Yesterday I penned a column on the FlashReport, concerned about a proposal coming before the Irvine city council that would have raised most of the fees charged by the city for everything you can imagine. The staff report estimated the annual increase in fee revenues for approving these increases to be well north of a million bucks a year.

I am very pleased to report that tonight the new Republican majority in the city not only rejected the proposal to raise all of these fees (after the two Democrats on the Council, Beth Krom and Larry Agran, spoke in support of hiking them), but on a substitute motion from Councilmember Christina Shea and supported by her colleagues Mayor Steven Choi and Councilmember Jeff Lalloway, all of the fee increases were defeated, and in some cases fee reductions were made.

This is a sharp contrast to the tax and spend mentality that dominated the Irvine Council for a full decade. Congratulations to the Republican Majority in Irvine, and to everyone who played a role in bringing this reality to fruition.… Read More

“Jennifer Muir, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Employees’ Association, which represents more than 18,000 public employees in Orange County, said the California Public Policy Center’s study was a politically motivated attack on public employees and unions.Aside from promoting the center’s anti-public employee union agenda, Muir said, the reports are misleading and shift focus away from the discussions that matter most. Union leaders have long urged for people to consider the possibility that private-industry employees are being undercompensated and should receive retirement benefits and health coverage.” Orange County Register, April 19, 2013

The study Muir refers to, entitled “Irvine, California – City Employee Compensation Analysis,” was published on April 8th, 2013, by the California Public Policy Center. To call this study“a politically motivated attack on public employees and unions,”as Muir alleges, is itself a distraction. It’s easy, and necessary, to impugn the motives behind information when the… Read More

Last weekend the California College Republicans held their annual convention in Berkeley. With nearly 250 students representing 27 chapters turnout was strong. Nithin Mathew was unanimously elected State Chairman, and the remainder of his slate was elected as well. Nithin previously served as the executive director of the CRs.

Accompanied by Republican National Committeeman Shawn Steel, the College Republicans led a successful march across the UC Berkeley campus – rallying students against the ever-increasing “fees” in the UC and CSU systems. Speakers at the convention included California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte, Vice Chairwoman Harmeet Dhillon, UC Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo, former Lt. Governor and Gubernatorial candidate Abel Maldonado, and other GOP leaders.

College campuses – particularly the University of California campuses – have not been particularly friendly to Republican candidates over the past few elections. It’s important that each university and college have a strong GOP presence to help organize, help spread the Republican message, and help point out bias.

… Read More

Last week I commissioned a poll to measure voter attitudes regarding the proposed Arena in downtown Sacramento- the third time since 2006 that we have polled on this issue.

The Mayor has called this Arena deal the most important issue in the history of the city; the Sacramento Bee has devoted more column inches to it than any other issue this year; it has received more local TV news coverage than the Benghazi attacks, Gosnell murder trial, Medicare cuts, State Parks budget scandal, and the looming city, county and schools pension crises – combined.

It’s that important – yet, no one thought to ask voters how they feel?

Polling is a tool commonly used by campaigns, government, media, business and public policy groups to measure public opinion. But oddly, there has been little, if any, polling done on this issue – at least none that has been publicly released. Until now.

Funny thing is – some folks seem positively offended that we asked voters about how they feel.

The survey was unbiased, simple and straight forward… Read More

Republicans have not been very good this year developing a Legislative Strategy. Legislation coming out of the State Senate elections committee is constitutionally toxic, with the Senate Republican Caucus in some cases just giving up the store. Republicans need a strategy to deal with the mountain of bad election-related bills being imposed by the Democrat super-majority. And one great idea that would put Republicans in front of Democrats with tech-savvy voters is allowing the qualification of statewide initiative, referendum and recall measures by online secure digital signature.

Why not? California has already enacted an online voter registration (“OVR”) system. According to one account, the OVR system greatly boosted registration in the 2012 general election, including adding 500,000 new Democrats to the voter rolls, which must have played a role in the huge success of Democrats in the last election. Democrats are inclined to expand and improve OVR, as it appears to be a success. So why not expand the same idea to include the manner in which initiative, referendum and recall petitions are signed and collected? A secure, online digital system… Read More

I need your help — and it will only take like three seconds of your time. Read on…

My close friend and Senior Editor of FlashReport.org, John Hrabe, along with another good friend, Jen Vitela, were named as finalists in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Free Enterprise Road Trip.

“What the hell does that mean,” you ask?

I wondered the same thing. It turns out the US Chamber is holding a competition and the winning duo will take the Chamber’s “Summer Road Trip” traveling to 15 cities and interviewing America’s small business about their struggles.

There’s nobody better than John and Jen to help tell the story of small business in America – how the hostile tax and regulatory environment is affecting growth and jobs. How hard working small business owners are struggling from excessive government regulations. Why we need pro-growth, free-market solutions. On their journey they will document their adventures on freeenterprise.com to bring attention to the struggles everyday Americans must overcome to be successful.

Both John and Jen have a long… Read More

Last night, two unelected regional government bodies in the Bay Area, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), held a “public hearing” at the Marriott in Walnut Creek. The announced purpose of themeeting wasto seek public input on its recently released draft Plan Bay Area, a 166-page document that outlines MTC’s and ABAG’s plans to fundamentally alter our local communities and way of life, all in the name of protecting the environment and reducing the supposed threat of global climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The backdrop against which Plan Bay Area was craftedis this: in 2006, the Democrat-controlled legislature passed, and Governor Schwarzenegger signed, AB 32, which requires California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Subsequently, in 2008, the argument was made by Democrats in thelegislature thatdevelopmentpatterns needed to change to encourageless private automobile use if the goals of AB 32 were to be met, which led them to… Read More

For those readers who aren’t aware, one of the (very) few solid Republican wins in California last November was the election of a GOP majority on the City Council in Irvine in Orange County. For the previous dozen years the city had been under the iron-clad rule of liberal-turned-opportunist Larry Agran, who ruled over a three-person Democrat majority. While I could write volumes about Agran and his failed leadership (sole-source massive PR contracts to his political consultants, demo-gauging on ideological issues unrelated to running a large Orange County city, and of course giving favorable treatment to city public employee unions (who were also very helpful, politically, to him).

The contrast in the city now, with the election of the “adult supervision” team of Mayor Steven Choi, and Councilwoman Christina Shea to join incumbent Councilman Jeff Lalloway, couldn’t be more stark. The new majority has already stopped the cronyism, dropping the egregious sole-source contracts to Agran’s political allies, and are now applying common-sense business principles to this important city. The change has been much-needed, and is… Read More