Daily Report

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Poor, urban and minority residents are most at risk for health problems linked to climate change, according to a new California Department of Public Health analysis of Los Angeles and Fresno counties.

The department examined social and environmental factors ranging from the rising sea level to public transportation access and found that African Americans and Latinos living in these counties are more likely to be exposed to health and safety risks related to poor air quality, heat waves, flooding and wildfires stemming from climate change. 

“Clearly, climate change risks are not equal across the state or within individual counties,” according to the report [PDF]. “Identifying communities at greatest risk is a necessary step in efficiently employing limited resources to protect public health.”

In Los Angeles County, neighborhoods near Santa Monica and Long Beach were among those deemed most vulnerable, "largely from risks due to sea level rise, but also partially attributable to poor public transit, wildfire risk, and a large proportion of elderly living alone,” the report said...

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More than 400 redevelopment agencies were officially shuttered yesterday, leaving a trail of uncertainty – and a potentially staggering debt load.

Across the state, cities and counties have loaned more than $4 billion to their redevelopment agencies over the past few decades, but according to the law governing how agencies will be dissolved, they may not be able to recover that money.

Until the Department of Finance reviews each agency's plan to pay off existing debts and obligations in late April, it is unclear how much of the money will be returned to cites and counties.

That has put the city of Hercules – which has been footing some of its agency's bills – in a tough spot. Ambac Assurance Corp., which provided financial guarantees for some of the redevelopment agency’s bonds, filed a lawsuit against the city on Monday, claiming the city had illegally transferred funds from its redevelopment agency into city coffers.

The city's redevelopment agency defaulted on a $2.4 million bond payment due yesterday. If Ambac wins its case, it could force the city into bankruptcy, said Steve Duran, Hercules' city manager since October. (His declaration filed in the case is available...

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Doctors at a Southern California clinic have announced that they are “licensed and trained” to perform a stem cell treatment pioneered by a Colorado group that is being sued by the U.S. Justice Department and Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA has asked a federal judge to stop the Denver-area doctors from performing a Regenexx procedure, which involves removing stem cells from a patient’s bone marrow, expanding them in a special solution and re-injecting the cells at the site of an injury.

The federal lawsuit, which was filed in August 2010 and is ongoing, contends that Regenerative Sciences is selling an unapproved product that has not been prepared in a safe manner.

Physicians from Regenerative Sciences in Colorado have said in court papers that they agreed to stop performing the procedure while the case is argued in court. Attorneys for Dr. Christopher Centeno, director of the Colorado group, and his partners say the FDA lawsuit should be stricken because the procedure constitutes the “practice of medicine,” which is not regulated by the FDA...

FBI New York

A San Francisco politician wants tougher oversight of local police and the role they play in terrorism investigations following complaints from residents that they were unnecessarily targeted for questioning and surveillance by Joint Terrorism Task Forces.

Dozens of new task forces led by the FBI were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks so local, state and federal law enforcement could work together to smoke out terrorism plots. But at times, they’ve been accused of too zealously collecting intelligence on people who have done little or nothing wrong.   

San Francisco City and County Supervisor Jane Kim wants the police department to fall in line with state and local privacy rules that restrict what information police can amass, and she wants investigators to refrain from gathering intelligence on people unless there is reasonable suspicion that the person has engaged in criminal conduct.

Controversy around law enforcement spying led to new general orders adopted during the 1990s that, among other things, required senior approval for San Francisco Police Department investigations of a person or group involved in First Amendment activities, such as political demonstrations. The rules also directed that the independent San Francisco Police Commission periodically review the investigations for...

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California's high-speed rail project will cost far less than the state's current estimate of nearly $100 billion, and environmental fees paid by carbon producers will be a source of funding, Gov. Jerry Brown said in an interview aired in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The Democratic governor’s remarks suggest Brown may make substantial changes to the rail plan before seeking legislative approval this year.

“It’s not going to be $100 billion,” Brown said on ABC 7’s Eyewitness Newsmakers program. “That’s way off.”

It was the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s own business plan – a document embraced by Brown’s administration – that said the project could cost $98.5 billion over 20 years. Brown supported the project in his State of the State address and said further revisions to the plan would be released within weeks.

"Phase 1, I'm trying to redesign it in a way that in and of itself will be justified by the state investment," Brown said Sunday. "We do have other sources of money: For example, cap-and-trade, which is this measure where you make people who produce greenhouse gasses pay certain fees – that will be a source of funding going forward for the high speed rail.”

Brown said, "It's going to be a lot cheaper than people are saying...

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The University of California has been slowly expanding the use of private developers to build student housing over the last decade, authorizing seven such deals since 2000 at UC Irvine, UC Davis and UC Riverside.

The growth of these partnerships in the Golden State is part of a national trend reported by The New York Times last week. In California, the partnerships have enabled the universities to meet student demand for on-campus housing while focusing their resources on other facilities needs. But with fancier amenities, they sometimes cost students more than university-built housing options.

The share of beds built by private developers remains small, at 9 percent of the total. Still, new student housing developments built and financed by third parties on university-owned land have helped fuel an increase in on-campus housing options for UC students. University housing reports from 2002 and 2011 show the number of student housing units or beds has grown 64 percent during that period, from 47,100 to 77,088...

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California may get a bad rap from businesses for its supposedly burdensome workplace regulations, but a new study shows that one 20-year-old provision to keep workers safe is doing its job – when it's followed up by inspections and fines.

A study by the RAND Corp. released Friday showed that the 1991 Injury and Illness Prevention Program has helped reduce workplace injuries by 26 percent at job sites – but only after the California Occupational Safety & Health Administration makes inspections and metes out fines for violations.

According to the law, employers are required to have an injury and illness prevention program and share it with employees, as well as train them on safe practices. But the RAND study, which looked at workplace injuries from 1991 to 2007, showed many employers are just writing up plans and not training their workers to be safe on the job. 

John Mendeloff, director of the RAND Center for Health and Safety in the Workplace and author of the study, said that when employers did go beyond that, "there seem to be some positive effects."  

Cal/OSHA inspects only about 8,000 to 10,000 job sites a year, out of about 700,000 places of employment in California. However, the number of inspections has fallen as California has grappled with its budget crisis...

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UPDATE, Jan. 27, 2011: Mercury Insurance provided this response to questions about its record.

The 90-year-old billionaire chairman of Mercury Insurance just won’t give up.

George Joseph gave $8.2 million to put an initiative on the November ballot that supporters say would lower car insurance rates for consumers who maintain continuous coverage. His Los Angeles-based company spent $15.8 million on a similar proposition, derided as a deceptive move to increase rates, that failed in 2010.

The new initiative qualified for the ballot last week, putting a renewed spotlight on Joseph and the company he founded in 1962. Joseph is a longtime conservative political donor, giving $1 million to the California Republican Party in 2010, though his company has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the state Democratic party as well. Joseph also gave $1 million to a political action committee that spent millions against Dave Jones, a Democrat who won the state post of insurance commissioner in 2010...

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According to a recent analysis of medical costs in the research journal Obesity, California spends an estimated $15.2 billion on obesity-related health problems each year – the most in the country.

The California Department of Public Health’s Obesity Prevention Plan seeks to reduce obesity rates among Californians, calling for strategies ranging from easing access to fruits and vegetables to building roads and sidewalks to make walking easier.

It also wants to limit children’s exposure to “unhealthy” food and beverage advertising. One in nine California kids is obese or overweight, and a disproportionate number are minority and low-income children, according to the state Department of Public Health.

“California and the nation face a growing obesity epidemic that threatens the life expectancy gains of past decades and portends greater increases in health care costs,” the plan states...