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San Ramon sued over ‘pension’ tax
Is it legal for a city to make new residents pay hundreds of dollars extra in property taxes for essentially the same city facilities and services that current residents receive? That question is at the heart of a lawsuit
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Map: Still the Anaheim Angels of Anaheim
Back in 1996, I remember writing editorials in the Orange County Register against Disney grabbing $30 million from Anaheim taxpayers to renovate Angels Stadium. The city council, which Disney basically owned, approved the subsidy. But Disney agreed in the contract to
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Push for sharp minimum-wage hike under way in San Diego
California’s second-largest and the nation’s eighth-largest city appears sure to have a six-month-plus debate over whether to raise the minimum wage much more than the state government has in store. The Democratic majority of San Diego’s City Council is going
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San Bernardino bankruptcy shows pensions crowding out services
In his novel “The Sun Also Rises,” California novelist Ernest Hemingway wrote, “How do you go bankrupt? Two ways: Gradually, then suddenly.” Case in point: the City of San Bernardino, which filed for bankruptcy in 2012. The pace of municipal bankruptcy
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Kashkari unveils education overhaul plan
Neel Kashkari, the Republican candidate for governor who promised to campaign on “jobs and education, that’s it,” delivered on half of that platform Tuesday, with the release of a bold plan for overhauling the state’s failing schools. In a detailed
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Chart shows stock-market not at new highs
With the stock market soaring again, it seems that happy days are here again for the economy. Except a new Chart of the Day shows that the Dow Jones Industrial Average, when charted against the price of gold — the
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Gov. Brown’s legal strategy to prop up bullet train faltering
Last week’s decision from a state appeals court to issue a summary judgment denying the Brown administration’s unusual request to block a second trial in which Kings County and other plaintiffs challenge California’s high-speed rail project bodes terribly for the
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CA Republicans ‘stand with sriracha’
The debate over a hot sauce factory is spicing up California politics. After a small number of complaints over the factory’s alleged smell, the city of Irwindale recently voted to declare Huy Fong Foods, makers of the popular sriracha condiment, a public nuisance.
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Supreme Court effectively upholds CA affirmative-action ban
Today the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Michigan’s ban on affirmative action. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: “There is no authority in the federal constitution or in the [courts’] precedents for the judiciary to set aside Michigan laws that commit to the
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Sen. Steinberg dumps carbon tax idea
State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, has given up on his plan to replace California’s cap-and-trade law with a carbon tax on vehicles. At first, Steinberg wanted to simplify the way California regulated emissions. To do so, he suggested that revenue
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