he was subsequently elected sheriff for four more years in the June primary.

The Board of Supervisors appointed McMahon sheriff following the abrupt departure of Sheriff Rod Hoops, who announced he was retiring in November 2012 to take another job with the Washington, D.C., law-enforcement think tank Police Foundation, headed by retired Redlands Police Chief Jim Bueermann.

Prior to becoming sheriff, McMahon was an assistant sheriff with nearly 30 years of accrued vacation and sick time he never used while ascending the ranks from patrol deputy to the sheriff’s executive staff.

“That’s 28 years of leave banks, and I was not a big user of sick leave or vacation time in my career,” McMahon said. “I think I used 2 hours of sick leave in my career.”

McMahon attributes his lack of sick time to being in the gym five days a week and “being blessed with good genes.”

“I have a pretty good track record of being healthy,” said McMahon, 51.

In a news release last month, Chiang, in an effort to make public finance information more readily available to taxpayers, announced two new websites: PublicPay.ca.gov, which provides information on public employee pay and benefits, and Trackprop30.ca.gov, which assists taxpayers in tracking every dollar raised under Proposition 30, a sales and income tax increase initiative approved by voters in 2012 that is supposed to benefit public schools.

On the list of top-earning public officials, former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca came in at number two with $347,786 in total wages in 2013, followed by San Bernardino County Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Larry Walker with $325,245.

The Board of Supervisors in 2010 approved a merger of the Treasurer/Tax Collector and Auditor-Controller offices in an effort to save the county between $500,000 and $1 million a year.

San Bernardino County is one of several counties in California that have combined treasurer-tax collector and auditor-controller offices. Others include Sacramento, Santa Clara and Fresno counties.

Walker said that while he has been tasked with a lot more responsibility and received a bump in pay due to the merger, it has had little negative impact on office operations. On the contrary, things are running more smoothly and efficiently than ever, and communication has improved greatly among him, his division chief and his staff, he said.

“I feel good about what I’ve done, but it’s an ongoing effort that I’m always involved in,” Walker said.

Other elected San Bernardino County officials who made the state controller’s list include District Attorney Michael A. Ramos, who ranked 15th highest paid elected official in the state with $259,451 in total wages in 2013. Assessor-Recorder-County Clerk Dennis Draeger was ranked 17th highest paid with $256,682 in total wages in 2013.

San Bernardino County ranked 25th in the state in terms of employee pay and benefits, with an average wage of $48,997 and an average of $20,321 in retirement and health care costs.

Salaries for the county’s five elected supervisors in 2013 were: $163,238, $168,237, $169.106, $172,930, and $173,503.

California's high housing costs drive out poor, middle-income workers

Nearly three-quarters of those who left California for other states since 2007 earn less than $50,000 a year.

(Los Angeles Times)  -  California's high cost of living has pushed hundreds of thousands of low- and middle-income workers to other states, federal data show.

The trend points to a challenge for the state's economy: how to attract workers of moderate means to some of the nation's most expensive housing markets.

The state overall has been losing people to other parts of the country since the 1990s. A snapshot of more recent U.S. Census migration numbers shows that nearly three-quarters of those who have left California for other states since 2007 earn less than $50,000 a year.

Experts point to the state's increasingly unaffordable real estate markets as a major driver of the trends. More than half of the nation's 50 most expensive residential real estate markets are in California, according to Coldwell Banker's Home Listing Report, including nine of the top 10.

"It's getting harder and harder for the middle-class Californian to buy a home," said Jordan Levine, director of economic research at Los Angeles' Beacon Economics, who points to the migration trends as a major hurdle for the state's future economic growth. "People just keep looking for ways to maximize that residential dollar. That attracts people to inland areas of the state and to other states."

Those moving to California tend to have higher incomes. About 35% of working-age people moving in make more than $50,000 annually, compared with 27% of those moving out.

The disparity gets progressively pronounced at the lower end of the income scale.

For those making $40,000 to $49,999, for instance, the net loss of population is 15,403 residents since 2007. The loss is 22,754 residents in the $30,000 to $39,999 range, then more than doubles to 46,318 residents in the $20,000 to $29,999 range.

"Housing prices are a primary factor, because that's usually the first thing you deal with when you're moving," said Dowell Myers, a professor of demography and urban planning at USC.

"Rents are going up very rapidly, as well as housing prices," said Hans Johnson, a migration expert who is a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. "The economy is booming, but how do you supply housing for the workers who aren't commanding high incomes yet are still in demand?"

Read More . . . .

Democrats to ban "Redskins" name for sports teams

The Insane Run The Asylum

Screaming "racism" Democrats act to prevent 

schools from honoring Native Americans.

Amid national controversy over sports teams’ use of Native American slurs and tribe names, California is considering a statewide ban all schools’ use of “Redskins.”

Deemed the California Racial Mascots Act, the proposal from California Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville) introduced earlier this month would phase out term Redskins for schools, athletic team names, mascots and nicknames. However, it would allow use of materials bearing the name so long as they were not purchased before Jan. 1, 2017, when the bill would take effect if it passes through the legislature and gains Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature.

“Many individuals and organizations interested and experienced in human relations, including the United States Commission on Civil Rights, have concluded that the use of Native American images and names in school sports is a barrier to equality and understanding, and that all residents of the United States would benefit from the discontinuance of their use,” the bill’s text reads reports the Huffington Post.

The bill only affects four schools, according to the San Francisco Chronicle: Gustine High School in Merced County, Calaveras High School in Calaveras County, Chowchilla Union High School in Madera County and Tulare Union High School in Tulare County.

“Tulare Union Redskins are part of a long and proud tradition dating back to 1890,” Sarah Koligian, superintendent of the Tulare Joint Union High School District, told the Chronicle. “Our school has worked closely with our local Indian tribes to include them in the discussion regarding how the Tulare Union Redskin depicts both pride and respect.”

According to a study by FiveThirtyEight, of the 2,128 high school, college, semi-pro and amateur teams using such names, 92 percent are high schools.

While the four California schools hold out, schools across the U.S. have been voluntarily abandoning the “Redskins” name for years. Schools in New York,Washington, Massachusetts and beyond have dropped the name in favor of alternatives, such as “Redhawks.”

This is not the first time such a bill has entered the California legislature. In 2004, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill banning use of Native American nicknames at the state’s public schools.

An "Evil" Racist Symbol
Tulare Union High School Redskins helmet.  The "racists" in the community hate the American Indians so much that they put them on their sports teams.

Liberals searching hard for a problem that does not exist.

Democrat gas tax starts this week

Another Democrat Screw Job

• The People's Republic of California's cap-and-trade policy for gasoline and diesel fuel goes into effect Jan. 1, and will show up quickly at the pump.
• If warming gasses are bad just ban them.  But in this case warming gasses are just an excuse to re-distribute the wealth of the people to the government and to the Elites anointed by the State.

(Press Enterprise)  -  California’s long-disputed and often-misrepresented cap-and-trade policy for gasoline and diesel fuel goes into effect Jan. 1, and it will show up quickly as a roughly 10 cent-per-gallon increase at the pump.

That follows months of market actions in the United States and around the world that have dropped the global price of crude more than $50 a barrel since June and created the longest recorded consecutive-days fall of fuel prices.

The average price-per-gallon for regular unleaded gasoline in the Riverside-San Bernardino metro areas stood at $2.68 by the middle of last week, down almost 94 cents from a year ago.

The cap-and-trade increase, which will appear within days, is well below the 16 to 76 cents per gallon that the Western States Petroleum Association had forecast as recently as August.

Conversely, there will indeed be a price hike at the pump directly linked to the state’s cap-and-trade policy.

California’s Air Resources Board officials had suggested earlier this year that the petroleum industry was unnecessarily passing along those added costs to consumers, a contravention to standard business practices.

In this latest round of cap-and-trade, petroleum industries that produce greenhouse gases above a set standard — the cap — must either buy through auction the allowances (also called permits) equal to their emissions to allow them to continue operating. If they go below the cap, they can offer their unneeded allowances for sale to others - the trade.

There have been plenty of emissions over cap-and-trade during the months leading up January 2015; not all of them have been carbon dioxide.

“Robust debate is valuable, but that debate is undermined when the public is told either that this change won’t (or shouldn’t) cost them anything or that the cost will be many times higher than the most reasonable estimates,” Severin Borenstein, professor of business administration and public policy at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and co-director of the Energy Institute at Haas, wrote in an August article.

Borenstein’s estimate of a cap-and-trade-caused price increase of between 9 and 10 cents a gallon was echoed by ARB spokesman David Clegern, who said earlier this month that consumers should expect an increase of 10 cents or less per gallon, adding it was up to suppliers to determine how the costs are passed along.

Jerry Azevedo, a spokesman for the California Drivers Alliance, the group responsible for the “hidden gasoline tax” ads that warned of the 16 cent to 76 cent-a-gallon increases, said Monday that the lower estimate was part of a “growing consensus.” The alliance was funded by the Western States Petroleum Association.

"From each according to his ability, to
each according to his need."
Democrat Party Platform

Obamacare cancels private insurance for 95,000 people

Bend Over and Enjoy Liberalism

California's health exchange is violating the law by canceling private coverage for up to 95,000 people because they might qualify for Medi-Cal, the state's insurance commissioner says.

At issue is health insurance for some of the poorest Californians whose incomes aren't high enough to even qualify for subsidized policies in the Covered California exchange.

The state marketplace is notifying thousands of policyholders that their federal premium subsidies for Obamacare coverage will end Dec. 31 and their private health plan won't be renewed starting in January. Instead, these people will be put into Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program for low-income residents reports the Los Angeles Times.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has been urging the exchange to reconsider. "The law is very clear. They can't cancel people," Jones said in an interview.

All this comes at a pivotal time for Covered California. The exchange is trying to renew more than 1 million policyholders during the second open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act and sign up several hundred thousand more before enrollment ends Feb. 15.

For months, the Medi-Cal program has faced a backlog of applicants, leaving some people to wait months to get coverage confirmed. The state said it has resolved most of that bottleneck and about 75% of applicants since Nov. 15 have been enrolled without delay.

"There will be no gap in coverage for these people," said exchange spokeswoman Amy Palmer. "We will make sure Medi-Cal kicks in immediately."

Palmer said the exchange is complying with the law and disagrees with Jones. She said the number of people affected should be less than 95,000, but she didn't specify a figure.

California state workers, agencies caught for wrongdoing in audit

Everyone has their snout in the trough

(News 10 ABC)  -  California has 224,991 active state employees, according to the State Controller's Office website. Some of them, as well as state agencies, have engaged in malfeasance costing taxpayers, the California State Auditor reported Tuesday.

Among the auditor's findings:

- A full-time employee in the Department of Industrial Relations convinced his manager to allow him to telecommute. That allowed the employee to work a second, full-time job without his boss' knowledge. The audit estimated the employee was paid at least $12,000 for time when he was unavailable to perform his job.

- A State Water Resources Control Board manager stole more than $3,500 when she directed surplus state property to be taken to a local recycling center for a cash redemption which she pocketed.

- An Employment Development Department manager and other employees didn't accurately designated an employee's headquarters and so reimbursed the employee for $26,800 in improper travel payments over five years.

- The audit concluded when the Department of General Services allowed a private security firm's guards to park their personal vehicles in a state-owned garage without paying parking fees, it cost California a minimum of $12,800 in lost revenue.

Link to full Investigations of Improper Activities by State Agencies and Employees report.

Jerry Brown's Supreme Court nominee confirmed

Learning on the Job
- - - Brown appoints a lawyer to the Supreme Court who has never been a judge.

SAN FRANCISCO — A state panel on Monday confirmed another California Supreme Court appointment by Gov. Jerry Brown — a move that likely tilts the conservative-leaning court further to the left.

Leondra Kruger, 38, a deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, won unanimous approval by the three-member Commission on Judicial Appointments.

The confirmation of Kruger, who is black, brings down the court's average age and will give California one black, one Hispanic and three Asian justices. Four women will be on the panel.

Kruger is a Yale University law school graduate who appears to be a rising star in the legal profession. Critics, however, have pointed out that she has never served as a judge and has spent most of her legal career outside California, although she is a native of Los Angeles area.

Kruger responded to the criticism at her appointment hearing, saying her career had exposed her to a wide variety of legal issues, and she hoped to draw on the expertise of her colleagues on the court regarding any questions about California law reports the Fresno Bee.

"It is both a personal and professional delight to come back home," she said.

Governor Jerry Brown
(AP File Photo)

No one spoke in opposition of the nomination at the public hearing.

A State Bar of California committee that evaluated Kruger for the judicial commission gave her its highest rating of exceptionally well-qualified, noting praise for her "intellectual firepower, written and oral advocacy skills, impeccable judgment, her fairness, diplomacy and her composure under pressure."

Brown has been making his mark on the court after it was dominated for years by appointees of former Republican Govs. George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson.

Earlier in his current term, Brown nominated Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, 42, a Mexican-born Stanford law professor, to be an associate justice. In 2011, he appointed University of California, Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu, 44, after Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked his nomination to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

With Kruger and Cuellar, the court will have three justices appointed by a Democrat and four by Republicans.

The high court position for which Kruger was nominated pays $225,342 a year. She will be replacing Associate Justice Joyce Kennard, who retired.

California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, state Attorney General Kamala Harris and Senior Presiding Justice Joan Dempsey Klein of the 2nd District Court of Appeal in California were the commission members who considered Kruger's nomination.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/12/22/4297507/hearing-set-for-california-supreme.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/12/22/4297507/hearing-set-for-california-supreme.html#storylink=cpy

Democrat Senator convicted of drunk driving

Democrat Senator Hueso as seen in his natural habitat.

"Yeah, I know, some people are against drunk driving, and I call those people 'the cops.' But you know, sometimes, you've just got no choice; those kids gotta get to school!"  - - - Dave Attell

Democrat Sen. Ben Hueso was sentenced Thursday to three years probation and ordered to complete an alcohol education program stemming from his August arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol near the Capitol.

The San Diego lawmaker won't be required to serve any jail time.

Megan Virga, Hueso's attorney, accepted a plea deal on the senator's behalf during a brief hearing in Sacramento Superior Court.

Hueso did not appear in court.

The California Senate after 5 PM.

In September, the senator was charged with two counts of DUI, which carry a maximum of six months jail time and a $1,000 fine.

Through his attorney on Thursday, however, Hueso pleaded no contest to a lesser "wet reckless" charge. It carries a $240 fine plus other assessments for a total of about $1,400, Virga said.

The senator was arrested by the CHP early on the morning of Aug. 22 after he was spotted driving the wrong way on a one-way road near downtown Sacramento, authorities said at the time.

Hueso had been granted delays at each of the two previously scheduled hearings in the case, one which was rescheduled to two days after Election Day in November.

He defeated challenger and fellow Democrat Rafael Estrada in the fall contest 54.9 percent to 45.1 percent.

Through his staff, Hueso has declined several requests this fall to discuss his arrest or to elaborate on his statement released in August, in which he pledged to “engage in immediate, corrective actions to ensure this kind of personal conduct is never repeated.”

(UT San Diego.com)

State Senate men's room after a hard
end of the day party.