Back on March 19, this writer put in his typical Monday workday and never left his neighborhood in California’s capital city. That schedule is somewhat at odds with a notice I received from FasTrak, California’s freeway tolling agency. “Immediate Attention Required—Official FasTrak Notice,” read the outside of the envelope, mailed on May 14. “Violation…
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As we noted, during the last three years the state of California has paid out more than $25 million to settle sexual harassment claims against state agencies and public universities. The payouts ranged from $500 to $1.7 million, and the state did not volunteer the information or make it easy to find. As usual,…
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As we noted the estimated cost to build California’s bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles has doubled to $77.3 billion and could almost triple to $98.1 billion. Governor Jerry Brown is now on record what he thinks of it. “This is bullshit,” he told reporters in Sacramento on March 19. “I’m so…
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As we noted in January, costs for Jerry Brown’s vaunted high-speed rail project jumped by $2.8 billion to $10.6 billion, just for the stretch from Madera to Bakersfield. “It’s horrifying when you look at the amount of money we’re going to have to reinvest to make this program work,” exclaimed bullet-train board member Ernest…
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California assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, a high-profile player with the #MeToo movement, is now facing allegations of sexual misconduct conduct. Two men charge that Garcia groped them, in one case after making an explicit sexual proposition. Another says he was fired after declining to play “spin the bottle” with Garcia. She has taken unpaid leave…
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California assemblyman Ian Calderon has proposed a bill that would make it illegal for restaurant staff to give customers a plastic straw unless they ask for one. Unrequested straws would draw a fine of $1,000 or even jail time. This measure has led some to wonder about those little plastic umbrellas in drinks, or…
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Last February 7 during heavy rains, the Oroville Dam’s concrete spillway failed, launching fears of a complete dam failure, and forcing the evacuation of 188,000 people downstream from the structure. As the anniversary approaches, the total costs of the spillway reconstruction, including emergency response, have risen to $870 million according to the state Department…
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As we noted last month, sexual abuse has been thriving in Hollywood, Congress, the media, and in the California legislature. Senate boss Kevin de Leon sought to hire an independent legal firm to investigate but the latest revelations come from a different source. According to an investigation by the Sacramento Bee, “the state paid…
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Before Jerry Brown’s 16th and final State of the State address Thursday, the New York Times wondered if he would use the address to “push for reforms in California’s notoriously dysfunctional tax system, hamstrung by Proposition 13 and a heavy reliance on volatile capital gains tax revenues.” Brown did no such thing but he…
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As we noted, California has the highest top marginal income-tax rate of 13.3 percent and the highest base sales tax rate of 7.5 percent. The state also deploys a corporate tax rate of 8.84 percent but now state Democrats Kevin McCarty and Phil Ting want a constitution amendment that would slap any company with…
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