Tag: San Francisco Chronicle

SACRAMENTO — As PG&E Corp. and its utility subsidiary filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday over mounting costs from the past two wildfire seasons, California lawmakers expressed frustration that controversial wildfire liability reform legislation passed last year was not enough to prevent PG&E’s move and dismissed the possibility of intervening again to assist the troubled utility. Opponents dismissed the measure as a bailout. Yet PG&E is now facing even greater potential liabilities from the Camp Fire, which ravaged Butte County last November and is not covered by the bill. Related Stories State Sen. Bill Dodd, the Napa Democrat who carried SB901, said Tuesday that it “remains hard to do anything more than we’ve done” without a complete change in PG&E’s management. He noted that much of the board of directors is the same as it was in 2010, when one of the company’s natural gas pipelines exploded in San Bruno, killing eight people. He called for new executive leadership that would “submit to a culture of safety throughout the whole organization.” “The mismanagement at PG&E has led to this,” Dodd said. “I was kind of out there by myself on that one,” Holden said. The Legislature’s focus will likely shift instead to issues that remain unresolved from last session, particularly whether California should change a legal principle called inverse condemnation that holds utilities liable for any damage caused by wildfires started by their equipment, even if they were not negligent in maintaining it. He is exploring a way to give lawmakers veto power over whatever arrangement the state utilities commission signs off on for PG&E. “You can’t believe a word they say, and they keep trying to fool the public and fool legislators into thinking they are something different than what they are,” said Hill, who has been a fierce critic of the company since the San Bruno explosion.

(Photo: Meg Kinnard, AP) Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown addressed his past relationship with Sen. Kamala Harris in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday and acknowledged giving her appointments that furthered her career. It was more than 20 years ago," wrote Brown, who said he had "been peppered with calls from the national media about my 'relationship' with Kamala Harris, particularly since it became obvious that she was going to run for president." Harris' office did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment on Brown's letter to the Chronicle. Brown was married at the time he and Harris dated, but – because he had been "estranged from his wife" Blanche Brown since 1981, according to People magazine –the relationship was not kept secret. A Sacramento Bee reporter told People that Brown "had a succession of girlfriends" and would "go to a party with his wife on one arm and his girlfriend on the other.” A 1994 Los Angeles Times report about then-California Assembly Speaker Brown's "rush to hand out patronage jobs" described Harris as Brown's "frequent companion" and said several people referred to her as Brown's girlfriend. When they met, she was 29 and Brown was 60. According to Caen, the couple split up in 1995, which "flabbergasted" those "who found Kamala the perfect antidote to whatever playboy tendencies still reside in the mayor-elect's jaunty persona." Although Brown supported Harris in her successful 2003 run for San Francisco district attorney, she tried to distance herself from him in that race, telling SF Weekly that Brown – whose career was dogged by corruption allegations – was an "albatross hanging around my neck." "His career is over; I will be alive and kicking for the next 40 years. "And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco," he said in his Chronicle letter Saturday.. "I have also helped the careers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown addressed his past extramarital relationship with U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris in his weekly column Saturday, saying he may have boosted the presidential hopeful's career. "Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago," Brown wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. "That's politics for ya." "The difference is that Harris is the only one who, after I helped her, sent word that I would be indicted if I 'so much as jaywalked' while she was D.A.” — Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco Brown appointed Harris -- about 30 years younger than Brown and just a few years out of law school – to two well-paid state commission assignments on the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the California Medical Assistance Commission, the Washington Free Beacon reported. "Whether you agree or disagree with the system, I did the work," Harris said in a 2003 interview with SF Weekly. "I brought a level of life knowledge and common sense to the jobs." Brown's involvement in her election raised questions as to how Harris would remain impartial, given his enormous political clout. During his two terms as mayor of San Francisco, Brown was known for his charm, arrogance and ego, according to a 1996 profile in People magazine.

Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. And if you missed it earlier this week, here’s our conversation on how fear is playing on the campaign trail. Readers from all across the country wrote in last week to tell us about the political issues you and your neighbors would like to hear more about in the final days of the campaign. (By the way, more of you wrote in from California than any other state. Boston wants to build a bridge to an island that houses a now-dormant addiction center. But when it comes to Tennessee, I’m a Memphis guy. But Memphis is also rib town. Do you agree with Jonathan’s favorites? And read Jonathan’s story: A Changing Tennessee Weighs a Moderate or Conservative for Senate ____________________ Today in live polling: California and Utah Image As the election nears, The Times’s live polling project is talking to voters in some of the closest races. Today, Nate Cohn and the Upshot team highlighted a few polls happening right now: Through 421 respondents in Utah’s Fourth District, it’s a very narrow lead for Ben McAdams against the Republican incumbent, Mia Love.

A Russian participant in the notorious meeting held by Donald Trump’s son at Trump Tower last year had business ties to a man who was believed by US authorities in a 2000 US government report to have links to former Soviet intelligence officials. Irakly Kaveladze was identified this week as the eighth attendee of the June 2016 meeting, which has become central to questions over Russian interference in last year’s presidential election. Eighth person at Trump Jr meeting was accused of money laundering Read more Trump’s son, Donald Jr, agreed to the meeting after being told by email that he would be given damaging information about Hillary Clinton, their Democratic opponent, as part of an effort by the Russian government to support Trump. Kaveladze, a 52-year-old executive at a Moscow-based property firm with ties to Trump, was found in a 2000 US Government Accountability Office report to have created hundreds of shell companies for a $1.4bn scheme that US investigators suspected was used to launder Russian money through American banks. In a telephone interview this week, Goldstein, 53, denied having ties to intelligence agencies in Russia or the former Soviet Union. They were joined by Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian American political operative and former military officer. Kaveladze’s attorney, Scott Balber, did not respond to questions about the $1.4bn money transfer system involving Russian funds. Goldstein says that Johansons did not work with the bank he founded or during any time that Goldstein had an interest in the merged bank and that he had never met nor spoken with Johansons. In 1996, according to the GAO investigators, Goldstein’s company signed a contract with a company owned by Kaveladze for Kaveladze to introduce potential banking customers to Goldstein’s company, and then open bank accounts for them at Commercial Bank, where Goldstein was director of private banking and international banking. The GAO passed their findings to law enforcement agencies but no charges were ever brought.