"Cuts are coming," the California Association of School Business Officials said in a written statement to members this week. "How big is the question that begs an answer."

Let's see here, tax hikes or massive spending cuts..... seems to me that lawmakers already spent FOUR MONTHS arguing over which path to pursue and ultimately reached a compromise of doing absolutely nothing. Is there any chance that the legislature is going to get together now and agree on either option?

And with no agreement, does that mean that the governor is going to make unilateral decisions about which programs to fund and which not to, if the state simply can't borrow its way out of the problem?

Based on calls received by congress members it appears the San Gabriel Valley is also strongly against the bailout, and Russ Warner, the Democratic opponent to David Dreier, appears to be looking to attack Dreier for his vote in favor of the package. From the campaign:

David Dreier voted for President Bush's plan to spend $700 billion taxpayer dollars to shore up several Wall Street banks. This is a new position for Dreier, and a significant departure from his claims of fiscal conservatism and statements still published on his campaign website: "I believe we need to empower families to make sound economic choices and avoid taxpayer funded bailouts." http://www.daviddreier.org/economic, 9/29/1008

But Dreier voted to bail out Wall Street without any real taxpayer protections and without addressing our economic problems in any meaningful way - to the tune of $700 billion.

"It's one thing to support a government bailout," said Russ Warner, a small businessman and Dreier's Democratic opponent. "But it's something else entirely to tell people you oppose a bailout and then turn around and give George Bush what he's asking for. But I guess we shouldn't be surprised - David Dreier has a long history of saying one thing and doing another, and he's voted with President Bush over 92% of the time."

Notice, though, that the focus of Warner's criticism is not the bailout package itself but the idea that Dreier switched his view on the package. That may not be a strong enough attack- I think there is something to the idea that you reject long-held believes and change your view if you believe it is the best way to solve a problem.

Warner might do better to attack the bailout directly as ineffective- after all, most economists have taken that view point. The problem though, is that some of us at the paper (the editorial board and myself) spoke with Warner the week before the bailout vote, and he said he was in favor of it. He was somewhat muddled in his support though: I asked him first if Congress should put in new safeguards and regulations for Wall Street before passing a bailout and he at first said no, the legislation was too pressing to hold up.

But moments later he began talking about the importance of regulation, and how the package needed to be altered before a vote.

Next up? The woman who two weeks ago attacked her boyfriend with "the club" after suspecting he was having an affair.

The third: I can't find this in our archives any more, but since I wrote the story I have the details. Last Christmas Eve a woman broke into a home near Pasadena City College to get a snack out of the refrigerator. One of the residents caught her and called the police, who arrested her. She admitted to having sneaked into the house for snacking purposes several times in the last month. According to the Pasadena lieutenant I talked to, her food stealing had caused something of a rift between roommates, who were all suspicious of each other for eating all the food.

Anybody remember any more?

As mentioned in the article I wrote for the paper today, there is an earthquake drill coming up in Southern California on November 13. The sponsors, the U.S. Geological Survey, want YOU to participate.

And how would you participate? By practicing the old "duck and cover":

Why is important to do a Drop, Cover, Hold On drill? Just as with anything, to act quickly you must practice, practice, practice. In a big earthquake, there may be very little time to protect yourself before strong shaking knocks you down or drops something on you. Most earthquakes have a sharp jolt a few seconds before the strong shaking, and we need to Drop, Cover, Hold On immediately when we feel the jolt. By practicing we will act quickly, rather than waiting to see if the earthquake will be large. If it is, it may be too late to protect yourself.

It probably is actually a good idea to practice this, but considering the "earthquake" is scheduled to took place at 10 a.m., most people will be at work. It might seem a little strange for people to suddenly duck under their desks exactly at 10.

I would think a better use of your time, preparation wise, would be to go buy a few days worth of bottled water, a fire extinguisher, and some canned food and squirrel it away in the basement.

But here is where you sign up, just in case you are up to try it.

Two groups representing older Californians have given Senator Jack Scott (D-Pasadena) high marks for his legislative work this year. Both the Congress of California Seniors and the California Alliance for Retired Americans gave the Senator their highest rating - 100% -- on the 2008 Legislative Report Card. Only ten of the 40 Senators received a perfect score.

Sen. Scott voted in favor of bills covering a wide range of issues important to seniors including his SB 1216 Long-term Care Prompt Payment Act which would impose a penalty on all long-term care claims that are more than 30 days late. Senator Scott also authored SB 1164 which bolsters the ability of auditors at the Department of Justice to investigate elder financial abuse, Medi-Cal fraud and financial crimes.

In a related post, another Realtor/blogger, Sam Pritchard (apparently we have a few of those here in Pasadena) confirms Willis' observations about the slight uptick in Pasadena real estate in September, and suggests the market in Pasadena may have hit its bottom and will begin to rise.

Willis had suggested a different theory, the idea that local real estate agents raised the price on their unsold homes just to keep them under a listing category that gives priority to homes that have recently changed in price. Other real estate agents that commented on that post suggested that was unlikely.

Now, Willis is looking at some new data for this month, and believes that whatever caused the slight uptick last month is over, and the market is on its way back down:

If ask to bottom line the current situation in our real estate market, I believe it can be assessed with one word. UNCERTAINTY. Uncertainty is usually not a friend of someone looking to make a major investment. Very few of us have the nerve to take a contrarian point of view and buck the herd mentality. It was also brought to my attention that we just might be experiencing a normal October slowdown. To that I would have to reply, "Slowdown from what?" You have to experience an increase to have a slowdown.

Willis also suggests that the media has potential home buyers spooked about looking into getting a loan:

I also spoke to a lender with a major company in the home mortgage business. It was confirmed to me that money was available to lend, but no applications had been received in the last several days. Apparently, all of the recent news reports indicating a tightening credit policy have been felt in the mortgage industry. If you can meet the increasing standards to secure a home loan, money is available.

Nationally, from what I have been reading, it sounds like a lot more people are going to default on their mortgages before this mess is over.... assuming the local trend is like the national trend, I'd have to imagine that you will see more homes come on the market, and more price drops.

But I'm not the expert, and we apparently have a very active online Realtor community, so hopefully we see some more debate in the comment section. Maybe someone could also explain to me why the word "Realtor" is required to be capitalized.

Crimes that can be reported online are: harassing phone calls, minor hit and run car collisions, lost property, theft if the value is under $5,000, vandalism, vehicle burglary, and vehicle tampering.

I'm all for anything that reduces the possibility you might get put on hold or have to talk to multiple people before you find the right one.

Or have to navigate a automated phone message, like the classic Simpsons episode where Bart breaks his leg ("you have selected regicide...do you know the name of the king or queen who is being murdered?"), Old school Simpsons fans will know what I am talking about....anyone else, disregard.

With new September figures in that show personal income tax $270 million below budget estimates, sales tax $128 million below, and corporate tax $416 million below, Chiang is now saying that the budget has no chance of coming through balanced, even with accounting tricks that steal revenue from next year's budget.

With the governor looking for a federal bailout, and the treasurer saying the credit markets are too tight to get the state through the next few months, Chiang is suggesting the state get back to work. From his press release:

The first quarter of the fiscal year has just ended, and we already are short $1.1 billion. Revenues are deteriorating faster than expected, and September's cash flows send strong signals that the recently-enacted budget is more out of balance than we feared.

The bill will allow a voter approval of a program to allow public funding for the Secretary of State office in 2014 and 2018. The San Jose Mercury News describes how it works:

Public financing will be voluntary and modeled after financing systems in Arizona and Maine, where it has worked well to encourage more candidates to run for office and to reduce the role of big-monied interests.

Secretary of state candidates who gather $5 contributions from 7,500 voters can forgo private donations in exchange for $900,000 in public money for their primary and general election campaigns. An annual $350 fee on state lobbyists, who nearly killed the bill, would fund the campaigns.

Kudos to Calderon for putting in the work on this bill. Now if we can just get the legislature to keep the state from having a financial meltdown.

The speakers included several children who hesitantly spoke about having police pointing guns at them, and a city employee who claimed he was beaten by police and had to go to the hospital.

The whole thing is viewable here, starting around 20 minutes in.

The alleged abuse happened during a raid on September 24 where police were apparently looking in two neighboring houses for a criminal suspect. Complaints have been filed with the Pasadena police department, and Barney Melekian and some council members were clearly familiar with the allegations on Monday night.

That is all I know right now, though I will be following up on it this week.

The Goodwill center was green-lighted by the planning commission about 10 days ago, over the protests of a group of business owners in the Northwest part of the center. The thinking, I believe, is that the area is recovering commercially, and that the last thing it needs is to give up prime real estate to a non-profit company that is associated with poverty. Larry Wilson wrote about the issue recently.

The solid waste ordinance, I am told by Public Works Director Martin Pastucha, is an attempt by the city to clarify some vague rules about who can haul waste, to increase the amount of material that is recycled, and to put new enforcement rules into place for people who are not complying with city rules.

These rules would apply to industrial, commercial, and apartment trash dumping that is done not by city contractors, but by licensed disposal companies. A lot of the issue appears to be construction materials that are thrown away- state law requires that 50 percent of materials at sites by recycled, according to Pastucha. The city is upping the requirement to 75 percent for construction sites.

Additionally, there are a couple of contract over-runs mentioned on the agenda. They don't appear to be related, both in both cases the city did not allocate enough money to complete the project, and additional funding is now required, a total of about $550,000 between the two contracts.

Lastly, there is a closed session real estate negotiation that may be another potential site for the oft-mentioned urgent care clinic. I'm still trying to confirm or dis-confirm this.

UPDATE: The real-estate negotiations are NOT for a new urgent care clinic site. The property in question, is, in fact the former Shakey Pizza's site at 2180 E. Foothill Boulevard, where a fight over allowing a strip club in East Pasadena erupted two years ago when a club tried to buy the property. There was a neighborhood protest, and ever accommodating, the city purchased the property to try to find a more g-rated business to take it over. They may now have found it- the city's closed session tonight is about looking at a deal from a potential buyer.

UPDATE II: According to Mayor Bill Bogaard, the Goodwill store appeal will not be heard tonight, after all. Apparently a formal appeal has been filed with the city, and it will not go to the Board of Zoning Appeals. If that board does not overturn the permit, the opposition can then have the City Council look at the appeal, according to Bogaard.

But that could be changing. The incoming president of California's community college system, Sen. Jack Scott of Pasadena, said Wednsday, according to PCC's paper, that sex offenders should be given the chance to attend the school.

"I'm a strong believer in second chances. If someone has served his time and is deemed worthy to reenter society, a public school should not prevent that person from obtaining an education," said Scott

It isn't a popular stance, but a fully reasonable one: is it better for sex offenders to go live under a bridge only to emerge in the dark of night? Especially considering that community colleges are not exactly teeming with underage children.

Also, I have to commend the paper for getting the story on this- some may know I teach at PCC, and some of my former students work there, so it is nice to see them do good work.

The meeting mentioned in the article that Scott was speaking at, by the way, was a faculty seminar that I would have been required to attend if it was scheduled on a Tuesday or Thursday (my class days). Sounds like Scott said just about the first interesting thing I have ever heard at one of those events.

UPDATE: Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that Scott is, in fact, the upcoming president of the entire state community college system, not PCC. Changed above.

I decided to apply the model to our local representatives. Here are the numbers for the 2007-08 cycle for how much money each congressman took from financial/insurance/real estate interests. They are much lower than the above numbers, because those correlate to the entire career of the average congressman, while the below ones are just the last two years.

Yea
David Dreier, $254,000
Gary Miller, $152,000

Contributors from those industries are the single largest contributors to both Dreier and Miller's campaigns. Let's look at the 'nay' votes.

Nay
Adam Schiff- $78,000
Grace Napolitano- $18,000
Hilda Solis- $39,000
Linda Sanchez- $36,000

If you are curious, here is who is making the largest contributions to each of the above members, who clearly do not take that much money from financial services interests.

Schiff- Lawyers and Lobbyists, $126,000
Napolitano- Labor, $80,000
Solis- Labor, $181,000
Sanchez- Labor, $119,000

The real estate agents were manipulating the price of the homes in an attempt to increase the short term visibility of the property

Willis goes on to say he even saw a home moved down in price from $619,000 to $618,000 just to be able to say that the price has been reduced.

So is there anything wrong with doing this? I'm not sure, but here is Willis' take:

While this practice appears to be acceptable (no bylaws prohibiting it) at least for a while, to me it borders on unethical. Manipulating a home price without the approval of the seller is a violation of the MLS and the California Department of Real Estate.

You can submit your ideas here. I don't think there is any prize except to see your words annoy the woman who could be the next vice president of the U.S.