Feature Archives

Newly elected Governor Jerry Brown’s 2011–2012 budget proposal slashes $12.5 billion dollars from essential health and human services. Brown himself characterized his new budget as "draconian." Immediately following the January 10th announcement of Brown’s new budget, health service agencies held a press conference in the Sacramento State House denouncing the proposal. Statewide actions included similar press conferences and rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and Fresno.

Kwanzaa is celebrated annually from December 26th to January 1st. The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa are considered tools for addressing issues facing the African American community. Events will be held in San Francisco, Sacramento and Stockton.

Under rules adopted this week by the California Air Resources Board, timber firms could earn tens of millions of dollars through the sale of carbon credits. Despite opposition to a provision that would make clearcutting eligible to receive offset credits, the Board passed a plan that critics say was unduly influenced by logging industry lobbyists.

On December 14th, hundreds of PG&E customers, outraged about the health damage caused by wireless 'smart' meters, ramped up protests by testifying at county government meetings and shutting down payment centers in both Santa Cruz and Marin Counties to demand an immediate halt to the program. Protesters are also angry about PG&E's attempts to cover up the growing health scandal and recently revealed espionage carried out against their customers concerned with increasing reports of nausea, headaches, and bouts of dizziness from the meters. The protesters, backed by 22 local governments and an increasing number of scientists and medical professionals, are demanding that PG&E halt any further installation of smart meters.

Martin Cotton II was living houseless and unarmed on August 9th, 2007, when he was severely abused by police, and brought to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility. At the jail, he was further attacked by guards, and left to die on the floor of a cell. On Monday, January 10th, a federal civil rights trial, brought on behalf of Martin Cotton's baby daughter, Siehna Cotton, and by Martin's father, Marty Cotton, will begin in Oakland: Siehna Cotton et al. v. Eureka Police Dept. and Humboldt County Sheriff's Dept.

Hundreds of UC students and workers from around the state joined together during the November 16th through 18th Regents meeting to protest proposals that they say will harm the public mission of the University of California. They are demanding no fee hikes for all students and no more cuts to staff, many of whom earn below a living wage. At the November 17th meeting, over three hundred protesters confronted a line of police at the Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, where the regents were meeting. Police used pepper spray and 13 protesters were arrested.

Marc Sapir writes, "The core paid staff (representing perhaps 30-50 staff people at KPFA) essentially seized control of KPFA this morning [November 9th] to rally their listener base to resist efforts that could restore KPFA to financial solvency for the first time in 2 years, and bring it back from the brink of collapse (KPFA does not now have cash income to pay the staff regularly). What goes unstated is that the majority of staff at KPFA—over 150 programmers and producers--the people who keep the station on air 24/7 are volunteers are not represented in these antics."