Investigation
Back to homepageWill California repudiate its debt?
AUGUST 12, 2010 By JOHN SEILER California’s government soon could be paying its bills with IOUs, Controller John Chang announced this week. And a new report found that Californians’ personal income dropped 2.5 percent in 2009, the first decline since World
Read MoreNo accounting for rail's mystery workers
AUG. 10, 2010 By ANTHONY PIGNATARO The proposed California High-Speed Rail project is a monumental undertaking in terms of money, personnel, time and effort. The state’s own estimates say the whole system – which includes 800 miles of bullet train
Read MoreSouth L.A.'s Charter Success
AUG. 7, 2010 By JOHN SEILER The goal is bold: To graduate 2,000 students from inner-city high schools in South Los Angeles — then have them all graduate from college. The method: put 40 charter schools within the 45 square
Read MoreState gags rail contractors
JULY 29, 2010 By ANTHONY PIGNATARO All contractors hired by the California High-Speed Rail Authority to prepare environmental reports on the project are contractually prohibited from discussing their agreements with the media, a CalWatchdog examination of the authority’s current contracts
Read MoreAdmin costs crowd out teaching
JULY 26, 2010 By JOHN SEILER A revealing new study shows that in recent years increases in the administrative costs of California’s K-12 schools have squeezed salaries for teachers. It shines a powerful searchlight on exactly what goes on in
Read MoreDo tax hikes fix budgets?
JULY 21, 2010 By JOHN SEILER The U.S. and California economies continue to struggle to push up from the Great Recession. Even as revenues at all levels of government have been hit hard, businesses and citizens complain that, even if
Read MoreARB throws couple in jail
JULY 15, 2010 By ANTHONY PIGNATARO For Kening Ma of Ontario, bail was set at $150 million. His wife Shirley Ji got a slightly better deal – a mere $75 million. These are, to say the least, extraordinary figures. The
Read More‘Ghosts’ haunt Brown?
JULY 8, 2010 By WAYNE LUSVARDI Will a set of Green Power plants in northern California planned in the 1970s under former California Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown’s administration and shut down in 1990 because they were running in the red
Read MoreMulling a majority-vote budget
JULY 6, 2010 By JOHN SEILER With yet another state budget not passed by the July 1 beginning of the fiscal year, Democrats and their union allies are putting the blame on California’s two-thirds supermajority rule for passing a budget
Read MoreBig Green’s opaque funding
JUNE 30, 2010 By ANTHONY PIGNATARO In the race to pass Proposition 23, the effort to roll back California’s landmark and sweeping global warming regulations this November, some of the biggest decisions in the race are being made in a
Read More