Posts From Chris Reed
Back to homepage
Downbeat Seattle minimum-wage study targeted by UC Berkeley labor center
In 2013, to shore up support for a plan to rapidly increase Seattle’s minimum wage, city leaders agreed to let a team of University of Washington researchers have access to troves of confidential payroll information so they could evaluate whether
Read More
CSU grasps state-students-first message aimed at UC
University of California President Janet Napolitano has been under siege since March 2016, when state Auditor Elaine Howle released a report that showed that the UC system wasn’t honoring the principle that California students come first. Howle documented how, over
Read More
Happy talk belies L.A. Unified’s grim financial picture
The board of the Los Angeles Unified School District passed a $7.5 billion 2017-18 budget this week on a 5-1 vote with Superintendent Michelle King touting the fact that the spending plan doesn’t include teacher layoffs or significant classroom disruptions.
Read More
High-speed rail agency lacks leader at crucial juncture
Four months after then-California High Speed Rail Authority Chief Executive Jeff Morales told authority board members he was moving on and two months after Morales made his decision public, the agency overseeing the state’s $64 billion bullet train project hasn’t
Read More
State elections chief denies NSA report of California hack
Who will Californians believe: Secretary of State Alex Padilla or the National Security Agency? That’s one way to boil down a flap that’s emerged this week over the sanctity of California’s 2016 elections. Beginning shortly after November’s election, Padilla has
Read More
Only CalPERS internal watchdog on way out
The giant California Public Employees’ Retirement System – with $320 billion-plus in assets, the nation’s largest pension system – is going to lose its only outspoken internal watchdog. J.J. Jelincic – an eight-year incumbent on the CalPERS board who is on leave from
Read More
Criminal justice reformers target punitive traffic tickets
California reformers seeking sweeping changes in the state’s criminal justice system have a new target: burdensome traffic tickets. The leading proponent of the proposal is California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. She is working on a plan to decriminalize
Read More
Gov. Brown in no hurry to address recycling headaches
California – a state that has long prided itself on being an environmental global pacesetter – is struggling with the most basic of green tasks: recycling containers. Thirty years ago, California became one of the first state to add 5-cent and 10-cent
Read More
Trump nominee for Interior Department a threat to Central Valley water status quo
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump’s promise to help Central Valley farmers get more water and to reduce environmentalists’ influence over the federal government got him a warm reception in rallies last May and August in the region that leads
Read More
Olympics appear L.A.-bound – but in 2024 or 2028?
After a recent International Olympic Committee fact-finding investigation went well, Los Angeles officials are extremely confident that California’s largest city will host a Summer Olympics for a third time after previous turns in 1932 and 1984. They just don’t know
Read More