Signing day

Jul 28, 2009

The governor prepares to sign a $24 billion (give or take) budget revision today in subdued Capitol ceremony at 11 a.m. this morning. The legislative leaders who presented the governor with this deal will be nowhere to be found, and the governor will have a couple of announcements to make.

 

The governor is expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars in additional cuts , to restore the budget reserve that was eliminated when the Assembly opted to kill off oil drilling and local government proposals that would have meant more than $1 billion into the state's general fund. 

 

The Bee's Kevin Yamamura reports,  "The cuts will not include a fourth state worker furlough day, Schwarzenegger's office said Monday.

 

"The governor is playing the hand he was dealt," said Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer "The budget we got on Friday erased the reserve in the agreement and put us under water, so the governor has no choice but to use his line-item veto authority."

 

The Times-Standard's Thadeus Greenson gets Patty Berg's take on the cuts . ”It's very scary,” said former North Coast Assemblywoman Patty Berg, adding that she fears Schwarzenegger will use the opportunity to eliminate funding for many of the safety-net social service programs that Democrats fought to save during the budget process. “If further reductions happen with the social services piece, we're going to have more homeless and people will die. It will just be that cut and dry.”

 

What, Virginia Strom-Martin was unavailable?

 

Shane Goldmacher empties his notebook for the LA Times, going behind-the-scenes in the budget all-nighter.

 

"There was one near-constant in the budget talks: Dennis Hollingsworth was the first one into the governor's office and the last one out.

The Senate Republican leader from Murrieta forged a close alliance with Schwarzenegger; the pair were repeatedly spotted by staff and fellow lawmakers puffing on cigars in the governor's courtyard smoking tent, even after hours of fractious budget talks.

Schwarzenegger has long had his favorites among the legislative leaders; no one expected that one would be Hollingsworth. After all, the Christian conservative rose to power in February in a midnight coup by bashing the last Schwarzenegger budget deal and blasting the closed-door negotiations that spawned it.

Even more unlikely, however, was the kinship struck between Hollingsworth, an ardent opponent of gay marriage, and Schwarzenegger's Democratic chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, who married another woman in a ceremony in Hawaii about 10 years ago.

 

The budget cuts will likely mean an entire host of local services will be more expensive. The LAT's Shelby Grad reports, "The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors today is expected to consider several increases in fees for various county services .

According to its agenda, the board will consider proposals to:

 

-- Add a 20% co-sponsorship fee for events at county parks, as well as a $20 swimming lesson fee. (The proposal would also create a financial aid program for those in need).

-- Increase fees at county parking garages in the L.A. civic center area during non-peak hours.

-- Modify fees for the spaying and neutering of pets by the Department of Animal Care and Control, including daily boarding, veterinary care and vaccinations."

 

So, cats and dogs seem to be the real winners in this budget fight, then...

 

Speaking of which, Eric Jaye has left the Gavin Newsom campaign , in a sign that Garry South is tightening his grip, CalBuzz reports. "It’s not that South is a control freak; in fact, he’s perfectly capable of working collaboratively and cooperatively with campaign managers and other candidate handlers.

 

"But Jaye to date in the campaign had Newsom heavily focused on using and trumpeting his use of online social network tools, both for organizing and for fundraising and South  is simply not, by nature,  a Twitter-Facebook-kind of guy.

 

"The last political consultant to elect a Democrat governor of the state, the Duke of Darkness is a bare-knuckles, in-your-face, shoe-leather, hand-to-hand combat veteran who has two main tasks: 1) Get his candidate to raise a ship load of money and 2) Needle, badger and tweak primary rival Jerry Brown at every turn.

 

Jaye and South were both doing their best to handle the split-up professionally, and with as little inside vitriol splashing on Newsom as possible. We tried to bait South into talking but he refused to engage."

 

And finally, Two men face theft and public intoxication charges after allegedly stealing water from a fire hydrant for an outdoor water game . Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. Dwayne Ritchie said the men were arrested Saturday after a trailer pulled behind the pickup they were driving blew a tire, sending the pickup and trailer into a ditch.

 

"According to authorities, the trailer was hauling a 15-hundred gallon tank filled with water allegedly stolen from a fire hydrant in Underwood. Ritchie said a witness saw the men filling the tank from a city hydrant and reported the action to police.

 

"Ritchie said the men indicated they were going to use the water for a water slide."

 


 
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