More cops and firefighters coming to Anaheim after city passes $2.1 billion budget

• July 5, 2023

Anaheim will add more cops and firefighters to its streets in the coming year with the $2.1 billion budget recently approved for this new fiscal year – a continued signal the city is overcoming its pandemic-induced financial struggles.

The budget, which kicked in on July 1, will add nine new firefighters and hire a dozen police officers. There will also be six additional police officers dedicated to Anaheim schools. City fees for services such as trash pickup and public golf courses will rise slightly.

“Our call volume is stepping up every year dramatically,” Fire Chief Pat Russell said at a June 13 budget meeting with the City Council. Burns told the council the Fire Department is receiving 18,000 more calls a year than it did in 2008, but still at similar staffing levels.

The city also agreed to continue its services with Be Well OC, which provides mental health resources, at a cost of $1.3 million a year. Anaheim will also spend an additional $3.1 million in the new budget to support more homeless outreach and an extra $4.5 million for landscaping and replacing sidewalks.

The newly adopted budget is 6% larger than the current one. Anaheim’s general fund, which pays for day-to-day operations such as libraries, parks and public safety, surpassed $440 million. Central Library and Haskett Branch Library will now be open seven days a week, with others getting expanded hours, too.

The city is expected to take in record revenues from the taxes it collects. With that, officials expect to pay back by 2028 a bond that was taken out to support the budget during the pandemic, sooner than originally planned, thanks to more tourists returning to hotels. Finance Director Debbie Moreno warned that an economic slowdown could extend that date.

Most city services are seeing rate hikes in line with the consumer price index, officials said. A single-family home will now pay $27.78 a month to have its garbage picked up.

The City Council decided at the last minute to amend the budget presented to them to include hiring three more firefighters than the originally planned six. They also chose to fund improvements at Paul Revere Park at a cost of $100,000. The additional firefighters came after Councilmember Natalie Rubalcava asked city staff at the June 13 council meeting if there was any room in the budget that could go toward public safety.

A memo presented to the council recommended that the council wait to fund new positions until after the police and fire departments had time to complete staffing reviews. The council moved some one-time money to fund the firefighter positions.

​ Orange County Register 

Travel: This Baja resort with ‘brutalist’ architecture boasts its own shaman

• July 5, 2023

An hour away, boozy vacationers wore T-shirts emblazoned, “Chase me like a shot of tequila” in hard-partying, colossal Cabo San Lucas resorts. I, on the other hand, remained peacefully ensconced at my “brutalist” eco-lodge, ringed by 160 acres of family-owned farmland in Mexico’s secluded Baja desert. At the moment, a barefoot shaman was wafting a chalice of smoking copal incense around my bathrobe-clad standing body and wiping me head to toe with a bouquet of lemongrass and other purifying herbs.

“These plants contain your bad energies and you will put them in the fire,” instructed Jorge Cano, who grew up in the Mexican state of Veracruz and learned this sacred two-hour yenekamu ritual from his shaman grandmother; by the way, she lived to age 100. Earlier I had to write down negative stuff I wanted to shed (uh, my crippling dentist phobia?) so I chucked that paper too into the flaming basin after Jorge, attired in all white, summoned Mother Nature and blessed me near swishing banana palms.

Jorge Cano is Paradero’s in-house shaman and heads the wellness program that emphasizes Mexican family traditions. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

Soon we crossed a shallow creek to a thatched hut where, during an A-plus  ancestral massage, Jorge realigned my hips by twisting them in a sling and opened my cranium without surgery. He also placed a sprig of cleansing sage in my belly button and covered it with a hot volcanic stone to seal in good juju.

Soft-spoken Jorge is the resident shaman of the minimalist boutique, remarkably unique, adults-only Paradero Hotel, about 15 minutes from the laid-back boho surf haven of Todo Santos in Baja California Sur. Most notably, Paradero is the anti-Cabo, 45 miles and a Zen galaxy apart. While hungover tourists scrimmaged for pool lounge chairs in Cabo, I serenely chanted “Om, shanti, shanti” in Paradero’s yoga class amid chirping yellow orioles, found my “inner light” through a serape-blanketed group meditation, and vibrated from bronze bowls perched atop my chakras during a sound healing inside a mud-and-clay igloo.

A guest stands on her private rooftop terrace in the brutalist-style Paradero Hotel, built to look like it was chiseled by desert gusts. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

Visually, the stunning Paradero looks like an earth-sprouted fortress. Debuting in February 2021, its 41 suites are encased in twin two-story rippling beige concrete structures designed in the architectural “brutalist” style and melding into sands that coat the cacti- and yucca-specked property. (Architectural Digest lauded Paradero for being “at one with the land.”) Brutalist buildings became popular in the 1950s, are largely monolithic, and include housing projects, universities and, yes, prisons. At ground level, my suites’s oversized rusty steel door ominously slammed shut behind me before I climbed a dim bare interior stairway reminiscent of an old castle (or cell) to my second floor room. Suddenly, I was in the breezy fresh air gazing at a vast magnificent view — sprawling poblano pepper fields, the granite Sierra de la Laguna mountains and an opal silver of the Pacific.

The grounds of the Paradero Hotel as seen from a suite’s rooftop deck. Near the center is the round temazcal and to the right, the yoga tent. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

On one side was my concrete, rustic-chic neutral-hued room with no TV, phone or clock. To communicate with the extremely friendly front desk, you need to use WhatsApp. All the suites’ private bathrooms are separate, requiring guests to pace a few feet outdoors to access the john. You bet I cursed when I awoke at 2:30 a.m. to pee. But when I stepped into the chilly dark, my sleepy eyes widened  —  a luminous full moon fabulously glowed straight ahead and dozens of flying nighthawks appeared fluorescent streaking past me on the terrace. Evidently, “nature calls” is a double entendre here.

“The bathroom is outside the room exactly so you can disconnect from the room, connect with nature, and then go to the bathroom,” Paradero general manager Arturo Soto later explained.

Paradero employee Diana Madero poses in a suspended star net, a bonus of Paradero’s Sky Suites. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

My Sky Suite also featured a cool rooftop “star net,” basically a two-person stretched hammock suspended above my second level and bolted to exterior walls. At night, in the silence, I dreamily stared above at countless celestial sparkles. (Then klutzy me tried to get up. Help. With nothing to grab onto, I crawled out of the bouncy net on my hands and knees like a baby.)

Rooms at the Paradero Hotel are described as sanctuary-like and places to reflect in. The hats and water bottles are gifts for guests; the hanging rod is the closet. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

With rooms starting at $550, Paradero touts its staff-guided adventures that work off your free breakfast burritos. Some experiences are complimentary (such as yoga, meditation, an eight-mile bike excursion, and farming sessions in the garden); others charge a fee (including surf lessons, taco tours, catamaran outings and a shaman-led temazcal sweat lodge ceremony).

“Instead of holding you here, you know with beaches, bikinis, margaritas … our model is different,” said Pablo Carmona, co-owner of the Paradero with Joshua Kremer. The Mexico City financiers were on-site for a Paradero foundation fundraiser.

Fluttering banners decorate a quaint street in Todos Santos, about a 15-minute drive from the Paradero Hotel. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

One afternoon, I joined Paradero guide Hernando Torres on a walking jaunt through charming Todos Santos, a Mexican government-designated “Magic Town” for its cultural richness, history and beauty. Compared to the tranquil tan palette of Paradero, Todos Santos vibrantly exploded in color. Festive “papel picado” banners and bright umbrellas hung over streets peppered with art galleries and bejeweled steer skulls. Fanciful murals of a whale, an Aztec sun calendar and Day of the Dead skeletons decorated village walls. Todos Santos, which translates to “All Saints,” started as a Jesuit mission in 1724; picturesque colonial buildings still line cobbled lanes.

A sign welcomes visitors to Todos Santos, once a sugar cane capital and now a Mexico-designated “Magic Town.” (Photo by Norma Meyer)

In the main mercado, artisan Adrian Bailon Garcia urged me to buy his handmade fish bone swords, including one concocted from a marlin’s long pointy bill, topped with a goat’s hoofed lower leg and accessorized with cow bones. (No, I demurred, it won’t fit in my carry-on.) Later, at Todos Santos Brewing, Hernando introduced me to Aussie co-owner Liz Mitchell, who revealed why one malty suds is christened The Chuck Red Ale. “It’s named after Chuck Norris because it’s like a big red roundhouse kick to the head.” My fun flight of craft beers included karate Chuck, the Dizzee Lizzee, and Wowser’s Trousers IPA.

Returning to Paradero, I again strolled through the separate entrance building, which is an unmanned portal furnished with just two big boulders and the piped-in crash of ocean waves. Welcome to Planet Earth. Through a square archway, the expansive terrain dramatically unfolded, with the hotel meant to look like it was sculpted by desert winds, an open-air communal “living room,” a hidden infinity pool, and al fresco restaurant. The latter doesn’t serve sodas because soft drinks are unhealthy. But it does pour a nutritious bourbon cocktail called the Ginger Carrot.

“When you decompress, you decompress with nature,” Pablo said, noting Paradero’s 5 1/2-acre plot is 80 percent landscaping, 20 percent construction. Indeed, my new acquaintances included comical roadrunners, a silvery slithering snake, hovering turkey vultures, Cuatro the black cat (“head of security”) and his assistant Cinco the black dog.

A clifftop view of Las Palmas Beach during a hike, one of Paradero’s daily included experiences. (Photo by Norma Meyer)

At 7:30 one morning, guide Ivan Panzo led five of us on a hike through private farmland — past a towering spiked forest of 200-year-old cardon cacti and an oasis of 5,000 palm trees — to lovely crescent-shaped Las Palmas Beach, unoccupied except for two stately white egrets. Along the way, Ivan also proudly showed me videos of his 6-month-old son, Lucas, eating strawberries in his high chair.

Related links

Sandhill cranes rule the roost in Nebraska each spring
Madagascar boasts plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth
An ice hotel in Quebec is a cool place to stay
These Santa Claus-themed cities celebrate Christmas all year
A trip to the Canadian Rockies will elevate your senses

The whole staff seemed really personable. So when I met Paradero architect Ruben Valdez, I had to tell him the “brutalist” label conjured up images of thugs flogging guests at the hotel. He laughed. “Maybe we should call it ‘brut’ like in French Champagne.”

Actually, I was a little buzzed, perhaps because the shaman had given me a bougainvillea foot bath or because the sound healing practitioner clanged 14 Tibetan singing bowls and assured me my creativity-containing chakras weren’t too clogged.

When I boarded my plane home, surrounded by red-lobster-faced Cabo burn-outs, I felt (smugly) happy that, on this Baja trip, I was a wellness wonk.

​ Orange County Register 

Here’s what Orange County will receive from California’s budget

• July 5, 2023

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature last week reached a deal on the state budget, just in time for the start of the new fiscal year.

The $310.8 billion plan covers a nearly $32 billion budget deficit by cutting some spending — about $8 billion — and delaying others, including a $750 million payment to the federal government for pandemic-related unemployment insurance debts.

Statewide, the budget includes a lifeline for public transit agencies struggling to survive following steep declines in riders during the pandemic and allows transit agencies to use some of the $5.1 billion in funding over the next three years for operations.

But Republican leaders have criticized the plan as unsustainable, arguing it would leave the state with projected multi-billion dollar deficits over the next few years.

As part of the state budget process, Orange County legislators secured millions for various district projects ranging from public safety technology to transportation services.

Here are some ways Orange County residents could see an impact through the budget.

Arts

Several million dollars will go toward Orange County museums.

A total of $250,000 is set for the expansion and improvement of the Orange County Museum of Art’s educational public programs, as requested by Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine.

And $4.5 million will be given to the Fullerton Museum Center, money that will “allow the museum to make capital improvements to its facilities, to include renovations to its classroom spaces, exhibition area, auditorium, conference room and outdoor patio, according to Sen. Josh Newman’s office. The funding will also be used to “increase accessibility and accommodate performances, community activities and fundraising events” as well as hire more permanent and part-time staff.

Additionally, $2 million is set for the Pacific Symphony, the resident orchestra of the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall located in Costa Mesa, east of South Coast Plaza. The funding will go toward the expansion of the Symphony’s education and community enrichment programs, including elementary school education and veterans’ initiatives.

Transportation

Over $500,000 is set to go to the nonprofit Age Well for transportation for seniors in Orange County. With the funding, Age Well’s senior services transportation project will procure six additional hybrid, specialized vehicles to provide non-emergency transportation services throughout Sen. Catherine Blakespear’s district, which includes the cities of Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita and San Juan Capistrano.

Huntington Beach will be given $1.45 million for its Ride Circuit Shuttle Program to “improve micro-mobility, reduce car traffic and provide low-cost, on-demand transit to residents and visitors on (an) all-electric shuttle,” according to Min’s office. A portion of the funding will be allocated to the Navigation Center, a 174-bed shelter and social services center for individuals struggling with housing insecurity.

Public safety

With the help of the $2 million in funding requested by Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, Irvine will establish a Real Time Crime Center that “embeds crime analysts in the Irvine Police Department communications and dispatch center.” The funds, according to Petrie-Norris’ office, would go toward equipping the RTCC with new software, hardware and the expansion of the existing dispatch center to include the RTCC analysts’ consoles.

Min also requested $990,000 in funding for RTCC to go toward new dispatch equipment. Current patrol vehicles will be replaced with electric vehicles, and the Criminal Investigation Division Unit will receive additional safety equipment.

Health

Lestonnac Free Clinic of Orange County, a public health clinic that provides free, critical health care services to low-income and uninsured residents throughout Southern California, will receive $3 million in funding jointly secured by Newman and Sen. Janet Nguyen, R-Huntington Beach.

With the funds, the clinic will be able to improve building infrastructure to “expand the number of patients it serves,” according to Newman’s office, and to “purchase a mobile RV unit to grow its street medicine program.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

​ Orange County Register 

‘Misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ are often just labels by the left to excuse censorship

• July 5, 2023

Disinformation, misinformation and fake news are real problems in a world that is now mainly online. However, this shouldn’t blind us to the very real risk that comes from a government that aggressively polices information or becomes an arbitrator of the truth. It’s simply too easy to use this power to silence political opponents or people who hold unpopular opinions. Caution on this front is more, not less, important now that America is so politically polarized.

The consensus in favor of genuine free speech is eroding as the focus shifts toward fighting “disinformation.” Separating truth from fiction has become more difficult in certain respects, but does that mean we should target speech that merely makes some people uncomfortable? If we interpret this speech as a form of violence — as many people now do — then a politically opportunistic government might well be tempted to classify those guilty of nothing more than being politically out of favor as dangerous.

This is why a Department of Homeland Security “anti-terrorism” program, which distributed approximately $40 million to groups with a tendency to demonize their political opponents, is worrisome. For instance, the agency has funded a program that has produced material classifying mainstream conservative organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, Fox News and the GOP as only a few steps removed from neo-Nazis and far-right terrorists in terms of the threat of radicalization they represent.

I sometimes criticize conservative political rhetoric, but it’s far-fetched to believe that simply watching Fox News puts one on the road to radicalization any more than watching MSNBC does. People are always entitled to their opinions. A government that forgets this could end up normalizing censorship while rendering us all less alert to real threats of radicalization.

Also problematic is government support for the so-called Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a United Kingdom-based group reportedly funded through State Department-backed entities. The group was the recent target of a multipart investigation by the Washington Examiner for building questionable and secret advertiser “exclusion lists” targeting conservative and libertarian media.

According to GDI’s assessment, among the highest-risk sites were the New York Post, RealClearPolitics and Reason. I not only write for Reason, but it employs many of my friends. Simply suggesting that a lab leak was to blame for the COVID-19 pandemic, a position which has now become relatively mainstream, was reason enough to be blacklisted.

Meanwhile, the outlets deemed “least risky” are all considered left of center with the exception of The Wall Street Journal. Supposedly low-risk for disinformation was the now-defunct BuzzFeed News, infamous for publishing the falsehood-laden Steele dossier.

Methodological problems, such as arbitrary and ideological distinctions between acceptable criticism and “negative targeting” of people and institutions, account for part of the ranking. But simple sloppiness is also on display: GDI falsely justified Reason’s poor ranking by claiming “the site publishes no information regarding authorship attribution, pre-publication fact-checking or post-publication corrections processes, or policies to prevent disinformation in its comments section.”

A quick look at Reason’s website is all it takes to rebut these claims. The authorship of articles is clearly communicated to readers and corrections are issued when needed, as with The New York Times and other respectable publications. Contrary to GDI’s belief, the fact that Reason doesn’t police its comment section isn’t based on its desire to spread disinformation but rather its belief in “free minds and free markets.”

Related Articles

The people behind GDI are entitled to their own opinions and methodology, and advertisers are free to direct their dollars wherever they want, including for ideological reasons. Condoning this with taxpayer dollars is the problem, even if political demonization is not the government’s intent.

Government involvement, direct or indirect, sends a signal that the recipient is trustworthy and neutral. Hence, some CEOs fell for the labelling. Xandr, a Microsoft-owned advertising firm, informed clients last year that it would no longer advertise on platforms with content considered by GDI to be “morally reprehensible” or “offensive.” Following the reporting by the Examiner (a publication which was itself blacklisted), Xandr suspended its relationship with GDI pending review.

The government involvement also exacerbates suspicions that public institutions have been corrupted, especially among those whose favorite outlets were targeted. It could also incite some conservatives, whenever they regain power, to intensify their own efforts to use government against progressive adversaries. That in turn creates even more polarization.

While not a unique occurrence, it is a good reminder that a government that sits in judgment of what is proper or improper information is inconsistent with the values of a free society.

Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. 

​ Orange County Register 

Farmer Boys announces two for $5 discount day on its No Brainer menu

• July 5, 2023

Farmer Boys will be selling items from its No Brainer Deals at an extra discount, two for $5, on Monday, July 10.

There are six items on the discount menu, and they are normally priced $3-$5, according to a news release from the Riverside-based chain.

The items are

Bacon, Egg & Cheese Muffin.
Mini Cakes Skillet, with one scrambled egg, two strips of bacon and three dollar pancakes.
Crispy French Toast Dippers.
Parm-Crusted Grilled Cheese Sandwich.
Fried Chicken Dippers, that is two chicken tenders with dressing.
All-Beef Chili.

The rationale for the sale is the 10th birthday of the Scarecrow, the chain’s mascot that appears in its commercials.

Guests will limited to items valid at participating locations while supplies last, the news release said.

Information: farmerboys.com

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

Will Swaim: A very California coup

• July 5, 2023

For decades, California’s government unions have bankrolled the campaigns of politicians who, once in office, return the favor — rubber-stamping union demands, no matter how extraordinary. The results in education, fire safety, health care, infrastructure, housing, cost of living, taxes and crime, for instance, have been catastrophic.

Now, state lawmakers are prepared to hand even more power to government-union leaders.

State senator Tom Umberg’s Senate Constitutional Amendment 7 would create a constitutional right to “economic well-being” for government workers and would prohibit California state and local officials from taking any action “that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.”

Lawyers representing public employees could argue, for example, that a decision to close a school, end a failed program for the homeless or to build a road with nonunion labor would interfere with their union’s constitutional protections.

“Democracy is gone if this passes,” said former state senator John Moorlach, an aggressive advocate of pension reform and frequent target of multimillion-dollar government-union political campaigns.

By privileging the rights of union members over nonunion workers, “SCA 7 will have a major negative impact on the state’s housing, environmental, and economic goals,” said Jason Pengel, chairman of the board of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC).

From Sacramento to the state’s 482 city halls, SCA 7 “will give public-sector unions the most exhaustive power of any branch of government,” said Michael J. Lotito, an attorney at Littler Mendelson, an expert on California employment law, and co-chairman of his firm’s Workplace Policy Institute.

Noting that just 15 percent of California building and construction workers are unionized, Pengel warned of possible efforts to prohibit the bulk of that workforce from participating in public projects. “Not only would this have a huge impact on employment rates in California as well as our economy, but it would also make public projects virtually impossible to complete,” Pengel said.

Despite the criticism, backers of state senator Tom Umberg’s bill signaled this week they have the votes they need to take their first steps in the legislature. In a matter of hours last week, the bill acquired more than 30 co-sponsors. Because it proposes a change to the state constitution, SCA 7 will require the approval of two-thirds of the members in each chamber before it is placed on the statewide ballot, presumably in the March 2024 statewide primary election.

Should SCA 7 make it onto the ballot, the bill’s noise-to-signal ratio will make it almost incomprehensible to the average voter.

Start with the misleading title. Though it’s called “The Right to Organize and Negotiate Act,” SCA 7 has nothing to do with organizing or negotiating — rights already firmly established in state and federal law. It’s the new “constitutional right” that causes all the mischief, elevating a public worker’s “right to economic well-being at work” to the same status as free speech, freedom of religion, rights against unlawful search and seizure and the like, all of which are (quite rightly) broadly construed by the state and federal courts because they are elevated by the Bill of Rights and state constitutions.

Then there’s the suggestion among SCA 7 boosters that their bill will apply equally to private businesses. Experts disagree, noting that the National Labor Relations Act is the final word on private-sector-employment matters.

It gets worse. Labor experts predict that enforcement will fall under the California Private Attorneys General Act. PAGA, as it’s called, has led to legal harassment of business owners alleged to have violated any number of state and federal versions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Proposition 65, and workplace-harassment claims.

“All civil-rights law carries with it the bludgeon of awarding attorneys’ fees to the prevailing parties,” said labor attorney Gregory Rolen, a managing partner of Haight Brown & Bonesteel and chairman of his firm’s public-sector-practice group. “Practically speaking, such cases are driven less by the merits than by the specter of exorbitant fee awards.” He added: “As written, this would just create another such opportunity. The bill should be retitled ‘The Plaintiff’s Bar Formal Employment Act.’”

If SCA 7 passes, Moorlach predicts that California’s economy will be based on just two functions: “In a good economy, government will hire more employees. In a bad economy, with tax revenue falling, government will simply have to raise taxes on the populace” because unions will argue in court that laying off employees would run afoul of the new rights created by SCA 7. “This steamrolling process is about to become explicit if the unions have their way.”

SCA 7 is part of a national effort on the part of government-union leaders in blue states. Consider Illinois’s Amendment 1. Passed by that state’s voters in November, it broadly prohibits any state or local-government action that “interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.” Both laws broaden classes of employees that can be organized, even in violation of federal law.

Indeed, two months after its passage in Illinois, Amendment 1 led to the unionization of Chicago school principals and assistant principals. “The fact of being an essential employee is one reason management isn’t typically unionized,” the Wall Street Journal noted in January. “With two layers of union interests now lined up at schools, children become an even smaller concern of the union-bureaucracy education complex, if that’s possible. . . No wonder thousands of students and their families are leaving Chicago schools.”

“California’s proposed amendment’s language broadens the demands government unions can make beyond wages and benefits to include undefined new subjects such as ‘economic well-being,’” said Illinois Policy Institute attorney Mailee Smith. “That could mean virtually anything,” Smith added. She pointed to Amendment 1 proponent Elizabeth Tandy Shermer’s comment: “We actually don’t know what’s going to be in these union contracts. We don’t know at all.”

Related Articles

In Harrisburg in April, supporters of Pennsylvania’s H.B. 950 said it would merely “cement” or “enshrine” the “fundamental right to organize and collectively bargain.” In fact, opponents said, H.B. 950, potentially like SCA 7, would erect a permanent barrier to any change in the employment status of government employees and would expand the power of government unions more generally.

In public testimony, one of those critics called out the cut-and-paste quality of the Pennsylvania bill. “The bill language was taken verbatim from the Illinois state constitutional amendment narrowly approved last year,” observed David Osborne, a senior fellow for labor policy at the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives. If passed in the legislature, Pennsylvania’s bill will go to state voters in 2025.

The stakes are high for California. Lotito says that if SCA 7 becomes law, “it cements California as the most anti-employer state in the country — and that includes government employers who are going to find themselves with decreasing power to resist even more unreasonable demands by unions.”

Will Swaim is president of the California Policy Center and co-host with David Bahnsen of National Review’s “Radio Free California” podcast. 

​ Orange County Register 

Lengthy pandemic closures weakened already low-achieving California schools

• July 5, 2023

Gov. Gavin Newsom is fond of rattling off statistics that prove, he claims, California’s enviable status as a national, or even global, leader in all things wonderful.

He tends, however, to cherrypick his numbers rather than provide a full picture, as a recent Sacramento Bee analysis of his economic assertions on national television demonstrates.

However, there’s one aspect of California society – perhaps its most important – that Newsom excludes from his episodes of braggadocio: how the state is educating nearly 6 million public school students.

The sad fact is that California’s students fare poorly vis-à-vis those of other states when it comes to basic skills in language and mathematics, as underscored in a newly published report by the Public Policy Institute of California.

California kids were lagging behind even before Newsom and other officials shut down schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and, the PPIC studies show, educational proficiency plummeted during the closures.

When state academic testing resumed in 2022 after being suspended during the pandemic, it showed “significant declines in proficiency rates.”

Before the pandemic, 51% of students met standards in English language arts (ELA) and it had dropped to 47%. In mathematics, proficiency declined from 40% to 33%.

“Only 35% of low-income students met state standards in ELA and 21% were proficient in math,” PPIC reported, “compared to 65% of higher-income students in ELA and 51% in math.”

Furthermore, PPIC noted, the nationwide test of reading and math proficiency “shows that California has consistently lagged behind most other states … 38th in math and 33rd in reading.”

Since Newsom is particularly fond of comparing California to other states, particularly Florida and Texas, one might wonder how we fare in educational attainment. The answer is, PPIC says, that “Florida ranks much higher than California.” However, the state “is ranked just above Texas in reading but far below in math,” although it does best New York in reading and math.

While school closures loomed large in the overall erosion of educational achievement during the pandemic, there were significant differences within the state because closures were not uniform.

“Most of California’s public school students spent the majority of the 2020–21 academic year fully online – longer than students in other states,” PPIC’s research found, but “the return to in-person instruction varied across the state.” Rural counties tended to return to in-person schooling more quickly than schools in urban areas. By June 2021, San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles counties had fewer than 10% of their school systems returned to classroom instruction.

PPIC did not mention that in urban school districts – Los Angeles Unified most notably – teacher unions often refused to return to the classroom without concessions from their employers, thus continuing online classes for additional months.

Related Articles

Newsom advocated reopening schools and his own kids quickly resumed classes at their private school, but he refused to intervene in districts that were lagging behind in returning kids to the classroom, apparently unwilling to confront the unions.

Variations in reopening meant that “districts with more Black, Latino, low-income, and English Learner students tended to reopen later than other districts,” and “learning gaps widened the longer students remained remote and may have worsened longstanding achievement gaps between low-income marginalized students and their peers.”

The statistical picture painted in the PPIC research confirms what was obvious to many at the time, that closing schools and forcing at-risk children into haphazard online classes while lacking internet access, tutoring and other resources would make the achievement gap even wider.

California’s economic and social future depends on having a well-educated workforce and citizenry. We were falling behind before COVID-19 struck, and we are even further behind now.

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.

​ Orange County Register 

Speakeasy inside Santa Monica’s The Georgian Hotel reopens after 60 years

• July 5, 2023

The Georgian, a boutique Art Deco-style Santa Monica hotel that’s occupied the Southern California coastline since 1933, is reopening its speakeasy utilized during prohibition six decades ago.

The space, dubbed The Georgian Room, once embodied the glamor of Hollywood’s Golden Age, hosting television stars such as Carole Lombard, Clark Gable and Dick Van Dyke, according to it owners, and it’s once again open to the general public.

The room was carefully restored using vintage photographs to bring the speakeasy back to its original design with an L-shaped layout of booths and the entrance showcases a 1918 ebony-polished Steinway & Sons piano built into the rose marble-topped bar. Guests can expect hand-crafted cocktails and signature dishes created by Chef David Almany, including a dry-aged tomahawk ribeye, rigatoni alla vodka and a grilled dorade.

Related Articles

While the speakeasy concept has become prominent trends in Southern California and even at major music festivals, they were commonly visited during the 1920s Prohibition era within the United States and originated in England and Ireland in the 19th century.

Although most alcohol was banned in the U.S., the law was difficult to enforce, paving the way for speakeasies to offer a place to sneak a drink for over a decade. The term “speakeasy” came from “speak-softly shops” and referenced the need for secrecy with customers asking to speak quietly while inside to avoid detection.

As a callback to a secret and intimate space of a speakeasy, The Georgian Room only allows a maximum of 65 guests and strictly prohibits photography and the use of cell phones.

Reservations for The Georgian Room are available for dinner from 6-10:30 p.m. and late nights from 10:30 p.m.-2 a.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. For reservations, email [email protected].

​ Orange County Register