Analysis: Governor’s deficit estimate rises to $20 billion
Salinas residents who heard Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger two weeks ago would have good reason to believe the budget deficit is $18 billion dating back to January.
Those who listened to him in Alameda could have walked away thinking the gap is $1 billion less. And local prosecutors who heard him at a Sacramento conference last week might peg the problem at $10 billion starting in July.
Schwarzenegger has been all over the map in his deficit estimates this month. But after offering vague explanations for the governor’s previous calculations, his aides on Tuesday decided to embrace his latest figure: as high as $20.2 billion starting July 1. . .
Thursday declared ‘Taco Truck Night’
Thursday has been declared Taco Truck Night by the founders of a Web site created in response to a new set of regulations for the mobile restaurants recently approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
“To celebrate this year’s May Day we’re announcing Taco Truck Night … Go out, get some carne asada or al pastor and support your hard working taco vendor,” the Web site Saveourtacotrucks.org readers.
The Web site, founded by teachers Aaron Sonderleiter and Chris Rutherford, received national attention when it was mentioned by Time magazine Friday in an article on the dispute over the new county rules. . .
320 complaints of racial profiling and not one had merit, LAPD says
Los Angeles Police Department officials announced Tuesday that they investigated more than 300 complaints of racial profiling against officers last year and found that none had merit—a conclusion that left members of the department’s oversight commission incredulous.
It is at least the sixth consecutive year that all allegations of racial profiling against LAPD officers have been dismissed, according to department documents reviewed by The Times.
In 2007, the LAPD’s Internal Affairs Group closed 320 investigations into allegations that officers stopped, questioned or otherwise confronted someone solely because of the person’s race. Nearly 80% of the time—252 of the cases—the claims were dismissed outright as “unfounded,” according to an annual complaint report presented Tuesday to the civilian Police Commission. In the remaining cases, there was either insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion or no misconduct was uncovered. . .
Federal, state and local governments are hiring new workers at the fastest pace in six years, helping offset job losses in the private sector.
Governments added 76,800 jobs in the first three months of 2008, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That’s the biggest jump in first-quarter hiring since a boom in 2002 that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. By contrast, private companies collectively shed 286,000 workers in the first three months of 2008. That job loss has led many economists to declare the country is in a recession. . .
