So much for that old saw that government employees are being paid less than the rest of us so they deserve better benefits.

The Los Angeles Times revealed in a front-page story that Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo is paid a salary of nearly $800,000 a year. His contract calls for annual increases of 12%. That means his one-year increase in salary next year will be over $94,000.

If he stays with the job – and why wouldn’t he – and the contract doesn’t change, the city manager of a city with a 37,000 population will be making more than a million dollars a year in a couple of years.

Summer reruns used
to be limited to network television. Now, they’ve taken over California
politics. The Legislature’s decision to leave Sacramento without a
budget deal and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s minimum wage declaration
for state employees are both reruns of political battles past. If there
was ever a time for thinking – and acting – differently, it’s now.

With approval ratings at their lowest point in years, many of us hoped
that this year would be different. Certainly, politics as usual is no
longer working. The State still suffers from a chronic budget deficit
and when you add the state pension crisis to the conversation, you have
a scenario that is threatening California’s future even after the
economy improves.

The tax reform commission’s recommendations to reduce
revenue volatility have been shelved without any real evaluation. And
the vast majority of Republican and Democratic lawmakers remain stuck
in their partisan corners, with each side exasperated with the other.

In California, we spend more money a year on taxes than most spend on food, clothing, and shelter combined.   As Californians we also pay some of the highest taxes in the nation, including the highest sales and income taxes.  Yet Sacramento Democrats are scheming to take away even more of your hard-earned dollars to compensate for their over-spending despite a staggering $12.5 billion tax increase imposed just last year!

With the highest sales tax and second highest income tax in the country, Democrats are planning again to raise billions of dollars in new taxes. Here are just some of the measures that they have proposed:

No real surprise at this site that California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George decided to hang up his robe. A number of columns here have hinted at the possibility.

In December, Joe Mathews conjectured in his end of the year "office pool predictions" that a number of things might happen this year but listed first was "when Chief Justice Ronald M. George unexpectedly retires, sparking a fight over his successor."

In 2008, I wrote the Chief Justice would be in the spotlight for his vote in favor of gay marriage and that at 70 years old in 2010, he might not want to go through the stress of an emotional retention election.

For the past year, each announced job opening in San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area has attracted tens of applicants, usually hundreds of applicants. The great surplus of applicants has been across occupations and across sectors: waiters, administrative assistants, lawyers, accountants, loan officers, staffing companies-you name it.

So what is the role of the job training/job placement agency in such a time when there are so few jobs?

Positive Resource Center (PRC) is one of the premier community job agencies in California. It is located on Market Street near Fourth, and has been in operation for twenty three years. It focuses on individuals affected by or at risk for HIV/AIDs, and serves around 2500 individuals annually.

Policymakers should get hip to this timely tip: Investing in Route 66 could create jobs and tourism from Chicago to L.A.

One of the great job creation ideas included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was to make a significant investment in infrastructure – whether it was in roads, bridges, waterways or alternative energy. However, most of the funded projects involve repairing existing structures or building elaborate new ones.

But there’s a low-cost alternative that could create jobs, help relieve several overburdened highways and increase tourism: Revive Route 66.

Fools, you’ve let your city down.

Oakland police and Oakland city officials failed to reach a deal and 80 police officers have been laid off, effective Tuesday. The two sides could not come to terms on the portion of salary that officers would contribute towards their pensions. The
final offer from the city was that officers pay 4% of their pension
this fiscal year and an additional 3% next year. Officers had
previously agreed to pay 2% of their pension this year and an
additional 3% next year.

In addition, the police union was seeking a three-year guarantee of no layoffs but the city only offered one year.

The
White House, as part of a broad policy review, has
asked business leaders to "identify specific regulations that they
believe are obstacles to job-creating private investment."

The
Administration is responding to an increasingly forceful chorus of criticism
from national business organizations and individual companies, including a comprehensive,
54-page catalog of legislation and regulations prepared by the Business
Roundtable and Business Council.

The organizations claim that these measures’
"cumulative effect will help defeat the objectives we all share –
reducing unemployment, improving the competitiveness of U.S. companies, and
creating an environment that fosters long-term economic growth."

Prop 25, the November ballot initiative to permit budget bills to pass with a majority vote instead of 2/3, also represents something of a referendum on two recent voter-approved measures, Prop 11 and Prop 14.

Prop 11, the redistricting reform initiative passed in 2008, and Prop 14, the just-approved top-two primary, were pushed through in hopes of creating a legislature that would be more effective, representative, and ultimately trustworthy.

But do voters, having changed how legislative districts are drawn and candidates are elected, feel better enough about the legislature to give them more room to maneuver?