Lea este artículo en español. Eighteen miles south of the Central Valley home that was her prison, down Highway 99 past almond orchards and trucks overloaded with hay bales, sits the Madera County Superior Court. The four-story steel structure with its light granite exterior boasts 10 courtrooms, large flat-screen monitors, and...
Will State’s Plan for Clearing Homeless Camps Actually Work?
The first time William Joseph Brown filled out a survey to try to get into permanent housing, he was living beside a highway. That was December 2019. In late August this year, when California’s transportation agency cleared him from the same strip of land tucked behind the San Clemente off-ramp...
How International Climate Promises Compare to California’s Emissions Mandates
Nations convening at the United Nations climate conference pledged Thursday to end the sale of new gasoline-powered cars in major markets by 2035 and globally by 2040, mirroring California’s plans. The nations took another major step: a plan to eliminate sales of trucks and buses that pump out planet warming...
This Plan Creates All the Water California Needs: Opinion
Re: the Calmatters commentary “California should create more water – much more“ published Oct. 28, 2021. There is an answer to Jim Wunderman’s position that “state and federal governments should commit to creating 1.75 million acre-feet – about 25% of California’s current urban water use – of new water from...
CA Politicians Raising Money for Charity Face New Rules
After more than 18 months of deliberation, California’s political ethics regulators voted this week to approve new rules when elected officials raise money for charities that they or their family control. More public disclosure of their ties to the group getting the payments? Yes. Limits on money from interest groups...
Put Up or Shut Up on California High-Speed Rail: Walters
While Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 770 bills passed by the Legislature this year, he couldn’t approve a big one that he wanted badly — a $4.2 billion appropriation to shore up the state’s much-delayed, increasingly expensive, and obviously mismanaged bullet train project. He couldn’t sign it because the Legislature, controlled...
Here’s the Answer to Why Newsom Vetoed Many Popular Bills
Gov. Gavin Newsom has now completed three rounds of the annual ritual of deciding what should become law in California by giving a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to hundreds of bills sent to him by the Legislature. In year one, he used the routine to demonstrate differences from his predecessor, signing dozens...
How Much Do Wildfires Really Cost California’s Economy?
Not a single structure burned down in the city of South Lake Tahoe. And yet, the threat of the fast approaching Caldor Fire cost surrounding El Dorado County tens of millions of dollars, if not more. In South Lake Tahoe, Domi Chavarria, co-owner of Verde Mexican Rotisserie, felt the devastation...
Newsom’s Bill Signing Flurry Results in 770 New Laws
You’d be forgiven for not knowing Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the largest expansion of California’s college financial aid system in a generation — he did so during the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants’ first playoff game Friday night. Emily Hoeven Calmatters Hours later, it was all over: Newsom signed...
Universal Transitional Kindergarten Will Be a Game Changer
On a Tuesday evening in May, third-grade teacher Clara Yanez and second-grade teacher Jackie Gonzalez stood in front of their board of education and asked them to count little plastic farm animals. While not a typical agenda item at Buttonwillow Union Elementary School, this exercise in “counting collections” was a...