Month: June 2013

The investigative reporting that exposed the government impropriety on the part of the officials of the City of Bell would not be possible if legislation passed as part of the state budget is signed into law. Because these laws place a mandated cost on to local entities, legislators and the governor, are trying to prevent local agencies from demanding reimbursement from the state for their compliance by making all of its provisions voluntary.

The Democratic Party of Orange County is helping to organize a new Irvine Democratic Club to organize and get an early start on building a […]

While Republicans frequently scream about Obamacare, until now they’ve been silent on the Patriot Act which was sweeping legislation passed by both parties in the […]

UPDATED – While the priorities and antics of the current majority on the Anaheim City Council have been both entertaining and disturbing, the latest bit of budget news has us asking WTF? Someone on the Council directed staff to resurrect a $6.4 million budget allocation for the renovation of the Anaheim Tennis Center and Wagner House, a city-owned property that is not free to the public.

UPDATE 6/17/2013: On Monday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to release one or more opinions from its current term with the remaining opinions issued by the end of the month. The pending opinions include rulings on both Proposition 8 on March 26th (Hollingsworth v. Perry), and the Defense of Marriage Act (U.S. v. Windsor) on March 27th, 2013.

Many of us are still very surprised by Irvine Republican Council member Christina Shea’s decision to break with the Republican majority to cast the deciding […]

The battle between House Oversight Committee Reps. Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings continues. After weeks of hearings on the IRS scandal, the only things left unseen are the transcripts from private interviews Issa and a bipartisan group of committee members conducted with workers from the Cincinnati IRS. Issa doesn’t want the public to see the transcripts.

We are baffled at the decision Tuesday night of the Anaheim City Council to reject district level elections for council members as proposed by the citizen’s advisory committee. The 4-1 vote was led by Kris Murray, who had initially proposed the committee process last year as a solution in response to a voting rights lawsuit challenging the city’s current at-large council elections process.

With pressure from the community and revenue projections that seem to be too conservative for what is actually anticipated, the Irvine City Council voted 3-1 […]