State workers protest, transportation tax debate, the status of CEMEX, Laurie Ender’s approach to Mayo Expansion, plus, McKeon racially profiles? All ahead in today’s action-packed, seat-of-your-pants, thrill-ride, summer blockbuster Daily Brief. haha
News & Misc
- High political drama at LA County Board of Supes vote on transit tax: Drama and confusion abound today after the Supervisors of Los Angeles County delivered a spanking to the Los Angeles County MTA and its .5 % sales tax increase proposal that was supposed to appear on this November’s ballot. Supes voted 2-2 (Gloria Molina abstained), thus denying the MTA “the majority approval needed to put the measure on the county ballot,” according to this excellent Daily News article. Among the most vocal opponents of the measure which would inject some $30-$40 billion into regional transportation projects was Supervisor Antonovich, who remarked that the measure was a “political pork barrel rip-off” and said it’s unfair to force county taxpayers to fund “the subway-to-the-sea extravagance instead of their own regional needs.” The article says Santa Clarita and AV have about 7% of the County’s population but would only receive 5% of the revenues of the tax, but if I could ask Supervisor Antonovich one question, it’d be, “Don’t we here in Santa Clarita contribute to Los Angeles congestion everyday when we commute to our jobs in the basin?” Despite the failure of the measure before the Board of Supes, the MTA may still get this on a ballot in the future, though at a cost of some $3 million to $10 million for a special election. LA Times report
- Freeway accident claims lives of siblings: A sad followup to that traffic collision in the Newhall Pass that claimed the lives of two motorists on Monday: Jim Holt reports today that the two victims were siblings. Recall that a man driving a motorcycle stopped in the middle of I-5 just north of the Balboa overpass. Then a woman stopped behind him in her compact car. A pickup truck then hit both vehicles, pushing the cars and victims into a K-rail barrier. It turns out the motorcycle was driven by Alan Poggio,23, of Shafter and the compact car was driven by his sister, Lindsay Poggio,22. The family is said to be devastated; both Alan and Lindsay were in the SFV to find housing for the upcoming school year. The CHP is still investigating. Link EDIT: A Central Valley TV station says the sister was trying to “protect her brother after his motorcycle broke down.”
- And another sad freeway death: The Frazier Park Mountain Enterprise says an 8 year old Canadian girl died in a vehicle accident in the Grapevine after a blow-out in the car she was riding in on Tuesday afternoon. Link
- State workers protest outside Runner’s office, more budget news: Signal reporter Katie Geyer talked to a group of protesters who’s salary may be cut back to the federal minimum wage if lawmakers can’t agree on a budget soon. Vivian Kimoto, a state rehab counselor says the budget mess in Sacto is already affecting her job because she can’t issue funds to clients. Kimoto and some 20-30 state workers were in front of City Hall on Tuesday to protest budget cuts and deliver a letter to State Senator George Runner “urging him to support a budget that would limit cuts.” Signal report. Meanwhile, at the state level, Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposal to hike sales tax by a penny to help close the budget gap isn’t finding many fans, reports the SacBee. Jack Keyser, LA County Economic Development corp guru, says the tax increase would “take a little bit of money out of people’s pockets at a time when people are already struggling.” Link
- Buck McKeon holds town conference call, racially profiles Latinos? This comes to me by way of an anonymous reader of SCVTalk, who recorded a Buck McKeon Town Hall conference call to 25th District voters this week. The reader says she was surprised to hear McKeon assume that because “people were standing outside on San Fernando road that they were illegal aliens.” I think she’s referring to a portion of the phone call -which she recorded and sent to me- where McKeon is responding a voter’s complaint about “illegals” and says, “I’ve driven down San Fernando Road on Saturday morning and other mornings, and you can see people standing around that I would venture to guess are not here legally.” It’s unusual to hear McKeon talk about such local issues these days, and I’m not sure I agree with the reader’s sentiment that such comments amount to “racial profiling,” but I”m posting it here for you to decide yourself and also to get a sense of what your fellow 25th District voters care about. [display_podcast]
- Laurie Ender’s approach to Mayo Expansion: So the news last week that the Laurie Ender campaign benefited from some $30,000 donated to a third-party group by G&L Realty -the developer working with Mayo on the expansion- came like a bolt of lighting and has already reignited the debate over the hospital’s expansion plans a full month before the City Council dives back into the contentious issue. Ender told The Signal yesterday that she had been a strong supporter of hospital expansion for over 18 months, so I wanted to get a sense of what she had said about the plan before she was elected, indeed, before her campaign kicked into full swing. So I dug through my own archives and found this August 2007 blog post of her’s where she expresses impatience with how long the hospital’s approval process had taken: “At this week’s City Council meeting, after hours and hours of comments and remarks (literally,) it seems that a light bulb has gone off and the Council members have decided that they want a guarantee that there will be an expanded hospital before there are any office buildings. Are you serious? It took three years to come to this point?,” she says of a city council meeting last year. She goes on to describe what she wanted back then: “I want the hospital to expand. I also want more medical office buildings so that we can entice more specialists to move to Santa Clarita and be a part of the hospital community. I want parking. Hundreds of parking spaces would be nice but, selfishly, every time I have to go to the HMNMH campus I would give my left arm for just ONE space. I want the facilities to look attractive, I want traffic to be mitigated by the hospital (as they have proposed to do,) and–more than anything–I’d like to see a resolution to all this endless discussion so that we can start seeing some improvements!” She finishes her post by saying that even though 200 people might be in the Council Chambers debating Mayo’s plans, “there are another 175,000 or so who are at home hoping and believing the political process is working.” And just in time for this post and the forthcoming debate, The Signal has posted a “Reader Meter” asking “Do you think Councilwoman Laurie Ender can be objective on hospital-related votes?” Out of 35 votes cast so far, 25 say no, disclaimer about “non-scientific poll” withstanding.
- Outlook dim for CEMEX bill; Signal says we should write letters: Of HR 5887, the land-swap bill that would euthanize the CEMEX project in Soledad Canyon, the Signal Editorial Board says, “Now it’s August, and the bill that would make everybody happy is still languishing in the House Ways and Means Committee. It hasn’t even made it to the critical House Committee on Natural Resources, let alone the floor of the House, nor the necessary round of Senate scrutiny before it could become law.” There’s still some hope it might get heard before the House adjourns on September 26, and in the meantime, the Signal says we ought to “contact politicans and bureaucrats who are in positions to help McKeon’s bill become law.” Regarding the CEMEX bill, have we all dismissed Lynne Plambeck’s July 31 column in which she says CEMEX’s status as an international company operating under NAFTA complicates the passage of the bill?
- And finally… Two non-SCV but hilarious videos for you today. In the first, here’s a great news report about the first successful press conference mission by the Pentagon’s new robotic “Spokesdrone.” And in the second video, Paris Hilton responds to John McCain’s “Celebrity” ad.