People will take a day off of work to make their voices heard. At hearings, at committee meetings, and now at rallies, the people opposed to High Speed Rail are turning out to proclaim their rights to their property.

The Save Our Homes campaign was conceived by Kings County Supervisor Richard Valle, and its his way to make sure that the voices of people in small cities across California are heard. At its first rally at an Amtrak station in Corcoran, residents turned out with their signs and a camera. The pictures will be turned into posters that Valle says he will show anytime he speaks about High Speed Rail.

It is his hope that the movement will spread into other communities throughout the Central Valley. Then the breadth of the High Speed Rail opposition can effectively be demonstrated. The start of this movement came shortly after a Madera County Board of Supervisors vote to oppose the project.

It appears that the execution date for Redevelopment Agencies won’t receive a legislative stay. On February 1, they will cease to exist.

That’s according to a prediction of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who says that the pieces of legislation that would extend the deadline to April 15 will not pass in time. Even if they did, there is no guarantee that Governor Brown would sign them. He’s already said that there would be no delaying the “redevelopment funeral.”

Since the end of December, the League of California Cities, the California Redevelopment Association, California Contract Cities Associations, as well as labor and business organizations have been lobbying the Capitol for relief from dissolution.

Originally posted at www.liberaloc.com
After three months of repeated requests for public records and information we have narrowed down the costs of the “Agents of Change” community forum to the taxpayers to approximately $4,000.  With no help from the city, weestimated the time spent by staff on the event, factored in their approximate hourly rates of pay and benefits, added in the costs of parking and the video broadcast of the event to arrive at our numbers.

On Tuesday October 27, 2011, the City of Santa Ana co-hosted with Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez a community forum titled“Agents of Change.” The purpose of the forum was to address cultural divisions between the Jewish andLatino communities which came to light after Alvarez compared a local Jewish property owner to Hitlerwhile chairing a meeting of the City Council.

Each week, Louis Dettorre will provide the PublicCEO Staff Report of the Week. Nominate yourself or a colleague by e-mailing ldettorre@publicCEO.com This e-mail address is being Protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The City Council of Barstow recognized one of their own last week by presenting a certificate of accomplishment to Tehya Trujillio. This young woman is just a freshman in high school, yet has worked tirelessly to raise significant money and toys for Barstow’s local Christmas, Cops & Kids program. The impressive part of the story is that she began helping the program when she was just a fourth grader.

Tehya organizes many community events with the proceeds going to help Barstow’s Christmas program. The city recognizes their youth that go above and beyond to make a positive impact in their community.

On a day that the Sacramento Bee published an update of the more than 50 ballot measures already cleared for circulation by the Attorney General’s Office, one has been scrapped. The Think Long Committee, a group that was pushing for its own tax initiative on the ballot, has joined the initiative sponsored by California Forward.

The California Forward initiative would make major changes to the state, including how its writes its budgets and how the state is governed.

The condensing of initiatives isn’t necessarily surprising, as many are already complaining of an overly crowded and confusing budget. Think Long had already endorsed several parts of the California Forward platform. Their decision to hold off on their own initiative this election cycle does not rule out a 2014 push for their own agenda.

It’s been nine years since the “Rider” case ended with a $10.5 million settlement and a promise to reform. Since then, reform has come at a painfully slow pace, and in the opinion of a federal judge, the pace has been unacceptable.

That’s why the judge forced the Oakland Police Chief to take a subordinate role to a federally appointed independent monitor. From police promotions to reforms and other house keeping items, the monitor must be consulted before decisions are made.

The decision came not as a result of the well-publicized action of the police department during the Occupy protests, but it certainly didn’t help. Citing the lack of measurable progress, the order was put in place. Should reforms not come any quicker, the judge does have the ability to place the department into a federal receivership, further relegating the local authority of the local law enforcement agency.

Remember when Bill Cosby used to host “Kids Say the Darnedest Things?” On Tuesday, East Haven Connecticut Mayor Joseph Maturo starred in his own, self-created episode of “Mayors Say the Stupidest things.”

Earlier in the day, the FBI arrested four members of the East Haven police department on charges of violating the civil rights of the Latino community for harassing and racially profiling residents. The town was already experiencing growing racial tensions as the Latino population more than doubled in the preceding decade. It now makes up roughly 10% of the population.

Maturo, who has stood by his police chief and the police department said that he doesn’t believe that the police had done anything wrong. However, the real damage was done when he was asked what he would do to repair relations with the Latino community.

“I might have tacos when I go home, I’m not sure yet,” answered Mayor Maturo.

Orange County’s Public Administrator, John Williams, is elected and cannot be removed from office by the Board of Supervisors. However, that might not keep him from being run out of town.

In March, Williams made a deal with the Supervisors: he would resign his office effective January 16, 2012. His resignation – eventual as it may have been – would then free up the cost of his salary of more than $150,000 per year. It’s money that he’s been earning for no work, as the Board of Supervisors had already stripped him of his duties and hired an administrator to act as a de facto public administrator.

In other words, Williams simply wanted and extra $150,000 before quitting. Now that the county has paid their portion and maintained their end of the bargain, Williams is reneging. He showed up for work despite the locks being changed. Now, the county counsel has sent him a letter notifying him not to return to the office.

How it will go from here remains to be seen.

San Jose, a city that continues to struggle with its pension costs, has a council that is leading from the front. On Tuesday, the city council voted unanimously to begin a process that would cut their pensions, a move similar to what they’ve asked of their employee bargaining units.

Now, CalPERS will calculate what it would actually cost for the council members to remove themselves from the massive pension system. That deficit, estimated by Councilman Pete Constant, could be as high as $400,000 and would be immediately due. However, the immediate budget impact would be offset by long term savings. According to Constant, the cost of the Council pensions will continue to rise. And due to the short-term nature of council member tenure (limited to just two, four-year terms) generous pension plans don’t make sense.

It’s estimated that under the current structure, each council member will earn a $13,000 pension for life for their eight years with the city.

In San Bernardino County, future pension increases for employees may end up needing a vote of the people. That’s because the Board of Supervisors voted to ask the county staff to draft a proposed ballot initiative that would set such a requirement.

The split-vote, however, had implications past simply future employee pensions. The immediate impact that proposing such an idea will have on ongoing labor negotiations remains unclear. Two supervisors voted against the ballot measure because they were wary of how it could play during discussions with some of the county’s labor unions.

The county’s labor unions responded not at the negotiation table, but on the streets. They have announced they are funding their own ballot initiative and petition drive to change the Board of Supervisors into a part-time establishment. Also included in that measure would be a reduction in the size of the supervisorial office budgets from $6 million total to just $250,000 per district.