Poizner cancelled an anti-Phil ad for the CRA news.… Read More

From today’s Voice of San Diego…

Four San Diegans told the City Clerk on Wednesday that they intend to gather the signatures required to place four overlapping measures on the November ballot, similar to the workforce-reform initiatives being championed by Mayor Jerry Sanders.

The group wants voters to decide whether:

— Voters should be required to approve any increase to city workers’ pension benefits.

— City employees should evenly split the cost of their pension benefits with the city.

— The city can allow private businesses to compete over municipal work with city employees.

The four measures overlap each other in language in some cases and one provides the option of excluding public safety workers from a voters-decide-future-benefits proposition.

Sanders is currently asking the City Council to place two measures on the November ballot, one requiring the voters to approve city employee pension enhancements before they’re enacted and the other allowing the competitive bidding of city services. A council committee forwarded the two initiatives to the full council, which will… Read More

The Highland City Council recently enacteda policythat, while it doesn’t seem to be too much of aconcern to the City it’s aimed at (San Francisco), is starting to get some attention. In response to San Francisco voters’ approval in November of anon-binding measureopposing the military seeking new recruits from local high schools, Highland is now prohibiting its employees and public officials from spending taxpayer dollars attending conferences, seminars or forums in San Francisco.

Certainly a little national attention tothis is in order. Consider that, according to a recent L.A. Times article, there’s a growing debate developing about whether the military should be afforded the same recruiting access to schools as other employers, as provided for in the federal ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act.

As Mike Der Manouel points out in his most recent… Read More

In the event of a terrorist attack anywhere in America, immediately go to San Francisco. It is the safest place in the world right now. Enemies of America have more friends in "the City" than anywhere on Earth. San Francisco will never be attacked by terrorists. It’s a tough call. Radical Islamofascists probably hate the normal San Francisco lifestyle. Sex clubs, bathhouses and all the other stuff SF is known for probably doesn’t go over too well with Osama Bin Laden. But, San Franciscans do hate the US military, so it all evens out.

I almost fell over when I saw this exchange on Hannity and Colmes last night between hosts Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes and San Francisco County Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval. Generally, nothing the left says can surprise me. But this one takes the cake:

HANNITY: I rarely agree with Dianne Feinstein. And she even says this is not the San Francisco that I know. This is — and I guess this is the mentality. Do you think America should unilaterally disarm? Should we give up our weaponry and our war — our tools of war?

SANDOVAL: You know,… Read More

That’s right Fabian thinks Arnold is asking for too much bonding authority. The rest of his comments are absurd of course. More bonds for affordable housing and the like. Jim Sanders of the Bee has it all right here.… Read More

The University of California‘s PR problem over compensation packages given to high-ranking employees doesn’t seem to be going away. And it shouldn’t. UC officials continue to give weak answers about why some employees have received such bloated compensation packages and why the public hasn’t been fully informed about the deals.

Senator Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) held a hearing last week on the issue and will hold another one on Feb. 22. In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, the legislator says that UC President Robert Dynes has yet not provided clear answers to questions about UC employee compensation packages.… Read More

Local city governments throughout San Diego’s alleged Republican North County are on the march… for higher taxes. Last week I wrote about Vista Mayor Morris Vance (registered Republican) and his push to raise sales taxes in his city to pay for a new "community center" which would house (of course) new City Council offices. From the reaction to that post, I’m gathering that there might be some community opposition to former city manager Vance’s scheme. Then two nights ago what did I hear – the Solana Beach City Council talking about an increase to the TOT tax for beach sand preservation and business advertising (in the real world we call that paying off the business community). Something tells me though local hotel owners and their dependant businesses might not like having the highest TOT in San Diego County. These proposals demonstrate what the North County Times has been recently editorializing about: Republican local government does not mean fiscally conservative local government.… Read More

There are a number of ‘must read’ stories today — but start with the exclusive column from State Senator George Runner and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner. This dynamic husband-wife legislative duo have been the main driving force behind the qualification of the Jessica’s Law ballot measure which, if passed, would enact in the Golden State some of the toughest anti-sexual-predator laws in the nation. They have collected enough signatures, they believe, to qualify the measure for the ballot, and will start turning them in this week, says the consultant handling the measure, Dave Gilliard.

I will try to post more to the FR blog later today, but I have to run out the door very early this morning. When you review the main page, note the link to the SF Chronicle political news page – this is there because the Chron doesn’t update their page until 6am, and I am posting this close to 5am. You can check yourself if they have any stories on California politics, or… Read More