California Watch Daily Report

Bike theft on the rise at BART stations

Agustin Armendariz — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:05:04 +0000

Stephen Rees/Flickr

Jay Fraser knows what it's like to lock a bicycle at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station and return to an empty rack.

Fraser is a research analyst for the Administrative Office of the Courts in San Francisco and has commuted by bike for 20 years, 10 of them in the Bay Area. He had a bike stolen at the Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre BART station and a seat stolen at the Walnut Creek station.

Like Fraser, hundreds of other commuters have parked a bike at a BART stop and returned to find it gone or stripped of parts.

The Walnut Creek and neighboring Pleasant Hill BART stations are the top targets for bike thefts, a California Watch analysis of BART crime data shows. From 2006 through October 2011, the two stations accounted for more than 430 thefts of bicycles or bicycle parts, nearly 17 percent of the thefts in the entire system. Stations in higher-crime areas in Oakland and Richmond had lower theft numbers.

At the West Oakland and Richmond stations, reported thefts were dramatically lower, with 64 reports at the West Oakland station and 51 at the Richmond stop. While the Ashby and MacArthur stations in Berkeley and Oakland, respectively, were among those hardest hit by thefts, there were 141 more reported thefts at the two Walnut Creek stations.

"It surprises me that Walnut Creek is that high. It's generally a low-crime area and kind of a low-crime demographic," Fraser said.

Systemwide, the data show a 20 percent increase in the total number of reports during the nearly six-year period, with eight stations – Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre, Dublin/Pleasanton, Ashby, Fremont, North Berkeley, MacArthur and Concord – accounting for half of the thefts.

BART Station	City	Reports 2006-Oct. 2011
Walnut Creek	Walnut Creek	222
Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre	Walnut Creek	214
Dublin/Pleasanton	Pleasanton	167
Ashby	Berkeley	164
Fremont	Fremont	147
North Berkeley	Berkeley	142
MacArthur	Oakland	131
Concord	Concord	122
Total for these stations		1,309
Systemwide total (44 stations)		2,613

In a recent meeting of the BART Bicycle Advisory Task Force, BART Deputy Police Chief Ben Fairow identified bike theft as a problem and said bike theft stings, as well as the placement of bike racks in more visible locations, are part of future plans to help decrease theft at stations, according to meeting minutes.

BART Police Community Service Officer Lauren LaPlante says BART police often find commuters aren't properly locking their bikes, making it easier for thieves to make off with the bike or any unsecured parts. In order to combat the problem, "we are currently focusing on a public awareness campaign that may include signs, multimedia demonstrations and traditional 'door to door' or 'bike to bike' style interactions with commuters," LaPlante wrote in an e-mail. "Our main message is about locking bikes securely and self-registration."

LaPlante explained that self-registration means owners should keep a record of the make, model, year, style, color, value and serial number of their bikes and give this information to police to ensure that bikes can be identified if recovered.

At the Downtown Berkeley BART bike station, head mechanic Adam Hunt recommended, at a minimum, using a U-lock and cable combination. "A couple of blows with a hammer will pretty much take care of a padlock," he said. Hunt also says lights, wheels, seats, mileage meters and any other loose parts on a bike are easy pickings for thieves if they are not properly secured. Hunt suspects that thieves strip unsecured parts from bikes more often than they make off with the bike, he said.

Since losing a bike and a seat, Fraser uses a U-lock and cable combination to secure his bike when he leaves it at the station, and he commutes on a bike he values at $300 instead of his $1,000 road bike.

"Honestly, I'm just kind of zen about it," Fraser said. "You don't lock your best bike up, which is annoying to people with only one bike and who want a nice bike to commute on."

At certain stations, bike commuters can take advantage of bike lockers and bike stations. The Downtown Berkeley bike station offers free valet bike parking during the day and also houses a 24-hour self-storage facility that charges 3 cents per hour from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 1 cent per hour at all other times, according to the website. Since opening about two years ago, Hunt estimates that 25,000 bikes have cycled through the facility.

"On the enforcement side," LaPlante wrote, "our patrol units are well aware that BART stations are a potential location for bike theft and they remain vigilant as often as they can. Patrol units are regularly updated on the crimes that are occurring around the system so they can know where to focus their attention."

While acknowledging that underreporting might skew figures, LaPlante emphasized that "our statistics are the primary indication of problem locations around our system" and that "reporting stolen bikes is very important to our response and we encourage it."

Bike thefts at BART stations

As anti-piracy bills stall, activists switch focus to web tracking legislation

G.W. Schulz — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:05:03 +0000

G.W. Schulz

Jakub Krechowicz/Flickr

After stalling two measures in Congress that would have made it easier for law enforcement to go after alleged copyright scofflaws, digital rights activists might now be turning their attention to a lesser-noticed bill aimed at requiring Internet companies to store identifying information about their customers.

Republican U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, met withering resistance last month to his proposed Stop Online Piracy Act. Internet heavyweights such as Wikipedia and Google blacked out their sites or used their iconic logos to protest the bill and its companion in the Senate, the PROTECT IP Act.

The deluge of protests led Smith to put his bill on hold, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would do the same with the PROTECT IP Act on the other side of the hall.

Backers of the two bills – which would arm the Justice Department with more power to demand the removal of links to sites where suspected copyrighted content is located – argue that the laws are necessary for protecting intellectual property and stopping the tide of counterfeit consumer products.

But opponents viewed it as Washington policymakers doing the bidding of entertainment conglomerates in Hollywood and their lobbyists. Online protesters argued that the bills threatened free speech by raising the possibility that large volumes of content on the web could be blacklisted or removed if it happened to come into contact with material alleged to be pirated.

If passed a decade ago, YouTube might not even exist today, argues the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

While the bills might be tabled for now, Smith still has his sights set on the Internet. Last year, he proposed H.R. 1981, ostensibly to protect children from online pornographers. It would require service providers to keep records for at least one year of Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses that can be used to uniquely identify a computer and, by extension, its user.

Police already can request individually that a user’s information be preserved for investigative purposes. But that ability means nothing if investigators can’t get to Internet companies before potential evidence of a crime is lost, say backers of Smith’s bill. The Internet has made it too simple for criminals to anonymously transmit images of sexual abuse involving even toddlers.

“The bill does not require the retention of any email or telephone content,” stated a November report from the House Judiciary Committee, led by Smith. “It only requires providers to retain a log of the IP addresses they assign to their customers and the information necessary to link that information to a specific customer.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and others counter that attempts to mandate data retention, as it’s known, are shot through with shortsightedness. They say such sensitive private information could be leaked accidentally by companies, IP addresses are not always reliable enough to identify perpetrators, and web users could be “chilled” into dodging sites that contain unpopular political opinions or discuss potentially embarrassing medical conditions.

Rainey Reitman, activism director for the foundation, said that while the bill is called the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act, the government could use it for much more, such as immigration and IRS investigations, something the bill’s sponsors readily acknowledge.

“It treats everyone like major criminals, and it’s not actually targeted at child pornography,” Reitman said. “It has a totally misleading title.”

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from San Jose whose district includes Silicon Valley, has emerged as a vocal critic of Smith’s Internet initiatives. She even sought to change the data-retention proposal’s name to “reflect what the bill actually does:" Keep Every American’s Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act. It failed in committee.

Last month, lawmakers in Hawaii considered a state law [PDF] that would have gone further, requiring Internet service providers to vacuum up and store browser histories and IP addresses for two years, affecting not just people who live in the Aloha State, but also tourists who happen to visit.

It was met with an immediate chorus of protests, and by Jan. 26, CNET’S Declan McCullagh was reporting that the bill’s supporters had begun to back away. The outcry wasn’t just from individual privacy activists. Lobby groups like NetChoice, whose members include Facebook and eBay, and the U.S. Internet Service Provider Association argued that the plan would be enormously expensive to comply with and threatened the Constitution.

While debate continues among policymakers, officials elsewhere in Washington haven’t shied away from pursuing suspected copyright infringers. Just days before Sunday's Super Bowl in Indianapolis, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had taken down more than 300 websites, accusing them of illegally streaming sportscasts and selling counterfeit memorabilia.

In one of its largest criminal copyright actions to date, the Justice Department in January announced charges against Megaupload.com, its founder and several other people claiming massive intellectual property violations. It accused the company of enabling the online exchange of copyright-protected television shows, e-books, music and movies. Authorities claim that they have seized $50 million in assets as part of the probe and that the company generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds for itself.

Hollywood money flows to Calif. politicians who support anti-piracy bills

ACLU: Police use of digital surveillance 'shrouded in secrecy'

Center for Investigative Reporting, The Bay Citizen explore merger

Center for Investigative Reporting — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:57:35 +0000

Center for Investigative Reporting

The Center for Investigative Reporting and The Bay Citizen agreed today to formally explore a merger, a move that would combine the oldest nonprofit investigative news group in the nation with a startup newsroom focused on the San Francisco Bay Area.

The boards of both organizations signed a memorandum of understanding to begin working out details of merging their two staffs. The deal still has hurdles to clear before a merger can be completed.

Phil Bronstein

Former San Francisco Chronicle Executive Editor Phil Bronstein and CIR’s current executive director, Robert J. Rosenthal, will lead the combined organization.

Bronstein will assume the role of executive chairman of the newly constituted 19-member board of directors. In his new role, a paid position, Bronstein's focus will be on overall strategy and audience engagement. He will emphasize fundraising and developing new ways to sustain the nonprofit.

Bronstein, 61, has served as chairman of the CIR board since January 2011. He played a key role in brokering a potential merger after he was approached to be the next chief executive officer of The Bay Citizen.

Robert Rosenthal

“I've been a journalist in the Bay Area my entire adult life and have deep roots and affection for the extraordinary and unique culture here,” Bronstein said. “There is more innovation, activism and civic involvement in this region than anywhere in the country. This is the basis for engaging people where we all live. With our unified nonprofit model, we can bring together combined talent, technology, investigative power and creative skills to serve the public in dynamic ways.”

Jeffrey Ubben, chairman of the The Bay Citizen board, said he is believes the merger “bodes well for an informed and engaged Bay Area.”

“Together, we will draw on the vision and talents of each of our high caliber staffs, and ultimately become stronger and more effective than the sum of our parts,” Ubben said.

As executive director of the combined operation, Rosenthal will oversee day-to-day operations of a staff that will number about 65 people. He also will play a key role in creating a vision for the merged organization.

Rosenthal, 63, joined CIR in 2007 and has guided the nonprofit at a time of unprecedented growth. The editorial operations will report to him.

In 2009, CIR launched California Watch, the largest investigative reporting team in the state. CIR added a video unit last year that has enabled the newsroom to produce stories for print and TV media partners across the country.

“We will now be able to bring our combined strategies for engagement and accountability journalism to a region of the country that can best embrace it,” Rosenthal said.

The addition of The Bay Citizen would give CIR its first local reporting hub and an expanded technology team to create reporting apps and tools around data, Rosenthal said. Though just two years old, The Bay Citizen has developed a loyal membership. The Bay Citizen also brings with it a solid fundraising base as the merged nonprofit attempts to develop revenue strategies that will help make it sustainable.

The Bay Citizen will continue to produce local and regional enterprise reporting, Rosenthal said, and California Watch will continue to produce statewide stories. CIR’s reporters, meanwhile, generate national and international investigations. But Rosenthal noted that some CIR stories can be localized for The Bay Citizen’s audiences, and some local stories can be broadened in scope.

“Because it's the Bay Area, stories we do here will also be of interest to audiences across the country and around the world,” Rosenthal said.

The 35-year-old Center for Investigative Reporting has grown rapidly – from a small newsroom with about a $2.3 million budget three years ago to a $5 million news organization. CIR has produced stories for some of the most recognizable news brands in the country, including Frontline, PBS NEWSHOUR, “60 Minutes,” The Washington Post and Newsweek. California Watch has boosted CIR’s distribution to include hundreds of news outlets in California.

Both boards met over the weekend to negotiate terms of the memorandum of understanding. While most Americans watched the Super Bowl, merger attorneys and board members hammered out details. By late Monday, only a few issues remained, including whether The Bay Citizen and CIR would issue separate press releases about the formal merger talks. (It was decided to do one joint release.)

The combined budgets of the two organizations add up to more than $10 million. A final budget target has not been announced. A small transition team from CIR and The Bay Citizen will begin working on the fine details of merging the two operations, including developing a business plan and building an organizational chart. The transition is expected to take several weeks. During that time, the newsrooms will continue to run independently.

Mark Katches

Rosenthal said Mark Katches, CIR’s editorial director, will play a crucial role in determining the merged organization’s editorial strategies.

Katches, 48, has edited two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting projects and three Pulitzer finalists in the last eight years. CIR hired him in 2009 to build California Watch. He was promoted to editorial director for all of CIR last April.

“Much of the success of CIR and California Watch is directly attributed to Mark’s skills as an editor and as a visionary entrepreneur,” Rosenthal said. “We are both looking forward to working with The Bay Citizen and its staff to create a very special organization.”

Combining the two newsrooms will present challenges. Through its California Watch operation, CIR has forged relationships with local media partners like the San Francisco Chronicle and KQED. In contrast, The Bay Citizen has positioned itself as a competitor to the Chronicle, and it produces stories every Friday and Sunday for The New York Times’ regional pages, also a competitor of the Chronicle and other Bay Area news outlets.

Another delicate issue to resolve: The Bay Citizen newsroom staff has voted to join the local newsroom union. The larger CIR newsroom staff is not part of a union. Other questions remain about The Bay Citizen’s focus and mission – which has included culture and sports coverage – and how that will mesh with CIR, which is known for deeper-dive investigative and explanatory reporting. The merger must be approved by the California attorney general’s office.

The deal comes at a critical time for The Bay Citizen. In September, its first editor, Jonathan Weber, announced he was leaving after 16 months at the helm. In October, Chief Executive Officer Lisa Frazier tendered her resignation. Her last day was Monday.

Warren Hellman

In December, founder Warren Hellman died. And in January, The Bay Citizen’s interim editor, Steve Fainaru, announced plans to leave.

Of all the changes in leadership, Hellman’s death perhaps left the biggest void. The banjo-picking billionaire founded The Bay Citizen with $5 million in seed money in 2009. He recruited close friends to contribute millions more to the organization. His death will pose fundraising challenges for the merged organization.

Hellman created The Bay Citizen out of concern that strong local reporting had diminished due to severe cuts at the San Francisco Chronicle and other local news outlets.

How the two staffs come together will be closely watched, according to Bay Area-based media industry analyst Ken Doctor.

“In the short term, it's a vote of confidence in the California Watch model, one with more ramping revenue streams and partnerships than a purely local model,” Doctor said. “If it works, 49 other states will be watching.”

Rosenthal said he is looking forward to working closely with Bronstein.

"At CIR, Phil has been a terrific chair the last year, and since I joined the organization, he has been highly supportive of me,” Rosenthal said. “The CIR board knew of my vision when I joined the organization. I have had tremendous freedom and support in implementing that vision. They have understood the challenges we faced and allowed me to take risks and follow my instincts in a way that was almost impossible in a corporate, traditional setting. I know that will continue as we move forward. This is a huge challenge, not without risks, but it is going to be fun for all of us to be part of building a truly unique, special and important public service news organization."

Prime Healthcare drops bid for N.J. hospital

Christina Jewett — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:05:03 +0000

Christina Jewett and Lance Williams

Monica Lam/California Watch

Prime Healthcare Services pulled its bid to buy a New Jersey hospital last week, saying it was deferring to the wishes of local elected officials who wanted to see the hospital remain a locally operated nonprofit.

The proposed deal met strong resistance from a health workers union and a community group that aired concerns over Prime’s business model.

Prime leaders and Christ Hospital attorneys also faced tough questions from health regulators and the New Jersey attorney general’s office, including queries about billing practices based on findings of a yearlong investigation by California Watch. The nonprofit investigative news operation has identified a pattern at Prime Healthcare of billing Medicare for treatment of rare conditions among its elderly patients – conditions that enable the chain to reap lucrative bonus payments.

“They were getting hit from all sides,” said Jeanne Otersen, public policy director for Health Professionals and Allied Employees, a union that represents 400 nurses at Christ Hospital.

Prime spokesman Edward Barrera said in an e-mail that the chain already had shared a great deal of information with state health regulators and “was in the process of finalizing its responses.”

“The queries played no role in Prime Healthcare’s decision to withdraw,” according to Barrera.

In a statement, Prime Healthcare chief executive Lex Reddy, who is chain founder Prem Reddy’s brother-in-law, said Prime had hoped to “play a key role in stabilizing the financial future of healthcare in Hudson County by acquiring Christ Hospital and investing tens of millions of dollars to upgrade its services, provide much-needed charity care and keep jobs in Jersey City.”

“It is unfortunate things did not work out the way we had hoped,” he said.

Christ Hospital chief executive Peter Kelly also said in a statement that he regrets that a partnership with Prime will not move forward. The hospital received another offer from a local hospital group.

Prime Healthcare leaders said they spent months in New Jersey, investing in an effort to keep the hospital financially solvent.

Prime was opposed by a coalition of business and neighborhood associations. Paul Bellan-Boyer, a leader of the group, said community members banded together and concluded that the $15.7 million offer by Prime, with a promise to invest $35 million in upgrades, didn’t “withstand any reasonable scrutiny.” Another group offered $104 million for the hospital in January.

Otersen, of the nurses union, said Christ Hospital nurses had read California Watch reports about Prime Healthcare billing and patient admission practices with concern and brought them to the attention of state authorities. “It was hard, real research,” she said. “It was so important.”

The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, which plays a role in granting hospital licenses, inquired about high rates of acute heart failure at one Prime hospital. California Watch reported that Chino Valley Medical Center billed Medicare for six times more cases of the condition than other state hospitals.

The New Jersey attorney general’s office also sent inquiries to the Christ Hospital counsel as part of its hospital-vetting process, asking why hospital trustees didn’t conduct independent investigations into reports about “high incidence of certain rare diseases” or “over billing.”

California Watch has reported that Prime hospitals billed for outsized rates of some medical conditions that also draw enhanced Medicare payments. Those ailments include kwashiorkor, a form of malnutrition usually associated with starving children, and autonomic nerve disorder, a condition seen in Prime hospitals nearly 90 times more often than the statewide average.

Three California members of Congress have asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general to investigate Prime’s billing practices. FBI agents have interviewed a former Prime hospital patient and contacted two former Prime employees as part of a federal inquiry into billing methods at the hospital chain.

Prime has maintained that its billings are appropriate and that it relies on physicians to diagnose patients. It also called California Watch’s analysis of acute heart failure cases “faulty, unfair and biased.”

Prime's Barrera noted that Thomson Reuters, a business data firm, recently ranked Prime Healthcare one of the top 15 health systems in the nation, compared with 321 other organizations. The report examined hospital outcomes for three medical conditions: pneumonia, heart attacks and acute heart failure.

The Thomson Reuters report, based in part on Medicare billing data, concluded that Prime hospitals had the nation’s lowest 30-day mortality rate for acute heart failure patients, at 9 percent. That means that compared with the number of patients diagnosed with the condition, the number who died within 30 days was exceptionally low.

In November, Dr. Steven Shayani, president of the New York Heart Research Foundation, told California Watch that he was skeptical about the high rate of acute heart failure among Medicare patients at Chino Valley Medical Center.

The San Bernardino County hospital reported that 35.2 percent of its Medicare patients had acute heart failure, a breakdown in the body’s ability to circulate blood. That’s far higher than 4.8 percent, the rate at California hospitals not owned by Prime, according to an analysis of billing data from 2008 to 2010.

In an interview, Shayani said that while acute heart failure is prevalent among the elderly, there was “no way of explaining” the hospital’s high rate. He also noted that an inflated acute heart failure rate could boost a hospital’s quality ratings.

“If you put heart failure as the diagnosis and the patient survives, that’s how you would statistically lower your mortality rate,” he said. “And so your ratings are better.”

The Thomson Reuters awards also reflect hospital performance in achieving low complication rates, high patient safety ratings and optimal patient lengths of stay.

Prime has been involved in other unsuccessful attempts to buy hospitals in recent years. In September, California Attorney General Kamala Harris denied a bid by the chain's nonprofit arm to buy Victor Valley Community Hospital over concerns about patient access to care.

During an August hearing over the proposed Victor Valley sale, John Petty, who spoke on behalf of another would-be buyer, submitted several California Watch articles to the attorney general’s office.

“We all have, you know, dogs in this fight,” he said. But independent investigative journalists “have … developed a series of articles that, I think, are fairly irrefutable,” he said.

It was the second hospital sale that a California attorney general denied. Gov. Jerry Brown, the state’s previous attorney general, also blocked the chain’s bid to purchase an Orange County hospital after a contentious public hearing in 2007.

Prime signaled its interest in buying two bankrupt hospitals in Hawaii but backed out of the deal in December. The chain bought a share of a Texas hospital in December.

Stanford team develops plan for electric highway

Susanne Rust — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:05:02 +0000

Susanne Rust

Martyn@Negaro/ Flickr

With new state regulations demanding an increase in the number of clean and green cars, the future is looking bright for electric cars, such as the Nissan Leaf.

The problem is, most electric cars can’t go more than about 100 miles without being recharged.

But a team of Stanford University researchers may have come up with a novel infrastructure design that could solve this problem. They see a future in which magnetic fields could transmit electrical currents on highways, charging cars while they drive.

“Our vision is that you’ll be able to drive onto any highway and charge your car,” said Shanhui Fan, an electrical engineer at Stanford and a co-author of the paper.

The study appeared in the journal Applied Physics Letters [PDF].

"What makes this concept exciting is that you could potentially drive for an unlimited amount of time without having to recharge," said Richard Sassoon, managing director of the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project and a co-author of the study. "You could actually have more energy stored in your battery at the end of your trip than you started with."

The idea of sending electrical currents through the air to charge appliances and other devices is not new. Famed 19th-century inventor Nikola Tesla designed a 187-foot tower that could transmit electricity to points miles away. But due to a lack of funding – and the industrial world’s use and then dependence on wiring – his plans never came through.

Then in 2007, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology figured out a way to light a 60-watt bulb [PDF] using a technology known as magnetic resonance coupling.

This is how it works: Two metal coils, set some distance apart, are tuned to resonate – or vibrate – at the same frequency. One of the coils is connected to an electrical source, which generates a magnetic field that makes the other coil start to resonate. This process results in the invisible transfer of electricity through the air from the first coil to the second.

“Wireless power transfer will only occur if the two resonators are in tune,” Fan said. “Objects tuned at different frequencies will not be affected.”

Members of the Stanford team wondered if they could apply this energy to moving cars – the trick was to figure out how the coils would need to be placed in a highway and how they should be designed to provide the most effective and directed form of energy.

Two Stanford postdoctoral students figured out that part: A coil bent at 90 degrees and attached to a metal plate can transfer 10 kilowatts of electrical energy to an identical coil 6.5 feet away.

“That’s fast enough to maintain a constant speed,” Fan said. “To actually charge the car battery would require arrays of coils embedded in the road. This wireless transfer scheme has an efficiency of 97 percent."

You can watch a video of the research here.

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Increasing use of facial recognition software spurs privacy concerns

G.W. Schulz — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:05:03 +0000

G.W. Schulz

1st Lt. Darrick Noah/U.S. ArmyA U.S. soldier photographs a local man in Afghanistan for facial recognition purposes.

When several armed robberies occurred recently in Lancaster, Calif., police had little of use on the two suspects. Then, a reliable image of one suspect turned up from a surveillance camera.

In years past, that still might not have been enough for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to close the case.

But with the help of new facial recognition software, investigators plugged the image into a database of booking photos and quickly came up with a possible match. That led to a pair of arrests on Jan. 27.

Facial recognition technology is growing rapidly, both in the consumer world and among police, but privacy advocates are troubled by the potential for intrusion and misuse.

Police in Tampa, Fla., created an uproar several years ago when they installed facial recognition devices in an entertainment district, hoping to identify wanted criminals. The system eventually was unplugged, because it didn’t catch any perpetrators. A similar effort at the 2001 Super Bowl also netted few results.

Things have changed since then. Agencies like the cutting-edge Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in Florida are using millions of jail mug shots to double-check identities if they believe someone is lying about who they are. Deputies can simply snap a photo of the person and begin a search using their in-car laptop.

That’s how the agency unmasked one man with an active warrant. In another 2009 incident, the North Miami Police Department asked Pinellas County deputies for help tracking down a bank robbery suspect [PDF], and they did so with a surveillance video image that led to an arrest.

“All of this was accomplished by lunch time,” the sheriff’s office boasted then in a press release. Pinellas County also became the first in the nation [PDF] that year to include the use of driver’s license photos in its searching capabilities, rather than just individuals who have been arrested.

In the meantime, outcry over the technology is heating up. The Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington last week called for a moratorium on the use of facial recognition in consumer products. Namely, they’ve targeted a Facebook feature that enables users to tag the photos of friends using special software.

The advocacy group submitted remarks [PDF] to the Federal Trade Commission expressing concern about private companies stockpiling faceprints for their own use and the ability of consumers to control the disclosure of their own identity. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has complained in the past about the U.S. military compiling biometric data on Iraqi citizens, because it could be linked to religious or ethnic affiliations and used to single people out.

Among other things, the group is concerned that facial recognition could undermine the right to anonymity, lead to mistaken identities if it doesn’t work properly or result in identity theft if databases containing the images are hacked. Faceprints can’t be replaced as easily as credit cards, the group argues.

“Facial recognition system errors would lead to innocent people being falsely matched to watch lists or databases, while suspects would pass through the system unrecognized,” the Electronic Privacy Information Center stated in a Jan. 31 notice to the FTC.

A group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers chimed in last week and sent their own letter [PDF] to the trade commission, which didn’t name any corporate offenders specifically but did register worries they had about the brave new technology.

“Currently, there are a number of companies that have implemented both facial recognition and facial detection technologies for the stated purpose of enhancing the user experience,” according to the letter. “We are deeply concerned about how the use of these technologies impact the level of protection for consumers' personal information.”

No matter how it’s regulated, the reality is that biometric identification won’t be going away soon.

India's government is working on an ambitious plan to biometrically identify each of its more than 1 billion people, and Mexico in 2010 signed a contract with Pennsylvania-based Unisys Corp. to build a large database of fingerprint, eye and faceprint information belonging to millions of people there.

Officials in the United States already collect biometric data on international travelers wishing to enter the country through the Department of Homeland Security’s US-VISIT program. Accenture Federal Services won a $71 million contract in December to include faceprints.

Researchers also are looking at the way we walk and even at human buttocks as possible unique identifiers for the future.

Disclosing greenhouse gas emissions boosts business, study finds

Susanne Rust — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:05:03 +0000

Susanne Rust

Kim Seng/Flickr

New research shows it can pay to be green.

A pair of California business school researchers has found that companies that disclose greenhouse gas emissions enjoy an immediate rise in stock value and positive returns to shareholders.

Their study appeared in Social Science Research Network.

"When a company makes a voluntary disclosure of this kind, it signals to the investment community that this is a firm that is environmentally responsible," Paul Griffin of UC Davis told The Daily Climate, an environmental news source. "Investors are saying they would prefer to invest in an environmentally responsible firm."

The pair wanted to test a theory known as “voluntary disclosure.”

The theory predicts that certain corporate information, if disclosed judiciously, will produce a benefit for shareholders. The theory also predicts that the disclosure of that information will benefit smaller companies – or companies with less information available about them – more than larger companies.

So the team, which also included Yuan Sun of UC Berkeley, went through all news wires released by Corporate Social Responsibility, a corporate news wire, between 2000 and 2010.

The researchers chose this news wire for two reasons: 1) They wanted to track only companies that voluntarily disclosed their emissions (as opposed to a regulatory database), and 2) the news wire is considered the global leader in providing news about corporate social responsibility, allowing the researchers to examine a large worldwide sample.

The researchers ended up with a sample of 172 greenhouse gas disclosures for 84 companies. They then got company stock values for the day before the announcement, the day of and the day after. The researchers also set controls by analyzing companies that did not release emissions information during that time period.

The researchers found that stock value increased when companies voluntarily disclosed their greenhouse gas emissions. They also found that the benefit for smaller companies was greater than for larger companies, supporting the voluntary disclosure theory.

The study showed smaller companies saw an average increase of 2.3 percent in share value after disclosure.

To be sure, “independent of company size or public information availability, the tests … document a small but reliably positive shareholder response to a Corporate Social Responsibility newswire release,” the authors wrote.

The companies analyzed represented a variety of industries, including health care, information technology and financial services.

The researchers hope their data will influence companies to disclose information about their carbon impact.

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Assemblyman renews fight against illegal school fees

Corey G. Johnson — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:05:03 +0000

Corey G. Johnson

woodleywonderworks/Flickr

Bolstered by a recent court ruling, a Southern California assemblyman filed legislation last week that seeks to crack down on school districts that charge parents and students fees that violate state law.

AB 1575, sponsored by Assemblyman Ricardo Lara, D-South Gate, would require school superintendents and county offices to conduct annual reviews of all policies and practices at their local districts to ensure no unlawful fees are charged.

The reviews would start during the 2012-13 fiscal year. The measure also mandates that all schools have a complaint process that enables parents to question fees and receive resolution within 30 days. Schools that don't have a process now would be required to create one by March 1, 2013.

Lara introduced the measure Feb. 1, days after a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge refused to dismiss an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit accusing the state of allowing schools to charge for participation in classes and extracurricular activities.

The attorney general's office, state Department of Education, state Board of Education and state superintendent of public instruction wanted the case dismissed, arguing that it wasn't their responsibility to ensure school districts comply with the law. But Superior Court Judge Carl West found the state's arguments "not persuasive." He ordered both the ACLU and the state to continue the case and file their next statements by March 2.

Lara called West's decision a victory for all children.

“The ACLU’s victory in court confirms that it is ultimately the State’s responsibility to uphold our Constitutional guarantee of providing an equal educational opportunity for all children, not just those who can afford it," Lara said in a statement. "AB 1575 provides a new opportunity for the Legislature and Governor to work together to address our current ‘pay to learn’ system. No student should have to worry about being excluded or humiliated when they can’t pay to participate in educational activities."

The ACLU found widespread instances of school districts charging parents and students exorbitant and improper fees for books, educational materials and extracurricular activities.

In 2010, the group filed a class-action lawsuit [PDF] against the state, but settled after then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to support a law that would create an enforcement mechanism addressing the issue.

Lara then filed AB 165, which sought to require annual audits and a parental complaint process. The measure was overwhelmingly supported by the state Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown, who called the measure "the wrong approach."

If Lara's new bill is successful, local school officials would be required to publicly report any improper fees to the local school board and reimburse parents and students. All annual school audits would include a review of illegal fee charges.

State asks judge to toss illegal school fees case

Bill would crack down on schools that pass costs to parents

Public schools relying more on private donors

Powerful land owners pose obstacle for rail

Brian Joseph — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:20:02 +0000

Anonymous

Courtesy of Reed KaestnerThis planned resort area of Tejon Ranch in the hillsides of the Tehachapi Mountains is no longer at risk of being disturbed by high-speed rail, with the Grapevine alignment no longer being considered.

If you want to build a rail line between Anaheim and San Francisco, people are going to have to get out of the way. Literally.

The proposed California High-Speed Rail would require a lot of land, meaning thousands of California families and businesses will have to move if the project is ever built.

At completion, the project calls for 800 miles of track crossing through 18 counties. The state authority planning the project doesn't know at this point how much private land it needs or what property acquisition will cost, but it plans to buy whatever parcels are necessary at fair market value.

Using preliminary and alternate rail alignments, The Orange County Register traced the proposed track through three counties (Fresno, Kern and Merced) and partway through a fourth (Los Angeles) and found some 2,000 affected properties with roughly 1,300 different owners.

Many of the affected property owners are people and businesses you've never heard of. Some, however, are high profile: land developers and campaign contributors, big businesses and Central Valley farms. Many are sure to be unhappy about losing their land.

For a project that has already known its fair share of conflict, land acquisition is almost certainly high-speed rail's next source of discord.

“It's not going to be pretty,” said Elizabeth Goldstein Alexis, co-founder of Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design, a Palo Alto group monitoring the high-speed rail project. “Some people are going to be happy with the buyout. Others are not going to go quietly into the night.”

Many of the properties needed for the project have yet to be determined, but according to current planning documents, the California High-Speed Rail Authority is eyeing land owned or used by an array of noteworthy interests, including:

More than four dozen properties in Merced and Kern counties owned by BNSF Railway, including 30 parcels originally held by one of BNSF's predecessors, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. Today, BNSF is one of the largest railroad networks in North America and is a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway investment company.
The site of a Smart & Final warehouse store near Fresno's Chinatown district, assessed at nearly $1 million. The Smart & Final chain contains 250 grocery and foodservice stores in six Western states and northern Mexico.
Merced and Kern counties parcels owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., one of the largest natural gas and electric utilities in the United States.
Undeveloped farm land in Shafter owned by Farmland Reserve Inc., the agricultural investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Fresno distribution center of C&S Wholesale Grocers, “the largest wholesale grocery supply company in the U.S.” That property has a total assessed value of more than $8 million.

Most of these businesses were not eager to talk to the Register about the coming rail line. But the state will have to negotiate, individually, for the rights to all of the lands. Ultimately, the state can buy whatever land it wants through the power of eminent domain. But a wealthy or motivated land owner unwilling to deal can stretch out the process for months or longer.

If enough of the land owners fight the project “at strategically chosen places along the route they could tie it up probably a year,” said John H. Blake, a real estate attorney in Redwood City. “It could be less, it could be more, depending on the nature of the issue and how seriously the court takes it.”

History of conflict

The fight over land acquisition is the next battle awaiting high-speed rail if it can survive a torrent of opposition in Sacramento and Washington. For months now, the future of the project has remained in the balance as politicians on both sides of the aisle have questioned the project's viability and costs, though Gov. Jerry Brown has signaled his strong support.

From April 2010 through May 2011, the California High-Speed Rail Authority was the subject of three scathing reports that criticized its ridership projections, its accounting practices and its management. State lawmakers and project opponents accused the authority of being unrealistic in its cost projections.

At the beginning of November, the authority responded to its critics by releasing a sober business plan, which was praised for its frank assessments and practical figures but raised eyebrows over a revised $98 billion price tag.

Since then, new obstacles have emerged.

In mid-November, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives eliminated future funding for high-speed rail in California. Then Kings County sued to stop the authority from going forward with its initial plan to build a 130-mile stretch of track from Fresno to Bakersfield, which isn't long enough to accommodate high-speed trains.

Then the Legislative Analyst's Office said the rail authority's plans are still too speculative to deserve state money. Then the high-speed rail's Peer Review Group, chaired by Orange County Transportation Authority Director Will Kempton, told lawmakers they shouldn't authorize funding for the project. Then the state auditor released another scathing report, saying the authority's “funding situation has become increasingly risky.”

There's a chance the Legislature will balk this year when it's asked to appropriate $2.7 billion in bond funds for the high-speed rail. The bonds have already been authorized by voters, but the Legislature still controls their purse strings.

During his State of the State address in January, Brown urged legislators' approval and compared critics of the project to critics of the Interstate Highway System and even the Panama Canal.

“The critics were wrong then,” Brown said, “and they're wrong now.”

Land grab

Stretched over 270,000 acres between Bakersfield and Los Angeles, Tejon Ranch is just too big for the high-speed rail to avoid. The historic ranch, which was founded as a Mexican land grant in 1843, is the largest contiguous piece of private property in California. Its 422 square miles encompass farming and ranching operations, a commercial/industrial center and a proposed resort community in the Tehachapi Mountains.

The Tejon Ranch Co. has spent more than a decade planning the resort. Called Tejon Mountain Village, it is envisioned as an idyllic place for a second home or a restful vacation, with 3,450 homes, up to 750 hotel rooms, a couple of 18-hole golf courses and 75 miles of trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding.

Coutesy of Randall BarkerBarry Zoeller, Tejon Ranch vice president of corporate communications and marketing

“We don't believe that mixes well with a high-speed rail,” said Barry Zoeller, vice president of corporate communications and marketing.

The high-speed rail faced a big problem with the Tejon Ranch Co. In May, the California High-Speed Rail Authority announced it would explore the I-5 corridor at the Grapevine as a route between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. Under that plan, the high-speed rail would have passed right by the mountain resort.

Zoeller pledged that “should (high-speed rail officials) make the decision to move ahead with the Grapevine alignment, they would find a strong opponent in the Tejon Ranch Co.”

Last month, the authority decided to abandon the Grapevine idea and instead go with a route farther east, near highways 58 and 14. That route also crosses Tejon Ranch property, but the company doesn't oppose it.

The high-speed rail may have avoided a showdown with the Tejon Ranch Co., but the case illustrates the sort of battles the project could face as it moves into the property acquisition phase.

Rachel Wall, spokeswoman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said the agency knows it has an “enormous responsibility” to protect the rights of land owners as it acquires property for the project. To do that, the authority will follow a modified land acquisition process developed by Caltrans that Wall said will provide owners with ample opportunities to assert their rights.

The authority has also factored into its schedule the potential for land owners to slow down the process during the land acquisition phase. Wall said the authority is prepared for all the contingencies it may face, but acknowledges, “There's certainly a lot of work to do.”

On the farm

Farmers are expected to be among the high-speed rail's biggest opponents if the project ever reaches the land acquisition stage. No matter what alignment is eventually chosen, the rail will pass through prime agricultural land in the Central Valley, some of which has been tilled by the same families for generations.

To the agricultural communities affected, the high-speed rail feels like an attack on their world and their bottom line, said Anja Raudabaugh, executive director of the Madera County Farm Bureau, which is concerned about the high-speed rail having an excessive impact on agricultural lands.

“If you change these farmers' way of life, they're going to squawk,” Raudabaugh said. But this is about more than convenience, or even tradition. There “is a monetary cost,” she said.

First, there is the cost of the land itself. Much of the land targeted by the high-speed rail in the San Joaquin Valley is precious for its physical properties, Raudabaugh said. The soil there is uniquely high in nitrogen and phosphorous, which yields pomegranates, pistachios and almonds of a quality that can't be duplicated elsewhere, she said. For farmers, no amount of money can replace such special land.

Then there's the cost of farming around the high-speed rail. Unlike a regular train, the tracks of the high-speed rail will be walled off from the surrounding environment by fences or barriers to prevent cars, people or animals from crossing in front of 220-mph train. The alternative is gruesome: In April 2008, a German high-speed train traveling 124 mph struck a herd of sheep, which caused the train to derail and injured 19 passengers (and killed 20 sheep).

To avoid such an accident, the only way you'll be able to cross the California High-Speed Rail is at designated crossings. That's not a small matter for farmers, who make numerous trips across their fields in a single day. If the rail line cuts through your property, you'll have to drive four to seven miles out of the way just to get to other side of your field, estimates Frank Oliveira, general partner of MEL's Farms, a Kings County farming operation. The high-speed rail is eyeing land on five properties owned by MEL's, Oliveira said.

“They're going to be tearing up everybody's farms and make them not profitable,” he said.

Oliveira said farmers are upset about the project because few in state government seem to recognize its impact on the agriculture community. Construction of the rail line will ruin carefully planned farms with laser-leveled fields and buried irrigation systems, he said.

The authority may tell farmers it only wants a 100-foot strip of their land, but Oliveira said that could ultimately cost farmers 170 feet of usable land because farmers also need space to reverse their tractors. The farmers are angry because they feel the state isn't listening to them, Oliveira said.

Wall, the spokeswoman for the high-speed rail authority, said planners will try “as much as possible” to address the impacts on farms during the design process.

Economic development

Not everyone fears the train, however. For some, the California High-Speed Rail represents the hope for a better future. And at least one community was willing to fight for it.

In July, Palmdale filed a suit in federal court to prevent the California High-Speed Rail Authority from moving forward with the Grapevine plan, which would have bypassed the city. Palmdale officials desperately want a high-speed rail stop in their city for the economic activity it's thought to bring.

“The majority of people I have heard from are in support of the high-speed rail,” said Palmdale Chamber of Commerce CEO Stacia Nemeth, when asked if even Palmdale's affected land owners are in favor of the project. “There's a lot of job potential there.”

The federal suit was dismissed in September, and the California High-Speed Rail Authority has since abandoned the Grapevine option, but until the very end, the city indicated it was willing to keep fighting. Residents there say they want the high-speed rail to come to their city of 152,000.

“I don't see how it couldn't benefit us,” said Marsha Furman, a 27-year resident of Palmdale who is active in community affairs.

Furman said she's never heard affected land owners in Palmdale complain about losing their property to the project. “We see the high-speed rail as just another opportunity to see what the Antelope Valley has to offer,” she said.

Residents and officials believe a high-speed rail station will help Palmdale by attracting new businesses and boosting local tourism. It's also thought that Palmdale residents will use the high-speed rail for daily commutes to jobs in Los Angeles or Bakersfield. A faster commute home means the people who already live in Palmdale will have more opportunities to spend their money locally.

“Having a station here, I know it would improve the area economically,” said Bill Pappas, a resident of Palmdale since 1990.

For Palmdale, the fight may be over. But for land owners in the path of the high-speed rail, the fight may be just beginning.

Brian Joseph is the Sacramento correspondent for The Orange County Register. Contact him at 916-449-6046 or bjoseph@ocregister.com. This story resulted from a partnership among California news organizations following the state's high-speed rail program, including The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Bee, California Watch, The Bakersfield Californian, The Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise, U-T San Diego, KQED, the Merced Sun-Star, The Tribune of San Luis Obispo and The Modesto Bee.

More coverage of the high-speed rail project

Spain’s high-speed rail system offers lessons for California

Colleges crack down on selling, sharing notes

Erica Perez — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:05:03 +0000

Erica Perez

Flickr/Columbia_Admissions

California State University and University of California campuses are taking new steps to limit what students can do with their class notes: At least one CSU Chico student recently was reported to judicial affairs for selling notes to a website, while a newly updated UC Berkeley policy restricts how students share their notes with others.

The policies raise questions about whether instructors or students have copyrights to the notes students take in class. While the California Education Code prohibits students and others from selling class notes – and many campuses have policies that also ban unauthorized note-selling – critics say students, not instructors, own the copyright to their own notes.

Some university officials say faculty members have the right to protect their professional reputation – they don't want inaccurate or low-quality notes to be attributed to them. But others say the university policies are restricting students' free speech.

"Given the amount of money students are paying to go to school right now, to ... confront them with these policies and say, 'You don't even have the right to use your own notes any way you want,' seems to be the wrong message to be sending," said Jason M. Schultz, assistant clinical professor of law at UC Berkeley and director of the university's Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic.

The CSU and UC systems have made efforts to shut down private note-selling websites for some time. As early as 1999, the note-selling website Versity.com sparked officials' furor at UC Berkeley. In fall 2010, CSU sent a cease-and-desist order to NoteUtopia, which allows students to upload course notes, study guides and outlines to a website, then set a price and earn cash for their work.

More recently, both UC and CSU have sent cease-and-desist letters to Notehall, a note-selling website owned by Santa Clara-based Chegg.

CSU sent its letter to Chegg in January after at least one student was reported to student judicial affairs for selling notes through the service. CSU Chico's student newspaper, The Orion, reported that two students were referred to judicial affairs, but Lisa Root, the university's director of student judicial affairs, said there has been only one case involving the note-selling policy in the past three years. She could not comment on the specific case. The one student named in the Orion story declined to talk to a reporter Wednesday.

It's unclear whether the student was sanctioned or whether other universities in California have sought disciplinary action against students who have sold their notes to third parties.

The letter from CSU to Chegg cited CSU's own student policies and the California Education Code, both of which prohibit selling, distributing or publishing class notes for a commercial purpose.

Notehall's website indicates the company is no longer accepting notes from CSU or UC students. Users who try to upload notes for CSU or UC campuses see an error message.

"Unfortunately, No More Notes!" the message begins. "The California State University Student Conduct Code prohibits students from selling class notes, and subjects violators to potential disciplinary action. Out of respect for this policy, Notehall does not offer its note taking services at your school. We apologize for the inconvenience, and share your disappointment with this CSU policy decision."

In a written statement, a spokeswoman for Chegg said the company is fully compliant with California law and is "working to ensure that our services fall within what is acceptable from one state to the next."

But Berkeley's Schultz questioned whether states can prevent students from selling their notes. Instructors have almost no intellectual property rights to what students write down in class, he said. Faculty members may have intellectual property in the books they write, articles they publish and even possibly in the lecture notes they write for themselves, but students own the copyright on their own notes, he said.

"Copyright is a federal law, and generally when state laws conflict with federal laws, federal law wins," Schultz said. "Perhaps more important is there's a First Amendment issue as well. If I take notes in class, and I want to share them, that's speech."

UC's legal office also sent a cease-and-desist letter to Notehall in November 2010, prompted at least in part by complaints at UC Davis about Notehall, said Jan Carmikle, senior intellectual property officer at UC Davis.

The university told Notehall that the company was violating California law, potentially infringing on copyright law, and encouraging students to violate university policy and risk discipline.

Carmikle said many professors and instructors at UC Davis who found notes for their classes on Notehall were indignant about it.

"For a lot of them it's a reputational quality-control issue. They take a lot of pride in giving really high-quality lectures," she said. "If a D-student can put these notes up, that's not good to anybody. It's not good for other students and not good for the instructor."

Schultz argued that faculty members can easily address quality issues by making clear to students that they should not trust the accuracy of unofficial class notes.

He described the policy as a trade-off between the cost of suppressing student enthusiasm for learning and sharing knowledge against the benefit of protecting instructors' reputations – something they can achieve through other means.

"I just don't think the trade-off is a very good trade-off for public education," he said.

At UC Berkeley, a joint academic senate/administrative task force recently revised the university policy on course notes. The new policy [PDF], which took effect in January, continues to ban the unauthorized sale of class notes. It also says students can share notes with other students only if they're both enrolled in the class at the same time. In theory, that means a student could face disciplinary action for sharing his or her notes from last semester with a student currently enrolled in the same class.

Philip Stark, a member of the task force and professor of statistics at UC Berkeley, said the policy should have included more careful definitions of "course notes." At issue, he said, are transcript-style notes, not a student's own synthesis of lecture material.

"I can't imagine any action being taken against a student who says, 'Here's the bullet items from this class.' That's not what this is intended to address," he said. "It's intended to address someone representing something as the instructor's words."

Stark, who is also vice chairman of the statistics department, said the policy is aimed at maintaining the integrity – and accuracy – of the instructor's lecture.

"It's my words, it's my performance, it's my material. I want you to learn from it, but I don't want you to represent to someone else that these are my words if I haven't had a chance to vet them," he said.

Schultz said he's concerned the universities are moving in the wrong direction.

"It's a policy against sharing knowledge. The Internet and networked technologies have been disrupting, one by one, every business model that has tried to put gates around information," he said. "These universities have to decide how they're going to handle this. They can embrace it or suppress it."

Contractors OK'd to bid on Fresno-area bullet train construction

Tim Sheehan — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:05:03 +0000

Anonymous

snapphoto/istockphoto.com

Fourteen construction companies are on the short list of firms poised to bid for contracts to begin building California’s high-speed rail system in the Fresno area later this year.

The list was revealed by California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Roelof van Ark at the authority board’s monthly meeting yesterday in Sacramento.

Van Ark said the companies have formed into five teams that the authority has qualified to compete for a contract on a stretch of the line through Fresno, from the San Joaquin River at the north end to American Avenue at the south end. The contract is expected to be worth $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

The builder teams are:

California Backbone Builders, a consortium of two Spanish construction firms – Ferrovial Agroman and Acciona
California High-Speed Rail Partners, composed of Fluor Corp. of Texas, Sweden-based Skanska and PCL Constructors of Canada
California High-Speed Ventures, made up of Kiewit Corp. of Nebraska, Granite Construction of Watsonville and Comsa EMTE of Spain
A joint venture of Dragados SA of Spain, Denver-based Flatiron Construction Corp. and Shimmick Construction of Oakland
Tutor Perini Corp. of Sylmar, Zachry Construction of Texas and Pasadena-based Parsons Corp.

The project includes building 12 street overcrossings or underpasses, two elevated viaducts, a tunnel and a bridge across the San Joaquin River. Laying the tracks will be done later under a separate contract.

While the authority has qualified the teams in a screening process, significant hurdles remain, and it could be months before the companies get a chance to submit bids.

The state Legislature has yet to approve nearly $3 billion in bond funds from Proposition 1A, a 2008 bond measure – no sure thing, given a barrage of criticism of the authority’s latest business plan by the state’s legislative analyst, auditor and a peer review group appointed by the Legislature.

Final environmental documents for two sections of rail routes through the Valley – from Merced to Fresno and Fresno to Bakersfield – must also be approved before the authority can seek bids. Van Ark said the authority’s board will consider the environmental reports for Merced-Fresno in early May, but reports for Fresno-Bakersfield are going through more revisions.

Van Ark said appraisers will likely begin meeting with property owners in the Fresno area in late February and early March to explain how the authority plans to buy the right of way it needs to lay tracks through the city.

The route in Fresno generally follows the Union Pacific Railroad tracks near Highway 99 from the San Joaquin River through downtown, before curving south to follow the Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight tracks south of the city.

The reporter can be reached at tsheehan@fresnobee.com or 559-441-6319. This story resulted from a partnership among California news organizations following the state's high-speed rail program, including The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Bee, California Watch, The Bakersfield Californian, The Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise, U-T San Diego, KQED, the Merced Sun-Star, The Tribune of San Luis Obispo and The Modesto Bee.

More coverage of the high-speed rail project

Poor, minority residents face most health risks with climate change

Bernice Yeung — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:05:02 +0000

Bernice Yeung

Werner Kunz/Flickr

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.

The study also found that there was a notable economic disparity between families living in the areas most vulnerable to climate change and those who didn't – the more at-risk families earned between 40 and 55 percent less each year than the least vulnerable families. Residents living downtown or in urban areas were also more vulnerable, the study said.

A western portion of Fresno County near Mendota also was found to be especially susceptible to climate change-related safety and health problems.

Public health experts say these disparities in climate-related health risks can partially be explained by living conditions and a poor baseline status of health.

“If you are low-income, you may live in a facility that is in poor repair, and you can't open the windows, or you don't have air conditioning. Then you may be more at risk for heat-related activity. It's the same with the cold," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. "The fact is that low-income communities, especially those of color, start with a health deficit. No one does well with bad air quality, but when you have poor health status, you’re going to be more at risk.”

Across the country, public health departments have become increasingly focused on the connection between health and climate change. The California analysis – the first to look at climate change health and safety risks at a county level – is based on a methodology developed by researchers at Occidental College in Los Angeles, the University of Southern California and UC Berkeley, and it is part of an effort to help local officials plan and identify potential policies for handling the human health impacts of climate change.

"Given that climate change presents a suite of risks and not a single risk, this is more of a planning tool for identifying which communities you should be taking some time to make sure you address," said Manuel Pastor, who directs USC's Program for Environmental and Regional Equity and advised the state health department analysis. "You look at a map like this, and you see the areas that need more support. It could inform different preventative and emergency response strategies."

A bill introduced in November by U.S. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., also calls for the development of a national strategic action plan to respond to "rising health threats from climate change."

These efforts have been applauded by the American Public Health Association.

“If you think about the history of public health, our history has been all about making sure that the water is safe to drink, the food is safe to eat, and the environment is safe to be in, and all of those things can be disrupted with climate change,” Benjamin said.

But climate change skeptics say California's climate-and-health analysis is misleading and unnecessary.

Richard S. Lindzen, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a prominent climate change skeptic, said the issue is often erroneously conflated with extreme weather or natural disasters.

“In California, if you have extremes of warm or cold weather, it’s not due to global warming; it’s due to which direction the wind is blowing,” Lindzen said. Public health departments are merely “coming along for the ride,” he said. “As far as I can tell, the global warming impact on California health has to be immeasurable at this stage.”

UC Berkeley physics professor Richard Muller, a onetime skeptic who changed his position on climate change after conducting research funded by other skeptics, said that while “there is evidence of climate change that is visible to scientists but not to the everyday person,” the state public health department’s analysis is of limited use.

“It’s certainly true that the poor people of our state are always the most vulnerable to any change whatsoever – you don’t have to do an analysis to figure that out,” he said. “If you want to spend money on the poor, I suspect preparing for climate change is the least effective way to do that. The poor will always need help, and I don’t think it should be spent on something like a fad like climate extremes and predictions that things might get worse.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists disagrees. According to a 2011 study [PDF], California would experience the “biggest economic impacts and the biggest heath impacts when ozone and temperatures increase” due to climate change, said Elizabeth Perera of the union’s climate and energy program. That study projected that an increase in ozone pollution would result in about $729 million in related health care spending in California in 2020.

Pro-Romney super PAC rakes in California cash

Will Evans — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:05:04 +0000

Will Evans

Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia CommonsGOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney

If super political action committee dollars were votes in the Republican presidential primary, California would already have voted resoundingly for Mitt Romney.

Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting the former Massachusetts governor, collected $2.3 million from Californians last year, more than any other super PAC, according to new filings this week. The group boosting Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, pulled in a paltry $1,750 from California, less than any other super PAC involved in the Republican primary.

Super PACs have been omnipresent in the primary race, spending lavishly on hard-hitting TV ads and rivaling in influence the candidates' own campaigns. The political committees are controversial because, under loosened campaign finance regulations, they allow wealthy individuals and companies to give unlimited amounts of money to directly support their preferred candidates.

Much of California's pro-Romney money came from the world of private investment – not surprising, as Romney formerly headed investment firm Bain Capital and the industry's business practices have become a hot issue in the campaign.

The biggest Golden State donor to Restore Our Future was W/F Investment Corp., which, together with CEO Bill Fleischman, gave $350,000. The Los Angeles private equity firm's portfolio includes a Bavarian beer importer and The Roadium open-air market in Torrance. W/F Investment referred calls to the super PAC.

Restore Our Future spokeswoman Brittany Gross said the organization is running advertisements in Nevada, which holds caucuses Saturday, and Arizona and Michigan, which have primaries later this month. As for the donations, Gross said, "we’re going to let the numbers speak for themselves."

The second-biggest donation, at $250,000, came from Glenbrook LLC. The Redwood City address listed on the donation is that of Glenbrook's accounting firm, which declined to provide any information about the company.

Dick Boyce, a San Francisco partner at private equity giant TPG Capital, gave $200,000. Boyce previously worked at Bain and currently serves on the board of Burger King. TPG has investments in Petco Animal Supplies, Spanish-language network Univision, retailer Neiman Marcus and casino company Caesars Entertainment.

David Wilson, owner of several Southern California car dealerships, gave the super PAC $100,000.

So did controversial Los Angeles developer G.H. Palmer Associates. Owner Geoff Palmer has been lauded for his pioneering upscale developments but criticized [PDF] for not including low-income units. Palmer's company was fined $30,000 in 1992 by the Fair Political Practices Commission on allegations of laundering campaign contributions through company employees.

The head of CKE Enterprises, the company that owns Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, also gave $100,000. CEO Andrew Puzder has been an outspoken backer of Romney, defending his business background at Bain and arguing that he will help businesses by reducing government regulations.

"The policies he proposes are precisely the ones we in the private sector need to successfully grow our businesses," Puzder wrote.

With California's presidential primary not until June, the state's role in the race is mainly that of an ATM, said Jessica Levinson, campaign finance scholar at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Super PACs, she said, have allowed for a "shadow campaign finance system" that is detrimental to the political system.

"If money’s speech, then people with more money get more speech, and this is a fundamental problem in a representative democracy," Levinson said. "It’s giving people with money a megaphone in the current debate."

But the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently rejected that argument, said John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute.

"The concern is that it’s unequal – unequal money," Samples said. "The problem is that equality and freedom here are direct tradeoffs."

Chase Davis of the California Watch staff contributed to this report.

California funding to super PACS involved in presidential race

Super PAC	Amount	Supported candidate
Restore Our Future	$2,362,525	Mitt Romney
Priorities USA Action	$2,353,000	Barack Obama
Endorse Liberty	$950,000	Ron Paul
Our Destiny PAC	$317,750	Jon Huntsman*
Make Us Great Again	$307,000	Rick Perry*
Americans for Rick Perry	$35,000	Rick Perry*
Red, White & Blue Fund	$30,250	Rick Santorum
9-9-9 Fund	$8,544	Herman Cain*
Winning Our Future	$1,750	Newt Gingrich

*Candidate has withdrawn from the race

Source: Federal Election Commission

End of redevelopment agencies traps $4B in local government loans

Kendall Taggart — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:05:04 +0000

Kendall Taggart

Kativ/istockphoto.com

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 here.)

Despite the uncertainty about redevelopment agencies’ future, the city decided to cover the bond obligations in August. Because there is no chance the redevelopment agency will be able to fully cover its debt obligations from the share of property taxes it collects, Duran said the city cannot keep throwing money away.

Cities around the state loaned money to their redevelopment agencies as a way to avoid the costs associated with borrowing from private investors. If the loans are voided, cities and counties might have to tap their general funds to make up for the money they expected from loan repayments. Many of these loans saved taxpayer money, said Dan Carrigg, legislative director of the League of California Cities.

Subsidizing bond payments to keep an agency afloat is somewhat unusual, Duran said.

“Some people will say you should never subsidize city redevelopment money with bond payments; it’s just something you don’t do,” he said. “In hindsight, people would say that, and I would say they’re probably right.”

The Hercules Redevelopment Agency has been criticized in the past for misspending redevelopment money, including paying $38,400 to a lobbyist and giving six-figure mortgage loans to some employees of the city, according to the Contra Costa Times.

The California Redevelopment Association and League of California Cities have been working with the Legislature to find a way that cities can recoup some of the money, but haven’t gotten much traction.

“At a minimum, loans made prior to Jan. 1, 2011, prior to when all the dissolution discussion started to occur, should be recognized as valid and enforceable debt that should be repaid by the successor agency to the local government that made the loan," said Jim Kennedy, interim executive director of the California Redevelopment Association. "There’s no reason that I’m aware of that would suddenly turn valid debt into worthless debt simply by virtue of state legislative action.”

Media moguls headline Calif. super PAC giving

Chase Davis — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:21:27 +0000

Chase Davis

AlexKalina/istockphoto.com

Californians gave more than $12 million to super political action committees in 2011, bolstering the campaigns of President Barack Obama and his Republican challengers by taking advantage of new campaign finance rules that have been plagued by controversy.

In all, California residents gave more to super PACs last year than residents of any other state except Texas (which threw millions behind its own governor, Rick Perry), New York and Washington, D.C., according to filings submitted yesterday – the first time most super PAC donors have been made public.

The giving was headlined by DreamWorks executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and former Univision CEO Jerry Perenchio, both prolific campaign donors who each gave $2 million – Katzenberg to a super PAC supporting Obama and Perenchio to American Crossroads, a group led by Republican strategist Karl Rove.

A searchable database of all itemized super PAC contributors is available here.

Since they were enabled under a Supreme Court ruling in 2009, super PACs have attracted controversy by allowing wealthy individuals and organizations to spend unlimited amounts in support of their favored candidates.

In this year's contentious Republican primary election, super PACs have outspent the candidates themselves, primarily by putting their money into television advertising. The groups are not allowed to coordinate directly with campaigns but have still succeeded in spreading their favored candidates' messages and attacking their opponents.

Even in traditionally blue California, Republican groups collected millions in 2011, no doubt owing to the visibility and imminence of the party's primary season.

Restore Our Future, a group backing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, pulled in more than $2.3 million from Californians, including $275,000 from Los Angeles private equity firm W/F Investment Corp. and $250,000 from Glenbrook LLC, a company based in Redwood City.

Perenchio's $2 million contribution to American Crossroads matched the largest amount given by a Californian this year, and venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel contributed $900,000 to a group called Endorse Liberty, which supports U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

Still, buoyed by Katzenberg's $2 million, California showed up big for Democratic groups as well. The $2.3 million raised by the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action was the most the group raised in any state. In addition to Katzenberg, directors Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams combined to contribute $150,000 to the group, and businessman Stephen Bing gave $250,000 to a group called Majority PAC, which also supports Democratic candidates.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom chipped in $500 to comedian Stephen Colbert's super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, which raised more than $1 million, mostly in small contributions.

Californians gave only a small share of the more than $92 million in itemized contributions given to nearly 300 super PACs last year. Another $10 million given by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife last month to a group backing Newt Gingrich were not counted in yesterday's filings because they occurred after the mot recent disclosure deadline.

See who's donating to super PACs

Pro-Romney super PAC rakes in California cash

Calif. clinic licensed by controversial stem cell treatment group

Christina Jewett — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:05:04 +0000

Christina Jewett

BrianAJackson/istockphoto.com

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.

The Health Link Medical Center, an Oceanside clinic, is advertising on its website that as of January, its doctors are “trained and certified” by the Colorado team. For its part, the Colorado clinic lists the Oceanside facility as part of its Regenexx Procedure Network, which also includes clinics in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

The Health Link website says the California clinic is the first in the state to be “licensed” to perform the Regenexx procedures by the Colorado team.

“Their stem cell orthopedics experience is unrivaled and they are physician leaders in stem cell therapy for orthopedic injuries in terms of research presentations, publications, and academic achievements,” the website says.

The California clinic says its Regenexx services are for patients in chronic pain who are seeking an alternative to surgery.

Andrew Ittleman, a Miami attorney who is representing Regenerative Sciences, emphasized that the FDA is suing the firm over one procedure that is not being performed in California. Ittleman said the FDA is concerned about the group’s process of adding a growth enhancer to increase the number of stem cells taken from a patient before re-implanting them. He said the California procedure does not include use of the growth enhancer.

The California treatment, he said, “has very little, if anything, to do with the procedure” that’s subject to the FDA lawsuit.

Ed Anselmo, manager of the Health Link clinic, also said the California group plans to draw tissue from patients' bone marrow, separate the stem cells and re-inject them at the site of an injury. He said the team will not perform the procedure that involves expansion of patient cells in a solution, which is being done at a Regenexx-licensed Cayman Islands clinic. “You can’t do that in the U.S.,” Anselmo said.

An FDA spokeswoman asked about Regenerative Sciences and licensee Health Link said the agency doesn't comment on open investigations.

While promising stem cell treatments are making headlines nationwide on a weekly basis, most of them are part of highly structured clinical studies affiliated with major universities. The studies take years and cost millions of dollars, and they are aimed at proving that new therapies are safe and more effective than a placebo.

Stem cell treatments for leukemia patients are among the only FDA-approved and commonly used therapies.

Widespread criticism has cropped up around stem cell tourism, or the sales of promising – but unproven and expensive – treatments, usually overseas. Critics say those offering the services exploit the hopes and fears of vulnerable patients who are desperate for a miracle. Supporters of such therapies, though, are critical of the painstaking and costly process of proving medications safe and effective in America.

The Regenexx lawsuit is among the first the FDA has brought regarding a stem cell therapy offered in the U.S. An expert who filed a declaration for the FDA wrote that the Regenexx procedures did not go through the kind of rigorous testing that leads to widespread acceptance in medicine.

George F. Muschler, an orthopedic surgeon and professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, reviewed several case studies and a safety study that Regenexx doctor Centeno published in scientific journals. The studies reported the benefits of his treatments, which are meant to remedy unhealed fractures and torn muscles or tendons.

Muschler found faults with the reports’ methodology, scope and oversight, noting that the series of studies “may be degenerating into an undisciplined and unfocused and even groping and wishful fishing expedition.”

He concluded that the “cultured cell product has not been tested in a single adequate and well-controlled clinical study for any of the indications for which it is being promoted and used. … It is my strongly held view that (Regenerative Sciences) is exposing patients to medical risk without any reliable scientific evidence of therapeutic benefit.”

The FDA has issued criticisms of its own, calling the Regenexx product “adulterated” because of shortcomings it uncovered during facility inspections. The FDA also says the sales and transport of the cells violates a federal law regulating prescription medications.

Attorneys for Regenerative Sciences say in legal documents that the procedure falls under state powers because it “constitutes the practice of medicine,” overseen by the medical board.

“Additionally, the Procedure has been examined by the Colorado Board of Medicine and has been determined to be fully compliant with Colorado-state law,” court records say. The Regenerative Sciences website includes the testimonials of patients who say they benefited from the treatment.

Dan Wood, a spokesman for the California Medical Board, said physician use of stem cell treatments falls under the purview of the FDA.

Disbanding of nursing board raises questions about public protection

Explainer: The end of redevelopment agencies

Kendall Taggart — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:05:04 +0000

Kendall Taggart

DNY59/istockphoto.com

The gist: In late December, the California Supreme Court upheld legislation that ended a roughly 60-year-old program intended to combat blight. As a result, more than 400 redevelopment agencies are slated to dissolve by tomorrow.

How did redevelopment agencies work?

Redevelopment agencies gave local governments – usually cities, but sometimes counties – the ability to capture a greater share of property taxes. After an area was declared a redevelopment project area, the share of property taxes that goes to schools and other local agencies was frozen. All of the growth in property taxes from that point until the redevelopment area expired – usually 50 years – went back to the redevelopment agency.

What’s happening?

The Legislature passed two bills in June 2011 that laid the groundwork for redevelopment agencies’ demise.

The first bill, AB 26, ended the agencies and laid out a complex process for how they are supposed to be dissolved. The second bill, AB 27, gave local agencies an out: If they agreed to pay a large share of their funding to schools, they could continue to operate.

Redevelopment agencies and cities sued, claiming the bills were unconstitutional.

In a move that shocked many cities, the court decided the state had the authority to quash redevelopment agencies, but it also took away the option to pay to keep the redevelopment agencies open. The court ruled that AB 27 violated a voter-approved constitutional amendment, Proposition 22, which limited the state's authority to direct how redevelopment agencies used their share of property taxes.

Dissolving a massive, multibillion-dollar program is messy and unprecedented. Each city is now grappling with a different set of circumstances – from the amount of outstanding debt to the number of projects under way.

Why did Gov. Jerry Brown push to end redevelopment agencies?

Brown argued that the state could no longer afford redevelopment in a budget crisis. Redevelopment is contentious because of the financial advantage it provides redevelopment agencies and their community sponsors, primarily cities, over school districts, counties and other property tax recipients. He argued that the money would be better spent directly on schools and core city and county services, such as police and fire protection.

The state also has been footing the bill indirectly. Since voters approved a proposition requiring minimum funding for education in 1988, the state has had to make up the difference for some of the money reallocated from schools to redevelopment agencies.

There also have been examples of abuse and questions raised about how effective redevelopment agencies have been at combating blight. A few examples were noted in a recent report by the state controller.

Why are cities objecting?

By ending redevelopment agencies, the state has effectively seized control of billions of dollars of property taxes previously controlled by the cities that established redevelopment agencies.

In addition, many critics of the decision are pointing out flaws in how the Legislature has proposed dissolving the agencies. The California Redevelopment Association is concerned that the process will lead to litigation, bond defaults and a waste of public funds. Additional concerns of the California Redevelopment Association are on its website.

Upcoming timeline:

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Van Nuys, introduced a bill, SB 659, that would postpone some of the upcoming deadlines by several months, but Brown has indicated that he won't support any legislation for a delay. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said last week that the effort to extend the life of local redevelopment agencies was "not going to happen."

If the bill doesn’t pass, here’s an overview of the upcoming hurdles:

Tomorrow: Redevelopment agencies are officially dissolved. In January, local officials had to determine the successor agency – usually the city that created the redevelopment agency. If the city does not want to serve as the successor, it gets complicated. (Check out this example in Los Angeles if you’re curious.)

March 1: Each successor agency must finalize a schedule to pay off any existing debts and obligations. The county auditor-controller is in charge of setting aside a portion of the property taxes that previously went to redevelopment to pay off the redevelopment agencies' obligations.

April 15: Successor agencies must submit their payment schedules to the state Department of Finance and state controller for approval.

May 1: To supervise each redevelopment agency’s closure, seven-member oversight boards are formed. The boards will consist of two members appointed by the county board of supervisors, two members appointed by the mayor for the city that formed the redevelopment agency, one member appointed by the largest special district in the former redevelopment area, one member appointed by the county superintendent of education to represent local schools, and one member appointed by the community college chancellor. The board is supposed to be representative of the agencies that share property taxes, but counties and schools will have much more control than the city, Bill Fulton of the California Planning & Development Report points out. None of these members will receive additional compensation for their service.

How do I follow what's happening?

We’ll be highlighting work from media outlets around the state in our regular updates (see below).
For breaking news, check out the Twitter #redevelopment hashtag. We'll also post updates at @CaliforniaWatch and @KendallTTaggart.
The California Planning & Development Report blog has some great coverage.
Here’s a good overview of redevelopment the Legislative Analyst's Office published in February 2011.
The Contra Costa Times has a good Q & A as well.

What should we be covering? Let us know.

The latest:

Feb. 2. 2012: End of redevelopment agencies traps $4B in local government loans.

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

Feb. 1, 2012: The Governor announced the board members responsible for winding down redevelopment agencies that were not taken over by local officials. In January, cities and counties had to decide if they wanted to serve as the successor for the now defunct redevelopment agencies. While most decided to oversee the process, some local officials in Los Angeles, Ventura, Stanislaus, and Merced opted out. To check out the appointees, visit the Governor's website. For more on the handful of cities that decided not to serve as successors, check out the California Planning and Development Report.

Jan. 31, 2012: California Senate preserved redevelopment money for housing today.

The state Senate approved a bill, SB 654, to allow cities and counties to build affordable housing using $1.36 billion held for that purpose by agencies that are closing. Republicans refused to support passing it as an urgency measure, so it will not take effect until Jan. 1, 2013. It now heads to the Assembly. Read more at the Los Angeles Times.

Jan. 31, 2012: Department of Finance webinar on the end of redevelopment agencies begins at 11 am.
Tune in at http://www.dof.ca.gov/. Questions may be submitted via e-mail beginning at 10:30 to redevelopment@dof.ca.gov

Jan. 27, 2012: Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly rejected a request brought by 12 cities to stave off the dissolution of redevelopment agencies.

The California Supreme Court didn’t consider the legal arguments raised in the lawsuits led by the cities of Cerritos and Carlsbad when it issued its ruling in December. The cities had asked for a court order blocking enforcement of the measure pending the outcome of their cases.

The case is City of Cerritos v. California. Read more at the The Sacramento Bee and Bloomberg.

Jan. 27, 2012: In a letter [PDF] to Gov. Jerry Brown, the League of California Cities urged the governor to correct problems in the legislation outlining how redevelopment agencies should be dissolved, citing concerns about bond defaults, loss of taxpayer funds and violations of federal law.

Jan. 26, 2012: Three major bond-rating agencies are nervous about redevelopment bonds.

In the last two weeks, Moody's, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's all have expressed concern about the process of shutting down redevelopment agencies. The agencies are responsible for assessing the credit-worthiness of borrowers. Fitch and Standard & Poor's both cited the short timeframe for redevelopment agencies to dissolve as part of their concern.

SF official wants to restrict police role in terrorism probes

G.W. Schulz — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:05:04 +0000

G.W. Schulz

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 compliance.

But civil liberties groups say police in San Francisco quietly signed a 2007 memorandum with the FBI in which they agreed to follow less-restrictive federal guidelines on intelligence gathering.

Last week, the police department issued a statement saying that the agreement no longer applied and that Chief Greg Suhr, who was appointed by Mayor Ed Lee last year, had since issued an order declaring that all personnel participating in a terrorism task force still operate under the San Francisco department's chain of command and must comply with California law.

“Meaning no disrespect to the authors and supporters of the proposed ordinance, the chief believes that their concerns are already addressed,” the statement says.

The San Francisco Human Rights Commission heard testimony on the issue of police surveillance during a 2010 public meeting in which one civil rights attorney claimed that the FBI had attempted to entice his clients into becoming informants with the promise of citizenship and legal status.

The American Civil Liberties Union in December accused the FBI of using “community outreach” in California as a ruse to racially profile and gather intelligence on Muslims. Heavily redacted documents the group obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed agents had compiled personal information like Social Security numbers and searched state vehicle registration records for the names of people they’d come into contact with at community events.

“The FBI should be honest with community organizations about what information is being collected during meetings and purge any improperly collected information,” Michael German, an FBI agent-turned-ACLU senior policy counsel, said at the time.

While the advocacy group says it considered the bureau’s conduct illegal, FBI officials have argued that they’re simply trying to ease relations with the Muslim community and see to it that the civil rights of people who might be perceived as potential terrorists are protected.

Supervisor Kim is taking cues in part from rules recently instituted in Portland, Ore., long the only city nationally to eschew an intimate partnership with the FBI on matters related to terrorism. Local officials there revisited the decision after the FBI announced charges against a teenager named Mohamed Mohamud in 2010 for allegedly attempting to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Mohamud and several other terror suspects since Sept. 11 have claimed they were entrapped by FBI informants who coaxed them into attempted attacks and gave them bogus detonating devices that agents knew all along would cause no harm.

After months of wrangling, Portland eventually decided to rejoin the task force, but only after establishing a set of rules similar to what San Francisco is considering now, such as requiring that terrorism investigations have a "criminal nexus" before Portland officers proceed.

The public learned only after the alleged Christmas tree plot that the city’s mayor had not known the FBI investigation was occurring, nor reportedly did the local FBI special agent in charge know that a previous agreement called on him to brief the mayor about such probes.

Kim in San Francisco said she was motivated by complaints from Muslim and Arabic small-business owners in her district who claimed they were questioned by law enforcement without clear justification.

“We obviously can’t have an impact in terms of what the FBI does,” Kim said in an interview. “But we can certainly have oversight with the SFPD. … We would at least require that there be reasonable suspicion before they launch an investigation and start questioning and detaining members of our community.”

ACLU: Police use of digital surveillance 'shrouded in secrecy'

Coastal Calif. to see cooler temperatures through spring

Susanne Rust — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:05:03 +0000

Susanne Rust

cliffwass/istockphoto.com

It’s pretty well established that the earth is warming up. Researchers and government agencies have the numbers to show it, and they have plenty of graphs and charts to document the trend.

Now, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has just released an updated animation that allows viewers to understand those numbers more intuitively.

The animated video, which shows a map of the planet, documents global changes in temperature between 1880, when a wide enough network of weather stations was available to record temperatures on a global scale, and 2011.

And while the trend toward higher temperatures is apparent, there are parts of the globe that vary from year to year, with colder-than-normal or average temperatures.

The coast of California, for instance, seemed about average in 2010 and 2011.

According to the California Nevada Applications Program, a branch of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, a La Niña weather pattern has been keeping the Pacific Ocean, and therefore coastal California, cool for much of the last year.

"Studies suggest that the air in inland areas would warm at a faster rate than the air over the ocean," said Guido Franco, program director of Scripps' California Climate Change Center. "This would induce more coastal upwelling, bringing cold water to the surface of the ocean close to the coast. This would tend to mitigate some of the warming due to climate change very close to the coast in California."

Franco is also the program lead for environmental research with the California Energy Commission.

The application program anticipates lower temperatures from the La Niña event to last into spring.

But California's coast stands in stark contrast with much of the rest of the world, where temperatures climbed to the ninth-warmest year on record. Indeed, nine of the 10 highest records have occurred since 2000.

"We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting," James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in a press statement. "So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record."

The administration could not be reached for comment.

Hansen and others expect that an El Niño, a general warming trend in the tropical Pacific, likely will follow the current La Niña event in the next few years.

And if that happens, he said, we’ll likely see some more record-breakers.

"It's always dangerous to make predictions about El Niño, but it's safe to say we'll see one in the next three years," Hansen said. "It won't take a very strong El Niño to push temperatures above 2010."

Hansen and other scientists stress that while temperatures can vary regionally from year to year, the trend toward higher temperatures is everywhere.

Agency: Emissions must be curbed now to avoid severe warming

Californians support green future, but worry about price

Brown rejects rail cost estimate of $100B

David Siders — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:50:47 +0000

Anonymous

Steve Rhodes/Flickr

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."

The annual spending plan Brown proposed this month included $1 billion in cap-and-trade revenue for programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The budget document lacked detail, however, saying, "Further detail on specific program areas will be developed when there is more certainty of fees received from the Cap and Trade Program."

Brown’s office declined to elaborate Sunday on the cap-and-trade funding plan or on how Brown might redesign the rail project.

Brown spokesman Gil Duran said in an e-mail, “The new leadership at the High-Speed Rail Authority is working hard to make sure California gets the maximum value at each stage of the project.”

The rail authority plans to start construction in the Central Valley this fall. But public opinion has turned against the project since voters approved it in 2008, and the Legislature has become increasingly critical.

Brown suggested Sunday that he remains committed to starting construction in the Central Valley. The federal government, which is contributing billions of dollars to the project, is requiring construction to start in that area, controversial because it is far from California’s population centers.

“The first phase, most of the money is coming from the federal government,” Brown said. “If we don’t spend it, they take it back.”

Brown said it is “silly” for critics to call the Central Valley starting point a “track to nowhere.”

Last week, California's state auditor became the latest observer to criticize the project, saying its reliance on future federal funding is risky. The Legislative Analyst’s Office and the rail authority’s own peer review group previously criticized the plan.

The interview with Brown aired following his trip last week to Southern California, his second in two weeks as he begins campaigning for his ballot initiative to raise taxes.

"It isn't all, you know, going to football games and buying clothes and cars and gasoline and all the things people want to do in their private life," Brown said. "We also have a public investment, and that's part of the balance of a civilization."

Call David Siders, Bee Capitol Bureau, at 916-321-1215. Follow him on Twitter: @davidsiders. This story resulted from a partnership among California news organizations following the state's high-speed rail program, including The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Bee, California Watch, The Bakersfield Californian, The Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise, U-T San Diego, KQED, the Merced Sun-Star, The Tribune of San Luis Obispo and The Modesto Bee.

More coverage of the high-speed rail project