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July 7 Open Thread

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World Wide Web Hyperlinks about California political topics:

• This is a couple of days old, but it’s definitely worth noting. In Walnut Creek signature gatherers are being paid $4 per signature for a measure having to do with some malls there.  For some signatures, they’re getting $10. This is outrageous; it’s not the way representative democracy was supposed to work.

• George Will loves loves loves him some Meg Whitman.  Maybe someday she’ll speak to a reporter within 2,500 miles of California.  One of her reform items I never knew: reduce the number of members in the Assembly, down from 80.  If there’s ever anything we need, it’s less accountable government, right?

• Joe Matthews thinks we’re heading for a federal receivership. He says that we are just doing it slow-motion style, pointing to the threatened takeover of some of teh state parks by the National Park Service and the prison system.

• Just to reiterate, we are just a few days from banks refusing California IOUs.  That’s when this crisis gets kicked up a notch.  In slightly better news, the Franchise Tax Board will take the IOUs for payment of income and corporate taxes.

• Pfizer is pulling out of UCSF’s Mission Bay campus. The move is a big blow to what was shaping up to be a great place for biotech business. It’s not clear to what extent this will harm the campus, as there other companies there, but that’s 100,000 square feet of space not being used by a high-profile company.

• Teenagers are being hit hard by the recession. In markets like Sacramento, where labor is everywhere, employers are turning away from seasonal labor.

7 thoughts on “July 7 Open Thread”

  1. So this is what a Progressive California blog looks like.  Wonder what the locals are like?  Guess I’ll drop by on a daily basis and find out.

    First comment awaaaaaaaay …..

  2. (July 8, that is) advocating a receivership type solution.  The article goes through the history of the 1975 NYC crisis and points out parallels that could be used here.  

    http://online.wsj.com/article/…

    I’m glad to see a serious NYC-centric newspaper recognize that Cal’s problems will affect the rest of the country if they’re not fixed, and they can’t be fixed easily on our own, but this perturbs me a lot:

    There is talk of abolishing the legislature’s two-thirds majority rule to raise taxes, but in such a cockamamie system this is a crucial defense against uncontrolled spending. A Tax Modernization Commission will soon recommend broadening and flattening the rate system, and its proposals could significantly improve the state’s outlook.

  3. We’ve seen a similar circumstance with DDR trying to ram through a rezoning via ballot box in Mendocino County. I personally think their strategy – despite the glossy literature of the “fabulous” project they promise- is to win the ballot measure and then sell the property at top dollar to a developer that still has cash, given how low their stock is right now.  

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