2010 Governor’s Lineup Likely Set
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown says that former state Controller Steve Westly and Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez could be getting ready to jump into the Democratic race for governor.
Steve Maviglio, a veteran Democratic operative, tosses names like state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, state schools chief Jack O’Connell, San Mateo County Rep. Jackie Speier, former Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick and, what the hell, former state Sen. John Burton into the mix.
On the GOP side, there’s talk that Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy and someone, anyone from the conservative reaches of Southern California will join a Republican primary that now features a trio of pro-choice moderates from Silicon Valley.
These are the dog days of summer and the political Hot Stove League is in full swing. But just like those proposed sports radio trades of a .250 utility man for a big-time slugger or a 20-game winner, the speculation is for entertainment value only.
Arnold’s Debt to Eunice
Originally published in the Daily Beast
Eunice Kennedy Shriver is likely to be most remembered for her blood relations, especially her politician brothers John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Teddy Kennedy.
In California, she has a lesser-known but crucial role: as the state’s most important mother-in-law.
Eunice’s son-in-law, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has described her as his mentor and strongest political supporter. He’s not exaggerating. Without her, there never would have been an Arnold governorship.
What’s Going on with Job Training in California
In the more than 30 years I’ve been involved with job training in California, there’s never been a situation like the present. Due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the job training world has seen an unprecedented increase in funds for skills training, retraining and youth job placement. At the same time, with the recession’s elimination of more than 737,000 payroll jobs in California over the year, job training groups are struggling to identify job opportunities for training.
California Uses Tax Credits to Fight Film Production Predators
In 2001 the U.S. Department of Commerce released a report, “The Migration of U.S. Film and Television Production” which estimated that television production flight (runaway production) increased 230 percent from 1990 to 1998 and that up to $10 billion in film and television production was lost to other countries during the five years prior to the report. The most significant flight was from California to Canada, and the productions most affected were those with budgets between $1 million and $5 million. Films that made up the majority of that budget range were the television “Movies of the Week.” As of 1999, most of those television movies had been lost to Canada with 696 weeks of production in Canada during the year and only 152 weeks in the United States.
From 1999 to 2003, film industry jobs in the five county Los Angeles region dropped from 146, 000 to 111,000 (a 24% drop in just 4 years).The hardest hit were the “below the line” workers (art, construction, costumes, sound, camera, grips etc.), followed by ancillary service businesses (caterers, dry cleaners, transportation, janitorial, security etc.). The San Fernando Valley was particularly vulnerable to runaway production job losses since, in the year 2000, approximately 54,000 film industry employees (representing close to 60% of L, A. County’s film industry employees and approximately 37% of those in the five county L.A. region) worked in the Valley.