Although the mayor’s race will grab headlines this year in Oakland, another big story is the potential walkout by Oakland teachers. The teachers are working without a contract after rejecting an offer by the district last spring which did not give them the pay increase and protected benefit package that they wanted.

For the teachers unions, it always comes down to money. That’s why the Oakland Teachers Association is talking more and more about striking, likely in the early part of 2006. They want district officials to restore a four percent cut in pay they agreed to 2003 and don’t want to pay any additional money for their health care coverage. Unfortunately, … Read More

Sacramento Bee’s veteran political columnist, Dan Walters, pens a piece today where he laments that that despite extremely low public-approval ratings for the legislature, the partisan redistricting plan ensures that virtually every legislative seat will be retained by the political party that holds it now.

He does note two areas where seats held by Democrats are in trouble — the upper San Joaquin Valley (Stockton area) and central Orange County:

There will be, as noted earlier, a few vacant districts in which there could be at least a ghost of partisan competition in November, the gerrymander notwithstanding. The suburban San Joaquin Valley seat held by termed-out Democrat Barbara Matthews of Tracy, for example, could turn over because the Democrats have lost four percentage points of their voter registration margin in the last four years.

… Read More

This June may feature the dirtiest campaign in the history of Los Angeles. How dirty? Just over 270,000 tons of sludge. That’s right, sludge created by the sanitation departments in LA and OC when they treat and "clean" the sewagedonated by some of the finest citizens in LA and Orange counties. Perhaps even some from yours truly. This sludge is then used as fertilizer on some farms in Kern County.

Some in Kern County don’t like getting dumped on from those down under. They have qulaified an initiative that will ban the import of sludge from outside Kern County. It appears tha Kern County’ssludge doesn’t stink and is far superior to others and will not be banned. G

The Kern County Board of Supervisors will vote shortly on whether to adopt the initiative or place it on the ballot. I hope they do the election. Imagine all the great direct mail!!!!! See the article here.… Read More

I am fond of saying that the only good laws are the ones that begin with:

We really don’t need more laws, do we? Yet, for some reason, the state legislature is bent on regulating us more and more.

That is why you should read a great editorial in the OC Register that ran today, listing the editorial staff’s favorite new silly laws.

Several of the laws making the Register’s list pertain to conferring the right on certain consumer groups to cancel contracts with those from which the consumer agreed to purchase goods or services. In my book government has become far too big when it starts taking sides in private contractual arrangements to permit one side to undo an otherwise legally binding contract.… Read More

I served as former state Sen. John Lewis’ press secretary from 1991 to 1994, and taming the SCAQMD was one of his top legislative priorities. The recession of the early 1990s had hit California especially hard, and the state emreged from it much more slowly than the rest of the nation.

Not that that mattered to the pollutocrats running the SCAQMD, who cared not a whit that they were heloing to drive businesses across the state line into the welcoming arms of Nevada, Arizona and other states that were actively recruiting California businesses to their friendlier climes.

After reading a Lance Izumi op-ed published in the Orange County Register a few days ago, it seems clear that while the personalities on the SCAQMD Board of Directors may have changed, the agency’s culture hasn’t.

I thought then, and I still believe, that a powerful regional government like the AQMD, which combines executive legislative… Read More

Governor Schwarzenegger wants to raise the minimum wage in California and Bill Dombrowski a sorry excuse for a retail industry rep supports the idea.

I feel like we have entered a parallel universe. The lone sane voice on the issue is Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman who gets the big picture: Forced higher wages mean fewer jobs.

For those who think this is the latest in a string of job-killing proposals being spearheaded by new COS Susan Kennedy, you may be right.

I have suggested before that the governor’s role is in many ways reduced to the opportunistic veto. He could surely veto any attempt to raise the minimum wage. Why he is looking to compromise on this is unclear. Even more bizarre is the retail industry’s acquiescence.… Read More

During the rush rush of Christmas for this single dad, I missed bringing you one of the strangest things I’ve seen happen up in those wacky halls of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors.

We’ve heard they sued to take the land from the land owners of the Conaway Ranch. We know they sued the city of Woodland over the city’s decision to bring a Target store and an automall to their town. Now I get to tell you that they have decided to ban Christmas caroling within County buildings because, according to Supervisor Frank Sieferman, itis a"a knee-jerk reaction to our litigious society."

With all of the important issues facing a growing county, these folks threaten one of our cultural traditions because people sue each other too much.

I’m dazed. Sieferman is confused.Sanity can be found here … Read More

This morning’s San Diego Union-Tribune calls Rob Reiner unethical and charges him with abuse of power. Check these blurbs:

Reiner and his allies have abandoned any claim to the moral high ground. Their role in the misuse of taxpayer dollars for what is little more than promotion of Reiner’s latest crusade – a 2006 initiative to provide free preschool to all the state’s 4-year-olds – is far more sleazy than noble … The next time you read a gushy article about Reiner, the rich show-biz mogul who so cares about kids, feel free to groan. He may care about kids, but he doesn’t give a rip about ethics.

Read the complete editorial here. And, have a great New Year!… Read More