CNN/Time Poll: All tied up in California races
Posted: September 8th, 2010 04:12 PM ET

(CNN) – It’s too close to call in California’s Senate and gubernatorial battles, according to a new poll.

A CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday indicates that Sen. Barbara Boxer holds a 48 percent to 44 percent margin over her Republican challenger, Carly Fiorina, but Boxer’s 4-point advantage is within the poll’s sampling error. Five percent of people questioned say if the general election were held today they’d vote for neither candidate and three percent were undecided.

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L.A. NOW
Southern California — this just in
September 8, 2010 | 11:27 am

Photo: Times file photo of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, shown July 28, 2010. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times The California Supreme Court appeared likely Wednesday to uphold Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s furlough of state employees to reduce spending during the state’s fiscal crisis.

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Capitol Alert
The latest on California politics and government
September 8, 2010

Voters will now have at least three chances to watch the gubernatorial candidates go head to head on the issues before the Nov. 2 election.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown today said he has accepted an invitation to debate Republican rival Meg Whitman on Oct. 2. The debate, sponsored by the Fresno Bee and Spanish-language network Univisión, will be held at California State University, Fresno, at 11 a.m. and broadcast on Univisión at 4 p.m. that day. Whitman had already agreed to participate.

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Brown

September 8th, 2010, 5:01 am · posted by BRIAN JOSEPH, Sacramento Correspondent

Lost amid the recent revelations about the value of Jerry Brown’s pension was perhaps an even bigger find: the Democrat for governor is eligible to spike his benefits under an obscure rule.

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Brulte

Wednesday, September 8, 2010 – 9:00 a.m.
Last Updated: September 8, 2010 – 7:30 p.m.

What’s former republican State Senator Jim Brulte to do?

Former republican gubernatorial candidate and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner has given his endorsement to the entire party statewide ticket including Meg Whitman.

Brulte backed Poizner in his unsuccessful primary election bid for the party nomination for Governor. Ultimately Poizner was ousted by Whitman.

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Election 2010: California Governor
California Governor: Whitman (R) 48%, Brown (D) 45%
Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Republican Meg Whitman’s post-convention bounce appears to be over, and she and Democrat Jerry Brown are once again running a close contest for governor of California.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely California Voters, including leaners, shows Whitman earning 48% support, while Brown captures 45% of the vote. Three percent (3%) like some other candidate in the race, and four percent (4%) are undecided.

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Uffer

Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 09/07/2010 04:28:16 PM PDT

Former County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer’s job as chief executive officer of the Colorado River Medical Center in Needles hinges on whether the hospital’s board of directors approves a new contract Uffer is proposing.

Uffer announced last week he had been offered the job by hospital board member Linda Kidd, subject to him entering into a written contract with the hospital. He spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last week touring the hospital and getting to know its staff and the issues in most immediate need of fixing there.

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Unenforced ban gets revision
Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Posted: 09/07/2010 09:23:29 PM PDT

SAN BERNARDINO – The City Council took action Tuesday to erase an unenforced ban on myriad alcohol products, but the revised alcohol control law still gives city investigators new power to crack down on troublesome liquor stores.

The council voted 6-0 in favor of the new law, which includes a process to limit the kinds of alcoholic drinks that problem liquor stores can sell.

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Police chief tops list of workers
Michael Sorba, Staff Writer
Posted: 09/07/2010 09:22:31 PM PDT

COLTON – Council members here will make $24,176 in salary and benefits this year, much less than salaries of nearly $100,000 that Bell paid four of its City Council members before newspaper reports exposed the salaries of top officials.

The total compensation paid to each city employee is now posted prominently on the city’s website, which includes the estimated cost of salary and benefits for the fiscal year as well as Medicare wages reported in 2009.

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10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, September 7, 2010

By JIM MILLER
Sacramento Bureau

SAN FRANCISCO – A Riverside County prosecutor faced tough questioning Tuesday from members of the California Supreme Court over the Riverside County district attorney’s office’s contention that a judge wrongly refused to move a felony criminal case to a specialized civil court, resulting in the case’s dismissal.

Lower courts have rejected the Riverside County district attorney’s office’s argument that state law obligates judges to try to find a family law, probate or other specialized courtroom when a criminal defendant is on the verge of a right-to-a-speedy-trial deadline and no other courtroom is available.

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10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, September 7, 2010

By LAURIE LUCAS
The Press-Enterprise

A candidate for Moreno Valley City Council faces a court date about municipal code violations at a property he owns.

Marcelo Co, 61, is scheduled to appear at 8 a.m. Sept. 21 at Riverside Superior Court to settle a misdemeanor criminal complaint involving a house he owns at 12801 Perris Boulevard.

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September 07, 2010 10:29 AM
Natasha Lindstrom

OAK HILLS • San Bernardino County officials want to establish a volunteer advisory group that could help guide county land-use policies in Oak Hills and serve as a liaison between residents and their elected county supervisor.

David Zook, chief of staff to 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, met with some 50 Oak Hills residents this past week to introduce them to the county’s proposal to form an Oak Hills Municipal Advisory Council, or MAC.

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Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina

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Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have wavered on Proposition 23, trying to appease their conservative base without alienating independent voters. Fiorina finally came out in favor of it last week.

By Seema Mehta and Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times

September 8, 2010

A November ballot measure that would rescind California’s landmark global warming bill until unemployment drops significantly has become an albatross for the Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senate.

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California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown greets supporters at a Labor Day campaign event in Los Angeles. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times / September 6, 2010)

The cagey political veteran needs to do more than toss out stock cliches and vague feel-good statements in his run for governor. He needs to tell people why they need to vote for him.

By Steve Lopez

September 8, 2010

My alarm went off at 6:45 a.m. on Labor Day, but I was already awake. I didn’t want to miss a minute of Jerry Brown’s big event. His campaign staff was promising a “significant announcement,” and Brown himself was going to be at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles to make it.

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California Watch
A Project of the Center for Investigative Reporting
Money and Politics

September 8, 2010 | Louis Freedberg

JPMorgan Chase & Company, the global financial services firm which received a $25 billion federal bailout and is now reaping huge profits, has made tens of millions of dollars floating California bonds.

But you won’t find that figure in the full-page ads that have appeared in California newspapers in recent months singing JPMorgan Chase’s praises – ads placed by JPMorgan Chase itself.

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By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Wednesday, Sep. 8, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

California’s dismal economy and deficit-ridden state and local budgets created a yeasty political climate this year for efforts to undermine state redevelopment laws and thus gain access to multibillion-dollar pots of money.

Local governments, cities mostly, can create redevelopment projects in urban areas plagued by blight, pump money into upgrading public facilities and underwriting private development and then retain increases in tax revenue stemming from the new construction.

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By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Sep. 8, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 11A

Union and government lawyers square off before California’s Supreme Court today to debate whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger illegally ordered unpaid days off for more than 200,000 state workers.

Legal experts say the court’s decision will likely affect the 40 or so lawsuits filed since the governor’s first furlough order in December 2008.

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The health insurer violated state law nearly 1 million times from 2006 to 2008 after it was bought by UnitedHealth Group, the Department of Insurance says.

By Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times

September 7, 2010|7:16 p.m.

California regulators are seeking fines of up to $9.9 billion from health insurer PacifiCare over allegations that it repeatedly mismanaged medical claims, lost thousands of patient documents, failed to pay doctors what they were owed and ignored calls to fix the problems.

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The rate hikes for 38,000 individual policyholders will average 16%. Regulators are still reviewing Aetna’s plan to increase its premiums an average of 19% for 65,000 policyholders.

By Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times

September 8, 2010

A California health insurer got the green light Tuesday to raise premiums an average of 16% for 38,000 policyholders who buy insurance on their own.

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