Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger plans across-the-board cuts to state
services to balance California’s $21 billion deficit after voters
soundly rejected five budget compromise measures last week.
Schwarzenegger is interpreting the voters’ decision as a mandate to not
raise taxes. “I think that the message was clear from the people,” he
said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Go all out and
make those cuts and live within your means.” Schwarzenegger is likely
to propose cuts to education, healthcare for the poor, and law
enforcement, according to the San Jose Mercury News. For Alameda
County, the defeat of the ballot measures will mean an additional $70
million shortfall, on top of the $178 million budget hole the county
already has. The Oakland Tribune also reported that the state’s
budget mess likely would severely impact the City of Oakland and its
public schools, along with other local school districts.
State voters knew the cuts were coming if they turned down the
measures, but didn’t seem to care. In fact, the election featured a
strange alliance between anti-tax conservatives and left-wingers who
appeared to welcome another budget crisis in apparent hope that it
would lead to meaningful government reforms. But for now, the anti-tax
side appears to have won the day, because it’s highly doubtful that
California Republicans are going to roll over and agree to overhaul
state government. As for the call by liberals and progressives for a
statewide Constitutional convention to change how Sacramento does
business, don’t hold your breath.
Indeed, Schwarzenegger’s belief that the election results mean
voters prefer service cuts to higher taxes or a radical change in how
budgets are passed is likely to be pervasive in Sacramento —
especially among conservatives who view the defeat of the measures as a
victory for their side. The propositions, after all, were most
unpopular in right-wing strongholds. In conservative San Bernardino
County, for example, most of the measures lost by more than 40
percentage points. Statewide, Propositions 1A through 1E lost by about
25 percentage points. In the liberal East Bay, by contrast, the vote
was much closer. Alameda County voters, for instance, nearly approved
1B (50.5 percent to 49.5 percent) and 1A wasn’t that far behind
(56-44).
Oakland Gets New Supe
The Oakland school board selected Tony Smith, a top administrator in
San Francisco public schools and a supporter of small schools and
charter schools, to be the district’s new permanent superintendent. The
board’s vote was unanimous. Smith, an Oakland resident whose child will
attend Crocker Highlands Elementary, a public school, beat out two
other finalists. He also is a former superintendent of the tiny
Emeryville school district and once worked for the Bay Area Coalition
of Equitable Schools, a primary backer of the small-schools movement.
According to the Trib, Smith said at a town hall meeting last
week that he also was “a pretty big backer of the charter
movement.”
Smith is Oakland’s first permanent superintendent since Dennis
Chaconas in 2003, and he will replace interim Superintendent Roberta
Mayor on July 1. But the question now is whether state schools Chief
Jack O’Connell will finally relinquish his power over the district’s
finances, and let Smith and the school board actually run the city’s
school system.
CHP Nabs Two East Bay Snipers
The California Highway Patrol arrested two 21-year-olds for a series
of shootings along Interstate 680 in Fremont. The CHP says the young
men, Shawn Philip Wagner of Mariposa and Rojelio Samuel Gomez of
Fremont, shot at more than forty cars with a BB gun and a pellet gun.
The cops booked both men on 42 counts of felony assault with a deadly
weapon and 43 counts of felony vandalism. No one was injured in the
shootings. Let’s hope the CHP got this right, because the last time the
East Bay was terrorized by a sniper or snipers in 2004, the CHP
arrested the wrong guy, and no charges were ever filed.
Good-Bye Speakeasy
The El Cerrito Speakeasy Theater shuttered its doors last week,
following the closure of Oakland’s Parkway Theater earlier this year.
Kyle and Catherine Fischer, who owned both movie houses and who hadn’t
paid rent in months, had asked the El Cerrito City Council for
additional financial aid and had offered to help in a search for new
owners of the El Cerrito Theater, but then apparently gave up.
Three-Dot Roundup
The state’s budget problems also will affect state legislators. A
state commission voted to slash the legislators’ pay by 18 percent,
which means lawmakers’ salaries will drop to just over $95,200. … A
brazen West Berkeley murder, followed by a high-speed police chase into
North Oakland, resulted in the deaths of two innocent bystanders. …
Oakland police demoted Deputy Chief Jeffrey Loman two ranks to
lieutenant in the wake of a sex harassment investigation. But then
Oakland brass made an odd move and reassigned Loman to the
investigative team, even though he came under criticism for his
handling of the Chauncey Bailey murder case. … President Barack Obama
nominated former top Oakland city official Rosie Rios to be the next
United States treasurer. Rios had been fired by then Mayor Jerry Brown
in 2003 for her work in trying to build a downtown stadium for the
Oakland A’s. … And finally, Obama decided to copy California’s
anti-global warming efforts, by announcing new fuel efficiency mandates
for cars, SUVs, and light trucks.
