Politics, Government and Business in Southern California's Inland Empire
District Attorney Mike Ramos
Pathetic.
There’s just no other word to describe it. Well maybe “disingenuous” might work as well.
Does San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos have an honest bone in his body?
Since the re-election window is approaching on the event horizon, our illustrious District Attorney has embarked on taking credit for everything around. Sources tell InlandPolitics this may soon include the invention of sliced bread.
It looks like The Sun newspaper is feeling a little self-conscious these days.
Editor Frank Pine, the subject of much criticism on this blog over the past several months for his rose-colored glasses when it comes to his newspapers non-reporting of stories for which they have facts in hand is trying to defend his actions.
Are Pine’s rose-colored glasses the problem? Or is there an agenda?
It seems San Bernardino County Supervisor Paul Biane would like all of us to drink his flavor of “Kool-Aid”.
However, in Biane’s case it’s either a bottle of Kettle One vodka or a few bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Biane, who himself has apparently been a subject of focus by District Attorney Michael Ramos is attempting to woefully spin a ridiculous story that no one believes.
10:00 PM PST on Saturday, February 6, 2010
By IMRAN GHORI
The Press-Enterprise
San Bernardino County is putting off its budget planning workshops for a month while it asks department heads to prepare for belt-tightening.
The Board of Supervisors had planned to begin its annual business plan meetings on Feb. 16 but they have been delayed until March 16, county spokesman David Wert said.
Special meeting Tuesday to discuss more cuts, layoffs
February 06, 2010 3:20 PM
By brooke edwards
VICTORVILLE • Still reeling from massive cuts to close a $13 million deficit last summer, Victorville is facing a $4.36 million gap to stay afloat through June.
Now city staff is looking to the council for direction in closing that gap, with a special meeting called Tuesday night to discuss further cuts.
Roughly $1.36 million of the mid-year deficit comes from five departments spending beyond what was budgeted last summer, according to a staff report included in Tuesday’s agenda.
Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt
Regional air quality board deplores law in letter to Sacramento
February 06, 2010 3:42 PM
BY NATASHA LINDSTROM
As the statewide debate rages on over a sweeping climate change law, the local air quality district is urging leaders in Sacramento to suspend or repeal the legislation.
Assembly Bill 32, passed by the California Legislature in 2006 to lower carbon emissions 30 percent by 2020, has triggered staunch opposition from the Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District Governing Board, which includes 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
Super Bowl Sunday is the perfect moment to ponder the myth and reality of professional sports in 21st century America.
Football and other professional sports are merely entertainment, intrinsically not any more or less so than symphonic, rock or rap music, wrestling, theatrical drama, tractor pulls, opera, cage fighting, action movies or television soap operas.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Sunday Take
By Dan Balz
Sunday, February 7, 2010
SACRAMENTO People in the nation’s largest state are in a sour mood. They are unhappy with the economy, unhappy with what has happened to their state, unhappy with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and unhappy with the Democratic-controlled legislature.
The recession here began earlier and went deeper than it did nationally, according to estimates. In December, the unemployment rate stood at 12.4 percent, making California the fifth worst state in the nation. The Legislative Analyst’s Office issued a report in November forecasting a turnaround this year but projecting that unemployment would still average more than 10 percent in 2012.
February 4th, 2010, 4:24 pm · posted by Jennifer Muir
(Updated 2/5/10 with a correction to employee contributions.)
After The Watchdog complained in a post yesterday that county officials were withholding the details of a tentative agreement with the sheriff’s deputy union, they rang us up and said they wanted to open up.
The county’s Human Resources Director Carl Crown explained this afternoon that he was reluctant to release a breakdown of the contract’s costs before county supervisors consider the contract on Tuesday. They’ve been negotiating with the union since August, he explained, through a period when the county continues fighting a legal battle with the union over its pension costs. So the deal is a bit delicate.
Vincent Fernando | Feb. 4, 2010, 12:13 AM
More bad news for California bondholders. PIMCO expects yields on California debt to return to their highs from the state’s fiscal crisis last summer, which would slam bond prices.
Credit default swaps have painted an ugly picture of credit deterioration as well:
Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
Sunday, February 7, 2010
(02-06) 17:27 PST San Francisco — He still won’t call himself a candidate for governor, but he’s sure talking like one.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown swung by a gathering of young Democrats in San Francisco Saturday, where he preached the importance of environmental protections and building the state’s green industry, touted his record as the state’s top cop, stressed the importance of overhauling the state’s criminal justice system, and took a couple swipes at Meg Whitman, the race’s Republican front-runner.
THE WEEK
As campaign spots touch upon the bizarre, average people’s real concerns fade into the background.
By Cathleen Decker
February 7, 2010
Last week brought confirmation of a parallel universe. Or two.
In one, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced that to deal with this year’s $212-million deficit, he was ordering the elimination of 1,000 Los Angeles city jobs, although some workers may be shifted into vacancies not financed by the hemorrhaging general fund.
That universe of hurt was not the one inhabited by some of those seeking the state’s highest elected offices this year. Theirs appeared to be centered far, far away, where the hot topic of the week wasn’t jobs. It was sheep.
By Steve Wiegand
swiegand@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1A
On a mild, overcast day in October 2007, a University of California graduate lobbed a rhetorical bomb at his alma mater: What if the public university went private?
“Suppose,” mused state Treasurer Bill Lockyer in a widely distributed report on California’s fiscal future, that “the state eliminated all its direct general fund support from the UC system, allowing it to set its own budget and raise revenues to replace the state’s share.”
State spends funds over 13 years
Stephen Wall, Staff Writer
Posted: 02/06/2010 07:09:43 AM PST
California taxpayers have shelled out about $630million over the past 13 years to provide English classes to immigrant adults.
The money was required as part of Proposition 227, an anti-bilingual education initiative passed by voters in 1998.
The measure, approved by 61percent of the voters, said public school kids should learn English as quickly and effectively as possible. It was intended to move students with limited English skills into mainstream classes within one year.
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