The California utility agreed to pay a nearly $2 billion fine for causing the blaze, which killed dozens and destroyed the town of Paradise.

By Ivan Penn and Peter Eavis

June 16, 2020

Marie Wehe, a grandmother, widow and cancer survivor, died in her truck on Nov. 8, 2018, while trying to escape the Camp Fire, an inferno that started when a transmission line broke from a nearly-100-year-old Pacific Gas & Electric tower. She was one of scores killed in California’s most devastating wildfire.

In a rare acknowledgment of corporate wrongdoing, PG&E on Tuesday pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter for its negligence, ending a two-year ordeal for the families of victims like Ms. Wehe and survivors of the fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise.

PG&E, which had repeatedly failed to maintain the line even though it cut through a forested and mountainous area known to experience strong winds, also pleaded guilty to one count of illegally setting a fire.

The Camp Fire devastated lives and billions of dollars in property, but it also left PG&E struggling to survive while it fends off creditors in bankruptcy court, a public furious about the company’s history of accidents and power outages and a governor who at one point threatened a state takeover. The company, California’s biggest utility, is expected to receive a judge’s approval soon for its plan to exit bankruptcy. Under that plan, the company will pay $13.5 billion to people who lost homes and businesses from wildfires started by its equipment, including the Camp Fire.

Read more at the New York Times

By Katy Grimes at the California Globe

April 1, 2020

“If AB 5 is not immediately suspended then the consequences of the coronavirus collapse will be magnified,” former Congressman Doug Ose said in a letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently. “Your action now to suspend AB5 will provide relief to over one million Californians.”

Since Assembly Bill 5 became law January 1, 2020, millions of freelance and independent contractors’ jobs have been killed. And at a time when California needs all hands on deck during the coronavirus crisis, AB 5 is preventing desperately needed health care and medical professionals who are independent contractors, from working.

Assembly Bill 5 by former labor leader Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), has significantly limited Californians’ ability to work as independent contractors and freelancers. AB 5 also randomly limits freelance writers and photographers to 35 submissions annually per media outlet, and has served to quash the independent contracting jobs of important health care and medical professionals’ during the coronavirus crisis in California.

Millions of Californians who are independent contractors, gig economy workers, and freelancers, have been calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to use his Emergency Powers to suspend Assembly Bill 5’s restrictions on independent contracting during the COVID-19 crisis.

Read more at the California Globe.

By Katy Grimes at the California Globe

February 20, 2020

Agriculture was always considered sacred in the eyes of California’s property taxing agencies, and especially under Proposition 13. But that could change with the split roll property tax ballot initiative in November 2020.

Prop. 13 was a 1978 ballot initiative to cap property tax increases for residential and business properties and provide certainty, so property owners would not be taxed out of their homes and businesses.  Passed by 65% of California voters in 1978, Prop. 13 put a Constitutional cap on annual property tax increases. Prior to passage of Prop. 13, many seniors and those living on fixed incomes were forced from their homes because of skyrocketing property tax increases. According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, author of Prop. 13, some properties were reassessed 50 – 100% in just one year.

The 2020 ballot initiative misleadingly called the “California Schools and Local Communities Funding Act of 2020,” known more commonly as the “split-roll” tax initiative, would reassess properties and hike taxes on all commercial and industrial properties, including manufacturing plants, retail stores and malls.

The split-roll property tax measure will also remove Prop 13’s protections for California farmers, triggering annual reassessments at market value for all agriculture-related facilities and improvements.

Read more at The California Globe

By The Signal Editorial Board 

January 26, 2020

California’s Proposition 13 is one of the most important taxpayer protection initiatives ever enacted in our state. And the evidence, past and present, bears proof that we need the protection.

Now more than ever, a runaway Democratic supermajority in Sacramento is bringing a voracious appetite to the taxpayers’ table, gobbling up revenue at every turn, and in many cases breaking promises to taxpayers on how the money will be spent.

Take, for example, the voter-approved Senate Bill 1, the 12-cent gas tax that was supposed to fund $52 billion in road and highway improvements over 10 years.

Remember? The money was going in a roads and highways “trust fund,” or “lockbox,” or whatever device they could tell voters to assure them that the money would be spent as intended.

Many voters had buyer’s remorse over SB 1, and an initiative was placed on the 2018 ballot — Proposition 6 —to repeal it. But, Prop. 6 failed, thanks to a cleverly deceptive description attached to it by Democrat Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who dubbed it, “Eliminates Recently Enacted Road Repair and Transportation Funding by Repealing Revenues Dedicated for those Purposes.”

Read more at The Signal

By MICHAEL MCGOUGH AND RYAN SABALOW

November 20, 2019

Thousands of parents across Northern California rearranged their lives early Wednesday morning in anticipation of yet another round of canceled classes because of a massive intentional PG&E power outage.

They scrambled to find child care. They stayed home from work to care for their children.

Yet the lights stayed on in most of the north state, as PG&E significantly dialed back power outages Wednesday.

In anticipation of gusty winds and dry conditions that could spark another devastating fire, PG&E announced earlier this week it was planning its the fourth major power shut down since October. The utility originally estimated more than 300,000 customers would be without power, before deciding on a final projection of about 150,000 customers across 18 Northern California counties.

Read more at the Sacramento Bee.

Apple has pledged $2.5 billion in donations to help combat California’s current crisis of rising home costs, CEO Tim Cook announced Monday.

The tech giant’s contributions have been earmarked to help jumpstart home building, assist first-time home buyers and reduce homelessness in Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Affordable housing means stability and dignity, opportunity and pride. When these things fall out of reach for too many, we know the course we are on is unsustainable, and Apple is committed to being part of the solution,” Cook said in the announcement.

Apple’s move follows earlier action by Google, which in June pledged to invest $1 billion in building affordable housing, and Facebook’s October commitment of $1 billion toward fighting the housing crisis.

Read more at USA Today