The San Bernardino City Council will meet today to discuss the city’s budget and the threat of possible bankruptcy. (Rick Sforza/Staff Photographer)

Ryan Hagen, Staff Writer
Posted: 07/09/2012 11:13:12 AM PDT

SAN BERNARDINO – The City Council will meet in closed session today in the first of three days of discussions related to the city’s budget.

Today’s meeting begins at 5 p.m. with an opportunity for public comment, then will move to closed-session discussions.

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Liset Marquez, Staff Writer
Posted: 07/08/2012 07:04:53 AM PDT

Special Section: LA/Ontario International Airport

ONTARIO – City officials will not know the fate of its proposal to gain control of LA/Ontario International Airport until August when a subcommittee of the Los Angeles City Council meets again.

The council’s Trade, Commerce and Tourism committee was expected to have an interim report of Ontario’s proposal done by the end of June, but the meeting was postponed to July.

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Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 07/08/2012 07:04:56 AM PDT

Document: Read the Grand Jury report
Related story: Grand Jury criticizes Victorville fiscal practices

An investigation has concluded that the San Bernardino County Human Services Department isn’t cooperating with the District Attorney’s Office in its prosecution of welfare cases.

But a county spokesman disputes the Grand Jury’s findings.

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Staff report
Posted: 07/09/2012 10:32:47 AM PDT

Upland City Council members tonight will consider adopting the 2012-13 fiscal year budget.

The budget proposal includes cuts to services and layoffs in the Police Department in order to fill a $3.6 million gap.

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THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
Published: 08 July 2012 07:42 PM

Beginning Monday, July 9, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said it will run online ads portraying Rep. Mary Bono Mack and other GOP lawmakers as siding with insurance companies rather than their middle-class constituents in the ongoing national debate over health care.

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The French railway recommended that the state build the rail line along the Interstate 5 corridor and partner with it or another foreign firm to hold down costs.

By Dan Weikel and Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times
July 9, 2012

As state officials accelerated their effort to design a high-speed rail system in 2010, they were approached by the renowned French national railway with a suggestion: The project could use the help of an experienced bullet train operator.

Until the end of last year, SNCF, the developer of one of the world’s most successful high-speed rail systems, proposed that the state use competitive bidding to partner with it or another foreign operator rather than rely on construction engineers to design a sophisticated network for 200-mph trains.

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By Rob Hotakainen
McClatchy Newspapers
Published: Monday, Jul. 9, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Monday, Jul. 9, 2012 – 6:24 am

WASHINGTON – After buying a chunk of land 50 miles north of San Francisco, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria just broke ground on a new, Las Vegas-style casino. It will be the largest in the Bay Area, with 3,000 slot machines, 200 hotel rooms, a spa, bars, restaurants and parking for more than 5,000 cars.

In New York, the Shinnecock Indian Nation is considering Long Island as a site on which to build the Big Apple’s first tribal casino.

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Dan Walters

By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Monday, Jul. 9, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Monday, Jul. 9, 2012 – 6:23 am

The relationship between state and local governments has always been testy, but more so since voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978, reducing local property taxes.

One Proposition 13 effect was to shift more responsibility for financing schools and local government services to the state, and with that shift, state politicians assumed they could dictate policy to locals.

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By Ed Rendel
Monday, July 9, 2012

A new estimate from Moody’s Investor Services triples national public pension debt from $766 million to $2.2 trillion, mainly because the major Wall Street bond-rating firm uses a lower forecast of pension fund investment earnings urged by critics.

In a reporting overhaul proposed last week to give investors a better way to compare pension funding, Moody’s uses an annual earnings forecast based on corporate bonds, 5.5 percent, much lower than the 7.5 to 8.25 percent forecast by pension funds.

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