Los Angeles Times
An alliance of local government groups proposed a ballot measure Tuesday in hopes of walling off their money from Sacramento. In times of fiscal crisis, California leaders have long looked to municipal coffers for relief. The proposed measure, aimed at the November 2010 ballot, would prevent state officials from seizing local redevelopment money, gasoline taxes, highway funds and other revenue.
Despite concerns from some gay-rights activists that it’s too early to revisit the issue, one group today pushed forward with plans for a 2010 ballot measure that would repeal Prop. 8 and allow gay marriage in California. The group Love Honor Cherish filed ballot language with the state today for a measure to overturn the ban on gay marriage in the state. That is the first step in getting the question on the ballot.
Until its trees started dying, the Colorado ski resort town of Breckenridge stayed out of the business of telling residents how to defend their homes against wildfire. But with trees ravaged by a mountain pine beetle epidemic that has left large rust-tinged swaths of forest vulnerable to a catastrophic fire, town officials decided this year they had to act.
Critics of a ballot initiative aimed at making changes to California’s auto insurance regulations say that the initiative would result in higher rates for drivers. The initiative would change part of the regulations set by Proposition 103 in 1988 to allow companies to charge fees to drivers who are not continuously covered. After passage of Prop 103 California insurance rates fell from being 30% higher than the national average to even with it.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning is planning to sign the budget package passed by lawmakers that ended the state’s slide toward insolvency and three months of Capitol gridlock.
The spending plan wipes out a nearly $42-billion projected deficit with tax hikes, deep program cuts and borrowing. It hinges on $5.8 billion contained in several ballot measures that voters must consider May 19 in a special election….(READ MORE)
With events moving so rapidly, Department of Water and Power General Manager H. David Nahai told the council that he couldn’t give voters a financial analysis of the plan — including its effect on electricity rates — until this month, four weeks before the election.