Posts From Wayne Lusvardi
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SF Mayor Lee fights supervisors over green power
It’s green power vs. greenbacks. A political power battle is brewing in San Francisco over which entity of government is going to carry out the local implementation of the mandate by the state of California for 33 percent renewable energy
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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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Split-roll tax bill strikes at Prop. 13
Almost every year in the California Legislature Proposition 13 becomes a target for those seeking higher taxes. The 1978 tax-limitation measure, among other things, requires a two-thirds vote for local tax increases. As budget maneuvers heat up in the
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Why is GOP rebuffing Sen. Feinstein’s drought bill?
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is renewing her call to Republican senators to vote for her revised compromise drought bill, S. 2016, the California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014. Feinstein claims her bill is five votes short of the 60 needed
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Silicon Valley and Bakersfield Oil Patch lead CA jobs recovery
What cities can California look to for jobs growth to pull it out of its laggard growth since the 2008 economic recession? A new online economic tracking tool called Metro Monitor by the Brookings Institution ranks metropolitan areas in the
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Will new community power beat PG&E prices?
Sonoma Clean Power officials and advocates got a charge from recent news that 95 percent of county eligible ratepayers will be switched to their electricity service from Pacific Gas & Electric. The switch was automatic, although ratepayers could opt out
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CA history shows droughts don’t last
Gov. Jerry Brown, state Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, and other legislators are pushing for groundwater regulation during the drought. Since October 4, 2013, the California Water Resources Control Board has been floating a discussion draft of a Groundwater Workplan
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CA green power keeps shifting costs to ratepayers
California Energy Markets recently reported that three California cities just won agreement from regulators to reclassify solar power transmission costs as distribution. The cities are Pasadena, Riverside and Azusa. That means the cities reaped a 25 percent reduction in long-term solar power contracts. This seemingly arcane
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Sen. Boxer: Conservation would solve drought
Can California’s zero-sum water wars only be resolved by a system of stern water conservation? That’s what California U.S. Senator at large Barbara Boxer left as an unanswered question at a March 20 Palm Springs water symposium on the
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False River dam could halt Delta saltwater surge
California climatologists such as Jeffrey Mount, Peter Gleick and the California Climate Change Center have predicted for some time an apocalyptic disaster in the Sacramento Bay Delta from a rise in sea level and flooding due to global warming.
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