Investing billions of dollars in affordable housing and homeless programs in recent years has apparently put the brakes on what had been a surge in California’s homeless population, causing it to dip by 1 percent this year, a federal report released Monday showed. The decline was in sharp contrast to the 2017 statewide count, when […]
San Diego County again had the fourth-largest homeless population in the country and there has been little change in the nationwide number of people on the street and in shelters since last year, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The numbers come from an annual one-night […]
Southern Californians could lose billions of gallons of water a year to Central Valley farmers under a deal Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has struck with water officials working for President Donald Trump. There’s no guarantee the agreement with Trump will accomplish what Brown’s team is seeking: a lasting compromise on environmental regulations that could stave […]
Possessing a college degree in California is more valuable than ever. It often indicates whether someone has a stable job and if their employer offers paid vacation or health benefits. For many, the degree is the difference between poverty and the middle class. And its value, since at least 2000, has only increased year after […]
While California is experiencing tremendous growth and historically low unemployment rates, our state’s poverty rate is still the highest in the country. In fact, one of every five Californians today lives in poverty, including two million children. CARB has to take into consideration all the households that are at and below poverty that will be […]
The days when urban life in California involved regular inhalations of diesel smoke from rumbling buses will soon be history after the California Air Resources Board ordered transit agencies to make their fleets entirely emission-free within two decades. The ruling, handed down by a unanimous vote Friday, is the latest move by California to seize […]
What was the biggest local business story of the year? With a sigh, I vote for the state Supreme Court’s decision in April that basically outlawed the gig economy in California. I sigh because the ruling truly may disrupt the way business increasingly is being done today, especially here in the San Fernando Valley area. […]
The 2017 deal, for subsidies worth as much as $350 million, rescued a cliffhanger vote in the Legislature that extended the state’s cap-and-trade program to 2030. Under cap and trade, industries may pay to pollute by buying allowances in a carbon-trading market. In addition, some receive free allowances from the state. The state Air Resources […]
Some water districts would like to keep negotiating with state officials over river flows. But lawsuits replaced settlements as the most likely path forward, the day after a crucial vote in Sacramento approving the “water grab.” The Oakdale and South San Joaquin irrigation districts had no agreement for flows on the Stanislaus River before Wednesday’s […]
Early childhood education. A top-tier national ranking for K-12 per-pupil spending. A data system that would track kids from nursery school through state universities. California’s Legislature won’t reconvene until 2019, but the Christmas wish list for public schools is already long and pricey. On the first day of session, Democratic lawmakers introduced two major education […]
The most obvious and most important victims of California’s chronic and still-growing housing shortage are the countless thousands of families that struggle to put affordable roofs over their heads. The shortage has driven prices skyward in a classic example of a supply-demand mismatch and housing costs are the largest single factor in California’s shameful status […]
Dozens of retired Los Angeles employees are collecting such generous retirement pay that they exceed pension fund limits set by the Internal Revenue Service, saddling taxpayers with additional costs, a Times data analysis has found. Their lavish pensions forced the city to establish an “Excess Benefit Plan” to pay what the pension system cannot legally […]
Gov. Jerry Brown warned this week that public agencies in California are on a track to “fiscal oblivion” if they’re barred from adjusting retirement benefits for their employees. He issued the warning in an interview with The Sacramento Bee three weeks after his attorneys defended his 2012 pension law at the California Supreme Court against […]
If the court overturns Auer, a logical next step would be to reconsider deference for agency interpretations of the statutes that authorize their actions. In Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), the justices directed lower courts to defer to any agency interpretations of laws enacted by Congress, so long as the interpretation is deemed […]
Although the midterm election was held on November 6th, the news media was absorbed for several weeks with undecided close races and the strength of the “blue wave,” especially here in California. Perhaps that is why a report from the Auditor of the State of California on the High Speed Rail Project issued the following […]