Sunday, July 8, 2012 – 12:45 p.m.

First it was Vallejo. Then Stockton.

Now Mammoth Lakes is in line.

Will San Bernardino, a city with a population of 210,000, be the fourth California municipality to file bankruptcy?

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Sunday, July 8, 2012 – 12:01 a.m.

InlandPolitics.com would like to thank Politico contributor Charlie Mahtesian for including a link to our post titled “California laughingstock of nation” on his blog Saturday afternoon.

Here’s the Politico column: http://www.politico.com/blogs/charlie-mahtesian/2012/07/remainders-laughingstock-128252.html

Ryan Hagen, Staff Writer
Posted: 07/07/2012 08:13:10 PM PDT

SAN BERNARDINO – The city must immediately make substantial cuts to its budget or prepare for bankruptcy, the interim city manager and the finance director have warned the City Council.

Spending is projected to be $45 million more than revenues for the fiscal year that began July 1, and the city’s reserve fund is empty, Interim City Manager Andrea Travis-Miller and Finance Director Jason Simpson wrote in a budget plan sent to the mayor and council on June 26.

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The city of Victorville paid $375,000 for this property in 2007, with plans to build a 500-megawatt power plant in the area. The home sits abandoned and the power plant is unbuilt, another failed project that has contributed to Victorville’s financial disaster, according to a grand jury report. (Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times / June 5, 2012)

By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times
July 8, 2012

Victorville hoped to strike it rich with a new hybrid gas and solar power plant near the old George Air Force Base, buying up homesteads for the site amid the High Desert’s real estate boom.

The city shelled out $375,000 alone to Chris Massey and his family in 2007 to buy a tiny house plopped on five desolate acres of scrub and Joshua trees — 10 times the property’s assessed value.

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BY JEFF HORSEMAN
STAFF WRITER
jhorseman@pe.com

Published: 07 July 2012 06:12 PM

Pay raises for pension changes. To the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, it’s a fair — if costly — trade.

To get the county’s labor unions to agree to an overhaul of the public employee pension system, supervisors authorized more than $730 million in raises over the next four years. In exchange, officials expect savings of $856 million over the next 10 years as new employees earn lesser pensions and current workers pay more toward their retirement.

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BY IMRAN GHORI
STAFF WRITER
ighori@pe.com

Published: 07 July 2012 05:29 PM

A confidentiality agreement signed by San Bernardino County’s top executive required him to initially keep secret the details of a proposal to use eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages.

The county provided a copy of the agreement on Thursday, July 5, in response to a June 19 public records request from The Press-Enterprise. The request was filed after officials revealed that county Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereaux had entered into the agreement in February.

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Same-party competitors in tough California races will need to appeal across party lines, without alienating core supporters. It will be a tricky balancing act.

By Jean Merl, Los Angeles Times
July 7, 2012, 6:57 p.m.

The fresh twists offered by California’s new election rules are challenging candidates gearing up for November to find ways to attract votes from the opposite party.

That could be key in the hottest races the June primary spawned, forcing many like-minded competitors to court voters they previously could have ignored.

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Dan Morain

By Dan Morain, Senior editor
dmorain@sacbee.com
Published: Sunday, Jul. 8, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 1E

Gov. Jerry Brown is showing himself to be both the principled public official who keeps his word and the slick inside player who seeks to grease the November ballot in his favor.

Good Jerry. Bad Jerry. Both sides of the man have been on display lately as he dwells on high-speed rail, pensions and his initiative to raise taxes by $8.5 billion, plus a few side issues that attract much less notice.

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