By Alexei Koseff in The Sacramento Bee

February 19, 2016

When Oakland A’s executive Billy Beane found himself on the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s list of its biggest water users in October, he released a statement that he was “more than displeased and embarrassed by the usage” and promised to take “immediate action” to repair irrigation and pool leaks recently discovered at his Danville home.

Two months later, Olympic champion figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi wound up with the dishonor. She told local media that she had stopped irrigation at her Alamo residence while a possible leak was investigated and would “continue to monitor our water usage closely, making sure we preserve our community’s water.”

By Kathleen Pender in the San Francisco Chronicle

February 12, 2016

Roland Roosenboom would like to sell the home he purchased with his late wife in Saratoga for about $367,000 in 1991 and downsize. But if he sold the home, now worth about $1.8 million, he would owe about $270,000 in capital gains and related taxes.

“That’s money you lose instantly that you cannot get back,” Roosenboom said. So instead of selling, he’s renting it out and living in a home he owns in El Dorado County, where he’s growing weary of hot summers and chain restaurants.

Read more at the San Francisco Chronicle

By Jim Miller in The Sacramento Bee

February 12, 2016

California prosecutors have asked a judge to block a newly amended ballot measure championed by Gov. Jerry Brown that would make it easier for non-violent prisoners to get parole.

In a new lawsuit, the California District Attorneys Association and Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, said Attorney General Kamala Harris should not have accepted Brown’s Jan. 25 amendments to a proposed ballot measure filed Dec. 22 that dealt with juvenile crime.

Read more at The Sacramento Bee

By John Cox in The Bakersfield Californian

February 11, 2016

In a legal challenge to unions’ longstanding access to farmers’ private property, a conservative public interest law firm filed a federal lawsuit this week against California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board — an action that may have repercussions for new rules under consideration by the state.

The suit Pacific Legal Foundation filed against the labor board Wednesday says a state regulation giving union organizers limited access to farmworkers on the job violates property owners’ constitutional protections against government-imposed takings and unreasonable intrusions.

Read more at The Bakersfield Californian

By Dan Walters in The Sacramento Bee

February 11, 2016

Wily politician that he is, Jerry Brown tried to dampen potential opposition to an overhaul of criminal sentencing laws he’ll place on the November ballot.

Brown met with some – but not all – law enforcement groups and made some tweaks in response to their criticism.

He closely guarded details of the “Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016” until just before his announcement late last month.

Read more at The Sacramento Bee

By Tim Sheehan at The Fresno Bee

February 11, 2016

SACRAMENTO 

By David DeBoit in the Contra Costa Times

February 9, 2016

OAKLAND — The city is moving toward approving new developer fees to pay for affordable housing that are higher than previously proposed, and could at first exclude portions of East Oakland.

A City Council economic committee on Tuesday supported a proposal by four council members to gradually increase the fees for multifamily, market-rate housing developments to $24,000 per unit. The fees paid by developers would be used to fund affordable housing and improve transportation and city services such as parks and libraries.

Read more at the Contra Costa Times

By Orange County Register Editorial in The Orange County Register

February 7, 2016

The Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Resources and Transportation recently held a 90-minute hearing on the California high-speed rail project that was intended to provide oversight, but seems to have been nothing more than another dog and pony show.

“Despite Assembly member Jim Patterson’s, R-Fresno, tenacious effort to make today’s ‘oversight’ hearing on high-speed rail a genuine review, the majority party rigged it so that it was just another pitiful whitewash,” state Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, protested in a statement. Sen. Vidak’s request for Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, who chairs the committee, to give opponents of the project equal time fell on deaf ears, and his request that the State Auditor conduct an independent review of the project was rejected by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee on a 7-3 party-line vote.

Read more at The Orange County Register

By Dan Walters in The Sacramento Bee

February 7, 2016

There’s a new skirmish in California’s perpetual – and perpetually hyperbolic – conflict over development along the state’s 1,000-mile-long coastline.

Environmental groups are in a dither over reports that a majority of the 12-member California Coastal Commission – reportedly led by Gov. Jerry Brown’s appointees – may fire its low-key executive director, Charles Lester.

Lester’s departure would be, they imply, an open invitation for hordes of developers to swoop down, like the bestial Huns who threatened Rome in the fifth century, to rape and pillage the virginal coast. His backers want Brown to intervene, but he’s declared a hands-off attitude, saying it’s a matter for the commission to decide.

Read more at The Sacramento Bee

By Jonathan Lansner in The Orange County Register

February 7, 2016

It’s little surprise that the Los Angeles-Orange County region had last year’s lowest rate of homeownership among the nation’s 75 largest metropolitan areas.

My trusty spreadsheet, filled with U.S. Census homeownership data, tells me that owners occupied an average of 49.1 percent of homes in L.A. and Orange counties last year.

Read more at The Orange County Register