The Recession Takes Its Toll — Even on Fundraising Events

SPEAKER’S CUP 2011

14TH ANNUAL SPEAKER’S CUP

Presented by AT&T

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April 15 & 16, 2011

Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill & The Links at Spanish Bay

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2011 SPEAKER’S CUP PACKAGES THE ULTIMATE — $60,000

Golf for four for Two Days

Four hotel rooms for Friday and Saturday

Dinner for eight on Friday night and Saturday night

One spa treatment per day for non-golfers or golfer’s guest

Commemorative Gifts

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THE PLATINUM — $45,000

Golf for two Friday

Golf for two Saturday

Two hotel rooms for Friday and Saturday

Dinner for four on Friday night and Saturday night

One spa treatment per day for non-golfers or golfer’s guest

Commemorative Gifts

*****

GOLD — $35,000

Golf for four Saturday

Four hotel rooms for Saturday

Dinner for eight on Saturday night

One spa treatment per day for non-golfers or golfer’s guest

Commemorative Gifts

*****

BRONZE — $20,000

Golf for one Saturday

One hotel room for Saturday night

Dinner for two on Saturday night

Commemorative Gifts

*****

SPA PACKAGE — $25,000

One hotel room Friday night and Saturday night

Four spa treatments, two per day

Dinner for two on Friday and Saturday night

Commemorative Gifts

Due to the limited number of spa treatments available through Pebble Beach and the increasing scheduling problems including no shows because of conflicts with tee times, we’re only offering spa treatments to non-golfers or golfer’s guests.    Read more »

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Two Wine Country Locations and a Saint From Ancient Rome

Mount St. Helena in Sonoma County was named some 15 years before the city in Napa received the same name in 1855.

The town, apparently, got its name from the local Sons of Temperance who called themselves the “St. Helena Chapter” after the mountain at the head of the valley.

According to Saints of California: A Guide to Places and Their Patrons, the mountain was likely so named by the Russian settlers at Fort Ross to commemorate the visit of the ship, St.    Read more »

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Some Reasons for California’s Continuing Revenue Shortfalls

California’s now $26.6 billion budget shortfall is the result of the state spending one-time money on ongoing commitments is a statement commonly heard as lawmakers debate spending plans.

Like so many clichés, it happens to be right.

While not the sole cause of the state’s current fiscal woes – the recession and the 2 million unemployed Californians left in its wake has played a major role – actions taken 10 years ago contributed to the chronic imbalance between spending and revenues.    Read more »

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No, Not That Murrieta — the Crime Fighting Murrieta

The residents of Murrieta in Riverside County, hometown of former GOP Senate Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, have been good sports for the last 128 or so years.

No, they patiently reply, the town was not named for Joaquin Murrieta, the Gold Rush era bandit, but for local pioneer Juan Murrieta, a sheep rancher and avocado grower.    Read more »

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Governor Cancels Proposed Sale of 11 State Office Buildings

 

SACRAMENTO – In a move that will save taxpayers $6 billion dollars over the next 35 years, Governor Jerry Brown today (February 9) called off the previous administration’s “short-sighted” proposal to  sell and leaseback 11 state properties.

“The sale and leaseback proposal was short-sighted and would have cost taxpayers billions of dollars in the long-run,” said Brown, “Selling and leasing back the state’s buildings for one-time gains is not prudent.”    Read more »

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Love Stinks — At Least It Does For Skunks This Time of Year

(Editor’s Note: Recently, a subscriber mentioned that he had seen a surprisingly large number of dead skunks littering the highways from Sacramento to Santa Rosa. The chief correspondent of California’s Capitol said, he too had seen numerous largely two-dimensional skunks along Highway 152, Highway 156 Highway 101 and Highway 1 on a late January trip to Monterey as well as along Fair Oaks Blvd.    Read more »

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Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe…

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The Origin of the Name of One of California’s Oldest Cities

Founded in 1850, Antioch is one of California’s oldest cities. At the time though it was known as Smith‘s Landing after two of its first residents, Rev. Joseph H. Smith and his brother, W. W. Smith.

They initially homesteaded what was called New York Landing, roughly today’s Pittsburg, on 10 riverfront acres apiece given to them by the first American settler in the area, a Dr.    Read more »

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It May Cost More to Collect The Cell Phones Than Keep Them

(Editor’s Note: Refreshing to see in the Budget Letter that “ongoing device refresh” is still permissable. In the alliterative Reduction Instructions, is “sum” kind of like “add up?” And in the Exemption Request “Is shared resource pooling what regular folk think of as “sharing?”)

-30-    Read more »

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After 14 Years, a Republican Is Back on the Senate Rostrum

The Democratic majority California State Senate has made history, of a sort.

When Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat, agreed to GOP Sen. Jean Fuller’s request to be one of the Senate’s presiding officers she became the first Republican to be allowed to do so in 14 years.    Read more »

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