Dec. 6
The San Diego Union-Tribune on police pay raises being the easy part for San Diego City Council
Tuesday the San Diego City Council made the right call giving the San Diego police officers union giant raises that will lift the department in morale and in salary scales when compared to other public safety agencies in cities across California that are competing for officers to protect their residents.
That was the easy part, of course.
While cumulative pay hikes from July 2018 to January 2020 of 25.6 percent to 30.6 percent will drive up city pension obligations at least $6.4 million in 2020 and $15.9 million a year after that, the raises should help greatly with recruitment and retention in a department that has only about 1,820 officers, far fewer than its goal of 2,040. It’s reassuring that the City Council responded to the staffing shortage by approving the pay package unanimously.
The difficult and divisive part for the council - and a crucial aspect of this for all San Diego residents - lies in deciding what to cut from the city’s $1.4 billion general fund budget over the next two fiscal years to pay for an agreement that will cost a collective $66 million over that span.
A five-year fiscal outlook released last month cautions that San Diego faces significant budget deficits over the next three years before factoring in the police raises at all. Fiscal prudence must remain a top priority at City Hall. It’s good that our woods will be safer now because we’re hardly out of them.
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Dec. 5
San Francisco Chronicle on shrinking national monuments
President Trump signed two executive orders on Monday to diminish the scale of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah - in the case of Bears Ears, by 85 percent. On Tuesday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended shrinking two more monuments, including one that straddles the California-Oregon border, and changing the management of six others to allow more logging, mining and grazing and hunting.
It’s not surprising that the Trump administration is taking yet another action to roll back directives of President Barack Obama - this one clearly in keeping with the viewpoint of the real estate developer that President Trump is. It is profoundly disappointing, however, that the president does not appreciate the value of our public lands to Americans today.
Presidents since Teddy Roosevelt have used the Antiquities Act to expand the National Park System - with the exceptions of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Zinke said lands protected under the Antiquities Act had been reduced 18 times, so Trump’s move is not unprecedented. But it is unusual.
Roosevelt, both a conservationist and a hunter, understood the aspirational power of our lands, and in that spirit moved to protect them. That need for access to the restorative power of the lands, in a nation whose population has tripled since Congress created the law, only has become more acute in the past 100 years.
Trump’s orders reflect the past. The 20th century economy that depended on logging and mining is disappearing. Most Americans live in urban areas rather than in smaller communities that offer work until the mines play out or the mills close once the local resource is exhausted. Rural community economies necessarily are shifting - toward recreation, and away from extractive industries.
By shrinking an already small part of protected lands, the president’s orders also offer a false perception of how our public lands are used. About 30 percent of the U.S. land mass is under federal control, and the National Park System, which offers the most complete protections and includes the monuments, occupies about 5 percent. The rest of the public lands are under U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction - working for the American people under logging, mining, grazing and fishing contracts.
The shrinking of Bears Ears National Monument, in particular, is disturbing because the Obama proclamation included an unusual arrangement: It gave a management role to the five Native American tribes who have lived on these lands for millennia. The Zinke decision to create a management council with a tribal representative appears a token, rather than substantive, gesture. The tribes, and a block of environmental groups, have already sued.
The decision gave Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, his No. 1 request - to reduce the size of federal parklands in Utah to allow for more oil and gas development. This is no way to treat our nation’s natural treasures.
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Dec. 5
Long Beach Press-Telegram on allowing states to decide marijuana legalization for themselves
Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled a potential change in federal marijuana policy, saying at a press conference that the Department of Justice was working “very hard right now” to develop “a rational policy” toward marijuana.
Currently, marijuana remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act. While most states have allowed some form of lawful access to marijuana, including seven and the District of Columbia that have legalized marijuana for recreational use, federal law looms above them all.
As of now, the Trump administration has followed the approach of the Obama administration in taking a hands-off approach to states that chose to regulate marijuana. But with Sessions, who has publicly stated his belief that “good people don’t smoke marijuana,” at the helm of the DOJ, there is great uncertainty about the course of federal action.
While it remains unclear what Sessions’ idea of a “rational policy” toward marijuana is, his remarks are understandably troubling many proponents of legalization.
“It’s my view that the use of marijuana is detrimental, and we should not give encouragement in any way to it,” he said. “And it represents a federal violation, which is in the law and it’s subject to being enforced, and our priorities will have to be focused on all the things and challenges we face.”
At least with respect to the claim that marijuana remains a federal violation, he is correct. And, setting aside the merits of federal enforcement of laws against marijuana, it remains within the powers of the federal government to prevent states from legalizing marijuana.
Ultimately, it is up to the Congress whether or not states and the federal government should even be in the position of having conflicting approaches to marijuana.
From a states-rights perspective, it makes sense to allow states to decide for themselves how to deal with marijuana. Decades of federal prohibition have proven that passing laws against marijuana and arresting people won’t eradicate marijuana from society.
According to the ACLU, between 2001 and 2010, there were 8.2 million arrests for marijuana nationwide, 88 percent for simple possession. Little has changed since, with the Drug Policy Alliance reporting that 41 percent of the 1.57 million drug arrests in 2016 were for marijuana.
Despite this, people continue to use, grow, sell and distribute marijuana, for better or worse, regardless of what the laws are. And as an October Gallup poll noted, most Americans, 64 percent, including a majority of Republicans, favor legalization.
Several members of Congress have introduced legislation to put an end to the failed policy of federal marijuana prohibition, and it’s time they be put to a vote.
Leaving marijuana policy to the states, rather than the whims of Jeff Sessions or any future administration, is the only rational way forward. The Congress should end the destructive federal prohibition of marijuana and allow states to make their own choices.
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Dec. 5
The Sacramento Bee on city, county playing blame game for lead contamination
This is exactly why people don’t trust local government: The city of Sacramento and Sacramento County are fighting over who is to blame for the lead contaminating lawns in Mangan Park near a city-owned gun range. And while the bureaucratic battle plays out, 15 families are left waiting.
To do right by them, city and county officials need to figure out how to clean up the lead first and determine who pays later.
As The Bee’s Ryan Lillis reported Sunday, the city is refusing to handle the cleanup, claiming that the lead actually comes from fuel used by small-engine planes landing at nearby Sacramento Executive Airport - not from the now-closed gun range.
City Hall has spent at least $17,000 on a study seeking to show the link between aviation fuel and the lead contamination, journalist Joe Rubin reported in a Viewpoints article last month. In an Oct. 30 letter to the county, city Parks Director Christopher Conlin wrote that the city “cannot agree to undertake remediation when it is not the party responsible for the contamination.”
In response, the Sacramento County Environmental Management Department, which ordered the city last year to test the lawns and come up with a cleanup plan, says the city doesn’t have the authority to declare itself not responsible. The county is threatening enforcement action against the city and says the city has not provided scientific proof for its claim that the airplanes are the real source of the lead.
The city says it plans to submit that data by a Dec. 15 deadline, and “hopes for an amicable resolution of this matter.”
That would be ideal, but the city and county even disagree how much cleanup is necessary and its cost. While the city estimates it would cost about $350,000 to remove enough tainted soil so that average lead levels are no longer hazardous, the county’s proposal to take more soil would cost between $700,000 and $1 million.
The county has its own interests at stake, since it operates the airport under an agreement with the city. Still, the city’s track record in this case is not encouraging. Residents, who have been left in the dark too often about what was happening, have ample reason to be skeptical.
As The Bee uncovered last year, the city has long known about hazardous levels of lead inside and outside the gun range. City Hall’s response was shamefully slow.
Despite tests as far back as 2006 that showed the lead dust inside, officials didn’t close the range until December 2014. And despite 2014 test results showing lead on the building’s roof, the city didn’t order tests of nearby soil until April 2016.
The city already has spent about $533,000 to clean up and seal the gun range and the surrounding area. To protect city taxpayers, officials only want to pay for cleaning up contamination for which the city is responsible.
But that shouldn’t come at the cost of the health and peace of mind of families caught in the middle. This bureaucratic back-and-forth needs to end. The cleanup needs to get done.
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Dec. 4
Ventura County Star warning of a dry month and high winds
With November behind us, it’s time to look at some depressing numbers for the month, and we don’t mean your checking account after Black Friday.
The Oxnard Airport recorded 0.05 of an inch of rain last month, only 3 percent of its average November total of 1.53 inches, according to the National Weather Service. Numbers for the Camarillo Airport weren’t much better: 0.07 of an inch, only 5 percent of its 1.31-inch average.
Meanwhile, one of the longest expected stretches of Santa Ana winds in recent memory arrived Monday in Ventura County, leading forecasters to issue “red-flag warnings” signaling critical fire conditions. The offshore winds “will be around for at least the next 10 days . so prepare for a very lengthy period of really dry/warm conditions. Not seeing any hint of precipitation through at least the middle of the month,” the National Weather Service office in Oxnard said.
The drought never really went away in our county, despite last winter’s rains and the lifting of use restrictions in areas relying on state water from up north. New U.S. Drought Monitor maps released Thursday show Ventura County remains in “moderate drought” status. And an apparently strengthening La Nin~a climate pattern could keep us drier and warmer than usual for the next four months, the National Interagency Fire Center said in a report issued Friday.
So if you’re thinking about replanting your lawn, building a campfire or washing your car, it’s time to flash back to two years ago and think fire prevention, emergency preparedness and water conservation.
Lake Casitas, which supplies Ventura and the Ojai Valley, was only at 35.3 percent of capacity Monday, down from 38 percent in October. The Fire Center is predicting above-normal temperatures this winter for California; below-normal precipitation, especially in the Southland; more offshore winds than usual the rest of the year; and a weak to moderate La Nin~a through early next year. All of this “may keep large fire potential above normal over Southern California past the first of January,” the center’s latest report said.
We should all remember the death and destruction of October’s wildfires in Northern California, and this warning Monday from the Weather Service here: “We’ve received very little rain so far and fuels are parched and primed to burn with even the slightest ignition source.” And this from forecasters: “If fire ignition occurs, there will be the potential for very rapid fire spread, long-range spotting and extreme fire behavior.”
More than 90 percent of wildfires in California are caused by human activity, officials say. Our state and county cannot afford fire carelessness or water wastefulness this week or this winter or any other time of the year.
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