Politics, Government & Business in California's Inland Empire
By PE Politics
on November 12, 2010 11:39 AM
Riverside County’s fight over two competing pension measures might be far from over — even though voters on Nov. 2 already weighed in.
Both Measure M and Measure L received majority votes in this month’s election and according to state law the one with the most total votes takes precedence.
10:00 PM PST on Friday, November 12, 2010
By TIFFANY RAY
The Press-Enterprise
Stater Bros. Holdings plans to issue $255 million in corporate bonds as part of a deal to refinance existing debt at a lower interest rate.
The San Bernardino-based supermarket chain is raising new capital to redeem $525 million in notes that are due in June 2012. The rate on those notes is 8.125 percent.
11:01 PM PST on Friday, November 12, 2010
By JIM MILLER
Sacramento Bureau
SACRAMENTO – The Inland region’s GOP-heavy legislative delegation would seem to be big losers from voters’ decision last week to end the two-thirds vote requirement for the annual budget bill.
The previous threshold gave Republicans a say in shaping the legislation. Now the Legislature’s majority Democrats can pass budgets on their own thanks to Prop. 25.
11:01 PM PST on Friday, November 12, 2010
By IMRAN GHORI
The Press-Enterprise
San Bernardino County supervisors will consider a policy Tuesday to cap the amount of vacation time the county’s non-union employees can accrue.
The proposal is aimed at reducing a practice that has resulted in some employees racking up hundreds of hours of vacation, holiday or administrative time. Those unpaid benefits amount to a budgetary liability of about $8 million that the county would have to pay if the employees left, county spokesman David Wert said.
Josh Dulaney, Staff Writer
Posted: 11/12/2010 07:38:20 PM PST
PDF document: Holtgreve civil suit
RIALTO – A strip club worker at the center of an alleged sex scandal involving police officers has filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the city and Police Chief Mark Kling.
Nancy Holtgreve, who describes herself as a bartender at the Spearmint Rhino in the lawsuit filed this week in San Bernardino Superior Court, alleges in the suit that she suffered emotional and physical abuse, and violations of her civil rights in the wake of her relationships with Rialto police officers, which she says frequently included sex with the officers while they were on duty.
Michael J. Sorba, Staff Writer
Posted: 11/12/2010 03:18:40 PM PST
BIG BEAR LAKE – The firefighters union is concerned some members could lose their job, have it changed or be forced to work in another area if the city goes forward with the idea of outsourcing or merging with another fire agency, a union representative says.
Big Bear Lake Professional Firefighters, a branch of San Bernardino County Professional Firefighters Local 935, say it’s prudent to evaluate all options available to decide how fire service is delivered, but the impact to firefighters should also be considered, said Jeff Schwing, the union’s local representative.
Rutherford
Sandra Emerson, Staff Writer
Created: 11/12/2010 04:26:10 PM PST
UPLAND – Now that Janice Rutherford has been elected to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, some Upland officials are hopeful she will have a positive influence over a pricey lawsuit filed against them by the county.
Upland Mayor John “JP” Pomierski as well as councilmen Ray Musser and Ken Willis endorsed Rutherford over incumbent Paul Biane in the Nov. 2 election because of the financial burden the lawsuit has placed on city coffers.
Wes Woods II, Staff Writer
Created: 11/12/2010 03:13:29 PM PST
With the defeat of Proposition 19, local supporters and opponents are anticipating the next step in marijuana’s potential legalization.
Claremont McKenna College political science professor Jack Pitney predicts marijuana legalization supporters will look for an increase in younger voters, who are more supportive of marijuana legalization, for victory in 2012.
November 12, 2010 4:00 PM
Beau Yarbrough
HESPERIA • Although the Hesperia City Council was spared in the anti-incumbent wave that swept through Victor Valley on Election Day, look for a very different City Council in December.
The lone incumbent in the race, Mayor Thurston “Smitty” Smith, was reelected. Two two-term council members, Ed Pack and Rita Vogler, who chose not to run for reelection, will be gone. And two new candidates, Russ Blewett and Bill Holland will be replacing them.
L.A. NOW
Southern California — this just in
November 12, 2010 | 7:51 pm
San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris took the slenderest of leads in the race for California attorney general late Friday, moving ahead by 303 votes out of more than 8 million cast in one of the closest statewide races in decades.
Capitol Alert
The latest on California politics and government
November 12, 2010
The list of potential members of the state’s new Citizens Redistricting Commission was pared down to 36 finalists Friday as legislative leaders exercised their secret vetoes — and it includes an expert who devised two court-ordered redistricting plans and a former legislative budget analyst.
The four Democratic and Republican legislative leaders were empowered to knock off as many as 24 of the 60 semi-finalists without explanation or revealing who axed whom, similar to lawyers’ preemptory challenges of potential jurors in a trial.
November 13, 2010
When Dianne Feinstein called Jerry Brown last winter to confirm what everyone in the world already knew – that she wasn’t going to run for governor, so the Democratic nomination was all his – Krusty responded that he was kind of hoping she would run so he wouldn’t have to. When we reported the conversation at the time, we said that Brown was half-joking; after Leg Analyst Mac Taylor’s announcement this week that California faces a $25 billion budget deficit, now we’re thinking he wasn’t kidding at all.
State’s Fair Political Practices Commission extends the regulations already in place for print, TV and radio advertising.
By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times
November 13, 2010
Reporting from Sacramento —
Political ads sent by text message or placed on websites will have to include a message to voters disclosing who is behind them under new rules approved Friday by the state’s campaign watchdog agency.
Despite its dysfunctional financial image, the state still has room to borrow. It will ask investors for $14 billion over the next two weeks.
By Tom Petruno Market Beat
November 13, 2010
California took a record 100 days into the new fiscal year to nail down a budget, and that plan already is sporting a gaping hole.
Now, the state will go to investors to borrow $14 billion in the next two weeks.
Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
San Francisco Chronicle
Saturday, November 13, 2010
(11-13) 04:00 PST Sacramento – —
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday that the $6 billion hole in the budget he signed just over a month ago was unforeseen, and he blamed the deficit on the Legislature and voters, who passed a ballot measure last week that zaps revenue the state expected to collect.
But while Schwarzenegger may not have seen trouble coming, others at the Capitol did.
By John Howard | 11/12/10 4:00 PM PST
Proposition 26, a complex ballot measure requiring a two-thirds vote for new fees, has a retroactive provision that could block hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks approved earlier for new alternative energy plants in Southern California.
It also could undo a budget trailer bill – approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor — that levied fees on renewable energy plants to help defray some regulatory costs.
Pringle
November 12th, 2010, 10:50 am · posted by Andrew Galvin
Curt Pringle, the soon-to-be-former mayor of Anaheim who is also chairman of the California High Speed Rail Authority, says he thinks an investigation into foreign trips taken by five rail authority officials — including Pringle — can be cleared up once the authority files appropriate disclosures.
“Hopefully the authority will rectify the situation by filing the necessary forms in as quick a manner as possible,” Pringle said in an interview with OC Watchdog on Friday.