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Katy Grimes

Sacramento Arena Deal About Power and Politics

This is Part ll; Part lSacramento Arena Deal Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over

Sacramento has spent 13 years trying to build a publicly funded sports arena, with Mayor Kevin Johnson and Sacramento Sen. Darrell Steinberg involved every step of the way. Called arich-people’s playpen,local citizens will be forced to pay an hefty price for a new arena for the Kings, in order to keep them from leaving, of which the Sacramento City Council voted 7-2, to pay two-thirds of the cost.

The arena has been pushed Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star. But many say he acts as he was elected mayor of the Sacramento Kings.

Lawsuits galore

While the other lawsuits against the city hit bumps in the road over the arena scheme, a taxpayers’ case against the city will go forward.

The reason this story is front and center in Sacramento, is because Johnson has Measure L on the November ballot.

“The Checks and Balances ActRead More

Katy Grimes

Sacramento Arena Deal Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” Lenny Kravitz crooned in the 1990’s. And so goes Sacramento’s publicly subsidized arena deal.

The group of 12 citizens who sued the city under the California Environmental Quality Act, were handed another disappointment last week. Judge Timothy Frawley Friday rejected a pair of environmental lawsuits filed by the citizens over the Sacramento Kings’ new downtown arena.

However, an appeal may keep the environmental issues alive.

The group, led by retired Caltrans director Adriana GianturcoSaltonstall, had filed a notice of appeal seeking to overturn a judge’s refusal to grant an injunction halting construction of the planned Kings arena.

Gianturco wasthen-new-Gov. Jerry Brown’s1976 pick for director of the California Department of Transportation, often referred to as “Our Lady of the Diamond… Read More

Katy Grimes

Reactions to Sac Bee Columnist’s Love Letter to Steinberg

Sacramento Bee News Columnist Marcos Breton wrote a love letterSunday Oct. 11, to outgoing Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg: “An argument could be made that Darrell Steinberg is the most accomplished politician Sacramento has produced in nearly a century,” Breton said.

With a legacy of special interest legislation, a delayed statewide water bond full of pork and wasteful spending, support of the $100 billion High-Speed Rail bungle, his dubious law firm connections, his mental health millionaire’s tax, the special interest bill he helped pass for… Read More

Katy Grimes

A Reality Check For “Environmentalists”

Immediately following Gov. Jerry Brown signing the bill by Sen. Alex Padilla to ban the use of plastic bags at grocery stores and tax paper bags, now the progressive left is whining about the plastic bag industry initiating a referendum process for a vote of the people for the November 2016 election.

The Sacramento Bee editorial board compared the plastic bag industry to a chicken with its head curt off: “It would explain why it hasn’t figured out that the ubiquitous single-use plastic grocery bag has just suffered a killing blow. Its days are numbered.”

And the Bee editors are still calling these plastic bags, “single use bags.” Perhaps all of the people who insist these bags are “single use” are the people who throw them out after just one use, rather than use them a second or third use at the grocery store. Do they instead purchase… Read More

Katy Grimes

Bee Story Misleads on UFW Protest

The United Farm Workers labor union held a protest rally Monday in Fresno, outsidethe administrative hearing whereGerawan Farming is facing unfair labor charges. Theyare alleging that Gerawan Farming workers are intimidating witnesses testifying at the hearing.

The headline of the story says, “Union workers protest alleged Gerawan intimidation.” The photo caption says, “Workers protest alleged intimidation by Gerawan Farms.”

The intimation by the Bee is that Gerawan Farming is doing the intimidation.

There was nothing in… Read More

Katy Grimes

Gov. Brown Bans Plastic Bags, Taxes Paper, and Encourages Bacteria

The back room deal between the California Grocers Association andUnited Food and Commercial Workers labor union paid off; Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill to ban and tax plastic and paper grocery bags… despite that all types of plastic shopping bags can be recycled into new bags.

SB 270by Senators Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles Alex Padilla, D- Pacoima, and Ricardo Lara, D-Los Angeles, “prohibits stores from distributing lightweight, single-use plastic bags.” Padilla is running for Secretary of State.

Immediately after the bill signing, the American Progressive Bag Alliance announced it was preparing to gather signatures for a November 2016 ballot initiative to repeal SB 270.

Governor Jerry Brown has repeatedly said, “There will be no new taxes for the foreseeable future.” But the plastic bag ban is also a tax increase on reusable bags, and paper bags — minimum 10 cents per bag — which grocers will pocket.

I remember when plastic bags were… Read More

Katy Grimes

CA Ammunition Ban Will Cause Shortages, Price Spikes

SACRAMENTO — The National Shooting Sports Foundation Wednesday released a report Wednesday demonstrating the negative effects California’s ban on the use of traditional lead ammunition in hunting will have on hunters, the state’s economy, and wildlife conservation.

Implementation of AB 711, byAssemblyman Anthony Rendon, D-South Gate,the legislation signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in late 2013, will at least triple the price of ammunition, driving more than one-third of the state’s hunters to hunt less or stop hunting completely. With the loss of more than 50,000 hunters in the state, California’s economy will see a loss of millions of dollars in salaries and in tax revenue.

In… Read More

Katy Grimes

Food or Fish: Political Honesty Needed in CA Water Wars, Part ll

The long time political dispute between California farmers and state and federal water regulators predates the latest drought and will continue long after, unless some political honesty takes place. This is Part ll of “Food or Fish: Political Honesty Needed in CA Water War.” Part l is here.

California farms and businesses are starved of water. Lawmakers and federal environmental regulators have authorized more than 81 billion gallons of water to flow out to the ocean, instead of being used for human… Read More

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