Aaron Read
Edsource.org
Olson Hagel
Capitol Weekly
CA Leg Analyst
Cal FPPC
Maplight.org
 
 

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How did this California police department hire so many officers with troubling pasts? -- They hired a cop investigated in an FBI child porn probe, and another caught up in an LAPD burglary ring. They gave a job to an officer who filed a bogus insurance claim for a car his friends dumped in Mexico. And they brought in a cop with a conviction for pulling a gun on his stepdaughter’s friends. Katey Rusch and Laurence Du Sault in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 11/11/19

Off-duty Richmond cop who fatally shot Vallejo man identified -- The off-duty Richmond officer who shot and killed a Vallejo man during an altercation outside of a popular restaurant here has been identified as Sgt. Virgil Thomas, a 27-year veteran of the force. Nate Gartrell in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 11/11/19

Pending review of San Diego County jail deaths criticized as shallow, praised as road to improvement -- San Diego County expects to spend up to $150,000 on a new study of its jail system, the latest effort to defeat a mortality rate that has exceeded most major California county jail systems for years. Jeff McDonald and Kelly Davis in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 11/11/19

San Diego officials say they won’t sell private data from smart street lights -- City attorney candidate Cory Briggs is alleging at campaign appearances and on his website that City Attorney Mara Elliott was negligent for approving the 2016 contract between the city and General Electric to provide thousands of the street lights, which have video and audio sensors. Katy Stegall in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 11/11/19

Push to end veteran homelessness in Santa Clara County reaches key milestone -- Amid a fight against homelessness that often seems like an uphill battle, there is a spot of good news this Veterans Day. For the first time since it launched four years ago, the All the Way Home campaign to provide shelter for homeless veterans is placing more people into housing than it’s receiving. Emily DeRuy in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 11/11/19

Caltrans grapples with spread of homeless camps along highways -- Sarah Teague has a system when workers for Caltrans come to clean up the homeless encampment where she lives, under the University Avenue overpass of Interstate 580 in Berkeley. Sarah Ravani in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/11/19

First engine broke down en route to Woolsey fire, sources say. Blaze grew at a terrifying rate -- When the Woolsey fire broke out a year ago at Boeing’s shuttered nuclear and rocket engine testing site near Simi Valley, a private fire crew working for the aerospace giant was the closest to the flames. A firetruck headed to the scene. But it didn’t get far. Jaclyn Cosgrove in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/19

Taylor: BART police saving lives on trains with Narcan -- A man, drenched in sweat with his eyes closed, slumped in his seat on an Antioch-bound BART train a little before 8 p.m. on Nov. 2. In his hands, he held a piece of crinkled aluminum foil stained by burned drug residue. Otis R. Taylor Jr. in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/11/19

BART general manager apologizes to man cited for eating sandwich on platform -- The general manager of BART on Monday apologized to a man who was cited for eating a sandwich on a Pleasant Hill train platform last week, an incident that was captured on video and quickly ricocheted through the internet. Alejandro Serrano in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/11/19

5,600 homes, a Sac State campus: Major Placer County development in final planning stages -- A plan to transform more than 13 square miles of farmland sandwiched between Lincoln, Rocklin and Roseville into a vast development has inched closer to reality. Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 11/11/19

 

California Policy & Politics This Morning  

Steve Knight says he will try to win back the House seat he lost to Katie Hill -- Republican Steve Knight, a former Los Angeles police officer who served two terms in the House before being defeated by Democrat Katie Hill, said Sunday he will try to win back his old seat after Hill abruptly announced her resignation last month. Laura King in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/19

New SF D.A. Chesa Boudin wants to transform system: ‘A lot of work to be done’ -- When Chesa Boudin is sworn in as San Francisco’s new district attorney, he said, he will immediately get to work reforming the city’s criminal justice system. Some goals, like ending mass incarceration, will take time. But others, like doing away with gang enhancements and ending money bail, will begin on day one, he said. Evan Sernoffsky in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/11/19

Chesa Boudin, a former public defender, is San Francisco’s new top prosecutor -- When Chesa Boudin learned he had won a tight race to become San Francisco’s new district attorney, he was flying home from a visit with his father at a prison in upstate New York. Boudin was just 14 months old when his left-wing activist parents were incarcerated for their role in an armed robbery that killed three men. Tony Barboza, Jaclyn Cosgrove in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/19

How loss of Mayor Breed’s allies at the polls could make her job harder -- San Francisco progressives are celebrating two major wins from last week’s election that could signal a significant change in how the city approaches key issues such as housing and crime. Trisha Thadani in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/11/19

Walters: Legislating by whim -- The Democrats who dominate the state Legislature have developed a very bad habit — legislating by whim. If they take a dislike to something or someone, they ban it. If they like something, they impose it on everyone and/or give it taxpayers’ money. Dan Walters Calmatters -- 11/11/19

Once burned, twice evacuated: After Kincade Fire, some reconsider Sonoma County -- For Andre and thousands of others in Sonoma County, the Kincade Fire served as horrific deja vu to the Wine Country fires that decimated the area two years earlier, killing 22 people and destroying more than 5,600 structures. The double hit has caused some residents to consider what was once unthinkable: leaving Sonoma County and its pastoral hills, iconic vineyards and rugged coastline. Megan Cassidy in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/11/19

‘Go back to California’: Wave of newcomers fuels backlash in Boise -- This city sure knows how to roll up the welcome mat — that is, if you happen to move here from California. Maria L. La Ganga in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/19

How the U.S. betrayed the Marshall Islands, kindling the next nuclear disaster -- Five thousand miles west of Los Angeles and 500 miles north of the equator, on a far-flung spit of white coral sand in the central Pacific, a massive, aging and weathered concrete dome bobs up and down with the tide. Susanne Rust in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/19

Economy, Employers, Jobs, Unions, Pensions  

Schnur: California needs to help drivers by lowering high gas prices. How to do it is complicated -- All it takes is a quick look at the prices on the sign outside the nearest gas station to believe that someone has declared war on California drivers. But the harder question to answer is figuring out exactly who is leading that fight. Dan Schnur in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 11/11/19

Tortured talks between Oakland, A’s go on, but public wants team to stay -- After losing two of their three professional sports teams, Oakland voters have a message for City Hall: Keep the A’s, build a new waterfront ballpark, and drop the lawsuit aimed at blocking the team from buying the county’s half of the Coliseum site. That’s the headline from a new poll commissioned by the Oakland Chamber of Commerce. Retaining the Oakland A’s was favored by 77% of the voters surveyed. Phil Matier in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/11/19

Pension funds could lose some shareholder clout -- With their massive stock holdings, CalPERS and CalSTRS have been leaders in pushing companies on issues such as sky-high executive pay, captive corporate boards that lack diversity, and hurdles to putting resolutions up for a vote by all shareholders. Ed Mendel Calpensions.com -- 11/11/19

Hiltzik: Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson’s death comes at a time of transition for the huge system -- Few healthcare entities play as large a role as Kaiser in California and across the nation. Kaiser is both a health insurer and health provider, owning its own hospitals and clinics and setting forth treatment protocols for its professional workforce. Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/19

Okies disappearing from Dust Bowl Festival, replaced by Latino migrants tending California’s fields -- The girl was afraid to speak in class because of her accent. The clothes sewn by her farmworker mother made her self-conscious. She lived in a field laborers’ camp outside the dusty town of Lamont, and many Californians despised people like her. Go back to where you came from, they said. Hailey Branson-Potts in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/19

Homeless  

County program could ease conservatorship process for some people with severe mental illness, addiction -- San Diego County is pursuing a pilot program that would make it easier for judges to order some homeless people with mental health issues into conservatorship, a step that could lead to them to treatment they otherwise would not voluntarily accept. Gary Warth in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 11/11/19

Wildfire  

Will Paradise be rebuilt without its largest low-income housing complex? -- An obscure federal rule could keep more than 80 low-income residents from moving back to the town destroyed by the deadliest wildfire in state history. Matt Levin Calmatters -- 11/11/19

Health 

Acute rehabilitation unit at Scripps Memorial Encinitas to close -- Memo cites need for additional bed space, but data also show significant decrease in profitability. Paul Sisson in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 11/11/19

POTUS 45  

Nikki Haley Describes Rebuffing Internal Scheme Against Trump -- Nikki R. Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations, says in a new book that she resisted entreaties by other top aides to President Trump to undermine his policies, revealing more about the fractious world of loyalty and betrayal around the president. Peter Baker in the New York Times$ -- 11/11/19

Giuliani Associate Says He Gave Demand for Biden Inquiry to Ukrainians -- The claim by the associate, Lev Parnas, is being vigorously disputed -- The associate, Lev Parnas, told a representative of the incoming government that it had to announce an investigation into Mr. Trump’s political rival, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and his son, or else Vice President Mike Pence would not attend the swearing-in of the new president, and the United States would freeze aid, the lawyer said. Ben Protess, Andrew E. Kramer, Michael Rothfeld and William K. Rashbaum in the New York Times$ -- 11/11/19

Beltway 

California Democrat: No reason for whistleblower to testify -- Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) on Sunday didn’t budge: The whistleblower who called attention to President Donald Trump’s Ukraine call and spurred an impeachment inquiry doesn’t need to testify. Rishika Dugyala Politico -- 11/11/19

Pete Buttigieg outlasts the pundits by emerging as the alternative to Biden -- As other presidential candidates promise free healthcare, college debt relief and sweeping new taxes on the ultra-rich, Pete Buttigieg is drawing large crowds with a different angle. Evan Halper in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/11/19

 

-- Sunday Updates 

California’s Criminal Cops: Who they are, what they did, why some are still working -- More than 80 law enforcement officers working today in California are convicted criminals, with rap sheets that include everything from animal cruelty to manslaughter. Robert Lewis, David DeBolt, Jason Paladino, Katey Rusch, Laurence Du Sault and Ali Defazio in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 11/10/19

These California police officers were charged with brutalizing loved ones. So why are so many still carrying a gun? -- He shoved her to the ground, kneed her in the back and handcuffed her so she couldn’t take their baby and leave, she told police. When she tried to get away, she said, he grabbed her hair and pushed her face into the door frame. Police photographed her swollen right eye for evidence. Robert Lewis and David Debolt in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 11/10/19

California Criminal Cops: Ex-police chief who hired abusive brother-in-law: ‘Maybe I made a mistake’ -- Graham Hill was the police chief in the tiny Humboldt County town of Rio Dell when he took a chance on a rookie cop with a criminal past. That officer just so happened to be Hill’s brother-in-law. And it wouldn’t be the last time he broke the law. David DeBolt in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 11/10/19

DUI is the most common offense among California police officers -- Roxanne Steward had picked up her daughter at the Reno airport and was driving to them to see family in Lassen County when her daughter screamed, “Mom! Mom!” “All I said is, ‘I see it,’” Steward said in a recent interview, as she recalled looking through the windshield of the car headed straight at her. “I saw George Driscoll’s eyes.” Robert Lewis in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 11/10/19

New owners for PG&E? A co-op would would bear utility’s burdens -- Turning California’s largest electric utility into a customer-owned cooperative, as San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo is trying to do, is not an easy feat to accomplish. J.D. Morris in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/10/19

Archer who wounded homeless people wanted for attempted double homicide -- Charges against a person who shot arrows and wounded two homeless people at an encampment in Richmond have been elevated to attempted double homicide, the East Bay Regional Park District police said. Shwanika Narayan in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 11/10/19

Giant Greta Thunberg mural going up in Union Square -- If you feel like climate activist Greta Thunberg has been dominating the media lately, she’ll soon be staring down at you on Mason Street near Union Square, too. Created by the same artist who brought San Francisco its beloved Robin Williams mural (which has since been demolished), a large depiction of the 16-year-old activist is set to be completed next week. Tessa McLean in the San Francisco Chronicle -- 11/10/19

An L.A. councilman swore off developer money. Rivals argue he’s broken that promise -- When David Ryu first ran for Los Angeles City Council, he swore off campaign money from real estate developers with L.A. projects, a move that became a selling point for him as a City Hall outsider. Emily Alpert Reyes in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/10/19

Rep. Duncan Hunter cancels international travel ahead of criminal trial -- Shortly after a judge granted Rep. Duncan Hunter permission on Friday to travel abroad ahead of his criminal trial in January, the lawmaker canceled plans to leave the country. Morgan Cook in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 11/10/19

In this California ‘Trump country’ town, folks hear the impeachment talk, but it feels a world away -- On the road into Taft, fields of fruit trees give way to orchards of oil rigs nodding on golden hills that shimmer against a blue sky like creased velvet. Tyrone Beason in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/10/19

Why were Carpinteria school officials pictured smiling in a marijuana field? Money -- In this seaside town, readers of the local paper recently came upon a curious photo: the school district superintendent and four administrators standing and smiling in a field of marijuana plants. They were wearing caps with the logo of the grower’s brand, Glass House Farms. Joe Mozingo in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/10/19

Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson dies at 60 -- Bernard Tyson, Kaiser Permanente CEO and Chairman, passed away unexpectedly in his sleep on Sunday night, the health care giant announced in a press release. Tyson, who has served as chairman since 2014, was 60 years old. Katie Dowd in the San Francisco Chronicle Thy Vo in the San Jose Mercury$ Vincent Moleski in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 11/10/19

Behavioral health workers may halt strike after sudden death of Kaiser CEO Bernard Tyson -- Behavioral health workers may halt strike after sudden death of Kaiser CEO Bernard Tyson. Cathie Anderson in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 11/10/19

Historic rise in Chinese students at UC San Diego stalls due to sour political climate in US -- It seemed like a great solution to a bad problem. Plagued by years of cuts in state funding, UC San Diego threw open its doors to Chinese students who were willing to pay three times as much tuition as California residents to attend the prestigious La Jolla school. Gary Robbins in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 11/10/19

Crisis of spirit: An Army chaplain’s journey with PTSD -- With a name like Robert Blessing, he seemed destined to become a preacher. But the decision to join the U.S. Army as a chaplain? That was all his doing. And his undoing. John Wilkens in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 11/10/19

Okies disappearing from Dust Bowl Festival, replaced by Latino migrants tending California’s fields -- The girl was afraid to speak in class because of her accent. The clothes sewn by her farmworker mother made her self-conscious. She lived in a field laborers’ camp outside the dusty town of Lamont, and many Californians despised people like her. Go back to where you came from, they said. Hailey Branson-Potts in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 11/10/19

Generators are a hot commodity: Here’s what you need to know about buying one for the next outage -- Cody Severtson found out about the Oct. 9 Pacific Gas & Electric public safety power shutoff around noon the day before. By the time Severtson was able to get off work, Costco had already sold out of generators and Sportsman’s Warehouse had just one left. Sonia Waraich in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 11/10/19