2009

By Kevin Yamamura and Jim Sanders
San Francisco Sentinel
February 18, 2009

Senate Republicans ousted their leader early this morning as other lawmakers continued searching for one more GOP vote in the upper house to break the state’s budget deadlock.

In a contentious meeting that lasted through the midnight hour, Senate Republicans removed Sen. Dave Cogdill as leader and replaced him with Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, who opposes the budget deal Cogdill negotiated for his caucus because it contains new taxes.

By Steve Lawrence
Associated Press Writer
02/17/2009

Click here to see a photo of Mark with the Sullenbergers during the ceremony.

SACRAMENTO—Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says the US Airways pilot who safely landed his plane in the Hudson River last month is a "great international hero, a national hero and a California hero."

Click here to watch a video of the Capitol ceremony.

DEL ROGERS: Thank you, everyone, for waiting so patiently while everyone got ready because, as I told you earlier, they were in the gathering room, gathering up, getting it started.

The reason that we’re here, we’re going to celebrate one of California’s great heroes. Let me tell you just a little bit about it, in case you don’t know—he’s coming.

CROWD:

Sully, Sully, Sully . . .

DEL ROGERS:

By Steven Harmon
MediaNews Sacramento Bureau
02/13/2009

SACRAMENTO — A spending cap, one of the linchpins to what could be a $41 billion budget agreement that lawmakers will be voting on today, has been touted as key to reining in the soaring costs of state government.

Republican leaders in the Legislature insisted on enforced spending limits in exchange for having to ask a handful of their caucus members to vote for $14.4 billion in tax increases on sales, vehicles, gasoline and personal income.

John Wildermuth
San Francisco Chronicle
February 2, 2009

With the state drowning in red ink and the Legislature facing a seemingly endless gridlock, political reformers and business officials want to call a state constitutional convention to redraw the way government works in California.

"Our premise is that California is broken," said Jim Wunderman, a leader of the effort and president of the Bay Area Council, which represents key businesses in the region. "That part is no longer debatable. The question now is 'How do we fix it?' "

By Steven Harmon
MediaNews Sacramento Bureau
2/01/2009

SACRAMENTO — On a recent night at her Capitol office, Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, spent until 2 a.m. answering 150 e-mails from constituents worried about the state's fiscal crisis. That was after she'd hand-signed 500 letters she'd written about the budget.

Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Alameda, has been meeting regularly with labor groups, who are angered over possible rollbacks to worker's rights.

By Theresa Harrington
Contra Costa Times
1/30/2009

BAY POINT — Fourteen-year-old Andy Balcazar eats healthy foods and stays physically active because he doesn't want to get diabetes, which runs in his family.

The Riverview Middle School eighth-grader is one of dozens of teens participating in a Mt. Diablo school district after-school program that gets them outdoors to play sports and also gives them opportunities to grow, cook and eat nutritious meals such as squash soup with whole-grain bread.

By Steven Harmon
MediaNews Sacramento Bureau
1/22/2009

SACRAMENTO — Republicans are rethinking the unthinkable: saying yes, though begrudgingly so, to taxes.

It would be a hard break from dogma and would require their members to back down from pledges they've steadfastly upheld for years to avoid tax increases at all costs. But as state lawmakers stare into an abyss that is a $42 billion 18-month budget deficit, previous ideological markers appear to be softening.

January 9, 2009
Salinas Californian

The SPCA for Monterey County announced today that on Jan. 1, a new law went into effect in California to help protect animals abandoned due to foreclosure.
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The new law requires anyone who encounters an abandoned animal in a property that has been vacated through lease termination or property foreclosure to help the animal by immediately contacting their local animal control agency.

MediaNews editorial
January 7, 2009

WILL FERRIES ONCE again become a significant part of the Bay Area's transportation system? That depends on a number of things such as sufficient funding for high-speed ferries, terminals, parking lots and, most important, subsidies for operations.

Bay Area transportation managers would like to spend $400 million to add seven ferry routes linking San Francisco to Antioch, Martinez, Hercules, Berkeley, Treasure Island, South San Francisco and Redwood City.