|
your privacy will be assured! |
 |
Send us your
press
release
E-mail: editor@calnews.com |
|
your privacy will be assured! |
|
Send us your
press
release
E-mail: editor@calnews.com |
 Brutal, corrupt, childish...L.A. Sheriff's Department saga continuesRetired sheriff's commander is at center of internal investigation By Jack Leonard and Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times A retired Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department commander who publicly accused department brass last year of ignoring his warnings about jail abuse is now at the center of an internal investigation. According to the Sheriff's Department, the investigation was launched to determine if anyone had stopped Cmdr. Robert Olmsted from correcting the problems he had seen with excessive force and jailer cliques. But Olmsted is accusing sheriff's officials of rigging the probe to scapegoat him and insulate high-ranking officials from culpability, saying he has seen them protect people in the past. "This is going to be a witch hunt," Olmsted said. "They're going to alter and mask the truth at my expense to discredit me and anyone else who wants to bring critical information to ensure that the truth prevails about what went on in the jail." When public scrutiny of the county's lockups intensified last year, Sheriff Lee Baca said he had been kept in the dark by his staff about problems in his jails. But Olmsted told The Times that Baca and other managers ignored his warnings about inmate abuse and deputy cliques. After those public comments, Baca blamed Olmsted for not fixing the problems when he was a jails commander. Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said it was "unequivocally not true" that the ongoing probe would be used to whitewash Olmsted's allegations against top department brass. |
|||||
|
Election 2012
As the hapless GOP looks on, Democrats about to take 2/3rds majority in the State Legislature: California State Senate 25 Democrats 15 Republicans Dem's magic number is 27 California State Assembly 52 Democrats 28 Republicans Dem's magic number 54 "Can you say 'Higher Taxes'?"
|
Backlash to rural protection fee expected Some say a $150-per-dwelling fee will prompt rural communities to annex to cities or find other ways to leave state fire jurisdiction By JIM MILLER, Riverside Press-Enterprise For decades, the boundaries of the rural areas where the state has the main firefighting duty have remained largely unchanged, even as tens of thousands of people moved in. But a $150 fee to be imposed on an estimated 800,000 houses in the 31 million-acre state responsibility area could prompt an exodus that would 
shrink the state’s jurisdiction. About three-quarters of houses in the
state area also are served by local fire agencies, and officials say
they expect some of those communities to seek to leave the state
jurisdiction to avoid the fee. Other places could seek annexation to a
nearby city, which would automatically take an area out of the state
firefighting area. Any significant reduction in the number of homes in
the responsibility area would mean less money raised from the state
fee, adopted last year to help the state balance its budget. “We’re
looking at all our options,” said Mark Hartwig, chief of the San
Bernardino County Fire Department, which serves the bulk of the
estimated 63,000 houses in San Bernardino County that are in the
responsibility area. Possible moves include trying to get the county
fire district out of the state zone, he said. The responsibility area
was created decades ago, primarily to fight wildfires that threaten the
state’s watershed, timber and rangeland resources. But the number of
houses and people in the area has steadily grown, intensifying the need
for structure protection. Some critics say the new fee, if it
withstands threatened legal challenges, will give the state an
incentive to keep the responsibility area as large as possible.Law and the courts: Probation officers shift focus from punishment to collaboration Criminals become clients... By Tracey Kaplan, San Jose Mercury News Twelve Santa Clara County probation officers are standing in a circle, each twirling a rope with a noose at one end. They're pretending to lasso a criminal under their supervision. Then an instructor tells them to untie the noose and hand one end of the rope to their "client." "If you're working together," says the instructor to the skeptical officers, "the tension on the rope now is just right." Hokey as the training exercise appears, it's at the heart of a serious effort under way across California and the rest of the nation to better prepare probationers for life on the outside and make them less likely to become repeat offenders. It all starts with teaching probation officers a less punitive, more collaborative approach to dealing with criminal offenders. Campaign and election news: Rick Caruso changes his party affiliation By Rick Orlov, Los Angeles Daily News Developer Rick Caruso has left the GOP, signaling he is increasingly serious about his potential run for mayor in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. The lifelong Republican switched to decline-to-state in December. "It reflects who I am," Caruso said. "I have supported Democrats and Republicans and I am much more independent-minded. I don't think either party has the right answers. I think that's what a lot of people think in California." Los Angeles has only had one Republican mayor in the last four decades - Richard Riordan, who was generally considered a moderate. Caruso is under no pressure to make an immediate announcement for mayor since he would finance his own campaign. Other candidates have to announce their decisions earlier because of fundraising and reporting deadlines. Caruso also has one other major effort on his mind these days: buying the Dodgers. He has partnered with the team's former general manager, Joe Torre, to form a group that is considered among the leading bidders to purchase the team from Frank McCourt. Around the state: Santa Clara County supervisors to consider $1.2 million in vouchers to house 100 chronically homeless Another program to separate taxpayers from their money By Tracy Seipel, San Jose Mercury News Except for a few stints at a shelter, Mark Quinlan has spent the past few years living in Plaza de Cesar Chavez Foreclosures at the high end increase By Pete Carey, San Jose Mercury News The housing crisis, which first devastated borrowers who purchased lower-cost homes with subprime loans, has caught up with people whose wealth helped them hang onto their houses longer. Throughout affluent communities in the Bay Area, million-dollar-and-up homes are increasingly being lost to foreclosure, or sold as a last resort for far less than their mortgages. More than 1,500 Bay Area homes with mortgages of $1 million or more were scheduled for auction last year, more than double the number in 2008, according to ForeclosureRadar, a foreclosure tracking service. "The fact is, upper-end folks are starting to feel the crunch," said Barbara Safran, president of the Contra Costa County Association of Realtors. Santa Clara County had more than 400 homes valued at $1 million or more scheduled for auction in 2011, the most of six Bay Area counties. Anne Walker of Coldwell Banker in Cupertino has a $1.7 million foreclosure listing in wealthy Monte Sereno. Like others in their situation, the former owners have no interest in talking about it publicly. "Most of these higher-end people are, like, 45 years old plus, and they've gone through all their assets," Walker said. "It's a really devastating situation for them. They thought they had planned. They had their kids' college fund, they had their 401(k)s, the stock, the mutual funds, and they've been hanging on for the last three years. Yawn... Berkeley considers new banks to replace Wells Fargo By Carolyn Jones, San Francisco Chronicle Berkeley's considering saying adios to the stagecoach. Saying they're fed up with Wells Fargo's corporate ethics, the Berkeley City Council this week took steps toward cutting ties with the banking giant and investing instead with smaller, local institutions. "Large multinational banks like Wells Fargo are not connected with the local economy. They took bailout money, but they're very aloof to local communities," said City Councilman Darryl Moore, who proposed the idea. "I think a lot of people, not just cities like ours, are frustrated with that." Berkeley has had a contract with San Francisco-based Wells Fargo since 2004 to provide a wide variety of banking services, ranging from handling wire transfers to counting coins from parking meters. The city works with numerous financial institutions, but Wells Fargo handles about $350 million a year for the city. |
911 privacy? No By the Riverside Press-Enterprise Restraining California’s fascination with celebrities does not justify government secrecy. Legislators should reject a proposal to make some 911 calls confidential. Hindering the public’s capacity to gauge the performance of emergency services would be reckless policy. Assemblywoman Norma Torres, D-Pomona, this week announced plans to introduce legislation to “protect the privacy of 911 medical emergency calls.” Torres’ proposal follows the release last month of a 911 emergency call involving actress Demi Moore. A woman asking paramedics to hurry to Moore’s Los Angeles home said the actress was convulsing and semi-conscious after smoking something “similar to incense.” Torres is still working on the details of the legislation, but said that 911 medical calls should have the same privacy protection as medical records. But there is a fundamental difference between a patient’s medical file and the use of a public emergency service. There is no public interest at stake in an individual’s personal health issues or discussions with doctors. Government operates and taxpayers fund the 911 system, however, which gives the public a direct stake in knowing whether that expense is worthwhile and whether the system works acceptably. I'm in favor of random drug testing of police officers By GREG WILLIAMSON, Bakersfield Californian Over the past several months, random drug testing of Bakersfield Police officers, and Kern County public safety as a whole, has been a topic of intense interest. I have made it quite clear I am an advocate of drug testing of all public employees, especially law enforcement officers. The reasoning behind my conviction includes increased transparency of public safety employees to the community, public employee accountability to those we serve and the development of a new level of public trust. No citizen should ever have to question whether police officers, sworn to uphold the law and protect the community, are operating under the influence of illicit drugs. Community colleges face change in California By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee California's 112 community colleges, the nation's largest higher education system, may change a lot if Gov. Jerry Brown has his way. Brown, who entered politics nearly a half-century ago as a Los Angeles community college trustee, and state community college Chancellor Jack Scott, a former college administrator and state senator, want the system to refocus on students with firm career or higher education goals. If enacted, it would ration access to consciously discourage, or even ban, attendance by casual students who lack the requisite goals. It would be the biggest cultural change since 1907, when the system was born with authorization for local high schools to offer "postgraduate courses of study." |
|||
Sacramento Update Washington
D.C. Update
***
