San Francisco’s City Hall is going to install a ten-foot-long chunk of history and it’s projected to cost over $1.1 million dollars.This new wheelchair ramp has to be gold-gilded Yellow Brick Road that leads to the Land of Oz.How else can one explain the extravagant costs?

According to The San Francisco Chronicle (February 27th), “[t]hanks to a maze of bureaucratic indecision and historic restrictions, taxpayers may shell out $100,000 per foot to make the Board of Supervisors president’s perch in the historic chambers accessible to the disabled.”There is no truth to the rumor that the only way to enter the chamber is by clicking the heels of one’s red ruby slippers. “[T]he little remodel job that planners first thought would take three months has stretched into more than four years – and will probably mean the supervisors will have to move out of their hallowed hall for five months while the work is done.”As in Oz, time is relative when it comes to city money.… Read More

I’m a little late in posting this here on FR, but the editorial below recently ran in the Riverside Press Enterprise:

Deficit DéjÀ Vu California’s Democratic majority refuses to learn from budgets past By JIM BATTIN Our budget picture just seems to keep going from bad to worse — and I fear that we haven’t hit bottom yet. Recently, the state’s nonpartisan budget analyst revised the projected deficit upward to $16 billion. We are absolutely going in the wrong direction and real, substantial changes are needed. Considering my fellow Senate Republicans and I … Read More

Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has penned this very sobering column about city finances in Los Angeles, and the thirst to raise tax there… Never mind that Los Angelinos already are among the highest tax Californians already…

City Unions To L.A. Taxpayers: Peel Me A Grape By Jon Coupal

Los Angeles city government is in trouble. Projections are that it will face a budget deficit of at least $400 million in the coming fiscal year.

The financial bind in which the city finds itself is no accident. It is the result of a series of conscious decisions by elected officials and bureaucrats.

According to the U.S. Census… Read More

Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has penned this very sobering column about city finances in Los Angeles, and the thirst to raise tax there… Never mind that Los Angelinos already are among the highest tax Californians already…

City Unions To L.A. Taxpayers: Peel Me A Grape By Jon Coupal

Los Angeles city government is in trouble. Projections are that it will face a budget deficit of at least $400 million in the coming fiscal year.

The financial bind in which the city finds itself is no accident. It is the result of a series of conscious decisions by elected officials and bureaucrats.

According to the U.S. Census… Read More

Section 25 of Article I of the California Constitution, believe it or not, guarantees to the people of this state the right to fish. Seriously, I am NOT making it up. In fact, here is the exact language straight from the source:

Section 25. The people shall have the right to fish upon and from the public lands of the State and in the waters thereof, excepting upon lands set aside for fish hatcheries, and no land owned by the State shall ever be sold or transferred without reserving in the people the absolute right to fish thereupon; and no law shall ever be passed making it a crime for the people to enter upon the public lands within this State for the purpose of fishing in any water containing fish that have been planted therein by the State; provided, that the legislature may by statute, provide for the season when and the conditions under which the different species of fish may be taken.

The reason that I point this out is that the ongoing efforts of extremists to infringe upon the liberty of Californians, under the… Read More

Section 25 of Article I of the California Constitution, believe it or not, guarantees to the people of this state the right to fish. Seriously, I am NOT making it up. In fact, here is the exact language straight from the source:

Section 25. The people shall have the right to fish upon and from the public lands of the State and in the waters thereof, excepting upon lands set aside for fish hatcheries, and no land owned by the State shall ever be sold or transferred without reserving in the people the absolute right to fish thereupon; and no law shall ever be passed making it a crime for the people to enter upon the public lands within this State for the purpose of fishing in any water containing fish that have been planted therein by the State; provided, that the legislature may by statute, provide for the season when and the conditions under which the different species of fish may be taken.

The reason that I point this out is that the ongoing efforts of extremists to infringe upon the liberty of Californians, under the… Read More

Veteran Capitol columnist Dan Walters was pretty accurate yesterday in the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert Blog (free registration required and encouraged) when he referred to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) as, "…a Naderite, Santa Monica-based thorn in the side of California business for the past two decades…"

Apparently the group has decided to change its name to "Consumer Watchdog" — what a farce.

The only thing that this group cares about is creating more and more ways and opportunities to file more and more lawsuits. The FTCR is a vibrant and active front-group for the trial lawyer community.

While they wave a rhetorical banner of trying to "help consumers" — it’s just not true. It hardly helps consumers to see all… Read More

A few weeks ago I was at a conference where NRA president Wayne LaPierre spoke about the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision regarding the Washington, DC, gun ban. During the speech LaPierre showed a video of what had taken place in New Orleans during the Katrina aftermath. Law-abiding citizens’ only means of protection was taken away when Mayor Ray Nagin ordered the confiscation of every privately-owned gun in the city.

The video is chilling—it’s something you’d expect in a dictatorial regime, not in the United States of America. LaPierre used the unconstitutional events in New Orleans to explain how important it is that the Supreme Court uphold the individual right to bear arms, just as the Founding Fathers intended in the Second Amendment.

Viewing the frightening New Orleans video brought to mind a bill passed in our own legislature last session. Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa (a fellow FR blogger and champion of our individual freedoms) authored… Read More