San Francisco city government never fails to amaze me.

This morning, the local news carried a story about how a "beloved" pumpkin patch–one of only two in the city–has been closed down because of a permitting dispute. Apparently, neighbors have complained about the size of a shed on the land that serves as the Great Pumpkin Patch’s haunted house. The business owner says that the size of the shed was reduced to comply with permitting rules, but an appeal was filed to revoke her permit.

Here’s the kicker: the appeal hearing is scheduled for December 7th–well after Halloween. Don’t you think that city management could find a way to expedite the hearing to allow a small business to remain operating and give city kids a place to get their pumpkins… Read More

As we get close to the Special Election, California’s newspapers are going through their every-election ritual of taking official position on ballot measures that will appear before voters. For conservatives, this is an exercise in cynicism – as we have come to expect, with a few exceptions, it is always the liberal causes that receive the blessing of the editorial boards. Heck, in Orange County, where I am from, it is a running joke that the candidate backed by the LA Times in a GOP primary loses a lot of perspective Republican voters!

So, it was with a bit of disbelief that I read an email from Prop. 77 Chairman Steve Poizner:

Two candidates have emerged as a likely head-to-head match-up for the June ’06 Primary to replace Claude Parrish on the nation’s largest elected Tax Board. Parrish is termed out of his Third District Board of Equalizationseat. Michelle Steel is reportedly off to a good start with $450,000 cash on hand and Mike Richman of Johnson Clark Associates on board. But the big news is Steel’s recent appointment by Parrish as Deputy Board of Equalization Member. And yes, she’ll get to use that ballot title in the June ’06 Primary. So we’ll see what kind of incumbency mojo that gets her, if any.

The other major force in the race is Assemblyman Ray Haynes, who has good conservative legislative credentials, including his authorship of the California Border… Read More

As of a few weeks ago, most political insiders were expecting Assemblyman Tom Harman to walk into the 35th State Senate seat (to be vacated by Sen. John Campbell as soon as he wins the race for the 48th CD on Nov. 8).

There have been rumors about possible challengers, Michael Resk, a Huntington Beach businessman, disabled veteran and HB 4th of July Parade Co-Chair has been making the rounds and expressing interest (former OC GOP party staffer turned consultant Will Hutson is handling Resk). OC Board of Ed. member and failed Congressional candidate (47th against Loretta Sanchez in 2004) Alexandria Coronado has made some noise, but most don’t think she would go for the senate seat.

OC Supervisor Jim Silva, candidate for the 67th Assembly seat (the one Tom Harman holds now) has been recruited for to switch to the senate race, but… Read More

Few young people in politics aspire to be a sanitation district board member, but there is huge money (your user fees and tax dollars) in sewage and we really can’t afford to ignore these types of agencies.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, our local version of Sen. Tom McClintock, has had some stern words for the Orange County Sanitation District regarding that agencies hiring of a new age management consulting firm.

An email today from Assemblyman DeVore explains: "This is a follow-up to a story you may remember from last July when I first wrote about the Orange County Sanitation District’s (OCSD) $180,000 per year consulting contract with a yoga priest (“Holy Sewage!” in Human Events July 15, 2005), then two weeks later when I reported that the $117.8 million sewer treatment agency fired Dharma Consulting after being embarrassed by… Read More

Four score and some years ago, CalTrans and the state of California thought finishing the 710 freeway would relieve congestion and bring economic prosperity to the west San Gabriel Valley.

They didn’t count on the people of South Pasadena who have organized and spent millions of dollars fighting this idea.

Now, State Senator Gil Cedillo has proposed a tunnel to connect the freeway. Read about it here. We’ll see if he solved the problem…. in another forty years.… Read More

Subject Feedback – where I give you a chance to read what is sent to me by some of the subject’s of the FR Commentary:

Here are two ‘responses’ —

1) On October 12, I wrote in my commentary about my frustration that Congressman Duncan Hunter of San Diego, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was apparently opposed to any across the board spending cuts in Congress. The conservative Republican Study Committee has proposed these cuts as a way to deal with Katrina Recovery costs without raising taxes or ‘charging’ efforst to the federal defecit.

On behalf of Congressman Hunter, his Communications Director, Joe Kasper, sent along the following:

Months ago, the House Financial Services Committee reported a bill to reform Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE’s), specifically FannieMae and FreddieMac, which specialize in providing affordable housing.

Reporting errors in these publicly traded GSE’s in the millions and billions raised the threat of another Enron and Congress responded with reforms to create an independent regulator.

The Republican chairman, Mike Oxley of Ohio, and the ranking member, Barney Frank of Massachusetts , agreed on a provision that mandates that Fannie and Freddie give 5% of their after tax profits to affordable housing advocates such as ACORN. The total figure is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion – that’s with a B, billion.

The problem here in addition to the obviously offensive idea of forcing a publicly traded company, or any company for that matter, to give their after tax profits to anyone is that ACORN engages in political… Read More