According to CB Insights, the Los Angeles Times reported, “Northern California is the headquarters of six of the 10 American commercial drone companies that have attracted the most venture capital.” The economic consequences of drones’ ascendance in Silicon Valley have attracted attention along with the cash. Drone firms “are creating high-paying work for engineers, including those designing ever more sophisticated software to operate the machines,” the Times noted.

But, as the Times observed, the Silicon Valley pattern of big innovations in small groups was likely to repeat itself with drones:

“Competition from Chinese manufacturers has already pushed 3D Robotics and some other American drone companies to make their hardware in other countries. Anderson’s company has an engineering center in San Diego, but manufactures its drones in Tijuana and Shenzhen, China, where there is cheap labor.”

Hopes and fears

California’s unique challenges have supplied drone manufacturers with an immediate market and proving ground. Given the state’s vast size, rugged terrain, and drought-era risk of massive fires, drones have emerged as a new source of hope for keeping residents safe. Taking inspiration from their own approach to monitoring outer space for important events, Bay Area astrophysicists have embarked on a project called Fuego — short for “Fire Urgency Estimator in Geosynchronous Orbit.”

“The idea is to enable early location and identification of fires using drones, planes, and satellites mounted with special infrared cameras,” Wired reported; “once fully operational the system could spot new wildfires anywhere in the Western US barely three minutes after they start.

“‘All year round is going to be fire season now,’ says Carlton Pennypacker, an astrophysicist at UC Berkeley and lead researcher on Fuego. ‘That makes this more urgent.'”

But the city of Huntington Beach recently provided the backdrop to a video dramatizing the legal and cultural uncertainty around drones. As the Orange County Register observed, the viral clip caught one resident ruining what a local drone company called an instructional video. After “yelling that he’ll be angry if ‘you put that over my house,'” the man sent a hovering drone crashing to the ground with a single swat of his t-shirt. “I don’t even think that’s legal,” he added.

Lucky7drones, makers of the $1,000-plus drone, have filed a police report. In the absence of federal regulation, the Register noted, municipalities have crafted rules restricting or banning drones’ use, while Huntington Beach, among others, has done neither.

Drones’ awkward, changing status in California has aroused residents’ hopes and fears in a complex combination. In Southern California’s beach communities, for instance, drones have begun to emerge as a solution to the age-old threat of shark attacks.

But with the new knowledge they afford has come a new way of sizing up the risks of everyday life.

“A new drone that is being utilized by Southland lifeguards reveals a chilling look at how many sharks are just feet from the shoreline at one beach,” CBS Los Angeles reported. Within minutes of launch, a Seal Beach lifeguard told CBS LA, “we knew there were 10 to 12 sharks all in the Surfside area.” The impact on beachgoers was also swift — calling into question whether Californians’ more carefree attitude toward sharks could survive the advent of drone patrols:

“‘I was planning on going surfing tomorrow and definitely not now,’ one woman said, while another said: ‘Sharks are kind of like my biggest fear so that’s like very daunting for me.'”

Protecting privacy

If Californians have had to give added thought to their new status as watchers, the rise of drones has also forced them to consider how more often they’re willing to be watched. In an effort to shore up the state’s privacy protections against invasive drone use, Assemblyman Bill Quirk, D-Hayward, has pushed a new piece of legislation through several key committees. The bill, AB56, “would place strict regulations on law enforcement use of drones, and prohibit drone surveillance of private property without a warrant in most situations,” according to the Tenth Amendment Center.

Under proposed regulations, the Center noted, only so-called exigent circumstances, like natural disasters, public emergencies or the imminent threat of death or grave bodily harm, would permit law enforcement to deploy drones without a warrant or the express permission of property owners.

Katy Grimes: California lawmakers apparently didn’t get the message voters sent on Tuesday night.

Earlier today, the Sen. Budget Committee approved Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to spend another $6.4 million collecting the State Responsibility Area fire tax, passed in 2011. Referred to by Democrats as a “rural fire fee,” the new tax imposes a hefty charge of up to $150 “on each habitable structure within the SRAs.”

But the new fire tax was passed only by a simple majority of the Legislature, despite tha mandate from Proposition 26, the 2010 ballot initiative which requires a two-thirds vote for any increase in fees or taxes. Prop 26 was passed to stop politicians from raising taxes by calling them “fees.”

Democrats claim that this “fee” is needed to finance fire prevention efforts by the California Department of Forestry.

“Why are we approving millions of dollars and 57 new paid positions for a program that will be challenged and likely overturned in court?” Sen. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, asked. “The majority party has found so many loopholes to pass this illegal tax that I cannot imagine it will be upheld under any judicial scrutiny.”

Fortunately, AB 1506, by Assemblymen Paul Cook, R-Yucca Valley, and Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore, was written to repeal the fire tax.

The State Responsibility Areas include more than 31 million acres of land in every county in the state except San Francisco and Sutter counties.

AB 1506 points out that the CDF fire protection budget has more than doubled in the last 15 years. “In 1996-97, the Department’s fire protection base budget was $226 million,” the bill states. The Governor’s 2012-13 Budget reports that the current budget for fire protection is $996,332 million, and total Department of Forestry and Fire Protection budget is $1,173,857.

Language in the bill analysis stated that the latest fire protection fee/tax was passed merely to plug a state budget hole.

However, even if by some miracle AB 1506 is passed, rural home and land owners will still be taxed this year and next for the fire fee; the repeal only becomes effective in 2013.

AB 1506 passed the Assembly Natural Resources Committee 7-2, which is led by Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro, D-Humbolt, who voted in favor of the repeal. Chesbro represents California’s most Northern counties, and a great deal of rural areas.

Two Democrats didn’t agree with the repeal of the illegal tax: Assembly members Nancy Skinner from Berkeley, and Roger Dickinson from Sacramento voted “no.”