SB 359 is by state Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro. It approved a loan for $30 million to help finance low-income residents to transition away from older, higher-polluting vehicles. The bill also supports two state incentive programs for electric-drive cars, trucks and buses.

SB 459 is by state Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Aguora Hills. It requires the state to provide a voucher for a new alternative-fuel vehicle. The voucher would be given to low-income car owners who could not pass a smog test on their existing vehicle.

According to the bill analysis, the Enhanced Fleet Modernization Program established by AB 118 in 2007 has not “attracted substantial consumer participation.” Rebates have been issued to promote the very cleanest new vehicles paid for through smog abatement fees. In response, Pavley’s bill will hand out subsidies to remove “high polluting vehicles” from the road.

AB 8 is by Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno. It extended AB 118 until 2024. AB 118. For the current fiscal year, the program is expected to invest approximately $90 million to encourage the development and use of new technologies, and alternative and renewable fuels, to help the state meet its climate change goals. It is funded through vehicle and boat registration fees, as well as smog check and license plate fees.

While this is not the first voucher program CARB has created, it is the first that specifically targets low-income families who cannot afford an electric car.

As of early March 2013, the CARB has issued about 18,000 rebates totaling $41 million.

Also in March, the California Energy Commission voted to expand the state’s clean-vehicle rebate program with an award of $4.5 million to the California Air Resources Board through an interagency agreement to provide funding for the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project.

The latest fund award was made through the energy commission’s Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program, created by

Transportation justice

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Transportation Justice Working Group is part of the Social Equity Caucus, and is facilitated by Urban Habitat. They are fighting against “entrenched interests in transportation decision-making that have yielded socially and racially unjust outcomes for the past century in the Bay Area.”

To this group, transportation justice is about the highway system which has “displaced and cut up low-income communities of color and continues to burden them with toxic air pollution, traffic hazards and other disproportionate threats to their safety and health.”

These decisions have prioritized the construction and expansion of commuter rail systems, like BART and Caltrain, that are designed to serve affluent suburban riders, at the expense of urban bus systems,” the group said.

While the Transportation Justice Working Group is largely talking about restoring a once-effective bus system, the California Air Resources Board continues to push instead for new electric cars for the low income.

“Most plug-in electric cars cost more than the used cars that lower-income families and communities — the people who could most benefit from EV fuel savings, in other words — can typically afford. It doesn’t have to be that way, however, and California’s Air Resource Board is working to help low-income families get access to EVs by issuing vouchers starting at $2500.”

“With net operating costs approaching zero for cars like Nissan’s Leaf in some cases, electric car ownership could go a long way towards enabling low-income wage earners to get better education, as well as better access to healthy food and healthcare,” said Gas2, a car blog. “These low-income families would also be able to get to a number of private-sector jobs that, without an EV, would be off-limits to them. That means they’d quickly pay back CARB’s $2500 voucher through increased income, payroll, and sales taxes.”

The numbers

According to the governor’s working group on zero-emission vehicles, the roadmap toward 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on California roadways by 2025, current spending will include:

* $44.5 million to help Californian buy low emissions vehicles such as plug-in hybrids and zero-emission cars and light trucks, with rebates of up to $2,500 as long as the funds last.

* The state’s hybrid and zero-emission truck and bus voucher incentive was increased from $5 million to $15 million. The vouchers of up to $55,000 are for fleet purchases of cleaner trucks and buses.

* The Truck Loan Assistance Program received an additional $18 million to help small-business fleet owners finance truck upgrades required by law.

The creation of the 3-D gun is only about one year old. The first 3D-printed gun initially was fired in the spring of 2013.

3D printers are $10,000 machines that can use digital designs to build a variety of devices out of thousands of layers of hard plastic.

The homemade plastic gun, known as the “Liberator .380,” is made with a computer blueprint, a 3-D printer and plastic resin.

Law enforcement says plastic guns can pass through security checkpoints without setting off metal detectors. “They are so frightening because they render most standard detection useless,” said Tim Murphy, former deputy director of the FBI, in a Dallas News story.

It will be difficult to keep tabs on firearms that are made at home using 3-D printer. But SB 808, by Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, requires a person to obtain a serial number from the California Department of Justice, and submit to a background check, prior to making a ghost gun.

It is already against the law to have an undetectable gun that could go through security monitors without being seen. That law was passed in In 1988 in the U.S. Congress under the Undetectable Firearms Act.

De Leon stressed SB 808 does not ban the ghost guns. “There is a loophole in the law for homemade guns,” de Leon said. “Ghost guns have fallen into the hands of criminals.”

Plastic guns

In the 1980s, the U.S. Congress looked into an Austrian-made Glock made of polymer plastic that opponents claimed was undetectable in airport screenings. Some cities, including, New York City, banned the Glock.

But according to Popular Mechanics:

“Airport security machines did detect the Glock because they’re mostly X-ray machines, and X-rays see plastic just the way they see metal. Moreover, by weight, the Glock is actually mostly metal anyway. The slide is made out of steel, so if you do have a magnetometer, it should detect that slide. And if someone is staring at it and knows what they’re looking for, they should be able to see it. This was a huge embarrassment for gun-control forces and a huge boon for Glock. There is no better way in the United States to get attention for a gun than to suggest it’s extremely potent and effective.”

Crime is not due to homemade guns

“The crime happening in the state is not due to homemade guns,” said Sen. Steve Knight, R-Antelope Valley, a former police officer. Knight explained most people are not able to tell the difference between homemade and undetectable guns.

“Somewhere along the path we’ve lost our way,” said state Sen. Joel Anderson, R-El Cajon. “We look at all guns as evil, not at criminals.”

Anderson said only law-abiding citizens will pay attention to the law. “Gangbangers will not. 3-D printers are available in some libraries. This is just more minutia The real problem is that gang members and criminals are out there. We’re not doing anything to collect their guns. But we are truing to collect the guns of law-abiding citizens.”

Anderson advocated focusing on serious policies that might reduce crime rather than going after guns.

De Leon said that, because Congress failed to pass gun control legislation last year, “We can act” in California.

SB 808 passed the state Senate, 21-9.

H.R. 3964 by California Congressmen David G. Valadao, CA-21, Devin Nunes, CA-22, and Kevin McCarthy, CA-23, is a comprehensive bill to resolve the water crisis in California, according to the congressmen.

“H.R. 3964 is an unwelcome and divisive intrusion into California’s efforts to manage this severe crisis,” Brown wrote in a letter to the Congressmen. “It would override state laws and protections, and mandate that certain water interests come out ahead of others. It falsely suggests the promise of water relief when that is simply not possible given the scarcity of water supplies.”

H.R. 3964 would undo years of environmental dominance in California’s water priorities.

Brown said the bill would “re-open old water wounds undermining years of progress toward reaching a collaborative long-term solution to our water needs.”

Valadeo, Nunes and McCarthy say the bill would undo a San Joaquin River restoration program, would improve water access for Valley farms. The San Joaquin restoration program to restore flows to the San Joaquin River from Friant Dam to the confluence of Merced River and restore a self-sustaining Chinook salmon fishery.

What Brown could be angry about is the California Department of Water Resources announced in November that the Central Valley would only get five percent of the water it needs in 2014. Valadeo’s office reported Thursday, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Michael Connor upheld Valadao’s position, along with other Central Valley lawmakers, regarding rescheduled water deliveries for Central Valley Project water contractors. The letter to the Bureau urged the Administration to reconsider halting rescheduled water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley farmers. The letter stated strong opposition to the use of rescheduled water to meet other Central Valley Project water delivery needs at the expense of farmers and contractors in the Valley.

In an interview I did in November with Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, he explained:

“California has had two dry years, the Central Valley is suffering under the San Joaquin River Restoration Program, a federal program to restore flows to the San Joaquin River from Friant Dam to the confluence of Merced River, in order to restore Chinook salmon in the river. “Billions are being spent on dry salmon runs,” Vidak said. “We’re spending $2 million to $3 million per fish!”

“H.R. 3964, the Sacramento–San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act restores water reliability to California communities by codifying the bipartisan Bay-Delta Accord,” Valadeo’s website says. “It also reforms onerous federal laws – such as the Central Valley Project Improvement Act and the San Joaquin River Restoration Settlement Act – that have severely curtailed water deliveries and resulted in hundreds of billions of gallons of badly needed water being flushed into the ocean.” Valadeo represents Kings County and portions of Fresno, Tulare, and Kern Counties, three of the hardest-hit counties in the recession and drought.

“The current California drought is a crisis exacerbated by the failure of government to ensure water flows to our communities and farms,” said Rep. McCarthy. “Today, led by my good friend Rep. David Valadao, the entire California Republican delegation in the House introduced legislation to put families before fish. One more day cannot go by without addressing the shortage of a resource so precious to our economy and wellbeing. It is time, as representatives for the entire state, that Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein support drought stricken Californians and get behind this legislation.”

Valadeo’s website recently reported House Republicans passed comprehensive water policy reform legislation for California (H.R. 1837) in February 2012. The bill would have mitigated the water crisis now going on in the Central Valley. However, the bill died in the Senate “due to the opposition of California’s Democratic Senators,” Valadeo’s website reported. “No Senate hearings were held, nor were any amendments offered or alternatives proposed. Furthermore, the Senate recently prevented the addition of emergency drought relief provisions for California in the Farm Bill,” the website said.

On Jan. 28, the California Senate passed Senate Bill 199, by state Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles. The vote was 23 to 8. The bill would require BB and airsoft guns to be painted bright colors to make them “readily identifiable” so law enforcement officers could distinguish them from real firearms.

Police shooting of 13-year-old

In the Senate debate on Jan. 23, de Leon addressed the recent shooting death of 13-year-old Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa, who was carrying an airsoft BB replica of an AK-47 automatic rifle.

“Law enforcement officers have extreme difficulty distinguishing between the real thing and what is fake,” de Leon said. “This is about saving lives.”

Sen. Steve Knight, R-Lancaster, disagreed. The former Los Angeles police officer said, “Today a brand new 9 millimeter gun can look like a toy. A brightly colored gun isn’t necessarily a toy. Are we going to write a bill when a police officer gets shot by a real gun painted bright orange?”

“The tragedy has rocked Santa Rosa and Sonoma County to its very core,” said Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, a co-author of the bill. “A toy should look like a toy. A toy should not get a child killed.”

Santa Rosa police said that Lopez’ airsoft gun did not have the required orange marker.

Similar incidents have occurred elsewhere in America. In 2012, police fatally shot a Texas eighth-grader who was carrying a pellet gun resembling a black Glock. In 2011, Miami police shot and killed a man carrying a realistic-looking replica gun.

However, bright colored firearms — real guns — already exist. There are bright pink Glocks, white AR15s, pretty pearl-handled revolvers, Burberry print rifles and even a 9 millimeter with a leopard print grip — all designed to appeal to women.

For many years gang members, and some suspected narcotics dealers near the border with Mexico, have painting their weapons to resemble airsoft weapons.

The bad guys

“The problem is, we can’t control the bad guys from painting their weapons,” said Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego. “If this bill was about educating our youth how to react to law enforcement, I’d support it.”

Anderson told a story about a man in San Diego apprehended by police. He came at officers with a trowel — and they shot and killed him.

“The bill puts false hope out there,” Anderson said.

Airsoft is a sport

Redding resident T.J. Armstrong is an airsoft enthusiast. “It’s a community sport,” Armstrong said. “It is a father-son sport.”

Armstrong plays on an all father-son team in Redding and told CalWatchdog.com what SB199 will do to the sport. “This bill just kills another sport and successful industry,” he said.

Armstrong said the area property he uses was a local eyesore. So his team asked the property owner if they could use the land for airsoft sporting in exchange for a huge cleanup and ongoing maintenance of the land.

Now, not only do all of the airsoft players in Redding use the field, local police and sheriffs participate for training and ongoing exercises.

Armstrong said that if SB199 becomes law, it will shutter many businesses and thousands of people will lose their jobs. “This bill will not improve public safety at all,” he said.

Specifics

Specifically, SB199 would require that all toy guns, replica guns and BB guns be painted bright orange, purple, red, blue, green and yellow colors.

And in would make it illegal to own all weapons that shoot a 6 mm BB. “No more Red Ryder Daisy BB Guns, no more Pellet Guns, no more Airsoft guns,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong provided a partial list of of groups and businesses located throughout the state of California that would be affected:

AirsoftGI

Airsoft Megastore

Evike.com

Airsplat

U.S. Airsoft

Fort Ord

CQB City

Shorty Airsoft

Lion Claws

Airsoft Extreme

DogTag Airsoft

And the communities which have active Airsoft facilities:

Redding Area Airsoft

The Shadow Legion Airsoft Team

The Jefferson State Regulators Airsoft Team

U.S. Airsoft Team

The Misfits Airsoft Team

The SMS Airsoft Team

Sacramento Airsoft

Butte County Regional Airsoft

Easy Company Airsoft

Airsoft Craigslist

Sutter Yuba Airsoft

Airsoft World Wide

Magpul Masada PTS

Phantom Force Airsoft

Susanville Airsoft Squad S.A.S.

Polarstar Airsoft Owners’ Group

I Play Airsoft

PTW Sales & Forum

BoE Airsoft

The Airsoft Exchange

Chloe Stirling is a young entrepreneur, and embodies the American spirit. She  has been running her business, Hey, Cupcake!, out of her parents’ kitchen. She brings in about $200 a month baking cupcakes for family, friends, and social events. Chloe sells her beautifully decorated cupcakes for $10 a dozen, and $2 for each specialty cupcake. Chloe even donated cupcakes when a boy in her school fighting cancer held a fundraiser.

After a local story about Chloe ran in BND.com, Health officials in Madison Co., Illinois descended on the sixth grader’s home. If Chloe Stirling wants to continue selling cupcakes, Health Department officials told her she will need to buy a bakery or build a separate kitchen in the family home.

“Working out of her family’s kitchen, the sixth-grader at Triad Middle School is busy almost every week with her business, Hey, Cupcake!” BND.com reported. “She lost count of how many cakes and cupcakes she has created, but it’s been hundreds. Considering she also runs her own pet-sitting business, ‘No Bones About It,’ with about a dozen year-round clients, and plays soccer, Chloe has a full schedule.”

But because she sells the cupcakes, health department spokeswoman Amy Yeager said she needs a permit, KMOV St. Louis reported. Yeager said by not having a permit, Chloe Stirling violates the county’s food ordinance and Illinois State Food Sanitation Code.

It’s obvious regulators like Amy Yeager have nothing better to do than protect the citizens of Troy, Illinois from Chloe Stirling’s dangerous cupcakes.

And that is the problem: as government expands, it hires more regulators who end up looking for busy work, and ways to generate revenue.

Evidence of this are the numerous stories of health department and police officials across the country shutting down dangerous lemonade stands run by 7-year olds:

In Oregon, Multnomah County health inspectors threatened to fine a 7-year-old for opening a lemonade stand in 2010 at a local arts fair without a license.

Georgia police shut down a lemonade stand run by three girls in 2011, saying they didn’t have a business license or the required permits.

Hoping to raise money for a family trip to Disneyland, a Tulare girl opened a lemonade stand in 2009. But because she didn’t have a business license, the city of Tulare shut it down the same day.

In 2011, in Hazelwood, Missouri two young girls scouts were permanently banned from selling girl scout cookies in the front yard of their own home.  A neighbor ratted them out and the police moved in swiftly to shut them down.

A lemonade stand run by kids in Maryland raising money for a pediatric cancer charity was shut down. Authorities originally slapped a $500 fine on their parents until public pressure from the many news stories forced them to rescind the fine.

Ridiculous government health inspectors and police prompted Robert Fernandes to challenge Philadelphia police when he set up a lemonade stand on Lemonade Freedom Day. His website says, Selling Lemonade is not a crime.”

In a bygone era, if young kids wanted to earn some money, they would set up a stand in front of their home, and sell lemonade, Kool-aid or even homemade cookies. For many children, this was their first opportunity to make and handle money.

Even though Chloe Stirling’s parents are considering building a second kitchen in their basement so she can continue baking, Chloe has more visits from health inspectors ahead of her in the heavily regulated, and dangerous cupcake business.

California has not fully analyzed the state’s current trade system needs, nor are the port facilities fully coordinated, according to Huntington Beach Assemblyman Travis Allen. Yet continuing legislative efforts to introduce policies may not be addressing the actual needs of our trade infrastructure.

AB 337 by Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach, requires the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development to evaluate key issues affecting trade and foreign investment as part of the development of previously mandated international trade and investment strategy.

Perhaps even more important, AB 337 would require that Go-Biz international trade strategy include an evaluation of the ports of entry to the state, and their capacity for handling international trade originated in or destined for other states.

According to Allen, AB 337 adds additional criteria for the preparation of the international trade and investment strategy.  The bill will add a comprehensive list of business development needs to be considered in preparing the strategy, according to Allen.

AB 337 would require that the State’s International Trade and Investment strategy include a full analysis of the transportation infrastructure and physical capacity to meet the import and export needs of California’s ports of entry, including air, ground, and sea.

“Our ports continuously need to adapt to meet the demands of the rapidly evolving global trade marketplace,” Allen said Monday in the Assembly when presenting AB 337. “This bill sends the message that the Legislature is committed to strengthening California’s economy through one of our strongest and best opportunities for growth and job creation – international trade.”

California trade

In 2012, California exported $162 billion in products to more than 220 foreign countries.  Even with severe economic impacts due to the recession, exports continued to increase in nearly every quarter, through 2012.

“California, the second largest exporter of products in the U.S. and the largest receiver of foreign direct investment in the nation, with the upgrading of the Panama Canal and two new broad-based trade agreements being negotiated and implemented (the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Agreement), California goods movement infrastructure will face even greater pressure to perform,” according to bill analysis.

“We depend on California ports to increase international trade, strengthen our state’s economy, and provide good paying jobs,” said Allen.  “Increased competition from other states and countries, coupled with the widening of the Panama Canal in 2015 highlight the need to properly assess the steps our state should take to help our ports succeed.”

California ports handle approximately 45 percent of all the waterborne containerized cargo coming into the United States. Port activities employ more than 500,000 people in California, more than 2,000,000 nationwide and generate an estimated $7,000,000,000 in state and local taxes annually, according to See California.

Allen added: “Due to the amount of jobs and revenue relying on California’s ports, it’s imperative that we support this vital component of our international trade strategy.”

For nearly four years, the City of Sacramento has been encouraging residents to attend water conservation training sessions. Water conservation is always a good idea, but the city is going about it with an iron fist. The utility agency has three water waster inspectors, and is working to hire five more. The agency said in a recent news report it will spend $200,000 on meetings, and billboards to teach people about conservation.

Currently, only about 40 percent of city residents are on water meters.

“Over the past year, we have seen a huge increase in the numbers of calls for service and a desire by the community to have water conservation information shared with their organizations or neighborhoods,” Marty Hanneman, Director of the Department of Utilities, said in 2010. “We can’t think of a better way to share this information than neighbor to neighbor. These Water Conservation Ambassadors will be a huge asset to our department and allow our staff to focus on meeting Best Management Practices and reaching our goal of a 20% reduction in per capita water use by 2020.”

“To become a City of Sacramento Water Conservation Ambassador, volunteers must be 18 years of age or older, sign a volunteer agreement and attend a training session. While all activities are voluntary, it is estimated that the time commitment will be approximately 2-4 hours per month. Bilingual volunteers are especially needed.”

“We believe this is a great opportunity for all Sacramentans, from all walks of life to become more involved in their City, do something great for the environment, and make a difference in their neighborhood” said Hanneman.

Granted, some city residents do a lousy job monitoring their sprinkler systems. Some sprinkler systems spray sidewalks and cars, and run until the gutters flow like a river.

“Learn about the City’s free water conservation services, cool new ways to save water and how to help your neighbor’s [sic] save water by becoming a Water Conservation Ambassador,” a 2012 city notice said.

“Water Conservation Ambassadors will help spread the word about water conservation and protection of our water sources,” the city’s website says. “Ambassadors will help educate neighbors, friends, family and community organizations about conservation through attending community events, conducting knock and talks, and presenting at community meetings!”

Water wasters can receive fines up to $1,000 for repeat offenses.

California’s inadequate water plan

California’s water system is currently adequate enough for a population of 10 million — but the state is home to 30 million residents.

California has spent $18.7 billion on five water bonds since 2000, CalWatchdog’s Wayne Lusvardi explained in Nov. 2012.  “These bonds funded mostly open space acquisitions and landscaping projects that captured no new water and built no new reservoirs.”

“Those bond funds could have funded the proposed $13 billion Delta Tunnels,” Lusvardi said. “Or they could have funded both new reservoirs proposed as part of the $11.1 billion Consolidated Water Bond to appear on the 2013 ballot.  Instead the bond monies have been mostly squandered.  Water bonds have been partly turned into a slush fund for the state Legislature to redistribute Cap and Trade taxes among other activities.”

In 1982, voters turned down the proposed Peripheral Canal Project.  Population has grown about 59 percent since 1980, with few new hydroelectric dams or large water storage reservoirs added for storage since then.

There are 1,400 official dams and 1,300 official reservoirs in the state of California.

The Seven Oaks Reservoir in San Bernardino County was created in 1999 to prevent flooding. Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County is a new storage reservoir, completed in 2004. But that reservoir is only stored surplus water from the Colorado River and the Sacramento Delta, did not produce any new water.

The Auburn Dam

In 1965, Congress authorized the Auburn Dam following severe flooding in Northern California. The proposed dam would have provided water storage, power generation, and flood control, with 2.5 million-acre-feet capacity. But in 1972 environmental groups sued to halt the dam project. In 1974, Friends of the River took over the environmental fight. By 1980 construction was halted. Despite several attempts, including a 2013 attempt to reignite the dam project, it was never built.

2014 water bonds

So here we are in 2014, with a long-delayed water bond slated for the Nov. 2014 ballot. Democratic State lawmakers have been delaying voters’ approval of an $11 billion water bond, originally passed in 2009.

Many say the bond is filled with pork, rather than seriously improving for better water storage and delivery systems. Money from the bond sale would go to cleaning up contaminated groundwater, increasing conservation and environmental projects, improving sewage systems, and studying and researching the construction of two dams — not actually building two dams, but only researching this. Only 25 percent is allocated for water storage in this proposal.

Contrast that Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Marysville, who has authored AB 1445, proposing a $5.8billion water bond, also for the November, 2014 ballot. Logue’s bill would build two dams — one in the Northern California, and one in  southern California — and fund $1 billion to water quality improvements, specifically in the Central Valley.

The Republican minority in the Legislature even is pitching in. Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Marysville, is pushing Assembly Bill 1445, a proposed $5.8 billion water bond to be put on the Nov. 2104 ballot to build two new dams and address Central Valley water quality.

Logue maintains his bill contains no pork and is the only water bond being discussed that would fund two dams.

California voters have not passed a water bond since 2006.  The Legislature in 2009 voted to put an $11 billion water bond on the Nov. 2010 ballot. But the Legislature then postponed the vote twice because of almost certain defeat by voters and questions about funding of pork.

That bond is back again this November — unless the Legislature again postpones it. If that bond ends up passing, Logue said, it would allocate only 25 percent of the funding, about $2.8 billion, for water storage.

“Two-times the water at half of the price, is what I call it,” Logue said in an interview of his own, cheaper bond proposal. He explained that, of the $5.8 billion in AB1445, $1 billion would be allocated to improving water quality, especially in the Central Valley. “We can use this bond money to pay for projects that will improve water quality, enhance our ability to protect ecosystems and reserve water for emergency situations,” he said.

Scrap High-Speed Rail and build reservoirs 

“Water is the most important issue facing California today,” Logue said. “I’ve called on the governor to scrap High-Speed Rail and put that money into building reservoirs.”

However, in his State of the State address last week, Gov. Jerry Brown continued to push for the HSR, whose total cost would be at least $68 billion.

“California potentially faces the driest winter in 500 years and water needs to be the top priority in 2014,” Logue said. “Reservoirs are drying up, farmers are losing their crops and it’s just getting worse.”

Logue explained that, because the state’s entire economy relies on an adequate and healthy water supply, legislators need to get to work immediately with Brown to find long-term solutions.

“California’s current water system provides water capacity for for 10 million people — we have 38 million in the state,” Logue said.

How Logue’s bond money would be spent

The two dams funded would be in the North of the state and near Fresno. “The money from my water bond will specifically be used for the storage of ground and surface water and this water can then be used for a variety of reasons, and it has the area of origin protection in the bond,” Logue said. “This will let us store it and use it for the ultimate benefit of Californians.”

If AB1445 is not passed by the Assembly, Logue may try putting his bond on the ballot with signatures.

And he has experience with ballot initiatives.  In 2010, Logue wrote and qualified for the ballot Proposition 23, after acquiring 800,000 signatures. It would have repealed AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, unless unemployment dropped. Voters rejected it and unemployment remains higher than the national average.

Logue stressed how important his water bond is and said it should have been done 10 years ago. If it doesn’t pass, he warned, “the Central Valley will turn into a dust bowl.”

Other water bond bills

The Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature also are coming up with new water bonds.

AB4 is by State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, and is quite different from Logue’s bill. It would fund $6.5 billion in water projects. According to a Daily Republic story, the bond would be geared more toward the concerns of environmentalists: wastewater recycling, groundwater storage, regional and local water supply development and Delta ecosystem restoration and stronger levees to improve water delivery.

AB1331 is by Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood. Its $6.5 billion would fund projects related to water supply reliability, water quality, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta sustainability, watershed conservation and protection and water recycling.

The bill will have its first hearing in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee in March.

Friday, the city clerk announced that she rejected the petitions, along with 34,000 signatures, on the grounds some of the petition versions did not comply with election code.

“Due to technical issues identified in the submitted petitions, I find the petition noncompliant with significant provisions of the California Elections Code and the Sacramento City Charter, and therefore insufficient to move forward,” Shirley Concolino, Sacramento City Clerk, said in a press release.

Yet, just last week, the Sacramento County Registrar certified there were enough verified signatures on the petitions to qualify the measure for the ballot.

The signatures were collected by STOP, Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork, and Voters for a Fair Arena Deal, to put the decision of whether a public subsidy for the new arena project downtown, should be on the ballot in the city of Sacramento.

“The4000, a group representing the new downtown arena plan responded to Friday’s decision by saying, ‘For STOP, this has never been about a vote and democracy; it has always been about tricking voters and stalling the arena with a two-part vote designed to blow up the project,’” reported Fox 40 news.

The4000 is a group headed up my Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player. “The downtown arena is an extraordinary, once-in-a-generation project with a profound potential to generate catalytic economic benefits for the downtown, city and region,” The4000 claims.

In the letter Concolino sent to STOP about her decision, she cited the nine different petition versions as being problematic. Concolino said even though the petition’s signatures are valid, they were gathered before STOP officially filed their notice of intent with the city clerk’s office.

“Collusion” and “shady dealings,” are just a few of the words used in a letter to describe the City of Sacramento’s “utter failure to conduct any economic analysis” in the proposed taxpayer-subsidized sports arena.

Attorneys representing members of taxpayer groups opposed to the subsidized arena deal sent the letter to Sacramento City Attorney James Sanchez, with serious concerns over Mayor Kevin Johnson’s Think Big pro-arena group, and the Kings ownership investment group pushing the deal, with no real economic analysis, while they stand to reap all of the benefits.Mayor Kevin Johnson, city officials and the Kings ownership group have pulled out the stops to get this deal done — at any cost.

Attorneys Patrick Soluri and Jeffrey Anderson, who recently deposed Sacramento Economic Development Director Jim  Rinehart about the proposed taxpayer-subsidized sports arena deal, spoke at the Sacramento City Council meeting Tuesday.

The attorneys sent the letter Thursday to City Attorney James Sanchez, to address what they called “a serious misrepresentation” made at the conclusion of the “public comment” portion of the January 21, 2014 Sacramento City Council meeting.

The attorneys said they appeared at the council meeting to address their growing concerns with the City of Sacramento’s  lack of formal or even legitimate economic analysis of  the proposed sports arena, which has been heavily touted by the Mayor’s Office and other high ranking City officials, “several of whom are named individually as defendants in pending litigation,” according to the attorneys.

In the letter to Sanchez, Soluri and Anderson said the City’s only economic “analysis” contained in a staff report was to “cut and paste” bullet points obtained from the Sacramento Kings ownership investment group “in concert with the Mayor’s arena hype machine.”

Soluri and Anderson also wrote a letter  to Sacramento City Councilman Steve Hansen, January 20,  regarding Development Director Jim Rinehart’s sworn deposition testimony, which revealed shocking facts about the City’s failure to perform necessary due diligence with regard to the economic ramifications to the City resulting from the non-binding Term Sheet for the arena deal, adopted by the City Council on March 26.

From Soluri and Anderson’s letter:

“In our public comments Tuesday night, we again asked how the City could have structured a deal including a major public subsidy (consisting of a public subsidy of hundreds of millions of dollars to fabulously wealthy Kings owners and investors) without either engaging its economic development professionals or having the benefit of its own economic impact study,” Soluri and Anderson said. “In particular, the City has engaged in apparent unblinking acceptance of the proponents’ and project developers’ hype regarding the purported catalytic impact of the 1.5 million square feet of ‘ancillary development’ discussed in the Term Sheet that is, by all accounts, a predicate for the City obtaining any tangible economic benefit from the proposed ESC project; but for which there is no solid commitment or even tentative agreed upon timetable to bring to fruition.”

“Specifically, you stated that ‘the staff report and the presentation to the Council at that March consideration provided a significant overview of the economic benefits,’ which you assert the City will enjoy as a result of the ESC project, including job creation and enhanced property values, ‘among others,'” Soluri and Anderson wrote. “Lastly, you stated that the City’s ‘analysis’ set forth in the staff report ‘continues to be on the record and available for the public in the event that there is an interest in reviewing it.’”City denies concerns with planThe attorneys said City Attorney Sanchez attempted to refute the concerns they expressed at the city council meeting, along with  their concerns expressed in the January 20th letter to Councilmember Hansen.”

According to Soluri and Anderson, Sanchez provided false assurances to the public about the purported economic benefits of the arena, which was “a blatant and egregious misrepresentation.”

“Further, your cavalier duplicity is apparent by reference to just a few documents,” the attorneys said.

Soluri and Anderson concluded: “Rather than prepare an independent ‘significant overview of economic benefits’ as you falsely claim, relevant evidence squarely establishes that the City wholly and uncritically relied on claims of ‘economic benefits’ spoon-fed from both Think Big and the Kings investment group – the entity purportedly sitting across the table from the City at arm’s length negotiation.”