Women Still Under-Represented in California Boardrooms

Women comprise just 10.9 percent of the directors and executive officers of the 400 largest companies in the state, up slightly from 10.4 percent last year, according to a fourth annual study of California women business leaders by the University of California at Davis Graduate School of Management.

 “There is only one woman for every nine men in the executive suites and boardrooms of these high-profile companies,” Nicole Woolsey Biggart, the graduate school’s dean writes in the study’s preface.    Read more »

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Some Local Election Results

California localities approved seven of nine general obligation bonds totaling $2.4 billion, according to a preliminary count by the California Taxpayer Association.

Among the successful bonds — $500 million to improve parks in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. 

San Francisco approved an $887.4 million bond to retrofit San Francisco General hospital.    Read more »

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Ouch

Governor Schwarzenegger has now told California how bad its economy is and, as a consequence, how ugly the state budget is going to be.

In the current budget year, which ends June 30, 2009, revenues are $11.2 billion short of spending commitments. For the following fiscal year beginning July 1, 2009, revenues are expected to be $13 billion short.    Read more »

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Welcome to the White House

On April 12th, 1945, Vice President Harry Truman was told to come to the White House. He was ushered into Eleanor Roosevelt’s sitting room and informed that President Roosevelt had died making Truman the 33rd president of the United States.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Truman asked Eleanor Roosevelt.    Read more »

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Obama with 305 Electoral Votes

So predicts former Assembly Speaker, mayor of San Francisco and master politician, Willie Brown. The Democratic presidential nominee takes Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and maybe even Arizona, Brown believes. Potentially North Carolina but not Florida.

Obama receives around 50 more electoral votes than Massachusetts Senator John Kerry did in 2004, Brown says.    Read more »

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Budget Badness Postscript — The Face of California’s Economy

To put a more human face on the October 27 posting on the state budget:

The landlord of California’s Capitol, is an education lobbying firm. It is in the process of hiring a new receptionist. An ad was placed on Craigslist. 

They stopped counting after 298 applicants. Of the 298, 200 were logged in just 24 hours.     Read more »

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A Quick Look at How Truly Awful the Budget Is Going To Be

Recently, representatives of the Schwarzenegger administration told Wall Street investors that, absent corrective action, California’s budget would have a $3 billion gap between revenues and spending commitments by June 30, 2009. 

That estimate was ridiculously low. The governor acknowledged as much after a meeting with legislative leaders on October 27. Senate President Pro Tempore Don Perata, D-Alameda, said afterward this year’s gap is closer to $10 billion.     Read more »

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Something Old That’s New in Capitol Park

There’s something old that’s new in Capitol Park.

Walk out the rear doors of California’s Capitol and head toward the pathway that runs straight through the park to 15th Street. On the left, just before the trout pond, is a sign — a replica of the sorts of signs that stood on the corners of Sacramento streets in around 1910.    Read more »

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Predictable Proposition 2 Campaign

It was inevitable. 

A doleful, cute-as-a-button piglet stares out from the cover of the direct mail piece paid for by the Humane Society in favor of Proposition 2, the initiative the Humane Society placed on November’s ballot to ban what it considers inhuman treatment of calves, pigs and chickens. 

Above the piglet voters are exhorted to remember “You Are Their Only Voice.”    Read more »

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Septic Snafu

California’s Water Resources Control Board is trying to adopt regulations aimed at cleaning up the state’s 1.2 million septic tanks.  

It has been trying to adopt the regulations since the fall of 2000. 

Even after eight years, realtors, rural homeowners and local officials continue to complain that the regulations are costly and too cookie-cutter to appreciate local or regional differences.      Read more »

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