Posts Tagged ‘Wayne Lusvardi’NEW: Cap and trade could tax cities for out-of-state pollutionFriday, May 24th, 2013 May 24, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Utility companies reportedly bought most of the $280 million in total pollution permits, about $162 million worth, at last week's statewide cap-and-trade auction. It was the third auction held since last November. Several city-run municipal power utilities i... David Crane’s budget ideas spark debateWednesday, May 22nd, 2013Commentary May 22, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi David Crane has come up with a tax reform proposal, “Jerry Brown’s Last Chance to Save California.” A Democrat, he was an economic adviser to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, especially on pensions. Crane wants to change Proposition 13, th... No Prop. 13 tax dodge by Dell if Miramar Hotel had net leaseMonday, May 20th, 2013 May 20, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi The last thing billionaire Michael Dell would have done if he wanted to avoid paying property taxes on his purchase of the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica in 2005 was to buy a share of the operating company instead of the real estate. But that is not how the Los... Boxer’s Delta levee bill is real estate pork barrelFriday, May 17th, 2013 May 17, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi “I drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry,” go the famous lyrics to singer Don McClean’s 1971 hit song, “American Pie.” The California Dream of home ownership and speculative riches in land development died in 2008 in Natomas, the last u... Electricity rate shock more likely than blackouts this summerWednesday, May 15th, 2013 May 15, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi There have been many forecasts of possible rolling blackouts in California this summer due to a shortage of power from the shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear power plant and the instability of a green power grid due to hourly weather fluctuations. But the most... Are school parcel taxes social status symbols?Tuesday, May 7th, 2013 May 7, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Question: Are working-class communities smarter than wealthier school districts by not putting increased school parcel taxes on local election ballots? This is not the conclusion suggested in a new study released May 2013 by EdSource, a non-profit education re... Feinstein, Boxer stymie water, power & wildlife for Lake McClureSaturday, May 4th, 2013 May 4, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi New York Times journalist Peter Passell once wrote: “California’s water system might have been invented by a Soviet bureaucrat on an LSD trip.” And as the 1960s hippies would have put it, the trip would have been a bummer. San Joaquin Valley farmers must ... Legitimacy, not consensus, is key to Delta modernizationFriday, May 3rd, 2013May 3, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Do we care whether there is a consensus about what to do with the so-called natural resources of the Sacramento Delta among scientists and interest group “stakeholders” in California? The Public Policy Institute of California thinks so with a new study funde... Could Obama also privatize the Central Valley Water Project?Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 May 1, 2013 By Wayne Lusvardi Almost out of nowhere, the Obama Administration has opened up discussions for possibly privatizing the model asset of the New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority, to bring in revenues to the federal government and reduce the long-term national debt. Part of Pre... |