WHAT: Los Angeles doesn’t have the $1.2 billion needed to fix the 4,600 miles of its sidewalks that need repairs. So, the City Council will soon vote on whether to make property owners pay.
WHY: Until the 1970s, L.A. property owners were responsible for maintaining sidewalks. That changed with a federal grant, but after the money ran out in 1978, the city kept paying.
Read More
Times Square has 82 police surveillance cameras, but when jihadist Faisal Shahzad tried to set off a car bomb there May 1, they were no help in catching him.
That failure hasn’t cooled public officials’ camera craze, however. NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly wants an electronic eye on every block from Central Park to 34th Street, and New York Sen. Charles Schumer demanded $30 million from the feds to help complete the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, which includes a centralized camera network based on London’s “Ring of Steel.”
Read More
PG&E is an easy target to attack, but which is more reliable: your electricity or your morning bus? Which has a better response time to emergencies?
I think that PG&E overreached by having Proposition 16 require a two-thirds vote for localities to create an alternative to their service. But the citizens of San Francisco have overwhelmingly voted “no” on public power. The Board of Supervisors is not listening to us; they want to rush through their public power experiment without proper vetting. Tell them “no” again.
Read More
Now that President Barack Obama has nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the U.S. Supreme Court, the Senate begins what is likely to be among its most difficult confirmation processes.
Kagan has no previous experience as a judge and a less-than-stellar performance in her present position, so it becomes critically important that the Senate not rush to complete its consideration of her nomination. Detailed questions must be asked of her, and senators should demand that she provide detailed answers explaining her views.
Read More
2010 SFJAZZ Gala: The event Saturday at the Four Seasons Hotel included performances by vibe great and honoree Bobby Hutcherson, bluesman Charlie Musselwhite, Les Claypool of Primus and the SFJAZZ Collective. SFJAZZ officials Randall Kline, Srinija Srinivasan and Felice Swapp — excited about plans for a new building in Hayes Valley dedicated to jazz that will be designed by architect Mark Cavagnero — were in attendance at the party, a benefit for the organization’s education programs.
Read More
A body found in rural Napa County on Friday morning is that of missing Suisun City resident Bichphuong “Phuong” Le, the Solano County coroner’s office confirmed Monday.
Coroner’s deputy Adrian Garcia said he could not comment on the preliminary cause of death or when Le died. Fingerprints were used to confirm her identification, Garcia said.
Le, 25, had been missing since April 25 when she was last seen at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Fairfield. Her car was found in the parking lot.
Read More
SOMETHING TO READ
Raising Happiness
By Christine Carter ($24)
The Bay Area mother of two, executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, uses her own real-world examples in this manual that offers “10 simple steps for more joyful kids and happier parents.”
Read More
The warm temperatures that hit The City during the past couple days are expected to give way to cooler breezes this weekend, according to Will Pi, meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Today is predicted to be mostly sunny with a high of 69 degrees and no chance of precipitation. Saturday is looking like “it will be a nice day, but a little bit cooler,” said Pi, who added highs should be in the lower 60s to upper 50s. Sunday is expected to be partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers, he said.
Read More
State Sen. Leland Yee was honored with the Service Award by Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse for his efforts to save California’s domestic violence shelters from closure due to severe budget cuts and his legislation to assist domestic violence survivors. The organization offers domestic violence services. Yee has authored several bills to assist child victims of domestic violence, including mental health access and legal protections.
Read More
WHAT: Oil rig operators generally are required to submit a detailed “blowout scenario” for every site. But an unexplained rules change in 2008 by the federal Minerals Management Service allowed BP to avoid filing a plan specifically for handling a major blowout spill at its Deepwater Horizon rig — exactly the disaster that happened in the Gulf of Mexico.
Read More
Don’t look now, but we just loaned almost $7 billion to Greece. That’s our share of the International Monetary Fund bailout for the country.
Don’t worry, though, we can always borrow from China or raise taxes, in the likely event that Greece can’t repay the IMF and the eurozone countries that are contributing to enabling Greece to refinance the loans coming due this month and the rest of the year, and next. A bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.
It’s hard to tell whether the bailout of Greece is farce or tragedy.
Read More
If Republicans are “making love to Wall Street,” as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., put it, one wonders if there’s a printable description for his torrid affair with the financial sector.
Reid’s slur was the standard Democratic attack — that Republicans, by opposing regulations, are prostituting for the big banks. It’s a dishonest attack, belied by basic facts, but President Barack Obama and other Democrats get away with it. Look between the sheets, however, and you’ll see it’s Reid in bed with Wall Street.
Read More
A new program linking the state criminal database with federal immigration is expected to begin in San Francisco next month, bypassing The City’s sanctuary law, officials said Thursday.
San Francisco’s sanctuary ordinance allows local law enforcement the discretion not to report those booked for misdemeanor offenses to federal immigration officials. Those booked for felonies and believed to be undocumented are still reported, under the ordinance.
Read More
Switzerland's army should stop preparing for a foreign attack and concentrate on security operations inside the country, according to a leaked government discussion paper published online Thursday.
The proposal, which also includes cutting funds for new weapons systems and reducing the size of the army, was obtained by Swiss weekly Weltwoche and published on its website.
A Defense Ministry spokesman confirmed that the document was produced by defense officials for discussion at a regular government meeting Friday, but declined to comment further.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/people/rob-nagle?page=77&%24Version=1&quicktabs_6=1
