Crossposted on PublicCEO Mayors, council members and city managers throughout California are being alerted to potentially budget-busting losses in local sales tax revenue if a
Crossposted at PublicCEO. Looking at the City of Oakland as a case study puts into sharpest relief the paradoxical impact of the Occupy Protests. The
Crossposted in PublicCEO October was a good month for the sometimes troubled relationship between Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the business community. It was
Numerous California counties, cities, and communities are
built upon a strong tradition of agricultural productivity. Through generations
of farmers and entrepreneurs, that tradition has resulted in substantial
economic activity. In 2009, California farmers produced $34.8 billion in gross
cash receipts. In other words, California’s agriculture communities produced
more economic activity than the entire economies of South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming,
North Dakota, or Vermont.
The future of those communities depends upon their ability to remain
competitive and productive. The security of the United States’ food supply
depends upon the success of California farms.
E-Verify has the potential to decimate California’s agricultural communities by
limiting access to the nation’s highly skilled migrant workers. They represent
essential labor that is necessary to harvest the plethora of crops produced
each season.
There may be tough economic times, but that can serve as the impetus for local governments to make tough choices. Some find ways cuts; others find ways of growing revenues, and that doesn’t always mean raise taxes.
In Salinas, unemployment remains a pervasive problem. So when once of the area’s major employers began strategically reviewing its assets and portfolios that made Mayor Dennis Donohue wonder how that could impact Salinas. On Thursday, he launched Salinas for Jobs, a business retention and attraction campaign. As part of his drive for economic development, Salinas for Jobs, working with companies like HSBC and others, hopes to create thousands of jobs in the private industry, and thereby increase the city’s tax base by tens of millions of dollars.
On Friday, the Citizens’ Redistricting Commission revealed their draft maps, the first glimpse the public has had at the maps that the fourteen-member commission has drawn over the last several months.
Looking at the maps, average voter analysis may extend as far as trying to discover which district their house has been drawn in to. Others might look to find out who will represent their parents now, too.
But in local government, where the webs of influence can be dramatically altered by being drawn into new districts, or being divided from other communities of interest, the stakes are much higher.
Meridian Maps went live on Friday, providing a single-source host of not only the maps published by the Citizens’ Redistricting Commission, but it also has several other groups’ proposed maps, including ones drawn by the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans for Fair Redistricting; the California Institute for Jobs, Economy, and Education; and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
The consulting firm Meridian Pacific, which hosts Meridian Maps, was widely quoted in news outlets across the state on Friday, as reporters were looking to better understand how these maps were drawn, and what their implications are.
There’s no shortage of difficult news when it
comes to California schools. But amidst the budget shortfalls and funding
challenges is a tremendous achievement. California students are making history,
introducing America to the future of instruction.
Since last September, over 400 eighth grade
students have been part of a pilot study, using Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt’s award winning Holt McDougal Algebra 1 core curriculum on
an iPad. In Long Beach, San Francisco, Fresno and Riverside Unified School
Districts, students are learning algebra with the fully interactive HMH FuseTM: Algebra 1
App for iPad.
"HMH is transforming content delivery and the
overall learning experience to take advantage of the iPad environment as well
as alternate digital device platforms. These apps aren’t just digitized copies
of a textbook," said Mike Lavelle, Education Group President, HMH. "HMH Fuse‘s
interactive format takes students to the cutting edge of innovative 21st
century instruction. It represents the next era of digital education."
It really can be a simple equation.
When businesses leave California, California loses jobs.
If California isn’t competitive, then businesses leave California.
Therefore, forgoing competitiveness costs Californians jobs.
A simple premise perhaps, but the nuances of this equation are lost in the Governor’s budget proposal. Eliminating Enterprise Zones and Redevelopment Agencies will greatly reduce California’s ability to attract or retain businesses, and further weaken our job market and economy.
Case in point is the recent announcement by Solopower, a San Jose-based green technology company. The company has decided to open its $340 million production facility in neighboring Oregon. While the firm has taken a tight-lipped approach to their process that led them to Oregon, it is easy to glean what factors may have played in their decision.