It isn’t every day that implementing a series of common sense reforms to fix
our schools can also infuse our cash-strapped state with hundreds of
millions federal dollars. President Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative,
however, presents our state with a unique opportunity to not only transform
our antiquated public education system for the 21st century, but also to
have it paid for by the federal government.

The Race to the Top reforms being presented in SB 1 represent an almost
textbook definition of the term “win win,” and our legislature must not
squander this opportunity.

As parents examine the package of reforms being proposed, they will likely
be shocked to find these sensible policies do not already exist in
California. SB 1 would pave the way for Districts to reward their best
teachers, making sure they can stay in the classroom where they are
desperately needed. It would promote the use of student achievement data as
a factor when evaluating teachers, so we can finally know which teachers are
producing the biggest student gains.

Good news for all those Steve Poizner fans that may have been wondering why his campaign for governor seems to have disappeared from the political landscape.

“As of today, we are on target … Poizner has the campaign, message and resources necessary to succeed. And he will.”

That’s from a letter to the “campaign grassroots team” from Jim Bognet, Poizner’s campaign manager. And if you can’t trust the campaign manager to tell the truth about the race …

Fact is, though, the letter reads like a hasty attempt to soothe nervous supporters, combined with a hint of whistling past the graveyard.

Look up a mention of Assemblyman John Perez and invariably you see his identification as cousin of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Soon, however, Perez may not need his cousin’s fame as a reference point if he secures the votes necessary to become the next speaker of the California Assembly.

Reports have Perez closing in on the 26 Democratic members’ votes he will need to capture the top spot in the Assembly. Only one year in office serving in the same district of former speaker Fabian Nunez, Perez could hold the speaker’s chair for five years in the term-limited legislature.

One of the big questions about Perez will be how he will deal with public employee unions. The public unions are strong supporters of the Democratic Party and Perez is a union man. In his pre-Assembly days, he was a leader of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

The White House reports that federal stimulus funds have saved or created 110,219 jobs in California. This figure is as reported by fund recipients, and has been the subject of some controversy about its accuracy and meaning. Put in context, California has lost more than a million jobs since the start of the recession here in the summer of 2007.

But no matter how the job accounting is resolved, it’s clear which sector is being stimulated:

How can the Los Angeles City Council keep hundreds of professional careers here in Los Angeles while creating opportunities for thousands more jobs? Make it easier and more attractive for Internet-based companies to do business in our community. Next week, the Council will consider a Chamber-supported motion to do just that and we urge them to act quickly.

The problem is that the city’s business tax code does not include a category for Internet-based businesses. As a result, these companies often select “Multimedia” as the tax category which best fits their operations. Recently, the city’s Department of Finance notified some of these companies that they are being moved into a higher tax bracket and must now pay up to 500 percent more in gross receipts taxes. One firm’s tax liability would jump from $200,000 to more than $1 million per year. Another company is currently in litigation with the city over its reclassification, after winning the same court fight several years ago.

Two seemingly unconnected political items from last week should be considered together.

The first is the political debate over the nomination of Abel Maldonado for lieutenant governor. The second is the release of political strategist Mike Murphy’s July 2008 memo for the Poizner campaign.

What do these two unimportant events have in common? They say something important about the problematic structure of California’s executive branch of government.

The job for which Maldonado has been nominated means almost nothing to the daily lives of Californians. But his nomination sparked debate among insiders because they see it as a political plum – and a potential launching pad for higher offices. Lieutenant governors typically use the title and the few duties of the position to improve their fundraising and profiles for future runs.

Big names in the movie business are stepping up to support Jerry Brown’s gubernatorial bid, Carla Marinucci noted in her San Francisco Chronicle blog yesterday. So what is Jerry Brown saying about saving the movie industry for California?

Here’s hoping the Steven Spielbergs and Rob Reiners of the world put in a good word along with their donations for keeping the movie industry in the state where it blossomed. And, here’s also hoping that the big time movie execs realize that moving movie productions out of California add to the state’s unemployment and fiscal woes.

Not many people would mistake Santa Barbara for New York. However, the movie, “It’s Complicated,” starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin debuting Christmas Day is a story set in Santa Barbara but filmed mostly in New York City. The producers swept into Santa Barbara for only three days of shooting exterior scenes. They spent months filming in New York.

Well, isn’t this embarrassing. Imagine if you owed $59 Billion, went to get your checkbook and found that you couldn’t even come close to making payments. What to do. . . what to do? Ask for a six-month moratorium from your creditors, of course!

Dubai is the most populous state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), one of the one of the seven emirates (states), the others being: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al Quwain (but, you knew that). A map of the UAE looks like a raggedly slice of pie with all but Abu Dhabi, crowded into one corner. The whole of the UAE is located on the Southwest of the Arabian Peninsula, on the Persian Gulf, next-door to Oman on one side, and Saudi Arabia on the other.

Prior to 1971 the UAE was known as either Trucial Oman or the Trucial States, a reference to a truce made in the 19th Century between several Arab Sheikhs and the United Kingdom; still earlier, the area was called the Pirate Coast. Periods of British, Ottoman and Portuguese rule preceded. Dubai was called Al Wasl by British historians in the 1820’s.

Jumping ahead here, but what happens to Abel Maldonado if the state senate and assembly do not confirm him as Lt. Governor? Almost assuredly, he follows the trail blazed by Dan Lungren and runs statewide waving the senate rejection as a bloody shirt.

I read two articles over the weekend that referred to Dan Lungren’s rejected nomination to become state treasurer in 1987. Garry South’s piece in the L.A. Times spoke mostly about nominees who were confirmed to fill state offices but were turned out by voters in the next election. Cathleen Decker, also in the Times, discussed the Latino angle of the Maldonado nomination and how Maldonado might be treated differently than Lungren.