“The production is expected to create 550 jobs for tradesmen, technicians and other crew members and more than 1,000 spots for actors and other talent,” the Shelby Star reported. “North Carolina this year increased its tax breaks for movie and television productions to up to 25 percent. That means movie producers could write off up to 25 percent of their in-state spending — up to $20 million — from their state taxes. The tax break is refundable, which means a producer who qualified for a $20 million write-off but didn’t owe that much in North Carolina taxes could collect the difference with a multi-million-dollar check from taxpayers.”

Iron Man producers also considered Los Angeles, Michigan and New Mexico as possible production locations. Even with former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s big tax incentive program for movie productions, new Gov. Rick Snyder scaled the tax incentives back substantially, saying they were not sustainable. And, there were no rules on applying or receiving the incentives.

Tax Incentives Going South

Since September, North Carolina reports that 29 productions have set up in the state.

North Carolina beats California in nearly every tax rate. The Tax Foundation reports, “North Carolina’s localities collected $796.12 per capita in property taxes in fiscal year 2006, which is the latest year the Census Bureau published state-by-state property tax collections. North Carolina is one of the 13 states that collect no state-level property taxes.  Its per capita property tax collections in FY2006 rank 38th nationally.”

Despite Proposition 13,  California ranks only in the middle when the states are ranked on combined state and local property tax collections. According to the Tax Foundation, “Proposition 13 favors people who have owned the same property many years by only permitting re-evaluations at resale.  California collected $1,449 per capita in state and local property taxes in fiscal year 2008, which ranks 14th highest among all states.”

Other tax comparisons:

North Carolina local taxes are 9.8 percent, California’s are 11.8 percent.

Business Climate rankings are interesting as well. NC ranks 41st, CA ranks 49th.

Personal tax rates – NC, 7.75 percent. For California, the Tax Foundation reports, “California’s Top Individual Income Tax Rate Is Third-Highest in the Nation. With seven brackets and a top rate of 10.3 percent for those earning over $1,000,000. California’s individual income tax has the third-highest rate and one of the most highly progressive structures in the nation.”

“Since most small businesses are S Corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships, they pay their business taxes at the rates for individuals. That makes California’s taxes on small businesses some of the most burdensome in the nation,” reported the Tax Foundation.

With these numbers, California businesses and individuals could afford to move to North Carolina, which is by no means, a low-tax state. But it apparently looks financially better to movie producers than California.

Under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the original $500 million tax incentive program provides a rebate up to 25% of qualified production expenses. The extension would have provided another $500 million in tax credits. The bill passed in the Assembly, but the Senate slashed the total amount to $100 million, and for only one year.

OCT. 28, 2011

What happened to the flat-chested Midge doll, or even modest Barbie? Don’t girls play with bald baby dolls anymore?

Mattel is selling this new Barbie as edgy and cool, but she looks like Paris Hilton without her trust fund and full-time stylists. And because parents are screaming about the inappropriateness, Mattel says that this Barbie is being marketed to adult collectors.

Uh huh. And stores aren’t filled with tacky Brittany Spears clothes marketed to little girls.

Barbie’s little cactus-like dog is named “Bastardino.”

I had Barbies growing up, and I inherited a friends’ Barbie Dream house from the early 1960′s.  The dream house was a cool mid-century modern design with cardboard furniture. For Christmas, my grandparents gave me a convertible Barbie car. I had only a few Barbie clothes because I liked sewing my own designs.

1960's Barbie

But the days of dolls and a child’s imagination are gone thanks to Mattel. Corporate America should take a page from the new biography of the recently deceased Steve Jobs, Apple Computer founder, who cared more about the creativity and integrity of his products, and being able to employ people.

Barbie has already gone totally bimbo. What’s next – “Hoe Barbie” and her pimp Filmore Slim. Parents beware, and stick to the bald baby dolls.

OCT. 22, 2011

“The locations where you can use your EBT card to withdraw cash may have changed,” the site says. “Please check the list of locations on this website to see where you can withdraw cash benefits in your area. You can no longer get your cash benefits at ATMs and point of sale devices in liquor stores that don’t accept your CalFresh benefits. You also can’t get your cash benefits at casinos, poker rooms, card rooms, adult entertainment businesses, bail bonds, night clubs/saloons/taverns, bingo halls, race tracks, gun/ammunition stores, cruise ships, psychic readers, smoking shops, cannabis shops, tattoo/piercing shops, and spa/massage salons.”

Looks like the problem goes beyond cruise ships and casinos. One legislator advanced a bill to block use of EBT cards to buy booze and cigarettes. It failed to pass. But just to make sure, check that list of sites where you can withdraw cash benefits in your area.

JULY 29, 2011

As the Times’ Jack Dolan has noted, CIRM, which has a staff of 50, is paying incoming chairman Jonathan Thomas $400,000, roughly twice the salary of the director of the federal National Institutes of Health, which has 17,000 employees. Top-heavy CIRM also has a president, Alan Trounson, who pulls down $490,008, a good deal more than the $173,048 salary of the governor.

CIRM chose Thomas over cardiologist Frank Litvack, who would have accepted a salary of $123,000. The selection of Jonathan Thomas is not the first time CIRM has opted for a higher priced alternative. In 2009, CIRM board member Duane Roth, experienced in biotechnology, offered to serve as vice-chair for no salary. CIRM opted to make Roth co-vice-chair along with former state senator Art Torres, and tripled Torres’ initial salary of $75,000 to $225,000.

CIRM is beating the drum for more public funds but voters have more than salary and oversight issues to consider. The federal government no longer blocks embryonic research so CIRM has no legitimate reason to exist. The state agency is also a bust on its promises.  A ballpark figure for the number of CIRM cures and therapies that have trickled down to patients is zero, as even their own scientists acknowledge.

JULY 8, 2011

Despite the city’s $60 million deficit, city officials and several members of the Sacramento City Council want to forge ahead with a new, large scale, “mixed-use” housing development project geared toward decreasing the size and eco-footprint of individual homes.

In plain English “mixed use” means building subsidized housing side-by-side with full price, non-subsidized housing, and usually located in sketchy parts of town.

This particular development, called Northwest Land Park, is a joint project with the Sacramento Planning Commission, the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment agency and developer representative Kevin Smith, a “spokesman for a Southern California investment company.” It is located in an old industrial wood processing plant next to the I-5 freeway, and near two old Section 8 subsidized housing projects, laden with crime, and blight.

City officials like trying to convince residents that it’s cool living in high crime areas, industrial wastelands, or above noisy bars and restaurants on busy streets – where land is cheap for developers.

“There are too many big houses on big lots, far from jobs and entertainment,” said Smith, in a story in the Sacramento Bee. Smith said that empty nesters and single women looking for a smaller carbon footprint, were his target market.

He left out all of the HUD applicants and “Housing Choice Voucher Program (previously known as Section 8)” applicants.

Rob Fong, the city councilman for the Land Park neighborhood has been unsuccessfully trying to muster up support to build a community center for the area, and now is pushing for federal grants to refurbish the housing projects.

And while Smith claims that his group is “checking in” with neighborhood community associations, Fong’s fingerprints are all over the Land Park Community Association, which used to be a vibrant, active and vocal group, particularly about neighborhood land use issues. Today, the association appears neutered, having gone through turnover, resignations and now, a lack of interest, communication and involvement. And many area residents blame Fong.

The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA) website boldly advertises Section 8 housing availability, subsidized apartments, mortgage assisitance, and admits that SHRA “owns and manages more than 3,000 public housing units within the City and County of Sacramento. These housing units consist of a variety of apartments, duplexes and single family homes. Low-income families pay a portion of their income toward rent each month, based on their income.”

The latest development area has had crime issues for decades. For any city official or developer to think that anyone will really walk, bike or jog in the area proves what a redevelopment money boondoggle this is, and is destined to become an insta-ghetto, as most other subsidized housing projects.

But because the area in question is already home to hundreds of low-income, subsidized housing units, who will really care if more low-income housing is built? The developer will make money, the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency will own more housing units, and councilman Fong can take credit.

The comments left on the Sac Bee online story also tell what a boondoggle this development is. “Really…why should those HUD welfare-queens get better FREE housing than the taxpaying citizens of the city? They steal and vandalize their ghetto-complexes and then are able to call up HUD, and ask for upgraded free repairs, all on the city’s dime,” one reader said about the existing Section 8 housing in the area.

What was left out of the Bee’s story is that redevelopment agencies were just eliminated statewide by Gov. Jerry Brown – and the same should happen to this project.

Many of the readers who left comments on the Bee story wanted to know how much redevelopment money the developer will be making.

And of course, Councilman Fong has been involved in several shaky deals including his weak involvement in the last round of arena negotiations. Area residents should question just what his involvement is in this latest redevelopment scam.

Fong, raised in Land Park and still a resident of the old, established neighborhood, is a politician  looking for a legacy, and apparently is willing to forever compromise his own neighborhood to do it. Maybe Fong can show his sincere support and move into the proposed development — next to the freeway, on the grounds of an old industrial plant, next to the ghetto.

When monkeys fly.

“A rail tunnel under the freeway will be transformed into a bike path, taking cyclists, joggers and walkers to Miller Park on the Sacramento River, with access to downtown, developers say. They may put cameras and viewing screens at each end, allowing a view of what’s happening at the other side before they enter the tunnel.”

If the city is trying to create a crime zone, this is how to do it.

With a glut of foreclosures in Sacramento, how can anyone at the city talk about a new development with a straight face?  This is another utopian flim-flam to justify the real intent – to find a new scam for redevelopment money.

After a state audit of 28 redevelopment agencies in California was conducted by State Controller John Chiang, a number of the redevelopment agencies were found guilty of serious abuses and gross mismanagement.

“Among those agencies studied by the Chiang audit and found guilty was the Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Agency,” wrote Richard Trainor in an April CalWatchdog story. “Lashelle Dozier, the SHRA’s executive director, fired back at the report almost as soon as Brown announced his plan.”

“During these challenging economic times, Sacramento needs to have the tool of redevelopment always within reach to keep its economic engine from stalling out,” said Dozier, whose agency has 291 employees, a budget of $261 million and controls 3,144 units of public housing.

“Those opposed to the redevelopment agency closures are agency chiefs like Sacramento’s Dozier and San Francisco’s interim Mayor Ed Lee. Some critics of the plan also say that Brown’s policy change on redevelopment reeks of hypocrisy,” Trainor wrote.

But even with the exposure of the waste, fraud and abuses in redevelopment agencies, the scams continue.

The Northwest Land Park projects looks to be one such questionable development – and at a time when the city of Sacramento should be tightening its belt and going to work on the horrific blight that exists in other parts of town. Adding to the multitude of subsidized housing units available in Sacramento isn’t going to help Sacramento’s economy one bit.

It is interesting that this developer/investment company is from Southern California.  Perhaps even the local developers think this deal stinks.

But now, with talk in Sacramento of the need to privatize city park gardening and maintenance services, suddenly a lawsuit has been filed against the company which has successfully managed many of the city’s public golf courses.

There is no such thing as coincidence.

Four former city golf course employees filed suit recently against Morton Golf, alleging sexual harassment and labor law violations.

It’s interesting that the suit was filed this month, just as the Sacramento City Council approved a contract with Morton Golf for maintenance and other services of the city’s golf courses. City officials estimate Sacramento would save $500,000 annually by privatizing the golf course maintenance and services.

I think the number is low, but a good starting point.

The point is that the city should not be in the golf business. Because of outrageous union salary and benefit packages, the city can no longer afford to maintain much of what it is responsible for, including the city-run golf courses.

William Land Park Golf Course opened for play in 1924 in Sacramento, making it the city’s oldest golf course. After many years of looking seedy and needing a makeover, the golf course operations privatized approximately 10 years ago. The golf course has never looked better, and now operates in the black by a non-profit group called The First Tee.

“The First Tee provides young people of all backgrounds an opportunity to develop life-enhancing values such as confidence, perseverance and judgment through golf and character education,” reads the mission statement. It’s a wildly successful program which helped to reinvigorate the golf course, which is now run smartly.

With the Sacramento city parks department cutting nearly 50 percent of its employees in only the last two years, the  maintenance crew at William Land Park Golf Course has already kindly expanded their grass maintenance beyond the golf course in order to help out the park and keep the golf course looking pristine.

That’s how it works in the private sector.

It is difficult not to assume that this lawsuit could be a union attempt to run interference and perhaps discredit Morton Golf in the eyes of the City Council. Whatever the reason, it’s very interesting timing.

But that won’t change the numbers on the balance sheet. The city of Sacramento has no money and is running a horrendous deficit from which it cannot possibly recover without a massive overhaul and union concessions.

And the golf course maintenance cannot possibly be run as cost effectively as a privately run business, as proven by William Land Park’s golf course.

“Labor officials say they doubt outsourcing will save the city money; an audit will explore the situation this fall,” the Sacramento Bee reported.

Threats, threats. Expect to see more of this union-thuggery as city budgets finally burst under the weight of unsustainable pensions and ridiculous salaries and benefits. Unskilled public employees, who otherwise would have been lucky to be paid $15.00 per hour, have been paid ridiculous salaries for just showing up and doing a mediocre job.

With a little competition in the mix, expect parks and golf courses to start looking better in Sacramento – if the union lawyers and City Council don’t screw up the deal.

JUNE 27, 2011

Within hours of the news breaking that Verizon will begin selling Apple’s iPhones, California Governor Jerry Brown issued Executive Order B-1-11, forcing 48,000 state employees to turn in their work-provided cellular phones.

“It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all state employees must be equipped with taxpayer-fundd cell phones,” Brown said in this press release. “Some state employees, including department and agency executives who are required to be in touch 24 hours a day and seven days a week, may need cell phones, but the current number of phones out there is astounding.”

According to Brown’s press release, 96,000 state employees — 40 percent of the total — are currently issued cell phones. Brown’s goal is to recall half them, saving $20 million a year, by June 1.

Of course, we’re talking about cell phones here — and their required two-year contracts — which means that deadline may not be met, which Brown acknowledged in the press release. “Because of contract obligations, it is possible that we not be able [to] eliminate all 48,000 cell phones by June 1, but it is also conceivable that we can do it earlier — and that is my hope,” Brown said.

Hmmm… the State of California vs. cell phone companies. If only both could lose…

JAN. 11, 2011

You don’t have to watch politics very long before you see that top people move more or less freely from the public sector — where they develop much expertise at taxpayer expense — to the private sector — whey they cash in on that service, then turn around and start grabbing even more tax dollars in the form of government contracts.

This is nicely illustrated in a press release I received last night. Titled, “Caltrain‘s Head of High-Speed Rail Partnership Moves to Private Sector,” the statement detailed how Robert L. Doty, the Peninsula Rail Program (PRP) director and top liaison between Caltrain and the California High-Speed Rail Authority, will join the engineering firm HNTB on Jan. 21.

“We created the PRP to take full advantage of Bob Doty and his unique experience and expertise across the globe in designing and delivering large-scale rail projects,” Caltrain executive director Mike Scanlon said in the release. “It is no surprise that a man of Bob’s talents and expertise is being snatched up by one of the firms that wants to be a player in the domestic high-speed rail competition.”

Oh my. HNTB “wants to be a player.” HNTB, which was a big donor to the $10 billion Prop 1A campaign back in 2008 that really started the state’s bullet train dreams, is today the beneficiary of millions of dollars in high-speed rail money, both as a contractor and sub-contractor (click here to read my recent story on HSR contractors).

Oh yes, HNTB is already a major player. Which is why I wasn’t surprised to read the following curiously worded paragraph in the Caltrain press release:

“Doty would not discuss the details of the compensation associated with his new position in the private sector, except to say it is expected to be ‘substantially more’ than the $178,000 per year he was paid as director of the Peninsula Rail Program.”

JAN. 7, 2011

That’s right, folks: Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown has appointed one Louis “Bill” Honig to the California State Board of Education. Honig, for those of you not old enough to remember 1993, spent a decade as state Superintendent of Public Instruction until getting convicted of four “felony” conflict of interest charges. Though the charges were reduced to misdemeanors in 1996, Honig throughout his trial insisted that he didn’t know his actions — illegally diverting public money to an education firm run by his wife — were illegal.

Recent California superintendents have been a colorful lot, to say the least. Jack O’Connell somehow managed to have an entire stretch of highway named after him, even though he was still alive and still in office. But that’s nothing, compared to Delaine Eastin…

“Honig gave way to Delaine Eastin, a Bay Area assemblywoman and defender of the status quo,” my Pacific Research Institute colleague K. Lloyd Billingsley has written. “Eastin made life difficult for charter schools and families who choose to homeschool their children. On her watch, the [Department of Education] was handing out millions of dollars to ‘Community Based Organizations’ (CBOs) headed by corrupt bosses and left-wing militants.

“When auditors uncovered the problem, superintendent Eastin did not go after the fraud. Rather, she punished the whistleblowers and kept money flowing to the corrupt organizations. When the abused whistleblowers sought justice through the courts, the CDE spent millions defending those who had demoted them.”

Given the Honig appointment, is an Eastin job coming soon as well?

JAN. 5, 2011

Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger might finally have a legacy, but it isn’t what he had hoped for and forever links him with nefarious, notorious politicians.

Esteban Nunez, the privileged son of  former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, may have received a commutation on his prison term, but he still has two-strikes on his criminal record.

Less than a three months ago, a judge agreed with the San Diego prosecutors in the case that Nunez’s sentence should not be reduced. Despite that decision, the commutation of Nunez’s criminal conviction for Nunez’s role in the stabbing death of college student Luis Santos in 2008 reduced the sentence from 16 to seven years.

Schwarzenegger is said to be personal friends with Fabian Nunez, who now works as a political consultant with Schwarzenegger’s former communications director. Nunez and Schwarzenegger worked very closely in 2006 to pass AB 32, California’s global warming law.

“The commutation has nothing to do with the conviction,” said Paul Levikow, Communications Director for the San Diego District Attorney. “It was mainly about the time he will serve, and does not erase or overturn the conviction.”

Levikow also confirmed that the two strikes Nunez received with the murder conviction will remain on his record.

Bonnie Dumanis, the District Attorney who handled the case, said on Monday that her office was never consulted by Schwarzenegger before making the Nunez commutation. Nunez had already reached a deal with the DA when he agreed — the night before the trial — to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter instead of standing trial on murder charges, which could have led to a life sentence.

Schwarzenegger said he believed the 16-year prison sentence that Esteban Nunez was serving was “excessive.” But many in and around the Capitol are calling Schwarzenegger’s commutation of Nunez’s son something worthy of a politician like former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Some even believe that the Nunez commutation will haunt Schwarzenegger the way the pardon of Marc Rich will forever be tied to former President Bill Clinton. He was indicted on federal charges of illegally making oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis, as well as tax evasion, but fled the U.S. during his prosecution. That pardon sparked a massive investigation into whether it was actually “bought” through the hefty political donations made by Rich and his ex-wife, Denise, to the Clintons and other Washington Democrats.

The result of all this is that, once again, Schwarzenegger has made a laughing stock out of the state. He’s also stained his legacy, becoming just another elitist, craven politician — exactly what he had promised to fight when he first took office seven years ago.

JAN. 4, 2011