The Sun: Reports detail housing woes for Southern California residents

By Kevin Smith, San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Posted: 06/28/15 – 4:23 PM PDT |

The Southern California real-estate market is feeling the sting of a changing climate, as a pair of new reports finds renters, would-be homebuyers and black households losing ground in the face of competition from investors and a widening racial wealth gap.

In a survey of 80 community-based nonprofits, the California Reinvestment Coalition found that long-term tenants are being displaced by high rents while potential first-time homebuyers are losing out to all-cash offers from investors.

“The irony in Wall Street profiting from a foreclosure crisis they helped create is not lost on anybody,” Kevin Stein, the coalition’s associate director, said in a statement. “Even worse, Main Street banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo and Citigroup, who are subject to the Community Reinvestment Act, are enabling these harmful practices by financing these investors or by securitizing their portfolios.”

The Community Reinvestment Act is designed to encourage lenders to help meet the credit needs of the communities where they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

Eighty percent of survey respondents felt that institutional investors have a “negative” impact on clients and neighborhoods, while 77 percent said qualified homebuyers “often” or “always” lose out to cash investors when trying to buy an REO — or lender-owned — property.

Blackstone, Colony, Waypoint and American Residential were the REO-to-rental companies named by survey respondents most frequently as being problematic.

Half of the nonprofit housing developers surveyed for the study said they have been outbid by cash and institutional investors.

Lori Gay, president and CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County, can tell you all about that. Her agency helps low- to moderate-income families obtain affordable housing and stay there.

“As a nonprofit, we had a grant awarded to us through HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program,” she said. “We got $60 million, which has really helped us to compete. But even with all of that cash, we still get outbid by investors — sometimes before the properties are even placed on the market. In some cases investors are buying up 500 homes at a time.”

The glut of investor-owned rental properties, combined with California’s ongoing drought, have served to hike the rental price of homes, according to Kevin Patterson, president of Palmdale’s RentSource Corp., which specializes in home rentals throughout the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys.

They are currently handling 350 properties.

To read entire story, click here.

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Los Angeles Times: Analysis California GOP benefits from redistricting decision as bigger case looms

The Supreme Court in Washington, where justices on Monday ruled that independent citizens’ commissions were allowed to draw electoral district lines. California’s districts are set up by its citizens’ commission. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

By Cathleen Decker
June 29, 2015

• Supreme Court redistricting decision benefits Republicans in California, the opposite of its impact elsewhere

Like so many political events, the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Monday that upheld the right of independent citizen commissions to draw district lines inspired a different reaction in California than elsewhere in the nation.

Here, it was a victory for Republicans, spared the alternative of having the strongly Democratic Legislature draw lines that would have carved into the GOP’s already paltry number of elected officials. Elsewhere, it was a defeat for Republicans, who control legislatures in places like Arizona, where the case originated, and wanted the restoration of the legislature’s power to draw lines beneficial to their party.

“In Arizona, the Republicans are upset today, but in California the Democrats might be a little less happy than they might have been otherwise,” said Jessica A. Levinson, clinical professor of law at Loyola Law School, who specializes in election law. “Redistricting can sometimes make for strange bedfellows.”

The partisan benefits were not terribly clear in the public reactions of elected officials, many of whom skipped over the political fallout to emphasize their support for the Mom-and-apple-pie notion of citizen involvement, enshrined by two ballot measures.

“Today’s decision by the nation’s highest court supporting redistricting commissions is a victory for California’s open and publicly accessible redistricting process,” state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León of Los Angeles and Assembly Speaker Toni G. Atkins of San Diego, both Democrats, said in a statement. “We hope other states will follow suit now that the court has removed any question about its constitutionality.”

“California voters overwhelmingly approved Propositions 11 and 20 to take the redistricting process out of the hands of elected officials and give it to an independent body,” Senate GOP leader Bob Huff of San Dimas said in his statement. “The court’s decision will ensure that Californians will continue to have an open and fair redistricting process.”

To read entire analysis, click here.

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The Union Democrat (AP): California lawmakers to tackle health care, road funding

AP California News
By Femit Nirappil and Judy Lin
Associated Press
June 29, 2015 – 2:37 PM EDT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The California Legislature is holding two special sessions this summer to tackle long-vexing funding shortfalls in the state’s transportation and health care programs. But talk of targeted tax increases has prompted political hand-wringing.

At issue in the sessions ordered by Gov. Jerry Brown is how California should pay billions of dollars for needed road and highway repairs as well as funding Medi-Cal, the state’s medical insurance program for the poor. Medi-Cal now provides coverage to one in three Californians.

There’s no set deadline for reaching deals. Lawmakers plan to take up the issues separately.

Brown, a Democrat, had pledged in his 2010 campaign to take tax increases to the ballot but says he didn’t make a similar promise during his re-election campaign.

“We’ll have to leave that as an open question,” he said.

Republicans question that logic.

“The contract didn’t disappear just because he got elected the second time,” said Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-San Dimas.

Voters aren’t likely to revolt against targeted tax increases because the state’s economy has improved and many see roads in poor condition, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College.

Lawmakers of both parties agree the state’s transportation tax structure is out of date. They can’t keep relying on a gas tax that hasn’t been increased in 20 years and lets thousands of electric car drivers off the hook for maintaining the roads they drive on.

To read entire story, click here.

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Gableman changes his mind about that Rindfleisch appeal #JohnDoe #JohnDoeII #JohnDoe2

“A Wisconsin Supreme Court justice on Tuesday withdrew his unusual request asking for his colleagues on the state’s highest court to review its decision not to hear an appeal of a felony conviction from a former aide to Gov. Scott Walker.” – source Interesting. I feel loathe to speculate about this turn of events because more »

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The Press-Enterprise: RIVERSIDE: Should city pay official’s legal bill?

Councilman Paul Davis was investigated in 2014 for alleged violations of city charter, but DA dismissed case.

Published: June 26, 2015
Updated: June 27, 2015 – 6:58 p.m.

Riverside City Councilman Paul Davis won’t face any charges in connection with 2014 allegations that he violated the city’s charter, which could have been a misdemeanor.

But the case, which some residents considered a boondoggle, isn’t quite over.

To read story by Alicia Robinson in The Press-Enterprise, click here.

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The San Francisco Chronicle: Supreme Court’s white lie on Obamacare

By Debra J. Saunders
Friday, June 26, 2015 – Updated 2:12 pm

The GOP-majority Supreme Court saved President Obama’s bacon Thursday with a political ruling that papered over his signature Affordable Care Act. Writing for the majority in the 6-3 King vs. Burwell decision, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that the 900-page law was written behind closed doors with little debate or amendment, and thus was “inartfully drafted.” It was the court’s obligation, he wrote, to translate bill language limiting the government subsidies to enrollees in “an exchange established by the state” to also cover federal exchanges.

Roberts always has been a consummate politician in his role as guardian of the big bench. The President George W. Bush appointee had good reason to fear how the public might react if the Supreme Court overturned a law that benefits millions of Americans.

Thirty-four states rely on federal Obamacare exchanges. That’s 6 million people, 87 percent of whom bought health care with federal tax credits. Roberts cited a study that predicted that cutting off those subsidies would result in a 47 percent increase in premiums and 70 percent decline in enrollment.

Between a rock and a hard place, Roberts argued that Congress surely never meant to cut out subsidies in states without their own exchanges because “it would destabilize the individual insurance market in any state with a Federal Exchange, and likely create the very ‘death spirals’ that Congress designed the Act to avoid.”

I sympathize, but Roberts has to know he’s wrong. Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who advised the White House, explained during a 2012 speech, the federal law limited subsidies to enrollees of state exchanges in order to “squeeze” states to act. Quoth Gruber, “If you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits, but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill.”

George Washington University law Professor Jonathan Turley — no conservative he — wrote last year: “I believe that the text is clear in the act and that the Obama administration effectively altered the language when 34 states decided to defy the government and refuse to create state exchanges.”

Joined by two conservative brethren, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a blistering dissent. He raged that words have no meaning if “established by the state” doesn’t mean just that — and the law used the term repeatedly. Observing that Roberts also penned the 2012 decision that by a 5-4 majority perversely interpreted the Affordable Care Act “penalty” language as actually representing a tax, Scalia railed, “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.”

I think Roberts did what he did to protect the court from the outrage that would follow if millions of Americans lost their subsidies. There’s a big hole in my thinking, as Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, kindly pointed out over the phone. Even without Roberts, there were five justices — GOP appointee Anthony Kennedy joined the four Democratic appointees — ready to uphold the health care act as per the Obama administration.

To read entire column, click here.

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The presidential clown car: Trump trumps Walker, Bernie’s coming to WI, Jill Stein is in, and More

TRUMP ON TOP A FOX poll puts Jeb at #1 and Trump at #2 in New Hampshire. Scott Walker is not in the top. This Politico article says that the numbers are too good to be true and quotes pollsters who say “Everybody should calm down“. Whatever the case, I’m still going to take pleasure more »

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InlandPolitics: Fallout from Victorville ticket quota hits

Lawsuit alleges that deputies assigned to traffic enforcement duties the Victorville Sheriff’s Station were forced to meet a quota of 200 tickets per month. A practice that is illegal under California law.

Friday, June 26, 2015 – 12:15 p.m.

Fallout has already started from an impending San Bernardino County Grand Jury report, expected Tuesday, which reportedly will expose a traffic ticket quota system forced upon motor traffic officers in the contract city of Victorville.

Reliable sources say that all motor traffic officers have now been reassigned to patrol duty assignments in other sheriff stations throughout the county. Even though acceptable practice is to remove the alleged harasser from the hostile work environment. The move makes the transfer appear retaliatory in nature.

Several years ago the management staff at the station felt it necessary to push quotas on deputies. Even though such a practice is patently illegal under California law.

The episode caused the filing of a lawsuit alleging a hostile work environment and whistle-blower retaliation. How that lawsuit remained under wraps for eleven months is interesting.

The complaint, filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court, by Plaintiff’s Tim Jordan, Brian Moler and Jeff Wetmore, paints a blistering picture of a department out of control, with little or no supervision.

The aforementioned complaint alleges that deputies assigned to traffic enforcement duty were given a quota of 200 citations per month.

The lawsuit has survived the Demurrer stage and is in depositions, with a trial setting pending.

It’s unknown as to where or not Victorville officials have been made aware of the situation.

To read the complaint in its entirety, click the following link: Jordan et al v. County of San Bernardino

Developing……

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InlandPolitics: San Bernardino County: Sheriff faces yet another civil rights lawsuit alleging abuse

Friday, June 26, 2015 – 12:00 p.m.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has been hit with yet another in a series of lawsuits alleging civil rights violations, including assault under color of authority.

The latest complaint stems from a law enforcement contact in the Morongo Basin area.

Like we’ve saying for quite some time now. It’s a leadership problem.

To read the complaint, filed June 15, in U.S. District Court, click the following link: Arrona v. County of San Bernardino et. al

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The Sacramento Bee: Opinion: Amnesty for California motorists merely a first step

By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
June 25, 2015

• Budget trailer bill gives drivers a break
• Amnesty, however, doesn’t go far enough
• Overhaul of traffic fines should be next

Capitol politicians are patting themselves on the back for opening an escape hatch for millions of motorists whose licenses have been suspended for failure to pay past-due tickets.

A budget “trailer bill” gives drivers whose licenses were suspended due to nonpayment in 2012 or earlier a window to settle up with discounts – 50 percent for everyone, 80 percent for those on welfare or with low incomes – and easy payment plans.

That’s great, as far as it goes. Without an amnesty, it would be virtually impossible for authorities to collect much of the $10 billion in overdue fines, especially from the poor.

The new program encompasses much of what Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, had proposed. He may seek to expand the amnesty further to include those with suspended licenses since 2012.

That would make sense as well, but what really would make sense is completely overhauling a system that’s become a monstrosity.

Califiornia’s basic fines (technically, “bails”) for hundreds of infractions are, for the most part, not excessive. But over the years, legislators and governors have piled surcharges on those fines, in many cases making them four or five times as large.

It’s been a lazy way to finance some programs and projects – such as courthouse construction – without tapping into the state’s general revenue, thus preserving money for the politicians’ sexier priorities.

Jerry Brown, in his second incarnation as governor, has become a critic of this wretched excess, vetoing higher traffic fines he considers excessive.

To read entire column, click here.

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The Sacramento Bee: California vaccine bill clears Assembly

Capitol Alert
By Jeremy B. White
jwhite@sacbee.com
June 25, 2015

• Legislation would require pupils to be fully vaccinated
• Vote follows furious protest from some parents
• Bill now returns to the state Senate, then to Brown

The state Assembly passed a closely watched bill Thursday compelling schoolchildren to be fully vaccinated, approving the measure on a 46-30 vote that blurred party lines.

The legislation, which sparked furious protests from worried parents, heads next to the Senate for a vote on amendments taken in the Assembly before it can go to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. The bill passed the Senate by a comfortable 25-10 margin in May, and while the Democratic governor has taken no official stance, he has called vaccines “profoundly important.”

Perhaps no bill this year has fomented the same level of passion as Senate Bill 277, which would erase the broad personal belief exemption that allows California parents to enroll children who have not received the entire range of recommended shots. Proponents argue it would protect public health by shoring up a key bulwark against the spread of disease, while its critics say it removes parents’ ability to decide which vaccines their children receive.

The vaccine debate has raged nationwide, with millions of parents questioning the safety of what had long been considered routine vaccinations.

“I understand that the decisions we make about our children’s health care are deeply personal,” said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, who voted for the bill. “While I respect the fundamental right to make that decision as a family, we must balance that with the fact that none of us have the right to endanger others.”

Spurred by the measles outbreak that began at Disneyland and rippled outward, as well as by the resurgence of eradicable diseases like whooping cough, legislators and public health allies moved this year to close the personal belief exemption. They argued that high rates in personal belief exemptions helped spur the Disneyland outbreak spread, and warned that unvaccinated children endanger others who are too young or sick to be vaccinated.

“This isn’t just about Disneyland and this isn’t just about the need to make sure we wait for a crisis,” said Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-Dublin. “I’ve heard that from some of my colleagues: ‘This isn’t a problem right now, we should wait for a crisis.’ Colleagues, do you hear how unreasonable that argument is?”

To read entire story, click here.

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San Gorgonio’s Wesley Hill flips college choice to Fresno State

It’s amazing that it took this long for San Gorgonio’s Wesley Hill (who just graduated this spring) to get a concrete offer. Now he’s had a second, and changed his commitment. Congrats to him. Initially, he appeared to find his … Continue reading →

Daily Bulletin: Ontario approves $491.95 million budget

By Grace Wong, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Posted: 06/24/15 – 7:57 PM PDT |

ONTARIO >> With its sights on the airport, the City Council has unanimously approved a structurally balanced budget for the 2015-2016 fiscal year.

“The City of Ontario has a strong record of adopting conservative fiscal policies, creating responsible partnerships with our labor groups, and providing the residents of Ontario with stability and a healthy community,” said Mayor Paul Leon in a news release. “This budget delivers on our commitment.”

The total overall budget is $491.95 million and was balanced without the use of any reserves or one-time monies, officials said.

The city’s primary goal is sill regaining control of the L.A. Ontario International Airport, but public safety is also high on the budgetary list, with funding allocated for a new police helicopter, facility improvements at the Police Department, funding for a fire training tower, fleet vehicle enhancement and renovations of Fire Station No. 2, which opened in 1983.

“Ontario continues to provide the highest level of public safety services to our residents, businesses, and visitors,” said Councilwoman Debra Dorst-Porada in a news release. “Our reputation as the strongest job growth center in the region is a result of a pro-active economic development strategy and a simple commitment to our community: We will invest in tools and resources that contribute to a safe and prosperous community.”

To read entire story, click here.

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Los Angeles Times: Group seeks better deal on San Onofre closure

Under an agreement, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. ratepayers would pay $3.3 billion of the San Onofre shutdown costs, or 70%. Edison says the deal is “fair and reasonable.” (Allen J. Schaben, Los Angeles Times)

By Jeff McDonald
June 24, 2015

The San Francisco consumer group that helped broker the $4.7-billion deal dividing costs for the shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear plant said Wednesday that it no longer supports the agreement and called on regulators to reopen talks.

In a five-page motion submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission, the Utility Reform Network said recent revelations of back channel communications between regulators and utility executives forced the organization to rethink its position.

The group hopes for a better deal for Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. ratepayers who were assigned to cover $3.3 billion of the shutdown costs, or 70%, even though Edison installed the faulty replacement steam generators that caused the January 2012 shutdown.

The filing is a major turnaround for TURN. The nonprofit defended the San Onofre deal for months, even as evidence mounted that the agreement was hatched during a secret 2013 meeting in Warsaw, Poland, between former commission President Michael Peevey and an Edison executive.

Notes jotted down at the meeting have become part of state and federal criminal investigations into possible favoritism of utility executives by the regulators entrusted to oversee them.

“TURN agrees that recent disclosures detailing extensive communications between SCE and CPUC decision-makers during the pendency of this proceeding are very troubling,” the filing states. “TURN was a good faith participant in the settlement negotiations, and was not aware of the Warsaw note, the private meeting, or any agreement between Mr. Peevey and SCE at any time before or during the extended settlement negotiations that led to the proposed settlement.”

The commission did not respond to questions Wednesday. Edison issued a statement saying it is disappointed in the TURN decision.

“The settlement it negotiated with consumer groups is fair and reasonable, was properly negotiated and is in the public interest,” Edison spokeswoman Maureen Brown said.

Lawmakers and other consumer groups have embraced the idea of reopening debate over how to resolve shutdown costs for San Onofre.

In April, Sen. Ben Hueso called for the San Onofre deal to be reconsidered, saying it was improperly lopsided in favor of utilities over ratepayers.

“I do not think the settlement should stand,” said Hueso, a San Diego Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications. “The process by which the settlement was developed — previously undisclosed private meetings half a world away — clearly is troubling.”

Two days later, the commission’s Office of Ratepayer Advocates — another party to the settlement — said ratepayers should get $648 million more from Edison and minority plant owner San Diego Gas & Electric. The office stopped short of saying the agreement should be reopened.

To read entire story, click here.

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Los Angeles Times: Rohrabacher accuses campaign treasurer of stealing $170,000

By Michael Finnegan
June 24, 2015

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) said Thursday that a former treasurer of his reelection committee had embezzled more than $170,000 from the campaign.

“I am disappointed and dismayed by this betrayal of trust,” Rohrabacher said in a statement released by his attorney, Charles H. Bell Jr.

Rohrabacher has filed criminal complaints against the former treasurer, Jack Wu of Newport Beach, with the Orange County district attorney and state attorney general, according to Bell.

Wu, 44, is a longtime activist in Orange County Republican politics. He did not respond Wednesday afternoon to an email and voicemail.

Wu, who filed for personal bankruptcy in 1996, according to court records, ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Irvine in 1998, the Irvine Ranch Water District board in 2002 and the Newport Beach City Council in 2006.

In a column last year in the Orange County Register, Wu reminisced about smoking cigars with Tom Fuentes, the late Orange County GOP chairman, on a patio at Duke’s Place, now the Balboa Bay Club. A Wu column in the Register the following week was headlined: “Newport Beach’s unethical investment of city funds.”

On Twitter, Wu’s brief profile says, “Kick ass for da Lord! Tax guy too.”

Wu was Rohrabacher’s volunteer treasurer for about seven years, according to Bell. The campaign committee is auditing its books for that entire period “to determine the exact amount of committee funds that may be been embezzled,” Bell’s statement said.

To read entire story, click here.

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Gableman hopes to reel Rindfleisch (and Scott Walker’s secrets) back to Wisconsin

Dear Readers: We have some John Doe II news to talk about. I’m not absolutely positive what’s up – but I have some strong suspicions, which I will go into. Whatever’s going down, the timing of this could not be more threatening to Scott Walker’s impending presidential campaign. First you need to know that the more »

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The Orange County Register: Hiring outlook ‘fantastic’ for O.C., as Chapman economists predict best job growth in 15 years

By Margot Roosevelt / Staff Writer
June 24, 2015 – Updated 11:29 p.m.

Orange County will add more jobs this year than at any time in the past 15 years, buoyed in part by a reviving national economy, Chapman University economists predict.

The county’s momentum is “fantastic,” said Esmael Adibi, director of the University’s A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research. “Every sector will show positive job growth.”

According to Chapman’s biannual forecast, released Wednesday, county payrolls will grow by 47,000 jobs this year, or 3.1 percent. That’s the highest rate since 2000, when employers created 42,400 positions – also a 3.1 percent jump.

Next year, county job growth will taper somewhat to 41,000 jobs, a 2.7 percent increase, Chapman predicts.

Statewide, jobs will grow by 2.9 percent this year and by 2.5 percent in 2016, according to the forecast.

“Both California and Orange County have been in a catch-up mode,” Adibi said. “In 2013 and 2014, we were making up for what we lost in the recession. Now we are getting to a steady state.”

More than 950 businessmen and women attended the presentation of the biannual forecast at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

The national forecast was led by James Doti, the university’s president and a professor of business and economics. The California and Orange County estimates were presented by Adibi.

Adibi said the forecast accounted for the expectation that the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis would revise upward its reported 0.7% downturn in national GDP in the first quarter. The agency did just that on Wednesday, estimating that output in the United States decreased at a rate of 0.2% during the first three months of the year.

Thus, the Chapman forecast predicts that “the slow start will end in a strong finish,” with a real GDP expansion of 2.5 percent this year, and 2.9 percent next year.

“Why is that so important to Orange County and to California?” Adibi said. “We produce lots of goods and services that we sell to the rest of country. If the country is doing well, there will be more demand for them.”

From 2014 through 2016, the biggest boost in jobs, 22,900, will come in professional and business services – a category that includes low-paid clerks as well as high-paid lawyers and accountants, according to the forecast.

Large numbers of positions will come in education and health services (16,800), which includes hospitals and private colleges, and in leisure and hospitality (12,400), which encompasses restaurants, hotels and theme parks.

The economists predict a healthy climate for Orange County’s building industry. Residential permits will remain strong, growing by 7.6 percent this year and 4.4 percent in 2016.

To read entire story, click here.

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InlandPolitics: We really are flattered!

Wednesday, June 24, 2015 – 11:00 a.m.

San Bernardino County Third District Supervisor James Ramos, planning on a reelection bid for a second term has been out polling his constituents.

Ramos is getting a feel as to whether or not anyone knows who he is, or what he even does for that matter.

Would Ramos serving as the current board chairman influence their decision to vote for him? One caller was asked.

Interestingly, a question was asked as to whether or not the poll respondent was aware of certain or Internet websites.

One of the sites listed was InlandPolitics.com.

We’re flattered. We really are!

Anyways, we’d like to thank the Ramos camp for helping spread the word about this increasingly popular blog.

Power to the people…….

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The Press-Enterprise: MURRIETA: City to consider investigating mayor

Council set special meeting for Wednesday morning to consider investigation of Mayor Harry Ramos.

Published: June 23, 2015 – Updated: 3:37 p.m.

The Murrieta City Council on Wednesday will consider launching an investigation into the actions of Mayor Harry Ramos, who last week was accused of “inappropriate” conduct during his brief time as mayor.

To read story by Aaron Claverie in The Press-Enterprise, click here.

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The Sacramento Bee: Dispute over union fees could return to Supreme Court

Politics
June 24, 2015
By Sam Hananel, Associated Press

Washington — Powerful public-sector unions are facing another high-profile legal challenge that they say could wipe away millions from their bank accounts and make it tougher for them to survive.

A group of California schoolteachers, backed by a conservative group, has asked the Supreme Court to rule that unions representing government workers can’t collect fees from those who choose not to join.

In this 2013, photo provided by Center for Individual Rights, Rebecca Friedrichs, a veteran Orange County, Calif., school teacher, poses for a portrait. Friedrichs is the lead plaintiff in a case brought by group of California schoolteachers, backed by a conservative group, asking the Supreme Court to rule that unions representing government workers can’t collect fees from those who choose not to join. | Courtesy of the Center for Individual Rights via AP Greg Schneider

Half the states currently require state workers represented by a union to pay “fair share” fees that cover bargaining costs, even if they are not members. The justices could decide as early as next week whether to take up the case.

Union opponents say it violates First Amendment rights to require nonmembers to pay fees that may go to causes they don’t support. They could find a sympathetic ear at the high court, where the justices last year indicated they may be willing to reconsider a 38-year-old precedent that allows unions to collect the fees.

The high court’s 1977 ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education said public workers who choose not to join a union can be required to pay for bargaining costs, as long as the fees don’t go for political purposes. The arrangement was supposed to help promote labor peace and prevent nonmembers from “free riding,” since the union has a legal duty to represent all workers.

To read entire story, click here.

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The San Francisco Chronicle: Brown’s latest nominee another young, judicially inexperienced Obama lawyer

Politics Blog
By Bob Egelko
June 23, 2015 – 4:39 PM

Like his last state Supreme Court appointee, one of Gov. Jerry Brown’s latest appellate court nominees is a young Obama administration lawyer with no judicial experience. The current pick, Lamar Baker, is stirring up a certain amount of controversy.

Brown named Baker, 37, to one of three vacancies on the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles last month. Baker, a Bay Area native and like Brown a Yale Law School graduate, practiced law in Southern California from 2002 to 2005, then spent five years as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles before joining the Obama administration. He moved up the ranks to become chief of staff in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, then joined the White House counsel’s office in 2013 and has served as special assistant and associate counsel to the president for the last year.

Baker might be an unusual choice for other governors but not for Brown, whose three current state Supreme Court appointees had never previously served as judges. The most recent, Justice Leondra Kruger, was a 38-year-old attorney in Obama’s Justice Department with a sparkling reputation but no judicial record before Brown swore her into office in January.

To read entire post, click here.

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Why can cops tote guns into WI schools now? The NRA called for that after Sandy Hook

As of today, Scott Walker signed bills* that remove the 48 hour waiting period on handgun purchases in WI and to allow retired and off-duty cops to roam while armed on school property. A friend on facebook said today, “I am very curious why anyone needs to carry a gun into our schools? Also how more »

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Reuters: Tensions build as Supreme Court readies blockbuster rulings

By Lawrence Hurley
Sunday, June 21, 2015

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Tensions are building inside and outside the white marble facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building as the nine justices prepare to issue major rulings on gay marriage and President Barack Obama’s healthcare law by the end of the month.

Of the 11 cases left to decide, the biggest are a challenge by gay couples to state laws banning same-sex marriage and a conservative challenge to subsidies provided under the Obamacare law to help low- and middle-income people buy health insurance that could lead to millions of people losing medical coverage.

Many legal experts predict the court will legalize gay marriage nationwide by finding that the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal treatment under the law and due process prohibit states from banning same-sex nuptials.

The four liberal justices are expected to support same-sex marriage, and conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, the expected swing vote, has a history of backing gay rights.

In three key decisions since 1996, Kennedy has broadened the court’s view of equality for gays. The most recent was a 2013 case in which the court struck down a federal law denying benefits to married same-sex couples.

During oral arguments in the gay marriage case on April 28, Kennedy posed tough questions to lawyers from both sides but stressed the nobility and dignity of same-sex couples.

The healthcare decision is tougher to call. Chief Justice John Roberts, the swing vote when the court upheld Obamacare in 2012, said little during the March 4 oral argument to indicate how he will vote.

The court will issue some rulings on Monday, with more likely later in the week.

For the justices, the pressure is on to have the rulings ready. That can be difficult as the cases in which they are closely divided are generally the ones left until the end.

Outside the court, those with a stake in the outcome of the rulings are left anxiously waiting.

James Obergefell, one of the plaintiffs in the gay marriage case, said he will be at the court for all the remaining decision days.

To read entire story, click here.

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The Sacramento Bee: This time for real: Legislature passes (another) budget

Capitol Alert
By David Siders and Jeremy B. White
dsiders@sacbee.com
June 19, 2015

Three days after Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders reached agreement on a $115.4 billion general fund state spending plan, lawmakers in both houses on Friday ratified the deal.

The budget includes Brown’s more conservative revenue estimates and lower overall spending levels, while increasing funding for preschool and universities and expanding Medi-Cal coverage to undocumented children starting in May 2016.

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, said the budget contained “unprecedented gains” in education and social services. The budget also won support from some Senate Republicans, while one Senate Democrat, Holly Mitchell, refused to vote on it. She said the budget did too little to help people living in poverty.

In the lower house, the bill passed almost entirely along party lines, with every Republican except for Rocky Chávez of Oceanside voting against it.

To read entire story, click here.

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Walker lie number 1,000,001: Act 10 improved Wisconsin’s ACT score

When your governor is this level of smarmy slimeball, it actually gets boring to say, “He lied”. Even when he’s not outright lying he’s applying a dizzying amount of spin. I need something that works like an automatically updating site injury sign at the blog. Today’s update would read, “Scott Walker has proudly gone 1,630 more »

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Walker is literally just phoning it in now

Walker took a break from his “trade mission” to tell legislators he doesn’t care what road projects get cut. Just figure it out.  And hurry up.  He’s got a presidential campaign to run.  (paraphrased)   Walker told reporters on a conference call from a trade trip to Canada Wednesday morning that he hoped lawmakers would more »

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InlandPolitics: Former Upland City Manager abandons record clearing attempt

Friday, June 19, 2015 – 10:00 a.m.

Former Upland City Manager Robb Quincey, who cut a plea deal with prosecutors less than a year ago, has abandoned an attempt to clear his felony record.

Quincey, who previously pleaded guilty to a single count of conflict of interest, involving a contract to which he had a personal financial interest, had filed to reduce his felony to a misdemeanor, terminate his probation early and dismiss and expunge the conviction.

It’s common practice with misdemeanor convictions, but less common on felony cases prior to normal probation being completed.

Court records indicate prosecutors filed an opposition to Quincey’s motion to dismiss, which was taken off calendar Friday morning.

Usually defense lawyers don’t file such motions unless they have reason to believe prosecutors will go along.

Here that buy off never occurred, or was reneged upon.

Quincey was required to repay Upland $50,000 in restitution.

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The Press-Enterprise: FORECLOSURE: Zombie properties dog Inland region

Such properties continue to haunt Inland region; but by sheer numbers, the homes that are vacant from the time of bank repossession to occupancy are fading.

Published: June 18, 2015
Updated: June 19, 2015 – 7:54 a.m.

Zombie properties continue to dog the Inland region, but their numbers are dwindling.

To read story in The Press-Enterprise, click here.

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InlandPolitics: San Bernardino County Judge rejects plea deal in child abuse case

Thursday, June 18, 2015 – 11:00 p.m.

A San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge has rejected an inexplicably lenient plea bargain San Bernardino County prosecutors were set to give a Redlands nanny accused of child abuse.

Hats off to Superior Court Judge William Jefferson Powell.

Here’s the coverage by Los Angeles-based KABC-TV 7:

Nanny accused of child abuse in Redlands set to stand trial

KABC
By Leticia Juarez
Wednesday, June 17, 2015 – 05:25PM

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (KABC) — A nanny accused of abusing a 22-month-old Redlands boy appeared in court Wednesday and was told to stand trial.

Gina Halliburton had agreed to plead guilty to the crime in exchange for four years probation, but San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge William J. Powell made a different decision.

In video caught on a nanny camera, Halliburton is shown stuffing a bib into the mouth of Preston Scott. His mother Shawna Scott and her family appeared in court expecting Halliburton to be sentenced.

To read entire story and view news segment, click here.

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The Sacramento Bee: Fact check: Jerry Brown was asked about tax pledge last year

Gov. Jerry Brown speaks at a gathering of political, business and community leaders at the annual California Chamber of Commerce Host Breakfast in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, May 28, 2015. | Rich Pedroncelli AP

Capitol Alert
June 16, 2015
By David Siders
dsiders@sacbee.com

• Brown says he wasn’t asked about keeping tax pledge in fourth term
• He was asked, but ducked the question

Gov. Jerry Brown, asked Tuesday if he would now be willing to sign tax increases without voter approval, said that is an “open question.”

“I ran for office when this state had a $27 billion deficit, and I said I wasn’t going to raise taxes unless the people said that’s what they wanted through an initiative, and I kept my promise,” Brown told reporters at a news conference on a budget deal at the Capitol. “But when I ran the second time I didn’t say that, and you didn’t ask me.”

When a reporter suggested they could ask him now, Brown said, “Too late. I’m already elected … It wasn’t part of the contract.”

In fact, Brown was asked about his tax pledge last fall, shortly before he was elected to a fourth term.

To read entire story, click here.

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Quickie round-up of Wisconsin news 06/17/2015

Wow.  Madison City Council did an override on Soglin to allow homelessness to be a protected class STORY HERE ———————————————– With slap at ‘nut jobs,’ state union leader Marty Beil to retire source: WI State Journal I once saw him yell “punk” at Scott Suder outside of the Governor’s Beer and Brats event.  Suder deserved more »

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The Sun: San Bernardino bankruptcy plan criticized in court

By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 06/17/15 – 11:24 PM PDT |

RIVERSIDE >> The attorney representing bondholders who’ve invested about $50 million in San Bernardino came out swinging Wednesday in the first bankruptcy hearing since the city filed a bankruptcy exit plan that would pay bondholders only 1 percent of that.

The comments by attorney Vincent J. Marriott III separated him from the city’s other creditors, who generally praised the progress in a case that began with a filing in August 2013.

To keep that momentum going, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury on Wednesday set a hearing for Oct. 8 to determine whether the financial disclosure statement filed along with the Plan of Adjustment is adequate. Such a hearing is a standard step in bankruptcy cases, often requiring several hearings for a large case, and the city’s situation could change significantly by then, she said.

Marriott charged that the city’s foot-dragging was shown by not proposing a date for that hearing, as would be standard. And he criticized it for putting forward a plan he says might not work because, he said, it depends on changes to the city charter that won’t be voted on until 2016 and could be rejected like the last charter amendment the city proposed.

“(The city’s filing) fails in our view in what was intended to be its central purpose, which was to finally move this case along,” said Marriott, whose request led to the May 30 filing deadline that the city beat by one day. “And raises once again the question of what the city has been doing for the almost three years that it has been under the protection of Chapter 9 (bankruptcy).”

The city’s bankruptcy attorney, Paul Glassman, said the plan does not depend on voters approving changes to the charter.

“We’re simply talking about a reorganization that would assist the city and be viewed as helpful,” Glassman said. “We worked very hard to put together a plan that is not dependent upon an election happening.”

To read entire story, click here.

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Daily Press: City council approves balanced budget

By Rene Ray De La Cruz, Staff Writer
Posted Jun. 18, 2015 at 12:01 AM

HESPERIA — During a lengthy meeting, the city council passed its new fiscal year budget without raising fees or taxes.

During Tuesday’s meeting, the city unveiled its final 2015-16 budget, which includes a total expected revenue of about $72 million, with $11.4 million in budget reserves and $80 million in expenditures.

But despite the city’s general fund of just over $25 million, and an increase in property values, new home permits and economic development interests coming from outside the High Desert, Mayor Eric Schmidt said he is concerned.

After the meeting, Schmidt told the Daily Press that there were no surprises in the balanced budget, but the increase for contracted services from San Bernardino County has “rattled the cages” of many city and town councils, including Hesperia.

“Hesperia will receive the same level of service as it did last year, but the contract is increasing,” Schmidt said. “The sheriff’s contract is increasing by $1.1 million, but $650,000 of that is to cover the current level of service.”

Schmidt said the city will pick up the remaining balance of the budget increase by funding two sheriff’s deputies for the Traffic Division and one Sheriff’s Specialist and one Office Specialist added to operate the new Crime Free Rental Program.

To read entire story, click here.

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Redlands East Valley players continue to land college football offers

Junior linebacker Jaelan Phillips became the second member from Redlands East Valley High School to receive an offer from the University of Washington. It is the first offer Phillips, according to REV football coach Kurt Bruich when he shared the … Continue reading →

Los Angeles Times: Southern California home sales, prices up in May

By Andrew Khouri
June 17, 2015

Southern California home prices rose slightly in May, while sales jumped during the busy spring buying season.

The median sales price for the six-county Southland was $426,000, up 2.2% from a year earlier, CoreLogic said Wednesday. It was the smallest gain in three years, according to the real estate information firm.

That small increase represents a market where buyers have difficulty bidding homes up to ever-higher prices, CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage said.

But the nature of the median price — the point where half the homes sold for more and half for less — also played a role in the 2.2% increase.

A greater share of homes sold in more affordable areas last month than a year earlier, LePage said.

Sales are improving, however, following a lethargic 2014. Buyers scooped up 21,644 new and resale houses and condominiums last month, nearly 5% higher than a year earlier. It was the third straight month that sales increased.

To read entire story, click here.

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Los Angeles Times: Fed holds off on interest rate hike, downgrades economic forecast

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen speaks in May at the Institute for New Economic Thinking Conference on Finance and Security at the International Monetary Fund in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

By Jim Puzzanghera
June 17, 2015

Federal Reserve policymakers on Wednesday kept the central bank’s benchmark short-term interest rate near zero, opting against the first increase since 2006 after determining the economy still isn’t strong enough to handle it.

Fed officials sharply downgraded their economic forecast for this year. They projected the economy would grow between 1.8% and 2% this year, well below the range of 2.3% to 2.7% in its last forecast in March.

If they’re correct, annual growth would be the worst since 2011 and would be far from the breakout performance some economists had hoped for this year.

In a statement after its two-day policymaking meeting, Fed officials said the economy “has been expanding moderately” after having improved little during the first quarter.

While the housing market “has shown some improvement,” central bank policymakers said exports and investments by businesses have been soft.

Central bank policymakers were less optimistic about improvements in the unemployment rate than they were three months ago, though they noted that the pace of job gains had improved.

The Fed officials forecast the unemployment rate, which was 5.5% in May, would drop to no lower than 5.2% by the end of the year. In March, they forecast the jobless rate would drop to as low as 5% this year.

Annual inflation is expected to be between 0.6% and 0.8% this year — the same as was forecast in March. That’s well below the Fed’s 2% target.

To read entire story, click here.

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Los Angeles Times: Regulators: Wells Fargo, Chase, U.S. Bank still fail mortgage service tests

Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and four other banks are still not meeting standards in handling troubled mortgage borrowers, federal bank regulators say. (Julie Jacobson / Associated Press)

By E. Scott Reckard
June 17, 2015

Four years after pledging to clean up wide-ranging foreclosure abuses, Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and four other banks still aren’t complying with customer-service standards imposed by a federal regulator.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said Wednesday that it has restricted mortgage servicing operations at Wells Fargo, Chase, U.S. Bancorp, Santander Bank, EverBank Financial Corp. and HSBC Holdings.

“We’re not satisfied with where they are at this point in time,” Morris Morgan, deputy comptroller for large banks, said during a conference call.

By contrast, the agency said it had lifted consent orders against Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and PNC Financial Services, finding that they have complied with the orders issued in April 2011 and amended in February 2013.

Morgan said regulators expect Wells Fargo, Chase and the other four noncomplying banks to take “months, not years,” to meet servicing standards.

For now, the banks must seek permission from the comptroller to name senior servicing managers, set up offshore call centers or acquire mortgage servicing business, which collects payments and handles foreclosures.

The harshest penalties were against San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, California’s largest bank and one of the top four nationwide, and international giant HSBC, based in London.

Wells Fargo and HSBC were banned from acquiring additional mortgage servicing rights or setting up servicing in other countries until they can show they are complying with the terms of consent orders.

The banks will be permitted to service their existing mortgage portfolios as well as their own newly originated home loans.

The restrictions are significant because big banks and nonbank servicers such as Ocwen Financial Corp., a specialist in handling troubled subprime borrowers, frequently trade these mortgage servicing rights.

For example, Bank of America, which became the largest mortgage servicer after buying high-risk lender Countrywide Financial Corp. in 2008, has since sold off rights to service most of the troubled mortgages it acquired in that ill-fated deal to Ocwen and other servicers.

To read entire story, click here.

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The Lou Desmond & Company Show: Moreno Valley, The Pope, Jeb Bush

Monday, June 15, 2015 – 05:00 p.m.

On the Lou Desmond and Company Show tonight, Lou joins the show from Washington State, where he is enjoying his new vacation home. He is joined on the newsmaker line by Jay Prag and Roy Bleckert to discuss the dueling recalls in Moreno Valley.

Then, Lou and Jay discuss comments that Pope Francis has made about the nature of the wealth of nations. Are rich nations to blame for the blight of poor nations?

Finally, Jeb Bush announced his candidacy for the White House today. Does he stand a chance? Or is time for a new name in the White House?

To listen to the full show, click here.

Follow Lou on Twitter @WiseGuyLou and on Facebook at “The Lou Desmond & Company Show.”

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The Union Democrat: Brown, lawmakers agree on $115.4 billion California budget

By Judy Lin
Associated Press
Jun 16, 2016 – 8:03 PM EDT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A $115.4 billion budget deal would make California the first in the nation to offer state-subsidized health care to children who are in the country illegally while expanding other social welfare programs, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders said Tuesday.

The budget deal sends billions of dollars more to public schools and universities, adds spaces for state-funded child care and preschool, and creates the state’s first income tax credit for the working poor.

“While Washington dithers because they can’t get things done, we need immigration reform,” said Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles. “The reality is many of these children, and they are children, require some kind of health care and they receive it in the emergency room.”

The cost to taxpayers would be $40 million in the new fiscal year and grow to $132 million a year once fully implemented.

Republicans have questioned the cost and warned that it won’t help immigrants access doctors because of the shortage of providers who accept Medi-Cal, the state’s health program for the poor.

Tuesday’s revised spending plan is far closer to Brown’s $115 billion proposal in May than the $117.5 billion version approved a day earlier by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. It adds $61 million in spending above his May plan.

“All in all, I think the people of California can be proud of the work that’s been done,” Brown said.

The new deal is expected to easily win approval from the Senate and Assembly, which will schedule votes on the package ahead of the July 1 start of the fiscal year.

Brown also announced he is calling two special sessions to address how California pays for roads, highways and other infrastructure and Medi-Cal. There is a $5.7 billion annual backlog in road repairs, the administration said.

To read entire story, click here.

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The Sacramento Bee: Court case hinges on claim of illegal CHP ticket quotas

Transportation
By Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton
dwalsh@sacbee.com
June 15, 2015

• Evidence in a Sacramento court case suggests officers are encouraged to increase traffic stops
• Judge says CHP ‘should be ashamed’ of evidence presented
• California Highway Patrol flatly denies quotas exist

For years, the California Highway Patrol has consistently denied that its officers are subject to a quota for the number of traffic tickets they write each month.

The practice is illegal under state law, and agencies that have been found to use a quota system have paid millions of dollars in damages and faced lawsuits filed as recently as April.

Despite that, a veteran CHP officer testified in Sacramento this month that he was subjected to monthly admonishments from his superiors to boost his “enforcement contacts” with motorists to at least 100 a month, and that such performance evaluations went on for years.

The testimony by CHP motorcycle Officer Jay Brame, who is being sued along with another officer and the CHP in a case now playing out in federal court in Sacramento, was bolstered by the introduction of performance reviews urging him to pull over more motorists.

“You have averaged five enforcement contacts per day for the first 15 days of the month, this is well below the shift average and not acceptable for a (motorcycle),” one evaluation introduced as evidence stated. “You will need to pick up your enforcement activity the second half of the month and use the (motorcycle) for what it is intended to be used for.”

The direct language in the documents surprised even the judge presiding at the trial.

“That is terrible,” U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb said. “I would think that the CHP should be ashamed of that document.”

“It’s a quota,” said Michael Haddad, one of two Oakland attorneys representing Harrison Orr, a Citrus Heights man suing the agency for false arrest. Haddad’s partner, Julia Sherwin, repeated that claim Monday in closing arguments to the jury.

“You can see from the evaluations that the CHP certainly has a quota,” Sherwin said. “The quota is 100 a month, even if they don’t encounter 100 people who are doing something wrong.”

To read entire story, click here.

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The Sacramento Bee: Lawmakers send Jerry Brown incomplete budget

Capitol Alert
By David Siders and Jeremy B. White
dsiders@sacbee.com
June 15, 2015

• Vote meets deadline, ensuring lawmakers continue to be paid
• Spending plan comes despite ongoing negotiations with governor
• Republican lawmaker: ‘It’s the legislative paycheck protection act’

The budget California state lawmakers passed Monday did not reflect a deal with Gov. Jerry Brown and, for that reason, has almost no hope of being enacted.

Negotiations are ongoing.

Yet if pausing for a vote did nothing to advance fiscal policy in California, the timing mattered greatly to the 120 legislators involved.

By passing the spending bill – unfinished though it was – the Legislature met a June 15 deadline to pass a budget or give up their pay.

“It’s not a budget bill,” said Melissa Melendez, a Lake Elsinore assemblywoman who joined minority Republicans in opposition to the plan. “It’s the legislative paycheck-protection act.”

The budget includes about $749 million more in spending than Brown proposed, and majority Democrats acknowledged they will have to revisit portions of the plan.

“Is this going to be our final budget?” asked Kevin de León, the Senate president pro tem. “Unlikely.”

Yet in passing a budget, de León said the Senate was “fulfilling our constitutional obligation to our constituents and to the state of California.”

On party-line votes with Republicans opposed, the spending plan cleared the Assembly 53-27 and the Senate 26-13. Lawmakers finished by early afternoon, hours ahead of the midnight budget deadline.

When Californians approved Proposition 25 in 2010, they gave the Legislature the authority to pass budgets on a majority vote rather than two-thirds. They also required lawmakers to surrender their pay for every day they failed to meet the June 15 budget deadline.

But a budget’s passage and its enactment are different things. Including Monday, lawmakers in three of the last four years have passed a budget intending to follow up with legislation reflecting subsequent agreements with the governor.

“We stand by the budget we’ve just approved,” said Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego. “We know he’s got some reactions to some of that, but we’re doing it in discussion together. Would we like what we just passed? Absolutely, 100 percent. But we’re realistic about it.”

To read entire story, click here.

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San Bernardino County baseball all-stars beat Riverside, 5-2

Those who didn’t know Kenny Boardman before, saw him on Monday. When was the last home run you saw hit by a high schooler at San Manuel Stadium? I can’t remember. And this one was legit, out to left-center, not … Continue reading →

Los Angeles Times: San Bernardino: Broken City

San Bernardino, once a sturdy, middle class “All-America City,” is now bankrupt, the poorest city of its size in California, and a symbol of the nation’s worst urban woes.

June 14, 2015
By Joe Mozingo
Photos by Francine Orr

With a rake and a mask, the motel manager steps carefully into Room 107.

This afternoon, Sam Maharaj will evict a couple and their 4-month-old baby for not paying their bill. The mother sits on the side of the bed, still twitching from slamming methamphetamine the night before.

Maharaj sinks the rake’s tines into an ankle-deep thicket of dirty diapers, hypodermic needles, crusted food, hot sauce packets, broken Tupperware and cockroaches, living and dead. A South African immigrant of Indian descent, he never expected that his piece of America would look like this.

Four decades ago, this motel boasted a cheery coffee shop, a heated pool, valet parking and palm trees that swayed in the hard wind coming over the Cajon Pass.

Now it’s a way station for broken people in a broken city.

As other California cities lift themselves out of the recession, San Bernardino, once a blue-collar town with a solid middle class, has become the poorest city of its size in the state and a distillation of America’s urban woes.

Maharaj, who manages the Country Inn, rents his rooms to copper wire thieves, prostitutes and the working poor. He does what he can to help them, and often stands in the parking lot watching with sadness as their children play between the freeway’s sound wall and a swimming pool with just enough water for mosquitoes to breed.

He and his wife keep their own two children locked away in their fortified apartment behind the motel office. One day, they plan to buy the motel from Caltrans — which purchased the property as part of a freeway expansion project — and turn it into clean and comfortable lodging. One day, they hope the Tripadvisor reviews no longer begin: “Hookers, crack, blood and bullet holes.” Maybe the motel will have charming postcards again.

As his rake claws at the debris of crumbling lives, he keeps his expectations low. This is Berdoo, a city his friends at the Hindu temple in nearby Riverside mock as “the ghetto.”

Look at the news, he says: the county assessor arrested on charges of meth possession, the city attorney challenging the police chief to fight at City Hall, one City Council member arrested on charges of perjury, another on charges of stalking, and a federal indictment of the developer who was supposed to transform the airport into a source of civic pride.

Of the 100 biggest cities in the U.S., San Bernardino, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, was ranked the second-poorest in the nation in the 2010 census, behind Detroit. Two years later it filed for bankruptcy. Last month the City Council approved a 77-page plan that it hopes will move the city toward solvency, in part by making residents pay higher taxes and fees while further cutting their services.

Former Mayor Patrick Morris has seen the people living in San Bernardino’s motels, squatting in abandoned houses and sleeping in its parks and vacant lots. To him the bankruptcy is the culmination of what happens when forces internal and external conspire to bring a city down. On a recent afternoon Morris, 77, and Sally, his wife of 54 years, pull bags of mulch out of their old Toyota pickup at Wildwood Park, on the city’s middle-class northern edge.

A nonstop volunteer now, Morris sinks a shovel into the small garden at the park’s entrance, replacing plants that gophers killed.

Morris grew up in the desert town of Needles. After graduating from Stanford Law School, he decided that he wanted to live in the closest California city to his hometown, one with a similarly scrappy, working-class soul.

He bought his modest ranch-style home on Maywood Avenue for $25,000 in 1964. Realtors tried to lure him into a bigger house as his stature in the city rose. He said no. Nor did he join the many professionals moving next door to Redlands, with its outdoor amphitheater, manicured streets and solvent economy.

In a place that many middle-class children leave as soon as they are adults, Morris’ children went to the public schools, then settled in San Bernardino, and his grandchildren are doing the same.

To read entire story, click here.

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The Sacramento Bee: Opinion: California Capitol is isolated island with two tribes

Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
June 13, 2015

• Anthropologist would find Legislature fascinating
• Its two houses have distinct cultures
• Senate now the bastion of bad behavior

Anthropologists probe the evolution of primitive societies, which makes the Capitol a perfect laboratory.

It’s an isolated island occupied by two tribes with distinct cultural attributes. Sometimes they cooperate to pursue common goals but often are rivals.
Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon, D-Los Angeles talks to members of the Sacramento Bee Capitol Bureau on Monday, March 2, 2015 in Sacramento.

Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon, D-Los Angeles talks to members of the Sacramento Bee Capitol Bureau on Monday, March 2, 2015 in Sacramento. | Hector Amezcua hamezcua@sacbee.com

You might think this description refers to Democrats and Republicans. But it’s really about the Assembly and the Senate.

An anthropological study would reveal that the two tribes’ cultural differences evolve constantly but are never reconciled.

One house is always dominant. For most of the 20th century, the Senate and its long-serving, even elderly, members called the shots, but professionalism and the one-man, one-vote decision shifted the balance of power in the mid-1960s.

The Assembly dominated during the lengthy, authoritarian speakerships of Jesse Unruh and Willie Brown, but Brown’s departure and the advent of term limits in the 1990s shifted power back to the Senate as the lower house raced through a series of weak, short-term speakers.

At the moment, the two tribes are in rough parity, each jostling for dominance. But that’s not the only point of friction.

Historically, the Senate has been the more conservative of the two, but in recent years, with the advent of a bloc of moderate Democrats in the Assembly, it may be a little less liberal.

Finally, there’s the behavioral gap.

The Assembly long had the image of freewheeling, somewhat raffish and even semi-corrupt demeanor while the Senate was a bastion of probity – a little boring, perhaps, but collegial and less overtly partisan.

To read entire column, click here.

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The Sacramento Bee (AP): Bush still with much to prove in leaderless GOP 2016 race

Former US Governor of Florida Jeb Bush speaks to journalists during his visit in Tallinn, Estonia, Saturday, June 13, 2015, the once-bleak Soviet state of Estonia, that is now a growing free-market economy. Jeb Bush will be spending a week traveling through three nations, as he considers his widely anticipated announcement of his candidacy for the Republican candidate to run for president. | Liis Treimann AP Photo

By Steve Peoples and Julie Bykowicz, Associated Press
June 14, 2015

PARK CITY, Utah — When Jeb Bush finally says on Monday that he’s running for president, he’ll begin the campaign with much to prove.

Back in December, the former Florida governor said he was exploring a 2016 run, an announcement that by itself had the power to kick off the campaign.

In the six months since, Bush probably has shattered a fundraising record as well as pioneering a new approach to White House campaigning. He has just completed a well-reviewed trip through Europe.

Supporters had hoped that this son of one president and brother of another would by now hold a commanding position in an unwieldy Republican field. Yet he has not broken away from the pack.

“I know that I’m going to have to go earn this,” Bush said this past week. “It’s a lot of work and I’m excited about the prospects of this. It’s a long haul. You start wherever you start, and you end a long way away from where we are today, so I just urge everybody to be a little more patient about this.”

Bush, 62, planned to make his candidacy official during a Monday afternoon speech and rally at Miami Dade College, the nation’s largest university.

He has failed to scare any potential rival from the race, except perhaps 2012 nominee Mitt Romney. He is unpopular among some of his party’s most passionate voters and little known beyond his home state despite the Bush name.

“I thought Jeb would take up all the oxygen,” said Ohio Gov. John Kasich. “He hasn’t.” Emboldened by Bush’s slow rise, Kasich acknowledged this weekend that he is stepping up preparations for a possible campaign.

Bush is one of 11 major Republicans in the hunt for the nomination. Kasich and a few others are still deciding whether to join a field that could end up just shy of 20.

But few among them entered the race with such a high expectations of success as did Bush. Those expectations have seemed a burden at times.

Take, for example, the question of whether Bush will report raising $100 million for his campaign in the first six months of the year. Lost amid the “will he or won’t he” is that Bush probably will have taken in far more than anyone else.

Romney said Saturday it would not surprise him to learn that Bush had scooped up twice that of all the other GOP candidates combined.

“By all appearances, he’s raised a lot of money,” Romney said, praising Bush’s “experienced and capable team.” “At this stage, that’s a very important thing to do.”

Even if he does not reach the $100 million mark, Bush will have amassed more in six months than Romney and his allies at a super political action committee raised for the entire year before the 2012 election.

By contrast, a senior adviser to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, considered along with Bush among the few top-tier 2016 contenders, expects he will raise roughly $25 million through the end of June. The adviser spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal fundraising details.

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