Jim.Sweeney: July 2009 Archives

There's no question that California has big budget problems, but so far no one has suggested selling the state Capitol.

In Arizona, that idea was just put back on the table by the Republican majority of the state legislature. Faced with what they describe as their worst fiscal crisis in a generation, legislative leaders endorsed a lease-buy back scheme for the buildings used by the state Senate and the state House of Representatives plus several other state properties.

Gov. Jan Brewer, also a Republican, vetoed the idea once, but may have it delivered to her again soon.

The sale would generate an estimated $735 million to help eliminate a $3.4 billion deficit. To buy the buildings back, the state would make lease payments of about $1.2 billion over 20 years.

That beats budget cuts, GOP leaders told the Arizona Republic.

"What are our choices?" asked John McComish, the House Republican leader. "We could cut more, or we could raise taxes more. Borrowing over the long term, we think, is better for the people, better for the economy."

So much for fiscal conservatives ...

-- Jim Sweeney

The Washington Post parachuted into Mendocino County for a look at the backlash against pot growers that culminated last fall in passage of Measure B, which rolled back the liberal pot rules approved by voters eight years before.

Karl Vick, a Los Angeles-based correspondent and the Post's former Istanbul bureau chief, offers some good history, an easy read and a terrific kicker quote from beleaguered District Attorney Meredith Lintott: "Quite frankly, I might benefit from a card. This is a high-stress job. It would probably do me good to go home and smoke some pot in the evening."

Me, I prefer scotch.

-- Jim Sweeney

In his weekend column, Charles Krauthammer unloaded on the health care reform plans put forth by congressional Democrats and the White House for failing to control rising costs. And on that point, he's right. But Krauthammer's solution doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Like many of his fellow physicians, Krauthammer blames malpractice lawsuits and the cost of malpractice insurance for costly medical care.

Slap a limit on malpractice judgments, he says, and you rein in the costs.

Krauthammer needs to visit California. The Golden State has had the nation's toughest cap on malpractice awards for some 30 years, courtesy of legislation sponsored by Barry Keene, a Democrat who represented Sonoma County in the state Senate and Assembly.

Under his measure, known as MICRA, jury awards are limited to $250,000 for pain-and-suffering - the ambiguous, subjective and costly portion of malpractice lawsuits that Krauthammer calls "jackpot justice."

Trial lawyers hate the California law, doctors love it and malpractice lawsuits are rare in California. And health insurance is cheaper here than in states that don't limit lawsuits, right? Sorry, Charles.

Limits on lawsuits might be a good idea, though MICRA ought to be adjusted for inflation. But there's no evidence in California that limiting legal judgments reduces the cost of health care.

-- Jim Sweeney

Every state budget seems to have provisions with little obvious relationship to, well, the state budget. This year was no exception. Here are a couple school-related items culled from an e-mail distributed to Republican legislators:

-- The state high school exit exam, an important measurement of school accountability, will continue for most students. You may recall that legislative Democrats proposed to eliminate the exam (a multiple-choice test measuring 10th grade English and math skills), claiming it would save money. "It sounds kind of cute but it works," Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said at the time.

Under the deal cut this week, special education students will be exempted from the test for at least a year.

The issue has divided parents in special education programs, with some arguing that their children are able to meet the same standard as other students, while others point to data showing special education students fail at a higher rate.

-- The district-of-choice program also will be retained, according to the e-mail sent Tuesday by state Senate GOP leader Dennis Hollingsworth.

The 16-year-old program allows parents to move their children to other school districts without first asking for permission from school boards in both districts. For districts that declare themselves districts-of-choice, they must take students on a first-come, first-serve basis regardless of special needs or language barriers.

We raised the issue in an editorial after a bill to extend the program passed the state Senate unanimously before getting bottled up by Democratic opposition last month in an Assembly committee.

Many of the side deals cut to pass state budgets past couldn't survive the light of day (and some of those may still be skulking about this week). These two issues, however, should have turned out exactly the same had they settled on their merits.

-- Jim Sweeney

Back from the grave

On Wednesday, we published an editorial criticizing legislative Democrats for killing California's district of choice program, which allows school districts to accept any and all comers without forcing parents to plead for permission.

The program is 16 years old and a bill to renew it permanently sailed through the Senate without a single no vote and the Assembly Education Committee on a 6-1 vote, but was defeated on a party-line vote in the Assembly Appropriations Committee two weeks ago.

Since then, advocates of the program have helped generate public attention, including several news stories and editorials around the state. On Wednesday, the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, and cosponsored by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, among others, was brought back for reconsideration and passed the committee on a 9-3 vote. What changed? Not much, except that instead of a permanent renewal, the bill restores the program for seven years.

It will be interesting to see if the renewed support fades away when the bill gets to the Assembly floor.

-- Jim Sweeney

One of the talking points in every California budget standoff for at least 20 years has been that high taxes are driving people from the state.

Once in a while, someone even offers a bit of anecdotal evidence.

Finally, we have some hard numbers. Researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California released a study Friday showing that low-income residents are leaving the state at a faster pace than rich residents.

The research doesn't undermine the high-tax argument entirely, but it certainly marginalizes it.

Using data from the U.S. Census and the state Department of Finance for 2004 through 2007, the PPIC study found that poorer residents are twice as likely to leave the state as more affluent residents.

PPIC said  that 1.73 of the state's poorest households (those with annual incomes of $22,000 or less, placing them in the bottom 20 percent) left California for every arrival in that income range.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, 1.16 households in the top quintile (annual incomes of $110,000 or more) left for every upper-income person who arrives. At the very top of the scale (incomes of more than $200,000 a year), 1.09 leave for every arrival.

Obviously, the state's financial picture would be better if the upper-income numbers were less than one, but they're leaving at a far slower pace than poor families.

Where do they go? States without incomes taxes, right?

Three of the five most popular destinations are Texas, Washington and Nevada, all states without personal incomes taxes. But that's true of both lower- and upper-income emigrants, suggesting taxes aren't the only factor. As for states sending immigrants to California, two of the top five (Texas and Washington) have no state income taxes.

-- Jim Sweeney

Paul Stutrud, a Rohnert Park community activist who died last week, was a textbook example of the species city hall gadfly.

To some people, the term is pejorative. But I like gadflies, and I liked Paul Stutrud.

Every city needs someone willing to take the time to drill into its deepest catacombs for evidence of shady deals and unlawful decisions. Gadflies help keep politicians honest, and they can keep reporters from getting lazy.

It was a Santa Rosa City Hall gadfly who blew the whistle on council members collecting pay from the Chamber of Commerce while voting on budgets that included money for the chamber. An LA. City Hall gadfly once handed me the roadmap to expose a sweetheart deal involving the chairman of the redevelopment agency.

An obituary in Tuesday's paper described some of Stutrud's watchdog efforts in Rohnert Park. But one story that bears repeating wasn't included.

In 1996, Rohnert Park levied a property tax to cover the cost of staffing two fire stations around the clock, but the city ignored Proposition 218, an initiative crafted by the Howard Jarvis organization that retroactively required a complicated corporate-style election to raise many municipal taxes.

The issue here isn't the wisdom of Proposition 218. On that, I suspect Stutrud and I might have disagreed.

But Rohnert Park rejected Proposition 218's election mechanism, opting instead to file an unusual lawsuit against its own citizens in a bid to secure court-approval for the tax. Stutrud, who wasn't a lawyer, took up the challenge and argued against the city in court.

Sitting in court that day in 1998, it was clear to me that Stutrud understood Proposition 218 better than the city's lawyer or the judge, who ruled in favor of the city. Stutrud persevered, and a state appeals court unanimously overturned the decision a few months later and ordered the city to refund about $1.1 million in taxes.

Chalk up another one for the gadflies.

-- Jim Sweeney

Healdsburg adopted a new general plan on Monday, and Mayor Eric Ziedrich said the council would act separately on an ordinance governing "formula" businesses. That's the new euphemism for chain stores. The conversation, as reported by Staff Writer Clark Mason, touched on big-box stores and Starbucks. You may recall that Starbucks set off a similar debate in Cotati, which ultimately decided some chains were OK -- as long as they kept to the west side of the highway. Other towns have debated other chains. Calistoga once considered running out Copperfields because it had stores elsewhere, including Petaluma, where the City Council is clearly uncomfortable with any bookstore that might compete with Copperfields.

But in all these debates over chain businesses, I've never heard anyone try to exclude Wells Fargo, Chevron, Bank of America, Exxon or Safeway. So some chains are OK? You know, if they don't sell books or coffee?

Just wondering.

-- Jim Sweeney

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes to close about 200 state parks because they don't pay for themselves. Among them are the Sonoma Coast state beaches, Angel Island, Annadel and Armstrong Grove. Others include Hearst Castle, Point Sur and the California State Capitol Museum.

Just how the state plans to keep people off the beach or out of Annadel has yet to be explained. There's also are the obvious questions of liability if anyone is hurt and whether damage from vandalism will cost more than keeping the parks open.

Legislative Democrats offered a potential solution: levying a $15 surcharge on auto license plats and dedicating the revenue to parks. I'm ready to pay that, or to simply pay a few dollars more to use the parks.

It sure makes more sense than closing them (and, yes, I use them regularly so I would be shelling out any fee increase).

The federal government has warned Schwarzenegger that six parks could be seized if the state closes them. They are: Angel Island and Mount Diablo in the Bay Area, Point Sur and Fort Ord Dunes on the Central Coast and Border Field and Point Mugu in Southern California All six were acquired with federal grants that were contingent on perpetual public access to the land.

A letter from the National Park Service also notes that 67 other state parks have received federal funding for various improvements, also contingent on public access. That money could be cut off, though those parks apparently aren't subject to seizure. That list includes several in the North Bay: Sonoma Coast, Salt Point, Annadel, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mount Tamalpais, Olompali, Manchester, Navarro River Redwoods and Russian Gulch.

Further up the coast are Jedediah Smith Redwoods, Humboldt Redwoods, Benbow Lake and Richardson Grove.

Here's betting the final budget deal includes some sort of new fee - with cover for the governor to deny it's a tax - to keep the parks open.

-- Jim Sweeney

North Bay Rep. Lynn Woolsey is usually hand-in-glove with conservation groups, but a deep schism is developing between the Petaluma Democrat and some environmentalists over an oyster farming operation at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Drakes Bay Oyster Company's permit expires in 2012, and the 1,100-acre property that it leases from the National Park Service is scheduled to become protected wilderness at that time. The company, the largest commercial shellfish operation in California, wants the lease extended, and it has been battling with the National Park Service for years.

The Park Service has published reports saying the oyster farm is detrimental to the surrounding area, but a recent review by the National Academy of Sciences found that those conclusions were overstated.

Many conservation groups object to a commercial operation, such as the oyster farm, delaying a wilderness designation.

Woolsey sided with conservation groups last year, writing letters that helped block an attempt to attach a lease extension to the Interior appropriations bill.

Now, however, she is siding with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who has attached a rider to extend the lease to this year's Interior appropriations bill. Woolsey issued a written statement citing environmental safeguards included in Feinstein's amendment, but conservation groups are lobbying hard against it.

In addition to objections to delaying the wilderness designation for the Drakes Bay area within Point Reyes National Seashore, critics point out that using the congressional appropriations process cuts the public out of any discussion of the merits of extending the oyster farm's lease.

The House version of the bill - which doesn't include the oyster farm lease language - passed last week, so the issue may get hashed out by a conference committee.

-- Jim Sweeney

Common sense tells us that 40 school districts is more than we need in Sonoma County (population 486,000). Practical experience tells us one school district isn't enough for Los Angeles and several surrounding cities (population about 4.5 million).

But who would have guessed there's an even goofier model out there?

Well, leave it to New Jersey, which has two dozen school districts that don't have any schools at all.

According to an Associated Press report, efforts to eliminate the school-less school districts began in 1969. A law finally passed in 2007. Since then, three more districts closed all their schools. Yet another law passed last week to eliminate the no-school districts prior to the 2010 school year.

Perhaps the extra year was granted to allow time for one last reunion ...

In fairness to New Jersey, the U.S. Department of Education says there are almost 300 school districts across the country - including more than 50 each in Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont - that don't bother with schools. (It would be too easy to make a wisecrack here about classes only siphoning money from big-time prep sports machines.)

Perhaps we can take inspiration from the Garden State and root up some of Sonoma County's myriad school districts, then plant them in a more streamlined education system.

And maybe we can take less than 40 years to do it.

-- Jim Sweeney