Save the Parks?
Every year for what seems like forever, when the Legislature tackles the budget our legislators wake up and say, "How did I get into this hole and what is my favorite shovel doing here?"
Well, your shovel is there Mr. and Ms. Legislator because you are the ones who dug the hole. So as a first step, how about stop digging.
California’s decaying and crumbling state parks and the circumstances that have brought them to this point offer a textbook example of why California chronically finds itself in this self-created budget hole year in and year out.
Putting the People Back in Direct Democracy
Supporters of direct democracy – initiative, referendum and recall – like to go on about "The People." But the official role of the people in California’s initiative process is limited.
The people give their signatures to paid petition circulators. And they vote on measures. That’s it.
One consensus that emerged from the recent 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy in San Francisco was this: the people should and could have a bigger role throughout the process.
Governors and Jobs
Over the past year, I’ve been engaged in a research project on the transformation of employment in California since World War II. The project has involved research on the shifting employment relations in California (particularly the breakdown of the employer-employee relation and rise of contingent employment) as well the ebbs and flows of job creation and employment.
The chart below shows the growth and decline of total payroll jobs in California during the five recent governors, beginning with Jerry Brown.
Sails Pitch
I agree with the Planning and Conservation League.
But first, a little background.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is considering asking the Legislature
for an exemption from the California Environmental Quality
Act (CEQA) so his city won’t have to prepare an environmental impact
report to host the America’s Cup yacht race in San Francisco Bay in
2014.
That’s right. An EIR for a yacht race.
A Shovel Ready Paradigm for What is Broken in Washington
Congresswoman Jackie Speier, US 12th Congressional representative (representing south SF, SSF, Daley City and south through San Carlos), recently proposed new legislation to restore San Francisco bay tidal marshes, reduce bay contaminants and improve the health of the San Francisco Bay.
On the surface, not many bay area residents can criticize a billion dollar ‘feel good’ hand out from the federal government to clean up our bay.
Unfortunately it is not so simple. The bay is important, of course. But we don’t use the bay for drinking water; we haven’t dumped raw sewage into the bay for 30 years; there have been no large fish kills from pollution, disease or suffocating algae blooms.