"The most consistent and smartest thinking and writing about progressive politics isn't happening in Sacramento, but being churned out day after day on sites and by organizations like Calitics, Orange County Progressive, and the California Budget Project." - CalBuzz
In March 2009, Huntington Beach implemented Stage 1 of their water management plan, designed to conserve 10 percent or more of municipal water use. Stage 1 involves asking the public to conserve water voluntarily.
The number one use of water in our homes is residential lawn watering. Many homes use much more than 50 percent of all their water on their lawns. The city provides a wealth of water-saving tips on its website. But too often though, the best step one can take to conserve household use of water gets lost in the details.
As a Public Works Commissioner, I had already been exploring the idea of transforming my lawn into a California native plant, drought tolerant landscape. But with the Stage 1 announcement, I knew I had to do it.
My partner and I hired a landscape company to remove the grass and come up with a plan for our yard. In June 2008, we invited our friends and neighbors over to a “planting party” to help plant the nearly 100 plants that make up our new landscaped native garden.
Now, months later the plants are well established and will need to be watered only once a month. That’s a big water savings. Not only does that make the monthly water bill go down, now my garden is a mecca for native butterflies and birds.
My native garden is a real joy. I love the idea of helping the community by reducing my water use and in turn I’ve been given what amounts to a small native plant and animal reserve right outside of my front door. You can find out more about native gardens this weekend at Back to Natives Restoration. This from their web page:
FREE Native Plant Workshop August 29, 9AM - 1PM Join Back to Natives for a FREE workshop for the community. Learn how you can use native plants in your yard to save water (and money) and provide habitat for butterflies and birds. Participants will learn about the process of creating a native plant habitat garden from beginning to end. Bring your gloves and be ready to help plant a garden at the Costa Mesa Green Home, a residence in Costa Mesa. RSVP to info@backtonatives.org
It's amazing how a bit of truth telling can hurt you. But that's what I do, I can't really bear to mislead or lie so when faced with the question on my unemployment form, I put that I had indeed begun taking classes.
I lost my job in April of this year but I had been unhappy for a long time, wishing to be laid off for a while. Or even fired. I couldn't quit though. Something in me wouldn't allow it.
And since being laid off they have laid off another 9 employees. It's not pretty and the company is headed to the number of employees they had when I started there in 2001.
I must say it's been interesting seeing "what happens in Vegas" in the last month. However, I don't really get this.
Are California's lawmakers pigs?
A new video campaign designed to draw businesses unhappy with California to relocate to Southern Nevada portrays lawmakers as morphing into pigs.
It is being launched by Nevada Development Authority, which has tried other ad campaigns in the past with the same goal, but not featuring the actions of the California Legislature.
The NDA says it's sure many California businesses are considering relocation due to the state's current troubles.
The campaign stresses that business owners pay no corporate or personal income tax in Nevada and have much lower workers' compensation rates.
Now I know the corporate media haven't been talking about it lately, but just because they're not talking about it doesn't mean it's not happening. Rather, it's quite dangerous that it's falling under the radar. Believe it or not, the climate crisis is getting worse.
Results from a new Gallup poll have state by state breakdowns that show party identification, including leaners.
For California, the breakdown shows a 22 point spread, with 53 per cent of Californians identifying as Democrats, and 30% as Republicans. with 17% not stating a partisan preference.
What's kind of amazing is that in last report from the Secretary of State showed 44.6 Democrats, 31.1% Republicans and 24.4 registered with minor parties or without a party.
The percentage of Republican and Republican leaners is slightly lower than the percentage of voters registered as Republicans.
As local Republicans like John Campbell continue to tie themselves to the Wiley Drake /Flat Birfer fringes, and expose themselves to national derision, it's hard to see how they're going to turn these trends around. Nobody wants to admit they're Republicans.
How much do we have really have in common with a minority party led by good old Southern racists and anti-intellectuals?
We all now know that Arnold topped off the "budget of misery" with even more misery, cuts that may not even be legal. These cuts will literally kill thousands of HIV-positive Californians. These cuts will throw thousands of working families off their health care programs, and may ultimately kill a number of them. Don't be fooled, these cuts are lethal and we're only starting to feel the pain.
However, a few good progressives haven't given up yet. Courage Campaign is responding by calling on the Legislature to return to Sacramento ASAP to vote to override Arnold's additional line-item veto cuts. Included after the flip is the full letter from Courage Public Policy Director (and friend of OC Progressive) Robert Cruickshank.
From the Children's Defense Fund California, we get this breakdown of the Single Biggest Cut to Children's Health in History
In Orange County alone, estimates are that 32,000 children will be denied coverage in 2009-2010, and an additional 42,000 will lose coverage starting in November.
The proposed budget deal crafted by the Governor and the heads of the Assembly and Senate shows a colossal failure of leadership that constitutes an irresponsible and cruel blow to California's children's health. With budget cuts to the Healthy Families program expanding to $144 million, a total of 785,000 children are expected to be denied health coverage, resulting in the single largest health coverage cut to children in our nation's history.
Make no mistake about it - this proposal will result in kids getting sicker and some will die. To reach $144 million in savings, Healthy Families would need to disenroll 450,000 children and bar 335,000 eligible children from enrolling - for a total of 785,000 affected children.
The Governor and Legislative leaders will single-handedly wipe out the gains that have been made nationwide to expand health coverage to children. While at least 13 states in this difficult economic period have expanded coverage and enabled 250,000 more children to have access to care, California is moving in the exact opposite direction that shamefully positions our state as a national disgrace to children's health coverage efforts.
We are extremely disappointed the Big Five did not adopt other viable options to save this vital program. There are other alternatives that would create less suffering for our state's children, such as tapping other revenue sources, temporarily delaying health plan rate increases, reducing administrative vendor costs, or imposing modest, one-time premium increases
To move forward in passing the budget without considering all alternatives demonstrates seriously misplaced priorities and goes against these policymakers' previous commitments to preserve children's health coverage. If the Governor and Legislature continue to move forward on this reckless path, 785,000 kids will suffer the consequences as they go without health coverage.
Democrats in the legislature appear willing to go along with this deal because they didn't cut children's health care completely.
If you are in Orange County, call our only real Democratic representative, Jose Solorio, and tell him to vote against the Big 5 deal, and to vote for a new Assembly leader to replace Karen Bass.
It looks like a budget deal may finally be made. Yes, yes, I know I've been saying that for a while. But now, it really looks like Arnold is caving on eliminating CalWORKS as Democrats cave on stopping cuts-only madness. While it could have been even worse, this will nonetheless take the cake as a horrendous "deal" that will cause massive pain in many people's lives.
Arnold looks to be getting his desired enrollment cap on Healthy Families, California's S-CHIP program. While other states are actually expanding health care coverage for children of working families, kids will be turned away from the doctors' offices and health clinics here. Oh, and it gets worse. Home health care services for disabled people will be gutted. State parks may be closed. More state workers will be fired.
And you know what makes this even worse? We'll be paying for these cuts long into the future. Remember that it costs more to care for sick people in the emergency room than at the health clinic. It costs more to turn away tourists and day-trippers from state parks than to keep the parks open. It costs more to throw troubled kids in jail than to prevent future crime with good education and after-school programs.
So all in all, "Arnold's Folly" will deeply hurt all of us. And really, this isn't just his folly. Karen Bass and Darrell Steinberg must also share the blame for not doing more to present a progressive alternative. The corporate establishment also shares the blame for refusing to pay their fair share of taxes while still expecting giveaway after giveaway after giveaway. And ultimately, we the people also share the blame for living in la-la land for far too long in expecting all the amenities in the world and refusing to think about paying for any of them.
Thanks to the many silly gimmicks, false accounting, and empty rhetoric in "The Age of Arnold", "The California Dream" now looks to be nothing more than an illusion. Will we ever see it again?
Earlier this morning, The Sacramento Bee reported that a possible deal fell through last night and that The Legislature will work some more today to finalize a long-awaited budget deal. However, The LA Times is already reporting now that a budget deal may be announced as soon as later today. Unfortunately, many of Arnold's ugliest social safety net slashings will be included. But fortunately, some of the deepest education cuts he was looking for, as well as a weakened two-tier pension overhaul for state workers, look to be out of the running.
Honestly, I don't know whether to be disappointed or relieved right now. While the final deal will likely be better than what Arnold had specifically wanted, it's still quite awful and it will likely counteract whatever positive effects we get from the federal stimulus spending.
Still, stay tuned here at OC Progressive as we follow the latest budget news from Sacramento.
We need not look further than The Sacramento Bee's interactive map of California job losses to see how bad policies in Washington and Sacramento have really made an impact... In a negative way. Fortunately, there may be signs of life in other parts of the country as President Obama's stimulus spending finally starts to kick in. However, the federal stimulus will likely be offset here by even more massive cuts to the very social safety net that's badly needed to survive a recession.
Oh, jeez. I guess you can call this "turning lemons into lemonade", but is this really fair to all the small businesses that depend on state business? Here's what I'm talking about.
Many California credit unions will accept state IOUs - formerly called registered warrants - even though many banks say they will take the IOUs only until Friday, July 10.
But some entrepreneurs are stepping in. A search on Craigslist for "California IOUs" turns up numerous offers to buy the warrants for cash at a discount.
The state started paying more than $3 billion in bills with the IOUs because it has run out of cash, and the legislature and governor have yet to come up with a solution to more than $26 billion in red ink for the state budget. The state will pay 3.75% interest on the IOUs Oct. 2, or earlier if it comes up with the cash.
The payments affect product and service vendors and contractors with the state. Small businesses and independent contractors could have financial problems waiting to get their money. State employees, and recipients of Social Security and unemployment benefits are being paid normally, not receiving IOUs.
Financial institutions can accept the IOUs for face value before they are eligible for redemption, and then the institution will get the interest, not the creditor, according to State Treasurer Bill Lockyer.
But Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank and Citigroup are among the banks that have said they will accept IOUs only until July 10.
I guess it's good that at least some credit unions will continue to accept the state IOUs. Still, this doesn't look good for all of those who bank at "the big banks". Will they be forced to sell the IOUs at a discount to random people on Craigslist? Or will they have to wait even longer to just be paid for their services?
It's too bad we have a Governator who cares nothing about the suffering people in California. For all his talk on being "pro-business", he doesn't seem to want to lift a pinky to help these vendors and contractors stay in business.
This just in from SEIU.And frankly, I'm not surprised.
A U.S. District Court judge issued an injunction Thursday afternoon ordering the state of California to halt a proposed $2 cut in wages for the state's 400,000 home care workers. The injunction has the effect of stopping pay cuts in all California counties that were planning on passing the state cut through to their home care workers.
The injunction, issued by federal judge Claudia Wilken, was in response to a lawsuit filed by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has 250,000 home care members in California.
"This ruling is bringing hope to hundreds of thousands of home care consumers and workers all across the state," said Mary Harms, a home care worker in Contra Costa County. "We had no choice but to ask the court to help us after the governor and legislature let everyone down and put so many people in danger."
The enjoined state budget cuts would have slashed homecare workers' wages to as low as $9.50 an hour. The wage cuts would have forced thousands of homecare providers to leave their employment to seek living-wage jobs, forcing frail seniors and people with disabilities to enter nursing homes or other residential institutions.
The lawsuit alleges the wage cut violates the federal Medicaid Law, Americans with Disabilities Act, and Rehabilitation Act.
This was obviously an illegal ploy to "balance the budget" on the backs of working-class people, the disabled, and the seniors. Hopefully, this will be upheld in higher courts and these poor workers can get back to their jobs.
A solution's near? Oh, never mind. It's a stopgap that might just delay the inevitable.
Unusually unified legislators were moving today to prevent the state from issuing IOUs next week by delaying some payments to schools and local governments - but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warned he would veto the maneuver.
On votes of 69-0 and 54-0, Assembly members passed two of three bills designed to free up cash and buy the state time while legislators and Schwarzenegger wrestle with the bigger task of healing a gaping wound in the state budget. The third bill was also expected to be approved by the Assembly, and the state Senate was also expected to pass the
But hey, I guess it's something. It would buy the Legislature that nearly exhausted resource that is time. But Arnold, oh Arnold, he doesn't want anything that isn't exactly what he wants.
Schwarzenegger, in a statement, said that what lawmakers passed "amounts to nothing more than a piecemeal proposal."
"Since the first day we began working to solve this $24-billion deficit, I have been clear: the Legislature must solve the entire deficit," he said.
If it passes both houses, "I will veto it because it doesn't solve the problem," the governor said.
Stay classy, Mr. Governator. Let the state run out of cash next week and let the state simply collapse.
"If the governor wants his legacy to be 'I refused to sign a bill that would have prevented IOUs,' that's his choice," Steinberg said. "I think it's a bad choice."
Two of the bills would defer payments that would have been due to all levels of the public education system and cities and counties for road repair until later in the fiscal year that starts July 1, or the 2010-2011 fiscal year, as well as cut deeper into state spending for schools in the fiscal year that ends next Tuesday.
The third bill redrafts a measure legislators passed earlier this year that would transfer money from regional redevelopment agencies to the state. In April, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly ruled the cash grab was unconstitutional because the redevelopment money wouldn't necessarily be used by the state within the redevelopment agencies' areas. The bill passed by the Assembly today would require that the funds be used in school districts that at least partially overlap the redevelopment areas.
Assembly budget chairwoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said the trio of bills would raise a total of about $5 billion. Legislative staff said that could be enough to delay the issuance of IOUs through July and August.
Honestly, this all smells fishy and it certainly doesn't solve any of our long-term budget issues. But still, a workable budget that can actually pass is probably still a few more days away and this may at least stop this horrid hot mess from worsening exponentially. I mean, would you accept an IOU from The State of California?
But again, Arnold doesn't care about averting any more pain and suffering. He just likes to posture. It's too bad he's doing it at our expense.
OK, so the big news we all expected actually happened yesterday. The Republicans blocked the Democratic "already compromised" budget that was already full of heavy cuts. Why? They say they want "a complete solution", but we know that's all hogwash and they really like being obstructionists.
So what can we do now? Senate President Pro-tem Darrell Steinberg tries to provide some answers. (h/t to Calitics)
It looks like Sacramento Democrats may finally be growing some spine and standing up for us. Can this be true? I doubt it, but at least Steinberg's statements give me some reason to hope again.
As we've talked about before, working-class Californians, even those who were previously middle-class or even upper-middle-class, need a strong social safety net now more than ever before. Now is definitely not the time to take that social safety net away from all these people in desperate need of help.We've been asking the legislators not to do this, and hopefully our Democratic leaders are finally listening.
In the coming days, they'll need to stand strong and fight for a reasonable budget. They can't fail us now. We just can't afford it.
It was very scary at a certain point to be a member of the Electoral College. I received threatening phone calls and letters, was served with legal papers at my home, and had thousands of signatures on a petition from a right wing hate site delivered to me.
Their arguments were out of the deranged conspiracy parallel universe. Our newly elected President had either traveled through time to forge records in Honolulu and to place birth announcements in local papers, or he had somehow, as a child, or through his mother, or father, secretly renounced his citizenship.
Buena Park Pastor Wiley Drake, who calls down blasphemous prayers against the President, is now appealing the case against me and California Electors, after having been laughed out of court.
Through his attorney, Gary Kreep of Ramona California, in conjunction with Alan Keyes. Our attorneys expect the case to go to the Supreme Court.
Congressman John Campbell, has joined other crazy people in signing onto a birther bill in Congress to add legitimacy to these extremists.
Many people have been skeptical about the motives of Campbell, Kreep, Wiley Drake and the Birthers. Their case is preposterous, their evidence easily disproven, and their attorneys incompetent, but they keep spreading their absurd lies and innuendos through hate sites and emails.
It's when you see a "birther" shooting an innocent guard at the Holocaust museum that you start understanding the true results of their virulence.
Domestic terrorism has its roots right here in Orange County, and Congressman John Campbell appears destined to join a long list of Orange County Republicans who make our county a national joke.
