California
Yreka’s City Council meeting continued Thursday night with talk of a new tax, the Black’s Building and the future of the Yreka Development Commission (YDC), among other items. Regarding the Black’s Building, City Attorney Mary Frances McHugh explained to the council her reservations regarding the contract with Page & Turnbull, whose historical architectural services are sought in an assessment of the building. McHugh said that she finds the current draft contract to be insufficient in addressing the city’s interests.
Redding officials are nearly the first in a state full of fiscally strapped cities to consider enlisting voters in their struggle to balance costly employee pensions and retiree health care against shrinking revenues for essential services. One proposed ballot measure would require workers to pay a portion of their California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) pensions. The other would eliminate a 50 percent discount on retiree health insurance for workers hired after a certain date.
While state legislators and special interests continue to call for restrictions on what they call a flawed citizen initiative system, yet another report has come out indicating that California’s budget woes are the fault of the legislature, not the voters and the initiative process. The nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies has found in a preliminary report that legislators outspend the public at the ballot box nearly four-to-one!
Legislators love to gripe about how California’s wildly popular ballot initiative process ties their hands on the state budget. But a preliminary analysis from the nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies shows that the legislators ”” not the public ”” put on the ballot most of the measures requiring additional funding.
The Patterson City Council voted 5-0 in closed session Tuesday to file a legal action to “test the validity” of the initiative designed to move the Del Puerto Health Center to the Keystone Pacific Business Park. City Attorney George Logan told a room full of health center supporters that the initiative violates the California constitution, which states that ballot initiatives can only cover one subject.
A Los Angeles group began circulating a petition Monday to place an amendment before California voters in 2010 to overturn the state’s same-sex marriage ban. The measure marks the fourth attempt to overturn Proposition 8, which defines marriage as a union between a man and woman in California.
On Monday, 2010 Oakland mayoral candidate and former Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata (D) proposed a new ballot initiative that would raise tobacco taxes by a dollar per pack primarily to fund cancer research, the Oakland Tribune reports.
With voters becoming increasingly pessimistic about the direction of California, momentum is building for a new initiative to be placed on the November 2010 ballot to authorize a constitutional convention. With voter approval, this would lead to the selection of some 150 delegates (one for each group of 250,000 state residents) who would draft a new constitution by 2011. If all goes as planned, an entirely new constitution could be in place by 2012, paving the way for major reforms in the state’s failed governance system.
Quincy resident Skip Alexander will file a Notification of Intent to Circulate a Petition to the Plumas County Elections Office Nov. 16, and when he does, he’ll set in motion a process that, in effect, will allow the voters a second chance to have their say on the Plumas District Hospital bond issue. Alexander attended the recent PDH board meeting Nov. 3, along with 20 other community members.
The Attorney General will issue title and summary for the ballot language aimed at repealing Proposition 8 in California no later than Tuesday November 17. As soon as the approval is given, the Restore Equality 2010 campaign will have 150 days to collect approximately 700,000 valid pen and ink signatures by voters registered in California
Today, in a Sacramento news conference, Citizens in Charge Foundation, the only national voter rights groups dedicated to protecting and expanding the ballot initiative process, presented California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with the November 2009 John Lilburne Award. Governor Schwarzenegger was honored for vetoing four bills passed by the California Legislature during the 2009 session that would have restricted the initiative process in the state.
Citizens in Charge Foundation President Paul Jacob will be in Sacramento, CA tomorrow morning to hold a press conference honoring Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with this month’s John Lilburne Award. Governor Schwarzenegger is receiving the award for recently vetoing four bills that would have restricted the initiative process in the state.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill placing an $11.1 billion bond referendum on a statewide ballot to finance an overhaul of the water system serving the most populous U.S. state.
Grant Merry Susan Hyatt this: Unlike so many initiative proponents, she’s not a millionaire pressing a pet cause or a special-interest group trying to line its own pockets. She’s a substitute teacher, recently moved to Redding, with a warm-hearted desire to make the world a better place for her students. Her method? A ballot measure that would require the performance of Christmas carols in schools.
It will soon be a bit more expensive to buy anything in San Mateo or stay in a hotel near San Francisco International Airport after voters convincingly approved seven tax-hike measures in Tuesday’s election. San Mateo County voters cast more than enough ballots to pass one sales tax measure and six hotel tax initiatives, while they squashed one other sales tax item.