Things We're Waiting For: Tracing $8 Million Sent to CCA During Fairgrounds Sale - Pacific Progressive Nossaman did research on how to use Fairgrounds money to provide opening capital for the Fair Foundation. $8 million was sent to the California Construction Authority during the sale, and there is documentation that indicates this could be the money for the opening capital. We've asked for the money to be traced, and Interim CEO Doug Lofstrom is giving us the run around.
Over 300 people covering three corners of Newport Center Drive and Santa Rosa to show Representative John Campbell that they want health care reform. Rep. Campbell has been very outspoken in his opposition to health care reform, producing newsletters and emails riddled with factual errors and outright untruths in an attempt to support his positions. The rally supporters want a public option included in the health care reform, at a minimum. The preferred plan is a single payer health care system.
The crowd circled the office building where Rep. Campbell has his district office several times. Marchers chanted about health care reform as they walked past Newport Beach Police, security guards and building personnel guarding entrances to the office building. At no time did Rep. Campbell or his staff talk with the crowd or send a statement down to the crowd.
During the summer recess, other representatives have had town halls. Rep. Loretta Sanchez had one in July, before the actual summer recess. Rep. Sanchez has participated in other community forums which have allowed her to talk with constituents about health care reform. Rep. Ed Royce had two health care forums and one fraud prevention forum. Rep. Campbell has had no public forums but only fundraisers for either his campaign or groups he supports.
The rally was organized by OC Health March, Free Enterprise Associates, Alan Boinus, and Valerie Blomquist. The crowd of over 300 included a wide range of people from retirees to families with children. Several physicians, nurses and social workers were present and talked with fellow rally members about the issues they see every day in their practices that come from a lack of readily available, affordable health care.
Under terms of the new budget, the State will borrow property tax revenue from the Counties. The Counties are creating bonds thru the California Statewide Communities Development Authority (CSCDA) to purchase the receivables due to cities, counties and special districts which will have the property taxes borrowed. By creating the bonds, the cities, counties and special districts will receive cash flow from the sale of bonds to offset some of the loss of cash from property taxes.
Timing is going to be an issue. The first installment of property taxes will be transferred to the State by January 15, 2010 but securitization cannot occur until March 2010, two months later. Several parties including the League of Cities are working with the State Department of Finance and the State Legislature to have this situation fixed.
In Orange County, the estimated gap between borrowing of property tax revenues and issuing bonds will impact the General Fund by $37 million, OC Parks by $4.1 million, OC Libraries by $3.1 million, and the Flood Control District by $5.3 million.
Outlook for the Economy
In July, unemployment rose from 11.6% in June to 11.9%. Job losses are slowing down, but job losses are continuing. There were 63,000 jobs lost on average each month from March to June 2009 compared to 87,500 lost from November 2008 to February 2009.
Residential real estate shows signs of stabilizing with the number of sales up 20% from last year.
The cash flow situation is not good. Most sources of revenue are running behind projections.
Personal Income Tax was $74 million below the May Revise budget.
Sales Tax was $76 million below the May Revise budget.
Corporate tax revenue was $104 million above the May Revise budget.
Vehicle License Fee (VLF) was $36 million below May Revise budget.
The GI Bill, a mainstay to send veterans to school, is now updated to reflect the needs of today's veterans. Veterans now have up to 15 years after leaving active duty to use their benefits. The limit had been 10 years under the Montgomery GI Bill. Additionally, servicemembers who have served at least six years and who agree to serve at least four more years can transfer unused educational benefits to their spouse or child.
Educational benefits have been extended to all members of the military who have served on active duty since September 11, 2001. Activated Reserve and National Guard are now allowed to receive the benefits. To qualify, the veteran must have served 90 consecutive days of qualified active duty, beginning or or after September 11, 2001 or have been discharged with a service-connected disability after 30 days.
Educational benefits are provided in proportion to the amount of active duty time after September 11, 2001. Veterans can obtain up to 36 months of full-time education benefits, which is the equivalent of a four-year undergraduate degree.
Veterans can receive payments to cover the tuition of approved programs, up to the cost f the most expensive in-state public school. Veterans will also receive a monthly stipend equivalent to housing costs in their area. Veterans can also be eligible to stipends for books, supplies, tutoring, testing, and certification fees. In some cases, money is also available for relocation fees and travel expenses.
A new matching program has been created. The Department of Veterans Affairs will match, dollar for dollar, any voluntary contributions to veterans from institutions whose tuition is more expensive than the maximum educational assistance provided - up to 50% of the difference between the veteran's tuition benefit and the total cost of tuition and mandatory fees.
Alyssa Sutherland and her friends are having Bill Hedrick over and would like you to come meet him. Bill will be at 266 Mount Kilamanjaro Court, Corona, CA from 7 to 9 PM on Friday, September 11, 2009.
Bill is continuing his run to Washington for the 44th Congressional District in California. Bill is a lifelong teacher and educator. He has served on the Norco Board of Education since 1988, and served five terms as board president. Hedrick has also served as president of the Rialto Education Association for the past nine years.
Bill Hedrick also has children who are currently serving deployments overseas. Two of his sons, Adam and Jesse, and their spouses, will have served a total of 10 deployments overseas in Iraq by the end of 2010.
Alyssa and her friends look forward to seeing you when Bill Hedrick comes to visit!
Bill Moyers Journal recently features "Money Driven Medicine", a film which reveals how the health care industry is about profits, not people. In the process, patients suffer as profits boom. Our American health care system wastes millions of dollars on unneeded tests, unproven and sometimes unwanted procedures, and overpriced prescription drugs. The movie is based on Maggie Mahar's book "Money Driven Medicine."
Irvine United Congregational Church sponsored the third health care rally in three weeks at the corner of Alton and Culver in Irvine. The rally was met with honks from passing cars supporting health care reform.
Supporters included families, church members, and senior citizens. The group talked with several people who stopped by the rally to discuss health care reform. One man stopped by to remind the group that America is one of the very few industrialized nations which does not provide health care for all citizens.
Tomorrow, some members of the group are joining a health care reform rally at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. The group is continuing the rally next week.
How Tustin manages investment money was the topic again at the City Council meeting on August 4, 2009. The money Tustin invests is money that can be needed to pay bills (meet obligations.) The investment policy is designed to protect the principal and maintain liquidity. Not losing money but retaining the principal takes priority over making money. Another way of looking at Tustin's investment accounts is this is the savings account for Tustin (or money market checking account), not a stock market account.
A review of the current investments was made and it was determined that Tustin's investment policy had not been followed. A $3 million security (bond) issued by Merrill Lynch, now owned by Bank of America, rated single A had been purchased. Tustin's investment policy requires that corporate securities be rated AA or higher by Moody's or Standard and Poors.
City Treasurer George Jeffries admitted that he knew the rating of the security did not meet the requirements of Tustin's investment policy when he made the purchase. The clip below shows the discussion with Jeffries regarding the purchase of the security that does not meet required city standards.
Later in the meeting (available online), Jeffries makes a statement which sounds like he is saying that he can count on his hand the number of times he has purchased securities which met Tustin's investment policy. If this is what he meant to say and if this is what has happened, Tustin's stewardship of city funds is questionable at best.
After the discussion with Jeffries has ended (not in the clip but available online), Councilman Jerry Amante stated that he wants to change Tustin's investment policy to obtain a higher yield. The purpose of these investment accounts for Tustin is not to make money, but to hold the value of money that may be needed to pay obligations. These investments are, in effect, Tustin's saving account, not their stock market account. The objective of an investment pool like Tustin's is to match the yield of Treasury securities, not stock market or other funds. A good financial manager understands that different investments have different uses and yields. Changing Tustin's policy to make more money by allowing riskier investments does not make sense for Tustin's city savings account.
Review Tustin's investment policies for youself. Each policy has been signed off by Treasurer George Jeffries:
The exhibit runs from Aug. 31, to Dec. 31, 2009 in the third-floor exhibit gallery of the Old Orange County Courthouse in downtown Santa Ana .
Carpenter was one of a number of traveling photographers who roamed California ’s largely untamed countryside in the late 19 century. Hauling his camera and supplies in a horse-drawn wagon, Carpenter would set up shop in rugged areas to document the tanning and logging industries, the coming of the railroads and new settlements.
Significantly, Carpenter also photographed Pomo American Indian communities and individuals in a series of panoramic photographs. Later his daughter, Grace Carpenter Hudson, would achieve lasting fame for her portrait work of the Pomos.
The “Aurelius O. Carpenter: Photographer of the Mendocino Frontier” exhibition tour was organized by theGrace Hudson Museum and the California Exhibition Resources Alliance. CERA is a network of professionally operated museums and cultural organizations that collaborate to create and tour smaller, affordable, high-quality exhibitions that enhance civic engagement and human understanding. CERA is supported by grants from the James Irvine Foundation and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.
The Old Orange County Courthouse exhibit gallery is located at 211 W. Santa Ana Blvd. in downtown Santa Ana . It is open Monday through Friday. Admission is free. More information about this exhibition and the Old Orange County Courthouse is available at (714) 973-6607 and www.ocparks.com.
The Laguna Niguel Military Support Foundation will host its 2nd Annual Mess Night Fundraiser to benefit the City’s adopted Marine Unit – the First Battalion, Fourth Marines.
The event will take place on Saturday, September 12th at Camp Pendleton and proceeds will benefit the battalion and their families. A "Mess Night" is an evening filled with military tradition and interspersed with more than a little light-heartness. If you have never attended a "Mess Night", this is an event not to be missed!
For details and information on how to purchase tickets, please visit Military Support Committee website at:
Photo: President Barack Obama signed CHIP reauthorization legislation in February 2009 that tis expected to expand the program to an additional 6.5 million children through 2013.
As Democratic leaders pursue their quest to provide millions of Americans with health care insurance, some advocates see an unlikely casualty of reform: youngsters now covered by the Children’s Health Insurance Program whom they fear could end up with reduced benefits.
About 7 million children are insured under CHIP, which provides coverage to children whose family incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, but too low to afford private insurance. The benefits under CHIP include coverage for hospital and physician care as well as laboratory services and immunizations. Reauthorization legislation signed by President Barack Obama in February is expected to expand the program to an additional 6.5 million children through 2013.
Military families stationed at Edwards Air Force Base who need to go to UCLA Medical Center for medical care won't have to pay for the trip out of their own wallets anymore under an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act sponsored by Senator Barbara Boxer. Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) also sponsored the amendment.
Under current law, families of service members can only be reimbursed for travel to medical facilities which are more than 100 miles away each way. The Boxer-Bond amendment drops the requirement to 50 miles each way.
Families at Edwards Air Force Base currently need to pay out of their own pockets to travel to UCLA Medical Center for specialty care including some pediatric care because the trip, one way, is 96.5 miles. The Boxer-Bond amendment makes this trip reimbursable.
The measure is supported by the Military Coalition, a group of 34 organizations representing more than 5.5 million members of the uniformed services including active, reserve, retired, survivors, veterans, and their families.
On May 21, 2009, the California Supreme Court closed another chapter in the state's long-running fight over same-sex marriage when it upheld a 2008 voter-approved ballot initiative, known as Proposition 8, which amended the California state constitution to ban gay marriage. A month earlier, on April 27, 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court had unanimously ruled that a state law defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman violated the Iowa Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. (See A Contentious Debate: Same-Sex Marriage in the U.S..)
As the California and Iowa rulings suggest, while the gay marriage controversy has many elements, including disagreements over religious and social norms, much of the debate is a legal one. Indeed, it was a 2003 Massachusetts high court decision legalizing same-sex marriage that elevated the issue onto the national stage, where it has remained ever since. Since 2003, courts in a number of states have handed victories to both opponents and supporters of gay marriage.
So far, court cases around the country have been based on state, rather than federal, constitutional provisions and thus have not been subject to review by the U.S. Supreme Court. However, a suit alleging that California's Proposition 8 violates the U.S. Constitution was recently filed in a federal district court, giving the nation's high court a potential opportunity to determine whether the U.S Constitution guarantees the right of gay and lesbian couples to wed. If the court takes such a case, its decision will likely stem, at least in part, from its prior rulings on privacy and related issues.
The Right to Privacy and the Griswold Revolution
Although the legal battle over same-sex marriage is rooted, in part, in the question of whether state and federal constitutions protect a right to privacy, the word "privacy" never actually appears in the U.S. Constitution. However, the Constitution does recognize several rights relating to privacy. For example, the Fourth Amendment recognizes the importance of privacy interests when it stipulates that because citizens need to feel "secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects," the government may not carry out "unreasonable searches and seizures." In addition, the Ninth Amendment leaves open the possibility of a broader privacy right when it declares that there are rights "retained by the people" that do not expressly appear in the Bill of Rights.
So if Democratic leaders and the White House decide to use special “reconciliation” budget rules totry to pass health care overhaul legislation this fall without Republican support, how would it work?
Every year, the House and Senate draft a concurrent budget resolution – a joint blueprint of anticipated federal spending and revenues for the coming fiscal year. In order to get the reconciliation process going, the House and Senate Budget Committees may include a “reconciliation directive” in the budget resolution. The budget committees agreed to include a directive for health care legislation last spring at the behest of Democratic leaders and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
The directive, if used, would instruct the authorizing committees with jurisdiction to produce legislation by Oct. 15 that meets the mandatory spending or tax targets set out by the budget committees. In the case of health care, the authorizing committees would be Finance and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in the Senate and Ways and Means, Education and Labor and Energy and Commerce in the House. It is expected that the Democratic leadership would use the current bills as the basis for the new legislation.
If included, the reconciliation time frame would be the same as the budget resolution, with separate dollar amounts specified for each of the five years in the budget resolution.
Journalist and author T.R. Reid traveled the world in search of a better health care system -- and help for his sore shoulder. He talks about his journey in a new book -- The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care -- with KHN's Laurie McGinley.
Transcript of the Video
Laurie McGinley: Good day. I’m Laurie McGinley with Kaiser Health News. Today we are interviewing journalist and author TR Reid, whose latest book, "The Healing of America, A Global Quest For Better, Cheaper And Fairer Health Care," provides a world tour of various health care systems, as well as prescriptions for the U.S. system. It’s very timely and we appreciate you joining us, T.R. Could you tell us a little bit about what set you off on your journey – it was a combination of your interest in different kinds of health care systems and having a sore shoulder.
T.R. Reid: A combination is exactly right. So, here’s the deal. All of the other industrialized democracies provide high quality coverage to everybody and still spend half as much as we do on health care. How do they do that? That’s what I set out to figure. And I figured since I was going to some very good health care systems, I’d take my bum shoulder, which I injured in the Navy eons ago, and see if I could get it fixed. And that way as both an analyst and a patient.
The Park Ranger can do the hike, can you? Hike 22 different trails covering 8.5 miles in 3.5 hours on Saturday, September 12, at Santiago Oaks Regional Park, 2145 N Windes Drive, Orange, CA. A Santiago Oaks Regional Ranger will lead the hike, which starts promptly at 8 AM. Please bring water, sunscreen, sturdy trail footwear, hat and energy snack.
This is a very tough hike for advanced hikers. If you're not ready for this hike, beginner and intermediate hikes will be lead by OC Parks Rangers in the coming months.
The hike is free with your $5 park vehicle entrance fee. Call 714-973-6620 to reserve a place.
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