"It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all state employees must be equipped with taxpayer-funded cell phones," Brown said in a written statement.
The state currently pays for 96,000 cell phones, the governor added.
"Some state employees, including department and agency executives who are required to be in touch 24 hours a day and seven days a week, may need cell phones, but the current number of phones out there is astounding."
Whitman ... overtook Brown in a possible general election matchup, winning the support of 46 percent of likely voters compared with Brown's 43 percent, the poll found. Brown had led Whitman by 10 percentage points in the January poll and by 21 points in October.Apparently, independent voters are leaning conservative in this election, which means Brown will have to step up his campaign earlier than he might have otherwise.
Earlier, the Bee reported that Ashburn was already in trouble with conservatives over a budget vote that included tax increases:Ashburn's announcement follows reports that Ashburn was leaving a gay club before he was arrested for driving under the influence last week.
The Bakersfield Republican, who has consistently voted against gay-rights measures, said his votes were a reflection of how the majority of voters in his conservative district would have wanted him to vote.
State GOP activist Jon Fleischman, who runs the conservative Flash Report Web site, said Ashburn's career in politics was already damaged because he angered GOP loyalists by voting for a tax increase last year.
"That puts you in a coffin," Fleischman said. If Ashburn is gay, he said, "it's like hammering nails into it."
"McKay reasoned that if pupils could say no to cussing it would be easier to stay away from drugs, violence and pornography, and to turn their focus to positive aspirations and goals," the Assembly proposal reads.
1. The inaugural edition of the Santa Clarita Valley Independent is out today. SCV Talk columnist Jeff Wilson takes note:It’s been a long time since I felt excitement over a newspaper.(h/t LA Observed)Matter of fact, I don’t remember the last time I felt that way about a newspaper, or more accurately, about the state of the newspaper industry. For years now we’ve gotten used to newspapers downsizing, laying off, even closing all around us, and it’s been downright depressing.
But not today. Today we got a brand new newspaper, and how many communities in America can say that?
Richard Mountjoy and nine others have launched a recall campaign against Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Claremont, the Sacramento Bee reports. Mountjoy, who's served in the Assembly ('78-'95) and state Senate ('95-'00) and whose son, Dennis, served in the Assembly, said he'll run for the seat if Adams is knocked out of office.
ee Lowery, both of Orange County, are said to be the real power behind the campaign. Here's how Adams responded:"The petition you hold is the creation of two very wealthy Orange County men who care less about our community and more about their own political ambitions. They want us to pay $900,000 in our hard earned tax dollars to pay for another election and their partisan political games...because Adams stood with taxpayers and working families and against their reckless agenda."(That's Mountjoy up top, Adams below)
After prosecuting 14 other Public Records Act and Brown Act cases, McKee said he had never heard of the district using the right to free speech as a way to win a case.The school district can take tapes of meetings and "chop it up, eliminate pieces, because of their right to free speech," McKee said. "Can you imagine how nice it is to control the information to the public? It's so ridiculous you don't know where to start."
The Bee has called for legislative reform to cure this ill, and McKee said that's exactly what he and Terry Francke of Californians Aware plan to do.
(h/t Romenesko)There is a lot of talk nowadays about what will replace the dinosaur that is the daily newspaper. So-called citizen journalists and bloggers and media pundits have lined up to tell us that newspapers are dying but that the news business will endure, that this moment is less tragic than it is transformational.
Well, sorry, but I didn't trip over any blogger trying to find out McKissick's identity and performance history. Nor were any citizen journalists at the City Council hearing in January when police officials inflated the nature and severity of the threats against officers. And there wasn't anyone working sources in the police department to counterbalance all of the spin or omission.
I didn't trip over a herd of hungry Sun reporters either, but that's the point. In an American city, a police officer with the authority to take human life can now do so in the shadows, while his higher-ups can claim that this is necessary not to avoid public accountability, but to mitigate against a nonexistent wave of threats. And the last remaining daily newspaper in town no longer has the manpower, the expertise or the institutional memory to challenge any of it.
At one point last week, after the department spokesman denied me the face sheet of the shooting report, I tried doing what I used to do: I went to the Southeastern District and demanded the copy on file there.
When the desk officer refused to give it to me, I tried calling the chief judge of the District Court. But Sweeney's replacement no longer handles such business. It's been a while since any reporter asked, apparently. So I tried to explain the Maryland statutes to the shift commander, but so long had it been since a reporter had demanded a public document that he stared at me as if I were an emissary from some lost and utterly alien world.
Which is, sadly enough, exactly true.
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