Post-pension reform law, let the public employee gaming begin

Dec. 5, 2012 By Chris Reed This Orange County Register story about top executives at the giant Metropolitan Water District of Southern California figuring out a way to game Gov. Jerry Brown’s pension reform by joining a union is only

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Joe Mathews weighs in on CalWatchdog piece

Dec. 5, 2012 By Chris Reed Joe Mathews, one of the least ideological mainstream California political pundits, has weighed in on the analysis I did last week on the evidence that unions are trying to stifle direct democracy in California

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Bail Calif. out the Detroit way

Dec. 5, 2012 By Katy Grimes California overwhelmingly just voted to re-elect President Barack Obama. Shouldn’t the state get a little somethin-somethin in return? Especially because California is teetering on the verge of becoming a giant Detroit. With three cities already

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CEQA reforms blow political smog over state

Dec. 5, 2012 By Katy Grimes In the wee hours of the night, at the end of the last legislative session, language was added into a bill to push forward reforms to California’s 40-year old environmental policy, the California Environmental

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Supremes nearly laugh L.A. storm water case out of court

Dec. 5, 2012 By Wayne Lusvardi On Tuesday, Nov. 4, the U.S. Supreme Court came close to almost laughing out of court a lawsuit brought by environmentalists against the Los Angeles County Flood Control District.  The National Resources Defense Council

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Sen. Lou Correa attacks free-speech rights

Dec. 5, 2012 By John Seiler Campaign finance “reform” always means one thing: attacking the other guy’s funding sources under the guise of “good government.” That’s happening with a bill by state Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, to reveal so-called

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Schools chief who tolerates bond scams wants to float own bond

Dec. 5, 2012 By Chris Reed The use of 30-year school “construction” bonds to pay for routine maintenance and short-lived electronics like laptops is a huge, ongoing, but basically uncovered scandal in California. Since automatic annual pay raises for most

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Markets best would clean up L.A. pollution storm

This is Part 2 of a three-part series. Part 1 is here. Dec. 4, 2012 By Wayne Lusvardi In Part 1 of this series, I explained how an $8 billion tax storm soon will swamp Los Angeles property owners. The

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How many Californians will leave?

Dec. 4, 2012 By John Seiler The big question before us in 2013: How many Californians will skedaddle out of Taxifornia next year? Taxes are going way up, not just at the state level, but at the local level. Even

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California needs $765 billion in new roads

Dec. 4, 2012 By Dave Roberts California’s infrastructure — once the envy of the nation in the 1950s and 60s — has not kept up with growth and has been allowed to deteriorate. Out of $142 billion in total state

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