Tag: Economy

Cbs13.com illustrates

If you were to read an article about how most Sacramento parks will be closing their bathrooms (you know, because of the budget) next week would you wonder to yourself, “Bathrooms? I don’t follow.”

Cbs13.com hears your concern and helps you out with a little image to help.

What about an article that reports on a man performing lewd acts near a playground?

Officers say they found 35-year-old Alfonso Valladarez “gyrating his hips in the grass,” as if he was having sexual intercourse.

Hmm, playground, eh? What’s the big deal? Once again, Cbs13.com is there.

Do I need to see a photo of children playing at sunset while I read about a man gyrating his hips in the grass as if he was having sexual intercourse while looking toward the playground? No, I do not. In fact, just typing that sentence makes me want to vomit.

Most Californians …

Turns out, according to Maria Shriver, that most Californians want it all.

“Don’t close the parks, don’t cut from education, don’t cut from health care, don’t cut from anything,” said Shriver, amplifying what people tell her. “I say, ‘We have a $25 billion deficit: What would you do?'”

I told you! I spent it with my uncle in Alaska hunting wolverines!

Uh, er, sorry about that … she goes on to say:

…nearly everyone replies that they don’t want to pay higher taxes and don’t have any of their own ideas about what parts of government to cut.

Really? Nearly everyone, eh? No suggestions? Drawing a complete blank? I am sure that nearly everyone of the 10 to 15 people that read this here web log semi-regularly have an opinion or two on this topic.

What say you, Raggers?

Cost of keeping CA Senators riding in style? $100 mil

CA State Senate chamber
California_Senate_chamber
by Flickr user flap

After a legislative committee votes down a 5% salary reduction for state workers, Darrell Steinberg asks his colleagues in the Senate to take a 5% pay cut. A great factoid in that story is that the operating budget of the CA Senate is $100 million. That’s $2.5 million per member. For reference, that is exactly the same size as the Sacramento Fire Department’s budget. But that includes, you know, the pool … er I mean fighting fires and stuff. For a Senate, $100 million just gets you 40 people to show up — you want extras? That costs more.

Continue reading “Cost of keeping CA Senators riding in style? $100 mil”

Because of the budget …

Have you noticed how everyone’s favorite new crutch phrase is “because of the budget” to justify/explain away everything that is going wrong in our state? It only recently surpassed “due to the recent economic downturn” and totally leap-frogged “and the worst has yet to come” to reach the top spot.

The best example I’ve seen lately is from this article about the potential for public urination in our city and county parks with the closure of restrooms.

“We’re going to have heavy cuts to our park staff and our park maintenance and also to our recreation,” Combs said. “We’ll be closing community centers and pools and children’s programs. All the decisions are difficult. We regret this, but right now that’s what we’re forced to do because of the budget.”

In case you heard about this story and thought, hey, what the heck, I think I will relieve myself in the rose garden at McKinley Park, you better think again. The Sacramento police are on to you:

Sacramento police Sgt. Norm Leong said park visitors will simply have to plan ahead if the bathrooms are closed. Anyone caught going to the bathroom in parks may be cited, he added.

Right, as long as nothing happens to the number of police officers patrolling these areas we should be safe from public pee’rs.

NY Times covers CA furloughs

The Bee’s State Worker blog linked to a piece in the New York Times (registration required): “On furlough, but never leaving the cubicle,” by Times reporters Susan Saulny and Robbie Brown. It profiles a few state workers who are dealing with furloughs. Some, like Wendy Roberson — a state worker “in California,” — gee, that narrows it down — haven’t actually been able to take her assigned unpaid leave:

“Sometimes it’s just too busy at work,” said Ms. Roberson, whose pay was cut in February as part of the state’s effort to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. “You start to feel guilty.”

Roberson has other tricks up her sleeve, however:

To make extra money, Ms. Roberson teaches belly-dancing at girls’ birthday parties on weekends, something she has been doing more of lately.

A growth industry if there ever was one! By the way, it may just be me but between the State Worker blog and Capitol Alert it seems like “blogs” on sacbee.com are where all the action is.

Pencils & Crayons

Here’s an interesting article from the UK about California discontinuing the use of textbooks in the classroom in favor of digital media. You will quickly notice how we are viewed in other parts of the world after the third or fourth movie pun.

“Our kids get their information from the internet, downloaded onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones … Basically. kids are feeling as comfortable with their electronic devices as I was with my pencils and crayons.”

I am sure this is true in many cases, but will the government require kids to have iPods, cell phones, and computers connected to the Internet to access these digital textbooks?

Mr Schwarzenegger has ruled out tax increases to make up the shortfall. He said in a statement that he would concentrate on getting better value for money for the state, reconsidering everyday purchases just as ordinary families were having to do during the recession.

What a unique idea. It sort of makes you want to do the Running Man, er, or go Commando, or, or have Twins …

An issue that gets no props

A press release from the Elk Grove Police Department came across my desktop today:

ELK GROVE, CA – Earlier today, Elk Grove Police Officer Ali Khalil was arrested by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and served with a complaint alleging several felonies associated with mortgage-related financial transactions. None of the allegations were related to Officer Khalil’s official duties as an Elk Grove police officer. Officer Khalil, age 29, has been a member of the Elk Grove Police Department since 2006. Officer Khalil has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation, which is standard practice when an officer has been charged with a crime.

We obviously have no details at this point about the nature of the charges or the crime, but the role of mortgage predators brokers in the housing industry has played a huge factor in our economic meltdown. Some brokers were above board but many others were not. These unscrupulous individuals played a significant role in suckering banks and borrowers into bad mortgages. Many of these old brokers are now setting up shop as refinancing experts and mortgage assistance houses (word of advice: do your own research and deal with your lendor directly). They basically splashed everyone with mud and are now offering to take people to the cleaners.

Eyebrowraisingly, it seems police officers are not immune from felonies arising out of the housing industry (though this not to say that he is charged with crimes that he did while on duty – we don’t know). Also, this officer was charged by the FBI but the EG PD still has to do their own internal investigation, during which time the accused is still on paid leave (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

I, for one, would like to see a more aggressive effort by the state government to ban unscrupulous mortgage broker marriage. We need fewer of those people and the more we can do to stop them from procreating, the happier we’ll all be.

UPDATE 6/2: Further details available at the Bee. Thanks to the SacRag faithful for keeping me on my toes. Vigilance!

How to find a job, part II

Things are still tough all over for a lot of folks, and I’ve (fortunately) been in hiring mode in recent weeks. Following up on last November’s post, here are some tips from an employer’s perspective. The bottom line is to make yourself stand out in only the good ways, minimize any potential embarrassing or awkward moments, and follow through.

Continue reading “How to find a job, part II”

Repeal the two-thirds majority component of Prop 13!

Money in the ballot boxIn doing my homework on the slate of state propositions for the May 19 special election, I am starting to feel like repealing Proposition 13‘s two-thirds restriction on the legislature for tax increases would be a good idea. It’s not because I think taxes should be greatly increased to get our state out of its fiscal woes, and I want to remove all impediments to doing that. It would take something stronger than waterboarding to get me to suppress my anti-tax reflex.

The reason I want to allow the legislature to raise our taxes by itself is because when revenue-raising ballot initiatives fail, the politicians blame it on us voters. Darrell Steinberg warns us that deep spending cuts will be needed if the ballot measures don’t pass. Arnold’s talking about legalizing pot so he can tax it, which he doesn’t think is right but he’ll do it anyway, if other people think it would be good. (I get the feeling his brain does not suffer the same condition as his other muscles, that one.)

Continue reading “Repeal the two-thirds majority component of Prop 13!”

KCRA’s Bienick chases down the story

Bienick doing his best
Sasquatch impersonation

I know this is old news, but I couldn’t help but chuckle while watching the video of KCRA’s Dave Bienick chasing down Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s SUV yesterday.

A few minutes later, the SUV pulled away and went to the back of the building. KCRA 3 also went to the back of the building to wait.

At that point, the SUV drove away and went back to the front of the building. KCRA 3 followed, arriving just in time to see Johnson hop into the vehicle and ride away.

Bienick called for Johnson to stop, but he did not.

By the way, I’d love to “Watch live coverage of Mayor Kevin Johnson’s weekly news conference at City Hall, during which he will discuss a possible obstacle to Sacramento receiving federal stimulus money.” but how many flippin’ Firefox plugins do I need to get this stuff to work? Here’s the follow up story.

At any rate, well done, Dave.