Further Proof that California is Going Crazy!

Heard about this article on Mark Levin last night and couldn't believe the content.  Is it any wonder that California is having significant fiscal and social problems!  What a disaster on the Left Coast!!!!!

Oakland Soon will Issue Municipal ID Cards
By Cecily Burt
Oakland Tribune
11/24/2010

OAKLAND -- Oakland will soon be following in San Francisco's footsteps by offering a new municipal identification card to homeless people, immigrants and other residents who might have trouble obtaining a state identification card.

But Oakland's ID card will double as an ATM debit card (emphasis added), the first of its kind in the country. The ATM debit card can be used to buy groceries or goods and services wherever ATM cards are welcome, allowing people without bank accounts to avoid high check-cashing fees or walking around with large amounts of cash.

Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente has been trying to get an ID card system for Oakland residents since the state rejected efforts to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants in 2004.

The City Council voted in June 2009 to issue municipal identification cards and issued a request for proposals. On Nov. 9, the council voted to accept the bid of SF Mexico Services LLC to administer the program and issue the ID/debit cards at no cost to the city.

"I think we have a responsibility to provide local access and represent everyone," said De La Fuente, who along with Mayor-elect Jean Quan co-authored the ordinance last year. "We have to provide some way for people to identify themselves so that people don't get arrested. "... We have to move forward with the card and not delay further."

So far, the cities of San Francisco, New Haven, Conn., Trenton, N.J., and Washington, D.C., have municipal identification cards. None have a full ATM/debit feature, although Washington's card can be loaded with value to use on the Metro system, and New Haven's card can be loaded with up to $300 value that can be used at participating merchants and at parking meters.

City Clerk LaTonda Simmons said the group that studied the ID card issue and helped craft the request for proposals will meet again early next month to finalize the contract details and develop a timeline for implementation.

The company predicts it will issue about 30,000 cards a year, processed through five intake centers set up around the city, said Elias Enciso, director of business development for SF Mexico. The company will set up the infrastructure with community-based organizations to accept and process applications and issue the cards, as well as establish the banking relationship to support the cards. He said the program could be up and running within three months once there is a signed contract.

A group headed by Wilson Riles advocated for a local currency feature for Oakland's program. It is not included, but the feature could be added to the card at a later date if the city wants it, Enciso said.

The company already offers debit cards and it won the contract to issue ATM debit cards to youth working for the Los Angeles summer jobs program. This is its first ID card contract.

The cards can be replenished with cash or checks or even set up to receive direct deposits from the cardholder's job.

There is a setup fee: $15 for adults or $10 for seniors and youth, plus an extra $6.95 to add the debit card feature; a $2.95 reload fee for non-direct deposits; and a 99-cent monthly maintenance fee. Even so, the amounts are minuscule compared to hefty fees charged by check cashing stores. And cardholders can avoid ATM transaction fees by using the cash-back feature when shopping at grocery stores or other merchants.

SF Mexico will cover operational costs through the sale of the cards and the user fees will help sustain the growth of the company. But the firm isn't in it for the money, Enciso said.

"We are a social enterprise company, meaning that our main priority is to maximize social good to the community," Enciso said. "One of our principles is that businesses can provide financial services to underserved communities without price gouging."

Card holders are issued an account number and password, which they can use to obtain balance and transaction information via a toll-free phone number or online. They can view all their transactions, similar to a bank statement, for no charge.

To obtain a city ID card, applicants must provide one picture identification such as a driver's license, passport, green card or consular card. Applicants who don't have a driver's license need two pieces of identification such as a foreign driver's license, a Social Security card, a U.S. or foreign birth certificate, a military identification card or school identification.

Minors don't need photo ID, but they must have some sort of documentation either from a school or shelter.

Applicants must also prove residency by providing recent utility bills, tax bills, pay stub, jury summons or tax refund statement, among other items.

The municipal identification cards will supply the same type of information contained on a driver's license or state identification card, including name, address, date of birth, height, weight, eye and hair color and photograph. The card must be accepted as a valid form of identification at all city departments, including the police department.

Miguel Robles, founder of the Latino American Alliance for Immigration Rights, was behind the push to get San Francisco to launch a municipal ID card program in response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in 2007.

Several people caught in the raids were deported because they had no state-issued identification, Robles said.

The cards offer some measure of security in that San Francisco police accept the cards as proof of residency and the cardholders are more comfortable reporting crimes, Robles said. Cardholders also get all the benefits of other San Francisco residents, such as free resident days at the San Francisco Zoo and coverage under the city's health care program.

"You can get one if you are here illegally, if you are a resident of the city and are paying taxes and living here and spending money here," Robles said, describing the San Francisco program. "I'm very excited to have the program now in Oakland, too."

Enciso agreed that the cards give residents a sense of security they would not otherwise have.

"It's in the absolute best interest of all Oakland residents, regardless of immigration status, that everyone has identification," Enciso said. "It increases safety. What we saw in New Haven is that reporting of crimes went up 22 percent, primarily because people had a form of ID."

Judicial Travesty In California

A Federal judge in San Francisco yesterday ruled that same-sex marriage is a Constitutionally-protected right under the 14th Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection clauses.  Forget the fact that the ban is part of an amendment to the state's constitution, adopted by the people of the state.  This has been an issue where Federal courts, including the Supreme Court (Lawrence v Texas regarding sodomy), have been flat wrong over the last decade.  In Lawrence v Texas, Justice Scalia wrote in the dissent that the Supreme Court's decision regarding sodomy and the 14th Amendment would lead down the path of legally arguing in favor of same-sex marriage, which was the result of yesterday's decision in California.

The 14th Amendment has nothing to do with sex -- homosexual or heterosexual!  The Left continues to throw out the phrase "privacy in the bedroom" as a legal argument, which is completely ridiculous.  You can't kill someone in the privacy of your bedroom or take drugs in the privacy of your bedroom.  Yesterday's decision was nothing more than another step in the Federal Government's continual push to take away our ability as citizens to decide how much it can control our lives.  At some point, "We the People" have to stand up and decide who is going to decide our future -- Federal judges or us.  Next stop on this issue for California is the Supreme Court.  Sadly, previous rulings on this topic by the high court are pointing to a 5-4 decision in favor of same-sex marriage.
 

Only In California...

From the Nation's Capital of the Left, sunny California, comes another story that both boggles the mind and helps us understand a little more clearly why they are broke.  Just when you think the "Crazies on the West Coast" who run the state and its municipalities couldn't get any crazier in terms of fiscal irresponsibility, they hit another home run -- Bell, California's city manager made $800K a year!  Fortunately, the city manager and other overpaid officials have resigned and only now the California AG is outraged over the whole issue. 

Here's is an excellent post on the issue from Tim Daniel at Left Coast Rebel:

Ringing the bell at the top: Paging Chris Christie

Consider Bell. A diverse, poor offshoot of Los Angeles, Bell’s population in 2000 stood at 37,000 and its median per year household income clocked in at $29,000. But according to a blitz of media reports, city manager Robert Rizzo’s yearly salary clocks in close to $800,000.

Rizzo thinks he’s worth every penny recently claiming:

“If that’s a number people choke on, maybe I’m in the wrong business. I could go into private business and make that money. This council has compensated me for the job I’ve done.”

No kidding. But that’s not where the buck stops.

Investor’s Business Daily has the city manager’s yearly retirement pension at a cool $600,000, starting at age 50. Such sweetheart scenarios were written by lawmakers during the Davis administration, exemplifying the unison of politicians, powerful unions, and the corruptocrat state attorneys at home in Sacramento.

In addition to Rizzo’s sub $800,000 salary, Bell police chief netted over $456,000 and assistant city manager Angela Spaccia earned $376,000. The Los Angeles Times reported today that all three of these high-income earners got the boot today. We’ll see if they “go into private business and make that money” as the Bell city manager claimed.

The local issue of overpaid, zealous administrators in Bell, California, demonstrates a far more troubling macro picture for both the state and the nation a whole. California’s pension system alone now comes with a price tag that dwarfs the estimates of 10 years ago. This is due mostly to the 1999 California enacted pension ‘reform’ based on ludicrous investment gambles that assumed (among many other things) that the Dow Jones Industrial average would be trading at 25,000 by 2009. And with the ongoing recession and business/entrepreneur exodus – it will only get worse.

California may break records in fiscal insanity and union largess but the issue is not unique to this state alone. A story today out of Ann Arbor, Michigan highlights city officials who saw it fit to use taxpayer dollars to purchase an $800,000 piece of art despite the city’s current fiscal distress. The city also hired an art-coordinator and while doing so fired the city administrator that oversees trash collection efforts.

Talk about taking out the trash.

Going forward, the nation may not only face public outrage but civic unrest, when the taxpayers who foot the bill for perpetual government sector magnanimity come to full grips with the situation we are facing.

Perhaps we need hundreds of clones of a certain large, Italian, former prosecutor at every level of state and federal government to clean up this mess.

Paging Chris Christie.

California Supreme Court Weighs Legality of Gay Marriage Ban

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- The California Supreme Court, which legalized gay marriage in 2008, will consider whether it was unconstitutional for Californians to outlaw same-sex weddings in a ballot measure that sparked protests and calls for boycotts against its supporters.

Gay and civil rights groups and cities including San Francisco and Los Angeles are seeking to overturn the measure, known as Proposition 8, which on Nov. 4 won 52 percent approval of voters to amend the state constitution to ban homosexual nuptials in the nation’s most populous state.

They say Proposition 8 is illegal because it revises the constitution to rob a protected minority of equal rights and court protection. Revisions of the constitution must be handled by state lawmakers, according to lawsuits filed on Nov. 5. Proposition 8 backers said the court can’t reverse what voters have approved. Arguments in the case are scheduled for today in San Francisco.

“The court is always reluctant to overturn a ballot initiative,” said attorney Vikram Amar, who teaches constitutional law at University of California-Davis. “Prop 8 challengers will try to distinguish this initiative from others, that equality is somehow more important than other basic rights.”

The court will also decide whether to invalidate approximately 18,000 marriages performed before Proposition 8 passed. Four out of seven Supreme Court justices voted to legalize gay marriage in May. One of the four voted against hearing lawsuits seeking to overturn Proposition 8. That has led to speculation that there may be four votes against striking down Proposition 8, said Amar. A ruling is due within 90 days.

The ballot measure captured national attention because California was only the second state after Massachusetts to allow gay weddings and because of the backlash against its supporters.

Mormon and Evangelical churches in California were targeted by protesters over their support of the measure. Proposition 8 campaign donors, some of whose names were publicized on Web sites, received critical e-mails or calls to boycott their businesses, according to court records.

California has at least 92,000 same-sex couples, more than any other state, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. The state supreme court ruled in May that homosexual couples have a constitutional right to marry. The ruling struck down laws barring gay weddings, and was reversed by Proposition 8.

“If permitted to stand, Proposition 8 would strike directly at the foundational constitutional principal of equal protection” by establishing “that an unpopular group may be selectively stripped of fundamental rights by a simple majority of voters,” Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in court filings.

Minter, a 48-year-old transsexual who is married with a daughter, will argue on behalf of gay couples suing to overturn Proposition 8. He was one of the attorneys who successfully argued before the court in May to legalize gay weddings.

Kenneth Starr, the Pepperdine University Law School dean and former U.S. independent counsel who headed an investigation that led to former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, will represent Proposition 8 supporters before the court today. Proposition 8 doesn’t revise the constitution or allow a majority to take rights away from same-sex couples because it leaves intact California’s domestic partner laws, Starr, 62, said in court filings.

Californians “will no doubt continue to debate the issue in terms of inalienable rights, justice, tradition and social welfare,” Starr wrote. “However, the judiciary no longer has a role in determining the definition of marriage.”