Voters in the city of Laguna Beach go to the polls today to vote on whether to pass a new half-cent sales tax to help pay for costs related to the landslides that hit the city about six months ago.

Here is the Special Election analysis:

First of all keep in mind that this is the fourth, yes 4th Special Election Laguna Beach voters have seen in as many months (Special Congressional Primary, Special Statewide election, Special Congressional General and now this). Also on the horizon is/are the Special(s) for the 35th state senate seat.

A majority of the city council is supporting the measure that smartly would sunset in six years.

I reached out to both Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider and Laguna Beach Republican volunteer/leader Frank Ricchiazzi for their insights.

Ricchiazzi expressed several concerns:

1) The city needs to fund repairs that gone incomplete could expose the city to lawsuits.

2) The city… Read More

It’s just been announced – "Tookie" Williams, who brutally murdered several people, and was sentenced to die….will be executed tomorrow morning at 12:01 a.m. Governor Schwarzenegger has denied a request to grant clemency.

While this may have been a deeply-thought out moral decision for the Governor, it also happens to be a decision that will sit well with the vast majority of California voters. Especially with Republicans.

Here is the AP story:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams, the former gang leader whose case stirred debate over capital punishment and the possibility of redemption… Read More

You are reading the subject line of this post and saying "What?!". But it is true, for one night, the City of Fresno and San Joaquin Valley, best known as the raisin capital of the world, gateway to Yosemite, poverty capital of California and home of a pretty good football team, was for three glorious hours the cultural epicenter of the world. Why you ask? Last night over 20,000 sat in awe as the incomparable tenor Andrea Bocelli, in his only West Coast (not LA, not San Fran, not San Diego, not Seattle, not Portland, not Las Vegas, not Beverly Hills) stop on an eight city North American tour, took center stage at the upscale Save Mart Center in a stunning "Royal Christmas" performance that left every patron incredibly satisfied and wanting much more than Bocelli’s two generous encores could ever provide.

With the Royal Philharmonic Concert… Read More

In Orange County’s 35 State Senate District, there is a Special Election taking place to see who will succeed newly-elected Congressman John Campbell. The race is shaping to be a donnybrook between moderate GOP Assemblyman Tom Harman (moderate is probably generous) and Dana Point City Councilwoman Diane Harkey, who is more conservative in her views.

There will be a lot of coverage of this race, given that one of the FR blog team members, Duane Dichiara, is a lead consultant for Harman’s campaign, and of course there are three OC bloggers – Matt Cunningham, Adam Probolsky, and yours truly.Congressman.

In BREAKING NEWS — newly minted Congressman John Campbell has endorsed Diane Harkey… Here is the release…

Congressman John Campbell Endorses Diane Harkey

… Read More

SHADY BIDDING PROCESS TARNISHES CAPITOL SECURITY PROJECT They are getting ready to install a $6.8 million security fence around the state capitol. Last December, non-union contractors found out that if you aren’t a union-shoppe, you cannot even bid on the work. Is this because of a state policy? No. Was there a law passed? No. Was there a directive signed by the Governor? No. Today’s FlashReport features a an eye-opening exclusive column from Kevin Dayton of the Pacific Research Institute, who explores more about how this major state works project is being guided by legislators — promoting a narrow, ideological agenda. * FR Analysis on the Gov’s pick… Read More

Before the blogging on Tookie Williams revs up, and after several days of the Susan Kennedy firestorm, it’s only fair to give Governor Schwarzenegger credit for three smart personnel decisions he’s made over the last couple of days. Carol Corrigan is not a movement conservative, but she is a strong law-and-order voice and an advocate of judicial restraint. Similarly, Fred Aguiar and Dan Dunmoyer are not ideologues, but both bring legitimate conservative credentials on economic, tax, and public safety issues into the governor’s office.

So in the last ten days, Schwarzenegger has replaced a moderate Republican with a moderate Democrat as chief of staff. He’s replaced a movement conservative with a centrist on the state Supreme Court. And he’s replaced a hard-line environmentalist with two strong pro-business voices on his senior staff. All of which sounds precisely like the Arnold Schwarzenegger who ran for governor two years ago.

My friend Joe Justin lent this discussion just the right amount of perspective in his post yesterday. Concentrating on how Arnold governs in the year ahead, and how this new team impacts his… Read More

First and foremost – thank you for being a part of the FlashReport website. On January 1, it will be three months since we took the site online, and moved away from the e-mail newsletter format. The response from readers, old and new, has been tremendous.

SIGN UP FOR FREE UPDATES I wanted to first encourage you, if you haven’t done so already, to sign up for the free FlashReport updates (sign up to the left). What do you get with this feature? Each morning, when the site is updated, I send out an e-mail. So no more constantly checking, wondering when lazy-bones it done culling through 45+ websites each morning – I’ll tell you! The e-mail also contains the headlines of every story on the main page, for a quick look if you don’t have time to click-through right away. Finally, when there are interesting stories on the blog, or a major piece of breaking news in California politics, I will send out an ‘alert’ to subscribers. Many thousands are signed up already – are you?… Read More

Over the years, one consistent theme of frustration that I have heard out of Republican legislators in Sacramento has been that it is virtually impossible for a good conservative to pass meaningful legislation through the Democrat controlled legislature. If you have a substantive idea for a bill, it either gets sandbagged because the liberals up there felt the bill wasn’t in line with their agenda, or, even if the majority likes the idea in your proposed bill, they have the same idea introduced by a Democrat member, and then you are forced to vote for someone else’s bill that implements your idea!

Every once in a while (make that a long while) a piece of meaningful legislation makes it through this gauntlet. I don’t know if the reason that the ‘Safely Surrendered Baby’ law was succesfully authored and pass by then Republican State Senator Jim Brulte (pictured) because he was the Republican… Read More