ICE agents have reportedly claimed to be police officers to gain consent to enter a person’s home – a tactic that is viewed as unethical, but within the powers granted to the officers. Civil rights groups supported Kalra’s bill, looking to stymie the Trump administration’s promise to use any and all available tools to deport undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. Many groups fear Trump will expand deportations to include all undocumented immigrants, their families and relatives.   read more

The launch of the system’s back end on Labor Day resulted in thousands of jobless people not getting their benefits checks. As of Friday, the list of unfortunates still on backlog had grown to 80,000 and the total number recipients affected topped 185,000.   read more

Michael Gennaco, the office’s chief attorney, told the Times, “Seven shootings in the Sheriff's Department is extraordinary, compared to the number of patrol deputies and how many they get involved in, which is usually zero or one.” Three of the seven shootings, reportedly over a 10-year period, involved unarmed suspects, according to the Times.   read more

A San Jose Mercury News analysis of the documents found that half of the reported incidents resulted in a visit from the FBI. The reports included: a man “nonchalantly taking photos” while traveling on the Los Angeles subway; a “notable increase” in women wearing veils and burqas at a shopping mall; a big-rig driver sporting an upside-down American flag; and someone scrawling anti-government slogans on a wall at the University of California, Davis.   read more

The state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) issued a framework for regulating the controversial “ride-sharing” alternatives (UberX, SideCar, Lyft, etc.) to traditional taxicabs with one major caveat—stop calling it ride-sharing. The agency created a new category, Transportation Network Company (TNC), and drafted a new set of rules to govern them. They are regarded as the nation’s first.   read more

SFPD Capt. Michael Redmond told the San Francisco Business Times that the games were used to disguise illegal activities that included drug sales, illegal gambling and “barbecues on the street.” But some observers feel the real crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That stretch of Market Street has undergone gentrification and the block where the chess players held court is slated for a 10-story arts and education center, along with 250 housing units.   read more

But now—as it bears down on a 2019 deadline for finishing the job of scraping potentially dangerous materials from 326 waste areas before delivering what’s left of the base-turned-industrial-hub into nonmilitary hands—the Air Force wants to bury the last of the radioactive waste on the property, close to residential neighborhoods.   read more

Using language that sounded, at times, like a cheer rally for California’s innovative global warming law, a federal appeals court reversed a lower court’s decision that the state had violated the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. Out-of-state companies cried foul and claimed they were being blatantly discriminated against just because they weren’t from around these parts.   read more

Over the Labor Day weekend, another 20,000 gallons was stolen from the county, this time from the Bridgeville Elementary School. The thief pumped the school’s water tank dry using a garden house and either a water truck or a trailer fitted with tanks, according to police. School officials were forced to cancel school for the day, while maintenance workers replenished the tank with water from an underground well.   read more

The expletive-laden emails give a good account of the kind of rough-and-tumble politics rarely seen by the public. For example, then-commission President David Israel, a Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointee who is now chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, makes reference to fellow Commissioner William Chadwick’s “massive ego” and calls Commissioner Parks “Col. Klink,” after the hapless Nazi in the television show “Hogan’s Heroes.”   read more

The one piece of legislation that survived, Senate Bill 3, was one of two bills, along with Senate Bill 2, which constituted the “Sunshine in Campaigns Act.” It requires extra training for campaign treasurers and orders a study to consider the possibility of replacing the state’s woefully lacking campaign finance information website.   read more

Supporters of the controversial plan said providing undocumented immigrants with driver’s licenses would make California roads safer, improve national security and allow immigrants to fully contribute to the state economy. The bill passed with overwhelming support, 28-8 in the state Senate and 55-19 in the Assembly.   read more

So, for now, the commission will have to settle for enforcing its rulings by negotiating with parties it finds in violation of the law or taking them to Superior Court via the state Attorney General’s Office. It’s an expensive and cumbersome process that contributes mightily to the commission’s backlog of around 1,900 enforcement cases and its perennial funding problems.   read more

California lawmakers sealed the deal last week when they approved Senate Bill 630, legislation that ratified the revised “Tahoe Regional Planning Compact.” Changes to the 44-year-old bilateral agreement will encourage denser development, allow more input from localities on land-use issues and give special recognition to economic factors in weighing the worthiness of new projects.   read more

The district signed up with Geo Listening—“Tuning you into the student conversation”—last year and pays it $40,500 a year to snoop on 14,000 middle- and high school kids and report any suspicious activity. The company makes daily reports to the district, including screen grabs of the offending exchanges, but does not participate in the aftermath.   read more

Environmentalists are apoplectic because, they say, it fails to deliver safeguards against groundwater contamination, air pollution, releases of methane gas, micro-earthquakes and sinkholes. The bill allows fracking to continue unabated until 2015 while regulations are drafted. A mandated statewide environmental impact report on the practice isn’t due until July 2015.   read more

One of Democrat Bob Filner’s first acts in January as the newly-elected mayor of San Diego was to end the city’s crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries. One of the first acts of acting Mayor Todd Gloria, after Filner was driven from office three weeks ago by a barrage of criticism for alleged sexual harassment, was to reinstate the crackdown.   read more