Jerry Brown urged to return $331 million taken from homeowners

Thou Shalt Not Steal

(Associated Press) — Several California lawmakers and community assistance groups are calling on Gov. Jerry Brown to repay more than $331 million in funds intended to help homeowners struggling with foreclosures that the state siphoned off to help deal with its budget crisis.

A Sacramento County judge found that the governor and state Legislature unlawfully diverted most of a fund that was part of a $25 billion settlement between five major banks and nearly every state in 2012.

Brown's attorneys argued the state had the discretion to use that money in the state budget. But the judge sided with the community assistance groups in ruling the money should be used to help California homeowners affected by the mortgage crisis. The ruling by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley was issued last month, but it has not been finalized.

The Democratic governor hasn't decided if he will appeal, his finance department spokesman, H.D. Palmer, said Monday. Brown's administration did not to respond to questions about whether he would agree to return the money.

"Governor Brown, do the right thing," said Faith Bautista, chief executive and president of the National Asian American Coalition, a nonprofit housing counseling group based in Daly City, California, that was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. "This is long overdue because we should have helped the homeowners since 2012. And now it's 2015."

The groups say the money should have been distributed to an estimated 800,000 homeowners affected by the foreclosure crisis. They would have used the money for things such as helping get loan modifications, restore credit scores, buy new homes or pay for moving.

Instead, Brown and the state Legislature, as they struggled to balance California's budget, spent the lion's share of California's $410.6 million mortgage settlement fund to offset state expenses for housing bond debt service, as well as to support the Department of Justice overseen by California Attorney General Kamala Harris and the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which investigates housing discrimination.

State budget documents called the money "discretionary funds."

The National Asian American Coalition was joined in a lawsuit by two other California-based community organizations that say they have helped thousands of homeowners, COR Community Development Corporation and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

The lawsuit was filed by attorney Neil Barofsky, former inspector general for the federal bank bailout. The lawsuit said the state should now repay the money because it is projecting budget surpluses in coming years.

Harris, the state's attorney, recused herself in the case because she helped negotiate the national settlement with banks, securing extra funding for California. Her spokeswoman, Kristin Ford, said Monday that the attorney general continues to object to the money being used for other purposes that for which it was intended.

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Families need $200,000 to live comfortably in San Francisco

Homeless in San Francisco

Insane-afornia

• With insane home prices and rents, how people live in many California cities is beyond me.
• Just a fast glance on Realtor.com and a person could buy a four bedroom home in Reno, Nevada for $142,000 and a monthly payment of $668 a month.
• Do you turn over every cent you make to the bank for a house payment in San Francisco or Silicone Valley? or do you move out of the area or out of state?

(San Francisco Chronicle)  -  Last week we told you about Kelly Dwyer, a city worker and mother of two, who received an out-of-the-blue $900 monthly rent hike on her single-family home in the Sunset District — and promptly packed up for Vacaville.

Single-family homes aren’t subject to rent control under state law, and Dwyer and her husband decided they couldn’t pay the new rent of $3,000 a month. They managed to scrape together enough money to buy a home in Vacaville with a monthly mortgage of $2,400.

Dwyer’s story really hit, um, home with readers. Some felt sorry for Dwyer and said their families are bracing for big rent hikes, too. Some fear for an exorbitantly priced city that can’t keep its families — San Francisco already has the smallest percentage (13.4) of residents younger than 18 of any city in the country.

Some said if you can’t swing it here, too bad. And some asked, “Why in the world can’t a family of four with two good salaries afford $3,000 a month?”

Kelly Dwyer helps her daughter, Saoirse, 5, with packing tape as Dwyer
prepares to move out of the family residence in San Francisco, Calif.

That, dear readers, is a legitimate question, one with some head-shaking answers. The short one is that it’s not easy to be a family of four in San Francisco these days, even with two good salaries, especially if you live in a home without rent control.

For starters, according to the Children’s Council of San Francisco, a family with an infant and 4-year-old will pay an average of more than $40,000 a year for full-time child care. And anybody can relate to the high cost of food here, even if you’re talking chicken nuggets and not Zuni’s famed roast chicken.

So how much do you need to make a year to raise two children in San Francisco? Assuming you don’t qualify for any kind of subsidized housing or other government assistance, but that you also don’t have a trust fund or massive stock options?

“To live a comfortable life where you’re not worrying month-to-month about paying the rent or mortgage, I would say $200,000 if you’re sending the kids to public school,” said Todd David, a dad in Noe Valley who is also a member of the San Francisco Parent Political Action Committee. He and his wife bought their house in 1997, and he said there’s no way they could afford to move to San Francisco now.

We know the $200,000 figure sounds outrageous, but we asked some other parents what they thought, and the answer was always in that ballpark.

Of course, many families in San Francisco are surviving on a lot less by staying in the same rent-controlled apartment forever, doubling up with other families, living in single-room-occupancy hotels, renting small in-law units or getting government assistance. And in a city where an estimated 2,200 public school students are homeless, nobody’s shedding tears for those whose families can afford to buy houses in Vacaville.

City officials in recent years have squabbled about what income level should be the cut-off for qualifying for the city’s affordable housing. Progressives usually want to limit it to 120 percent of the median — or $122,300 for a family of four — while moderates often say those making up to 150 percent ($152,850) should qualify.

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California Lake Dries Out and Blows Away

A picture of Lake San Antonio at full capacity shows a stark contrast to what it looks like today. The last time it was full was in 2006. The lake closed on July 1.

And Yet Another Week Passes

• The People's Republic of California is blowing away in a dust bowl.  As the state dries out we see the political hacks in Sacramento ignore building a string of desalination plants up and down the coast.  
• Democrats love to spend money, but they just can't bring themselves to spend money on creating brand new water.

(NBC News)  -  Four years of drought have contributed to enough water loss in the lake to reduce the water level to only 5% of maximum capacity. "My family's sick about it," Johnston says, "It's in my back yard and for us it's a place we can get to in twenty minutes and have fun. It's a sad thing."

"When I first started here the lake was full and we'd have seven people working in here," said Linda Nursement, who works the entry gate to Harris Creek Campground at Lake San Antonio. Nursement and others are losing their jobs. "I'm in better shape than most people. This is just a part time job for me" she said.

The swimming beach of Lake San Antonio is miles away from water.

The Basham Point boat ramp no longer reaches the water of Lake San Antonio.

Water flows from below the Lake San Antonio Dam at the rate of 5 cubic feet per second which is considered "minimum fish flow release." The lake is almost at the point of dead pool, where it is physically no longer possible to release any water at all. At that point, the San Antonio River will no longer flow below the dam.

The lakebed of Lake San Antonio is dry as the California
drought enters its fourth year.

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Central California lakes dry up and blow away.

From Better Days
Boat Rental at Lake Nacimiento & Lake San Antonio - Paso Robles, CA, 

RPTA student Chelsea Modlin wakesurfing on Lake Nacimiento

A California backlash rises over foreign IT worker replacements

Many of the nearly 1000 Southern California Edison IBEW 47 workers carry signs as they march along Walnut Grove Avenue in Rosemead in front of the SCE corporate office last February to denounce the decision to lay off hundreds of information technology workers so SCE can outsource the positions to India or replace them with foreign workers who have H-1B Visas.  Many workers are not speaking out because they signed confidentiality agreements and could lose their severance packages.  (Orange County Register.com)

Standing up for the American worker

• Interesting  -  Here we have the open borders Democrats in the State Assembly trying to defend the jobs of American citizens while at the same time making The People's Republic a Sanctuary State for every illegal alien in the world.

(Computerworld)  -  California lawmakers have taken steps to attack the use of foreign labor to replace U.S. workers. One effort seeks to use the state's regulatory powers to prohibit utilities from shifting jobs overseas. Another legislative attack calls on federal agencies to investigate the H-1B program.

Both measures were approved this month by the California State Assembly.

This legislative interest stems from the decision by Southern California Edison (SCE) to lay off IT staffers as it shifted work overseas.

One bill prohibits a state-regulated utility from outsourcing any work associated with the "design, engineering and operation" of nuclear, electrical and gas infrastructure, "unless it first obtains the approval" of the state utility regulator.

Dumb Ass Alert
This moronic Republican should be ashamed of himself for mindlessly
defending corrupt employers firing American workers and importing
citizens of India to replace them.  I have problems with the Democrats,
but the GOP is in the pockets of multi-national corporations looking
to drive down American wages.

Assembly Bill 853 calls the protection of energy systems, as well as ratepayer information, of "paramount state interest." It was approved by a 50-to-25 vote, with five members not voting, and now awaits state Senate action.

This bill may be one of the more significant legislative actions against offshore outsourcing in the U.S., and may inspire lawmakers in other states. Connecticut recently saw the layoff of utility workers, but lawmakers --despite complaining about it -- took no legislative action to stop it.

A related measure, approved Monday by the State Assembly, is a resolution asking the U.S. Department of Labor and Congress "to investigate the alleged misuse of the H-1B program." That measure (Assembly Joint Resolution 12) passed 49 to 20, with 11 not voting. It also awaits Senate action.

SCE cut about 500 IT workers over the last year after hiring two India-based IT services firms. Some of the laid-off workers said that they had to train their temporary visa holding replacements as a condition of severance.

Since then, at least 11 U.S. Senators have asked for an investigation into H-1B visa's use in offshoring outsourcing.

The push for legislation in California is coming, in part, from SCE's union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 47. The union doesn't represent IT workers, but believes its members are directly affected by the IT work.

Patrick Lavin, the business manager of the IBEW local, said that the state legislation is needed to get SCE to change its business practices. "The way Edison is, they don't do anything or pay attention to anything unless somebody has some authority over them," said Lavin, in an interview.

Assemblyman Donald Wagner, (R-Irvine), said the resolution cited SCE without offering proof about what occurred.

"I think it's a really bad form for us to start calling out some of our own employers when we aren't a court and don't take evidence," said Wagner, in an interview. He opposed the resolution.

Read More . . . . 

The Real Costs of Obama & Homeland Violating Immigration Laws

More American Workers Outsourcing
Own Jobs Overseas

Scalia trashes California in Gay marriage ruling

Justice Anthony Kennedy

Ripping Sacramento's Kennedy

• Kennedy was appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan and has come down on both the Conservative and Liberal side of issues.
• It has been argued that "libertarian principles play prominent roles in Justice Kennedy's judicial opinions in several areas of the law," especially "privacy rights, race, and free speech."  (Wikipedia)
• The Gay marriage ruling has set off Justice Antonin Scalia and social Conservatives into full melt down mode.

(Breitbart News)  -  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took a swipe at California in his dissent of Friday’s landmark 5-4 ruling that made gay marriage a constitutionally protected right under the Fourteenth Amendment and legal in all 50 states.

In his now-infamous opinion, Scalia wrote that “a system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy,” adding:

Judges are selected precisely for their skills as lawyers; whether they reflect the policy views of a particular constituency is not (or should not be) relevant. Not surprisingly then, the Federal Judiciary is hardly a cross-section of America. Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east-and west-coast states. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single Southwesterner, or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count).

Of course, California counted very much on Friday; the deciding vote in the Court’s decision on gay marriage came from Justice Anthony Kennedy, a California native.

Unhinged?
Justice Antonin Scalia

“The limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples may long have seemed natural and just, but its inconsistency with the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry is now manifest,” Kennedy wrote in his opinion.

In many ways, Kennedy’s opinion reflects the longstanding public opinion shift toward the approval of gay marriage that got its start in the Golden State.

As The Sacramento Bee points out, then-San Francisco mayor, and now-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, was the first in the country to order city officials to perform gay weddings in 2004. Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage, was passed in California in 2008, then overturned just a few years later.

“At long last, marriage equality in the United States,” San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee reportedly told a cheering crowd Friday, after the Court handed down its decision. “We started that movement. We started that movement right here in San Francisco.”

At a news conference on Friday, California Attorney General Kamala Harris called the day “an incredible day in history,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

“California is validated. We are validated,” Harris said. “Each day that one of those couples have to go without being able to have their marriage and their love legally recognized … is one day too long.”

Harris also reserved some sharp words for Scalia: “Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.”

“Justice Scalia has caused many people to question the dignity of the Court when he makes statements such as the statements he’s made in connection with this case,” Harris added. “And that’s unfortunate.”

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Personally I could care less if Gays want to marry.
There are real issues to worry about.

61% of California is non-white

The Future is Here

• Even though American poverty is increasing, neither political party has any interest in controlling the border.  For good or ill California is the new face of bipartisan open borders policies.  Soon the entire country will look like California.

California not only has the highest population of any state, but is home to the largest populations of four major ethic groups, a new Census Bureau report reveals.

California has more whites, Latinos, Asians and American Indians than any other state, the Census Bureau says, and its combined nonwhite population – 61.5 percent of 39 million Californians – is the second highest of any state. Hawaii is first.

Latinos have become California’s largest ethnic group at 15 million, followed closely by single-race whites at 14.9 million. Although Hawaii is the nation’s only Asian-majority state, California has its largest Asian population, 6.3 million.

Los Angeles County not has only the largest Latino population of any county at 4.9 million, but the largest Asian community, 1.7 million, and the largest American Indian population, 235,000.

California has a relatively small black population, about 6.5 percent of its total, and it, like the state’s white population, has been shrinking in relative terms as those of Latinos and Asians surge due to immigration and relatively high birth rates.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article25485157.html#storylink=cpy

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Democrat Jerry Brown refuses to help San Bernardino

Jerry Brown: "Screw You."

• The city of San Bernandino voted Democrat and was rewarded with a big FU by Jerry Brown.

(San Bernardino Sun)  -  Gov. Jerry Brown has given his response to the optimistic request for help on six different fronts that Mayor Carey Davis and his allies made in a trip to Sacramento.

The answer is no.

That’s according to a news release sent by Davis’ chief of staff, Christopher Lopez, who said the city will continue to implement its bankruptcy exit plan.

Governor Jerry Brown
(AP File Photo)

A “cornerstone” of that plan, Lopez said, is contracting out for some services, including fire protection, something the city has repeatedly sought to pressure Cal Fire to provide.

“Governor Brown’s office has recently made San Bernardino aware that Cal Fire will not provide a proposal and that our additional requests will not be considered,” Lopez wrote Monday evening.

The county fire department and a private firm called Centerra did submit proposals to run the city’s Fire Department, which the city thinks could save it $7 million or more per year.

The city asked Brown to force Cal Fire to submit a bid, despite explicit refusals from the state fire agency’s chief, and for help with several other issues, in a five-page letter signed by Davis, the city manager, the city attorney and all of the City Council members except John Valdivia.

Davis and Councilwoman Virginia Marquez then lobbied the governor’s chief deputy legislative affairs director and local government adviser, with the help of bipartisan state legislators representing the area: Assemblyman Marc Steinorth, R-Rancho Cucamonga in person, and other support from Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown, D-San Bernardino, state Sen. Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga and state Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino.

Their requests involved a California Public Employees’ Retirement System penalty, the threatened decertification of the San Bernardino Employment and Training Agency, a loan, a bill that would facilitate contracting with county fire, help with the dissolution of the redevelopment agency, and clarification on its tax agreement with Amazon.

Brown’s office could not be reached Tuesday, while San Bernardino reportedly moved forward with its plans.

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Wealthy California communities use more water than everyone else

Natural California landscaping that does not suck down rivers of water.

California Water Waisters

• Californian's have traditionally used water as if they were living in rainy Seattle.  It is not so much about rich vs. poor, but rather dumb vs. smart.
• While the drought rages on, California cities keep building more and more water sucking housing tracts and businesses.  After all, water is "magic".  You just turn on the tap and it will always come out.

(Contra Costa Times)  -  Only 24 miles separate the San Francisco East Bay communities of San Lorenzo and Diablo. But when it comes to California's relentless drought, they are a world apart.

Both communities receive their water from the same source -- the East Bay Municipal Utility District -- and both are bound by the same conservation rules and rates. But the residents of San Lorenzo, a working-class Alameda County suburb along Interstate 880, use a mere 51 gallons of water per person a day. In Diablo, an affluent community just over the hills in Contra Costa County known for its country club and tree-lined private streets, residents use nearly seven times more water -- 345 gallons per person per day.

The massive difference highlights an issue that has become more clear across California as the drought has worsened: Wealthy areas are using dramatically more water than lower-income areas.

Whether it's East Palo Alto and Hillsborough, Beverly Hills and Compton, or Richmond and Orinda, a huge disparity in residential water use is posing a challenge for water agencies as they try to curb consumption and write rules that treat all customers fairly. The divide is the focus of the latest installment in this newspaper's series "A State of Drought."

Robby Cella,16, of Diablo, carries a bucket holding three days worth of shower water that
he has collected to help water his mothers potted plants in Diablo, Calif., on Saturday,
June 13, 2015. The Cella family as stopped watering their front lawn, to the left, to help
conserve water during the drought. (DAN ROSENSTRAUCH)

"If I moved to Diablo tomorrow on a similar or even a slightly larger lot, I cannot conceive how I could use 350 gallons of water today with what I have learned about saving water," said San Lorenzo resident Steve Kirk, who has cranked down water use at his three-bedroom house to 26 gallons a day.

The pattern shows up throughout the state. A study released last year of residential water use in Southern California found wealthier Los Angeles neighborhoods consumed three times more water than less affluent ones. Although local climate and landscape type also played a role, a homeowner's income was a primary factor in how much water he or she used, the study found.

"Wealthy communities are using more water because they can. They have bigger houses and bigger lots. They can pay for it," said Stephanie Pincetl, a UCLA professor who worked on the study. "It's a historic pattern. People change habits reluctantly."

While the disparity between communities has become clear in monthly water consumption reports that the State Water Resources Control Board now requires from more than 400 water providers across California, EBMUD reports its water use as one overall number for 1.3 million people in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

But this newspaper requested a breakdown of residential use by community, revealing for the first time the chasm here from one area to the other.

Overall, the newspaper's analysis showed that in 2014, all 27 communities in the district averaged 73 gallons per person per day. But the more affluent neighborhoods in warmer suburbs are using far more.

Diablo, with 345 gallons per person per day, was the heaviest user, followed by Alamo with 250, Lafayette with 181 and Danville-Blackhawk with 163. Among the lowest residential users were San Lorenzo, with 51 gallons, Berkeley with 52, San Pablo with 54 and Oakland with 57.

To be sure, weather plays an important role. The further inland an area is from San Francisco Bay and its fog, the warmer the temperatures. That explains some of the disparities, but not all of them.

"The same square footage of turf will need about 30 percent more water east of the hills than west of the hills," said Abby Figueroa, a spokeswoman for EBMUD. "But we're seeing per-capita use five or seven times higher in some places. We'd like to see those numbers come down."

Even near the bay, wealthy communities use more. Upscale Piedmont used 110 gallons per person in 2014, nearly double what working-class Richmond used, just 12 miles away.

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A warning sign on a dried-out beach at Folsom Lake

Sen. Richard Pan given $95,000 to push vaccine bill

Senator Richard Pan (D-Sacramento)

"Corruptus in Extremis"

A Corrupt Bastard?  You decide if getting $95,000 

to push through a bill is bribery or not.

(Sacramento Bee)  -  A subplot to the vociferous debate over the student vaccination bill moving through California’s Capitol is opponents’ allegations that the effort reflects the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.

Critics of Senate Bill 277, which would eliminate the personal belief and religious exemptions for schoolchildren, accuse the measure’s supporters in the Legislature of doing the bidding of donors who make vaccines and other pharmaceuticals.

The bill’s proponents and drug companies dismiss the charge. The companies’ lobbyist filings for the first quarter of this year as well as legislative committee reports show no connection between the pharmaceutical industry and SB 277.

“We aren’t pushing this bill behind the scenes,” said Priscilla VanderVeer, the senior director for communications for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA, the industry’s main trade group. The group has no taken no position on SB 277, although the group has long backed vaccinations as sound public health policy, she said.

Other legislation has a more direct bearing on the industry, and it is an active political player. Pharmaceutical companies and their trade groups gave more than $2 million to current members of the Legislature in 2013-2014, about 2 percent of the total raised, records show. 

Nine of the top 20 recipients are either legislative leaders or serve on either the Assembly or Senate health committees. Receiving more than $95,000, the top recipient of industry campaign cash is Sen. Richard Pan, a Sacramento Democrat and doctor who is carrying the vaccine bill.

In addition, the industry donated more than $500,000 to outside campaign spending groups that helped elect some current members last year.

Pharmaceutical companies also spent nearly $3 million more during the 2013-2014 legislative session lobbying the Legislature, the governor, the state pharmacists’ board and other agencies, according to state filings.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article24913978.html#storylink=cpy

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Legal Bribery
If you hand a Senator a suitcase of cash in return for him ramming through a bill benefiting your company you can go to jail.  But it is legal bribery to hand a Senator a check made out to his "campaign" committee for the same amount of money to ram through the same bill.

Democrats hide spending for high-speed rail

A Legislature of Crooked Whores

• Democrats work to hide corrupt high speed rail spending from the public view . . . and the moronic Sheeple voters keep re-electing them.

(KCRA News)  -  A measure approved by legislative Democrats this week cuts the reporting requirements for the agency that oversees California's $68 billion high-speed rail program, requiring spending reports to the Legislature every two years instead twice per year, prompting critics to charge that oversight is being scaled back.

The changes were included in bills that passed Monday out of the Senate and Assembly, both of which are controlled by Democrats.

"This budget trailer bill is gutting oversight and accountability requirements that were inserted when this Legislature committed itself to funding high-speed rail back in 2012," said Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford. "This Legislature is supposed to strive for more oversight, not limit it."

Republicans also sought Monday to block $500 million in state funding for high-speed rail that was part of a budget deal reached last year. But Democrats thwarted those efforts.

Lisa-Marie Alley, a spokeswoman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said the change will make reporting more efficient, and the Legislature will still have access to detailed business plans that the agency is required to compile in even-numbered years. The legislative reports will come in odd-numbered years.

Current rules require the reports from the authority in March and November. But Alley said the March reports are due at the same time the agency is accepting public comments for its business plan, meaning the documents submitted to the Legislature quickly become outdated.

The bill also eliminates the requirement that the agency provide regular updates on staffing.

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which has joined lawsuits against the project, criticized the change. "I would say that is a huge step backward in government transparency, and if anything, the high-speed rail project has shown itself to be in desperate need of more transparency, not less," he said.

Coupal said the project will be unable to meet the promises made to voters when they approved $10 billion in financing for it in 2008.

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California legislators working late at night to raise campaign money from high speed rail supporters.