Politics, Government & Business in California's Inland Empire
Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Posted: 10/22/2010 07:20:16 PM PDT
SAN BERNARDINO – Yet another document has emerged purporting to show that a high-ranking city official blew a gasket.
This time, 7th Ward Councilwoman Wendy McCammack alleges Police Chief Keith Kilmer has created a hostile work environment with “repeated, angry outbursts in front of employees.”
Rutherford
Sandra Emerson, Staff Writer
Created: 10/22/2010 06:45:15 PM PDT
Inland Empire business owners and developers have been linked to three campaign mailers opposing the challenger for the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisor’s 2nd District seat.
The committee responsible for the mailers, Citizens Against Corruption Opposing Rutherford for Supervisor 2010, filed its campaign contribution and expenditure forms Friday with the county’s Registrar of Voters Office, naming five donors.
Joe Nelson and Sandra Emerson, Staff Writers
Created: 10/22/2010 09:49:48 PM PDT
San Bernardino County Supervisor Paul Biane’s frequent trips to Mexico in his county-issued vehicle prompted the county to purchase a blanket auto insurance policy covering all county employees who travel south of the border, officials said Friday.
Laurie Milhiser, the county’s former director of risk management, said she became aware about two years ago that Biane was driving his county-issued vehicle to Mexico, where his family owns a vacation home about 40 miles south of Ensenada, and was purchasing auto insurance policies at the border.
Josh Dulaney, Staff Writer
Posted: 10/22/2010 07:09:18 PM PDT
The so-called Tea Party Patriots have popped up in political races across the nation, including the 62nd Assembly campaign, which pits one of the group’s candidates against an incumbent who is seeking what would be her third and final term in office because of term limits.
Jeane Ensley, a Republican who preaches less government as the solution to the state’s sundry woes, is taking on Wilmer Amina Carter, the Democratic assemblywoman who says she has the experience needed to represent a district that includes Colton, Rialto, Muscoy, Bloomington and much of San Bernardino and Fontana.
Critics say the city’s generosity during his terms played a significant role in boosting his popularity with public employee unions, a key ally in his campaign for governor.
By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times
October 23, 2010
Reporting from Sacramento —
When Jerry Brown left the mayor’s office in Oakland to become California’s attorney general, perhaps nobody was sorrier to see him go than Kenny H. Lau, a soft-spoken building plans reviewer who more than doubled his annual salary with overtime seven times during Brown’s tenure, from 1999 to 2006.
In 2001, Lau’s best year, he supplemented his $76,137 base salary with $190,647 in overtime and $4,909 in other extra pay, pushing his total compensation to $271,694, city records show. He averaged $226,000 annually over the seven years.
Jerry Brown after winning re-election as governor on Nov. 8, 1978, with Sen. Alan Cranston (left), his father and his mother.
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Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle
Saturday, October 23, 2010
As governor from 1959 to 1967, Pat Brown was a builder on a grand scale – highways, water projects, the state’s university system. His son, Jerry, reached the same office in 1975 and declared an “era of limits.”
The new governor put the brakes on road-building and questioned the need to fill vacant judgeships. Symbolically savvy, he swapped the state limousine for a Plymouth, and regularly invoked E.F. Schumacher’s book “Small Is Beautiful.”
Meg Whitman took the online shopping site from upstart to giant. But can her business skills help heal California’s woes?
By Stuart Pfeifer, Los Angeles Times
October 23, 2010
Meg Whitman might have seemed an unlikely candidate to oversee EBay when she was tapped as its chief executive in 1998.
She was a veteran of corporate America, a Harvard MBA who powered her way to executive jobs at Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney Co. and consulting firm Bain & Co. EBay was a small tech startup with 30 employees, derided by skeptics as “FleaBay.”
PolitiCal
On politics in the Golden State
October 22, 2010 | 2:44 pm
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stood with Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman at a news conference Friday afternoon in San Jose, arguing that her background as chief executive of EBay and her massive personal investment in the campaign gives her the management skills and independence necessary to be California’s next governor.
By David Siders
dsiders@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 4A
Last Modified: Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010 – 12:10 am
In a state accustomed to yawning deficits and late budgets, California’s gubernatorial candidates promise voters they could work more effectively with the Legislature than has Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In their campaigns, Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown both point to the recurring budget impasse as an example of dysfunction in the Capitol, a climate they say they could improve.
By Dan Morain, Senior editor
dmorain@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 13A
Suddenly, California’s race for attorney general has become nationalized – and the out-of-state players who have stepped into the campaign say a great deal about the candidates and the power of the office.
Consider this: A political organization based in Virginia, headed by influential Republicans and funded by tobacco, insurance and gambling interests is airing an ad to elect Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, the Republican running against San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.
State, county and city agencies, beset by plunging revenues, make their biggest payroll cuts in decades, and more layoffs are ahead, analysts forecast.
By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
October 23, 2010
Weighed down by a struggling economy, government agencies in California shed 37,300 workers last month — more jobs than were lost in the private sector — as cities and counties made their biggest payroll cutbacks since at least 1990.
What’s more, analysts see more job cuts ahead as California faces an estimated $10-billion shortfall in the state budget that the next governor must address. Cities and counties, meanwhile, are still struggling with tepid sales and property tax revenue.
By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com
Published: Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
A federal jury hammered the state’s correctional officers union on Friday, awarding $10 million in punitive damages in a defamation case.
The damages come on top of $2.3 million in actual damages awarded against the California Correctional Peace Officers Association in the same case Monday.