Updating . .
California sues Trump administration over rules restricting abortion access -- Leading what is expected to be a national battle over the issue, California on Monday sued the Trump administration seeking to block a new regulation that restricts access to abortion and other family-planning services. Patrick McGreevy in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/19
Sacramento Kings expect Stephon Clark protest tonight. What it means if you’re going to the game -- The Sacramento Kings announced the team would close the Golden 1 Center plaza to everyone but ticketed guests and employees Monday in anticipation of possible protests at tonight’s game with the New York Knicks. Ryan Sabalow, Sam Stanton, and Dale Kasler in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/4/19
Everyone is saying they just won a big court case on pensions. What does that mean for you? -- If all sides are declaring victory in the California Supreme Court’s pension ruling on Monday, it’s because the decision had a little something for all the combatants in the state’s pension wars. Judy Lin Calmatters -- 3/4/19
California public employees’ pension perks can be taken away, court rules -- The California Supreme Court on Monday released a decision that allows California government agencies to alter secondary retirement benefits offered to public workers while sidestepping a bigger question about whether employers can alter “core pension rights” in their contracts. Wes Venteicher in the Sacramento Bee$ Maura Dolan in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/19
ADEMs are crucial — and a bit of a mystery -- Few Californians are familiar with the state Democratic Party’s Assembly District Election Meetings, known as ADEMs. Even fewer – under 40,000 – vote in them. Dave Kempa Capitol Weekly -- 3/4/19
Supreme Court lets stand $4-million verdict against L.A. County deputies in shooting -- The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a $4-million verdict against two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who were searching for a fugitive and mistakenly shot an innocent homeless couple sleeping in a shed behind a Lancaster home. David G. Savage in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/19
New police alliance emerges in opposition to California use-of-force bill -- Protect California pushing police-backed legislation and other policies as civil-rights groups gain momentum to change how state addresses police violence. Robert Salonga in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 3/4/19
Oakland schools greet students, teachers as classes resume -- Oakland Unified school trustees were meeting this morning to consider cutting $21.75 million from the 2019-20 budget to help pay for teachers’ raises and shore up the struggling district’s finances. If no reductions are made, the district’s deficit is expected to reach $56 million by the 2020-21 school year. The cuts are expected to involve staff layoffs as well as other drastic actions. Ali Tadayon in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 3/4/19
California takes politics out of a very political job. It’s looking for help -- State Auditor Elaine Howle is on the recruiting trail, looking for California voters interested in a job that’s almost guaranteed to make them no friends at all. Once again, Howle is responsible for picking the 14 people who will form the state Citizens Redistricting Commission, the group that will redraw California’s political maps after the 2020 census. John Wildermuth in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/19
An Oakland school upped spending after a $2.8M donation of Chinese paintings. Then came the appraisal -- When the small Oakland private school received the donation of four Chinese paintings, valued at $2.8 million, administrators were gobsmacked. Jill Tucker in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/19
San Francisco Mayor Breed wants Embarcadero to have San Francisco’s largest Navigation Center -- San Francisco’s newest homeless Navigation Center could come with one of the best views in the city. City officials are hoping to persuade the Port Commission to bring what would be San Francisco’s largest Navigation Center to the Embarcadero, just south of the Bay Bridge. Dominic Fracassa in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/19
East Oakland, despite resistance, edging out San Francisco in building bus rapid transit -- On a long-neglected stretch of East Oakland, bulldozers are tearing gullies in the asphalt, clearing the path for a bus system that could breathe new life into the strip of auto body shops, taquerias and splashy murals. Rachel Swan in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/19
Guerneville floods more than anywhere in the Bay Area. Why can’t it be fixed? -- Since 1940, the Russian River has flooded Guerneville 38 times, the result of history, geology and no cheap solutions. Paul Rogers in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 3/4/19
Fox: One Path to Follow After the Stephon Clark Decision -- In the wake of the announcement this weekend that no charges would be brought against the police officers that shot and killed unarmed Stephon Clark, Governor Gavin Newsom spoke of the need for increased community policing to build trust between residents and policing agencies. He should look at the success of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Community Safety Partnership (CSP). Joel Fox Fox & Hounds -- 3/4/19
California Policy & Politics This Morning
Oakland teachers strike ends with union members ratifying deal -- Oakland teachers ended their seven-day strike Sunday and will return to schools Monday after approving a new contract that won them salary increases and concessions on class sizes and staff workloads. Carolyn Said in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Joseph Geha, Ali Tadayon and Thy Vo in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 3/4/19
Lessons from the Los Angeles and Oakland teachers' strikes -- After two teachers’ strikes in as many months in California, it is too soon to tell whether the labor disputes in Oakland and Los Angeles presage a new era of school-based activism. But regardless of what comes next, the strikes had much in common, and yielded valuable lessons for other districts where labor troubles may also be brewing. Louis Freedberg EdSource -- 3/4/19
Critics Accuse Sacramento District Attorney Of ‘Character Assassination’ During Announcement In Stephon Clark Case -- Just hours after DA Anne-Marie Schubert announced that she would not prosecute officers Jared Robinet and Terrence Mercadal for killing Clark, demonstrators with Black Lives Matter chanted outside a police station on Freeport Boulevard. The mood was often somber, however, and demonstrator Onethia Riley says that's because it felt like the DA was blaming Clark for his own murder. Ezra David Romero Capital Public Radio -- 3/4/19
Salena Manni, the fiancée of Stephon Clark, is ‘all cried out.’ -- Salena Manni this weekend did what she always does when she comes to Sacramento. She visited her fiancé‘s grave. “It is just comforting to me,” she said. “I talk to him. I do prayers for him. It gives me comfort to know that is where he is. I still feel like I am with him.” Tony Bizjak in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/4/19
Arden Fair mall in Sacramento closes as Stephon Clark protesters hold sit-in -- A handful of protesters, upset over the district attorney’s decision in the Stephon Clark shooting, brought Sacramento’s largest shopping center to its knees Sunday. Arden Fair mall closed without ever opening after 10 demonstrators who’d camped overnight in the mall’s central atrium planned a 1960s-style “teach-in” to talk to shoppers about racial justice. Dale Kasler in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/4/19
Stephon Clark’s family pledges to seek justice after Sacramento police are cleared in shooting -- The family of Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old unarmed black man killed by Sacramento police in March of last year, asked all California residents to join them in fighting for justice a day after Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced she would not prosecute two police officers who shot at Clark more than 20 times. Dominic Fracassa in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/19
Brother of man killed by police wants California to prosecute -- Stevante Clark called on California’s attorney general to prosecute them after the local district attorney declined to do so. He told reporters his family was devastated, first by his brother Stephon’s killing last March as he held a cellphone, and again Saturday when Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced the officers would not be charged. John Rogers Associated Press -- 3/4/19
A frustrated congregation mourns ‘a second death of Stephon Clark’ -- No photos of Stephon Clark adorned the walls of South Sacramento Christian Center on Sunday morning, and his name may not have come up as often as it did in sermons immediately following his death. The topic of pastors’ sermons about inequality and healing, though, were clear. Benjy Egel in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/4/19
Big-dollar donors, including Donald Trump, fueled Kamala Harris’ political rise in California -- Asked last week if she believes President Donald Trump is a racist, California Sen. Kamala Harris told The Root, “I don’t think you can reach any other conclusion.” In 2018, the Trump White House accused Harris of “supporting the animals of MS-13,” a gang formed by Central American immigrants in Los Angeles. Emily Cadei in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/4/19
California’s presidential primary: Here’s what you need to know -- With California’s 2020 presidential primary a year away, Democrats vying to challenge President Trump have started swinging through the Golden State. True, much of their time is spent behind closed doors, at cocktail parties and swanky dinners, where they hit up Hollywood and Silicon Valley types for money to spend in places like Iowa and New Hampshire. Michael Finnegan and Mark Z. Barabak in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/19
Court battles could test constitutionality of California voting rights law -- When most people think of landmark voting rights cases, places like Alabama or North Carolina, not Santa Monica, usually come to mind. But last month, a judge in the affluent, left-leaning coastal enclave ruled that Santa Monica’s system of at-large City Council representation “intentionally discriminated” against its growing Latino population. Benjamin Oreskes in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/19
Walters: Newsom housing plan may have fatal flaw -- As California’s housing shortage deepened in the last decade, Jerry Brown made only token efforts to address it. However, his successor as governor, Gavin Newsom, promises to confront it head-on, even pledging during his campaign to build 3.5 million new units in six years, which would require annual production to quadruple. Dan Walters Calmatters -- 3/4/19
Skelton: California should stop thinking about more dams. The state is brimming with them -- Think California should build a lot more dams to catch these deluges? Forget it. George Skelton in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/19
Humboldt County sisters, ages 5 and 8, dehydrated and cold but OK after 2 days missing -- Authorities found two young sisters unharmed Sunday morning almost 48 hours after they wandered away from their rural Humboldt County home, triggering a massive search that included helicopters, tracking dogs and help from law enforcement agencies across the region. Anh Do and Bettina Boxall in the Los Angeles Times$ Michael Cabanatuan in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 3/4/19
LA County Officials Say Sheriff Had No Right To Rehire Fired Deputy And They Won't Pay Him -- Los Angeles County officials say Sheriff Alex Villanueva had no right to rehire a disgraced deputy, calling the action unlawful and saying it exceeded the new sheriff's authority. At the direction of the Board of Supervisors, the county's Auditor-Controller has stopped paying Deputy Carl Mandoyan and ordered him to turn in all county property, including his badge and gun. Frank Stoltze laist Matt Stiles and Maya Lau in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/19
Economy, Employers, Jobs, Unions, Pensions
State psychiatric nurses are working back-to-back shifts. New proposal would give them a choice -- Overworked mental health nurses would be able to turn down overtime shifts in some of the state’s most dangerous institutions if the Legislature adopts a bill sponsored by their union. Wes Venteiche in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/4/19
CalPERS can’t get enough of its top-earning asset -- CalPERS is considering a step toward buying companies on its own, rather than through partnerships with private equity firms that charge high annual fees and then take a chunk of the profits. Ed Mendel Calpensions.com -- 3/4/19
Homeless
To help people off the streets and into shelters, welcome their pets? -- When police officers found Julie Hemingway bedded down on the asphalt of a Taco Bell parking lot, she wasn’t interested in moving to a homeless shelter. No way was she leaving her cat, Tammy. Elizabeth Castillo Calmatters -- 3/4/19
Homeless live in the Sepulveda Flood Basin for seclusion, but winter rains are a crude reminder that ‘The Bamboos’ is no resort -- Tucked behind some brush and a makeshift plastic wall just feet away from Burbank Boulevard one cold and rainy February night, 63-year-old Mark Kline sat at the door of his tent watching the water level rise. Ariella Plachta in the Los Angeles Daily News$ -- 3/4/19
Housing
Squatters and landlords: Why it's so tough to remove tenants who stop paying rent -- After two years working and living in Germany, Carrie and Scott Packard were itching to move back into their four-bed, two-bath Carlsbad home. They just couldn’t wait. But they had to. Peter Rowe in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 3/4/19
San Diego proposal to wipe out parking requirements heads for Monday council vote -- San Diego could take a key step Monday toward becoming a city less reliant on automobiles by wiping out parking requirements for new condominium and apartment complexes in neighborhoods near mass transit. David Garrick in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 3/4/19
Education
With Nazi salutes around a makeshift swastika, Newport Beach students spark outrage -- Newport Beach school officials on Sunday said they are investigating images posted on social media appearing to show a group of partying students — arms outstretched in a Nazi salute — gathered around red plastic cups arranged in the shape of a swastika. Christine Mai-Duc, Laura Newberry, Anh Do and Lilly Nguyen in the Los Angeles Times$ Deepa Bharath in the Orange County Register -- 3/4/19
Guns
Hamel, subject of a federal firearms investigation, paid his spouse $100,000 for her share of family gun collection -- The affidavits filed by the FBI and firearms bureau agents to secure search warrants for properties owned by San Diego jeweler Leo Hamel and others have been sealed by a judge, along with any inventory of what was seized earlier this month during multiple raids across the region. But other court records in El Cajon show that Hamel and his former wife stored many firearms at their Jamul estate. Jeff McDonald in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 3/4/19
Water
A massive aquifer lies beneath the Mojave Desert. Could it help solve California’s water problem? -- There is water here in the Mojave Desert. A lot of it. Whether to tap it on a commercial scale or leave it alone is a decades-old question the Trump administration has revived and the California legislature is visiting anew. Scott Wilson in the Washington Post$ -- 3/4/19
Also . . .
In 2016, a bullet was fired in Concord. It may have solved a 2018 killing in San Jose -- Uriel Cabrera loved his gun. It was a .38 super pistol, a status symbol and a favorite of Mexican drug lords, and it was Cabrera’s constant companion as he drove his gray Mercedes-Benz through the streets of the East Bay. Robert Salonga in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 3/4/19
As Trump and Kim Met, North Korean Hackers Hit Over 100 Targets in U.S. and Ally Nations -- North Korean hackers who have targeted American and European businesses for 18 months kept up their attacks last week even as President Trump was meeting with North Korea’s leader in Hanoi. Nicole Perlroth in the New York Times$ -- 3/4/19
POTUS 45
President Trump has made 9,014 false or misleading claims over 773 days -- Powered by his two-hour stemwinder at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2 — which featured more than 100 false or misleading claims — President Trump is on pace to exceed his daily quota set during his first two years in office. Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly in the Washington Post$ -- 3/4/19
Trump’s emergency declaration hits Senate roadblock; House Democrats signal new probes -- President Trump’s relations with Congress took a sharp turn for the worse Sunday as his emergency declaration for a border wall hit a roadblock in the GOP-controlled Senate, and House Democrats signaled a sweeping new probe of whether the president obstructed justice and abused his power. Laura King in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/4/19
Trump’s Job-Approval Rating Ticks Up, Along With Warning Signs -- President Trump’s job-approval rating has ticked up, but many of his party’s policy positions are viewed as out of the mainstream, and there is broad opposition to his effort to fund a border wall by declaring a national emergency, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds. Reid J. Epstein in the Wall Street Journal$ -- 3/4/19
-- Sunday Updates
Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento to close Sunday as Stephon Clark protestors hold sit-in -- Arden Fair mall shut down Sunday after a small group of protestors, upset over the district attorney’s decision in the Stephon Clark shooting, staged a sit-in early Sunday at the city’s largest shopping center. Dale Kasler in the Sacramento Bee$ Christine Mai-Duc in the Los Angeles Times$-- 3/3/19
Will Stephon Clark protests block fans from Sacramento Kings games at Golden 1 Center? -- The Sacramento Kings’ organization spent much of the past year forging an alliance with activist groups in the black community whose protests over the Stephon Clark shooting effectively shut down Golden 1 Center twice last March. On Wednesday the Kings hosted a nearly day-long “summit” at Golden 1 to address social justice issues, concluding with a pledge to fund $50,000 worth of scholarships for inner-city youth. Dale Kasler, Tony Bizjak, and Sam Stanton in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/3/19
Sacramento police chief says officers who shot Stephon Clark could be fired – or cleared -- Sacramento Police Chief Dan Hahn said he intends to conduct a fast internal review in the coming weeks of whether his officers failed to follow police procedures the night they chased down and shot Stephon Clark. Any outcome is possible, he said, including the officers getting fired. Tony Bizjak in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 3/3/19
Newsom’s shorter California bullet train plan likely to run out of money before completion -- The California bullet train project will probably run out of money before it can fulfill Gov. Gavin Newsom’s modest plan to build a high-speed operating segment between Bakersfield and Merced, according to a Times analysis of the state rail authority’s financial records. Ralph Vartabedian in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/3/19
How California’s early primary illustrates the state’s political inferiority complex -- California loves to talk about itself in superlatives: The nation’s most populous state. The fifth-largest economy in the world. Producer of tech titans and Hollywood blockbusters and a whole lot of fruits and veggies. Melanie Mason in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/3/19
Court battles could test constitutionality of California voting rights law -- When most people think of landmark voting rights cases, places like Alabama or North Carolina, not Santa Monica, usually come to mind. Benjamin Oreskes in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 3/3/19
Forget the past, carbon-rich soil may be the ticket to sustainable agriculture -- Poncia’s Stemple Creek Ranch might be a model for future farmers with its sustainable agricultural practices to keep carbon in the soil and out of the atmosphere. Along with less greenhouse gas emissions, carbon-rich soil means healthier and more productive plants, according to rangeland ecologist Jeff Creque. Helen Santoro in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 3/3/19
What's lurking in your marijuana? -- Buried in an industrial park in Sorrento Valley, Desmond Zamarripa spends his days hunched over a stainless steel lab bench, scraping syrupy cannabis concentrate from cartridges, blending cannabis-infused gummy bears to candy-colored mush and pulverizing fragrant cannabis flower to a powder. Kristina Davis in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 3/3/19