Droughts are naturally occurring; water shortages are government-created and political. A proposed California ballot measure titled “Water Priorities for All,” would shift bond money earmarked for California’s bullet train and use it instead to build new dams and enlarge existing dams.

The initiative would also amend the State Constitution to include language prioritizing residential and agricultural water use over environmental and recreational claims on river water while leaving water rights untouched.

The ballot measure is under attack by a coalition of seemingly environmental opponents. The Committee to Stop the Special Interest Water Grab, led by David Guy, president of the Northern California Water Association, Tim Johnson, president of the California Rice Commission and a “contract administrator” at California Rice Industry Association, and political operative Steve Maviglio of Forza Communications, a Democratic strategist and big supporter of High Speed Rail and the Twin Tunnels, have launched an all-out assault campaign against the California Water Priorities Initiative.

All communications against “Water Priorities for All” have come… Read More

In my last article, Why Can’t California Farmers Get the Water They Need?, exposed were Gov. Brown’s appointees at the State Water Resources Control Board who ordered the release of massive amounts of water from the New Melones Reservoir and Lake Tulloch, to save a dozen fish, and Gov. Brown who has systematically booted a number of qualified people off of the California Water Commission, the body that decides how to spend $2.7 billion in Prop. 1 Water Bond water storage money.

… Read More

Part ll ofAg Labor Board Orders Employees’ Ballots Destroyed To Silences Farm Workers. Part l is HERE

Friday April 15, 2016 the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board voted to set aside the November 5, 2013 decertification election petitioned by the farm employees at Gerawan Farming, and allow the ALRB to destroy the Gerawan employees’ ballots.

ALRB Administrative Law Judge Mark R. Soble, ordered… Read More

On Friday April 15, 2016 the three-member California Agricultural Labor Relations Board voted to set aside the November 5, 2013 decertification election of the United Farm Workersat Gerawan Farming, and destroy the Gerawan employees’ ballots.

In other words, the ALRB is saying, “We will protect employee’s rights by destroying their ballots?”

Acting as an arm of the union, the ALRB did this to not to protect the farm workers – as is the ARLB mission – but to protect the flailing United Farm Workers labor union. Against every bit of evidence to the contrary, in doing so, the ALRB has declared by default that the employer has somehow violated the law. But in reality, the ALRB has violated the law, as I’ve chronicled in hundreds of stories, for nearly four years now.

This decision punishes the Gerawan workers, and demonstrates just how… Read More

Part ll – California’s Political Water Wars Heating Up. Part l is HERE.

Despite some nice rainfall this year, the more than two dozenState Water Contractorsthroughout the state have been told to expect 45 percent water allocations.

A recent Daily… Read More

Despite all the evidence that increasing the minimum wage does little or nothing to reduce poverty, California Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democrats in the State Legislature just passed another minimum wage increase. Not one Republican in the Assembly or Senate voted for the bill, and all Democrats, save two, voted for the minimum wage increase.

The minimum wage has always been an arbitrary figure. If the arbitrary minimum wage is inflated, this also inflates prices, leaving low-wage workers spending more on everything.

This political decision by Brown will likely come back to haunt California, much as the 1999 political pension deal signed into law by Gov. Gray Davis… Read More

The Sacramento Bee just published an article featuring go-to Democrat campaign consultant, longtime lobbyist, and Godfather of the United Farm Workers, Richie Ross.

The Bee probably did not to intend to, but the article cements Ross’s intertwining and conflicting roles, like a reptilian shapeshifter, synonymous with the UFW and California Agricultural Labor Relations Board member Genevieve Shiroma, as well as his consulting business and allegiances to elected state… Read More

Water wars are historic undertakings in California. Countless other publications have written recently about the proposed ballot measure that would redirect High Speed Rail bond money for water-related projects and prioritize the use of water, But what makes this story interesting is the coalition of opponents, their motivations and techniques being employed.

The Committee to Stop the Special Interest Water Grab, led by David Guy, president of the Northern California Water Association,… Read More