A poll reveals a change in public sentiment over the governor's race, University of California celebrates 150 years, SoCal Edison's preemptive power line measures.
Don't worry, GOP, the Governator is here to help
This week on State of Affairs:
Saving the CA GOP
Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger compared California's GOP to a sinking ship Wednesday. The remarks came at an event put together by a group called New Way California -- an organization formed by Republican lawmaker Chad Mayes. Yes, that Chad Mayes.
Flanked by Ohio Governor John Kasich, the Governator pitched a plan to turn things around for the party, going so far as to suggest that donors withhold their donations until the state party takes on a more centrist approach.
John Cox gets a boost
New data from the Public Policy Institute of California shows a surprising twist in the governor's race: it now puts Republican John Cox in second place behind Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom. Cox elbowed out Antonio Villaraigosa, who ranked second in its last poll from January.
It might be good news for Cox, but Claremont McKenna politics professor Jack Pitney says he wouldn't celebrate just yet:
"In Newsom and Cox, game over; Gavin Newsom would be the next governor," Pitney says.
University of California celebrates its 150th anniversary
The idea was simple but revolutionary: College should be available to everyone. So began the University of California, which turns 150 years old today.
Almost 300,000 students now attend UC schools on ten different campuses. Compare that with 1868, when the fledgling UC was a hodgepodge of temporary buildings with only 10 faculty.
KPCC education reporter Adolfo Guzman Lopez joined Take Two's A Martinez to talk about how the UC system has evolved.
How the University of California began
California Governor Henry Haight signed the act that created the University of California in 1868. The law married the College of California, which had enrolled some students but was in heavy debt, with a new college for agriculture and mechanical studies that had funding but no building. The founders of these institutions were mostly Christian ministers from the East Coast.
A belief in California's potential
The future was very obvious to the founders. The Gold Rush and entry into the U.S. had attracted a lot of people to the state. The growing population created a need for teachers, accountants, government workers, engineers and other professionals. So UCs were responding to a practical need to fill those jobs.
Women were able to attend the UC long before Ivy League schools
That was very uncommon. Yale and Princeton admitted women in 1969. Columbia University didn’t start admitting women until 1981. 1870s California was a place that wasn’t beholden to some of the East Coast’s social rules.
Notable UC alumni
UC faculty and researchers have won 61 Nobel Prizes over the years, mostly in chemistry and physics, which underlines the UC's status as a science powerhouse. There are so many stories.
One that sticks out is that of Ralph Bunche. He was an African-American kid who graduated from Jefferson High in South L.A., was accepted to UCLA, paid for tuition and expenses with a sports scholarship and a job as a janitor. He went to graduate school, eventually became a U.S. diplomat, then won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for brokering a peace agreement between Israel and four Arab countries the year before. A UC education opened the doors for him.
UC’s impact on popular culture
If New York high school student Mario Savio hadn’t enrolled at UC Berkeley, would he have helped start the Free Speech Movement in 1964? If Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison hadn’t met in film class at UCLA, would they have founded The Doors? If Angela Davis hadn’t enrolled at UCSD to study under a famous Marxist philosopher, would she have joined the Black Panthers and become such a prominent American thinker? The UC has helped a lot of people achieve.
Measuring the UC's financial impact
A 2011 report found the University of California generates about $46.3 billion in economic activity in California and contributes $32.8 billion to the gross state product. UCLA has an annual budget of about $7 billion. A report says UCLA had a nearly $13 billion economic impact, through 103,000 jobs in the region and around the state. That’s just one campus. Each of the other nine campuses has a similar economic impact in their regions.
Tuition is on the rise
The cost to attend UC has skyrocketed. Tuition has tripled in the last 20 years. This year, resident students are paying about $14,000 each year in tuition and fees. The recession a decade ago led to budget cuts, which UC administrators say hurt the quality of teaching and research on campuses.
Diversity is still a problem. Black and Latino student enrollment at some of UC’s top campuses like UC Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD is still far below the proportion of those groups in the California population. But black and Latino enrollment at a couple of campuses like Merced and Riverside is much higher.
Founding philosophy of the UC system — that college should be available to everyone — is becoming a difficult mission to fulfill
UC broke application records again this year. UC campuses received 220,000 applications. Admission rates vary widely. About 17 percent of those who apply to UCLA and UC Berkeley get in. About half get into UC Riverside, and 72 percent get into UC Merced.
Hey, UC grads: Could you get into your alma mater today?
SoCal Edison could see more power line shutoffs due to prevalent fire conditions
Pacific Gas and Electric announced a new policy this week. As part of a larger plan to increase wildfire safety, the Northern California utility will shut off power lines in areas experiencing "extreme fire conditions."
PG&E's new policy has implications for how utilities may operate in the southern part of the state. To find out more, Take Two's A Martinez spoke to Southern California Edison's Vice President of Transmission and Distribution, Phil Harrington.
Harrington said shutting off power lines is a strategy utilities have been using for years to help prevent wildfires, but he expects there will be more shutoffs in the future since wildfire conditions are becoming more common.
In December 2017, SoCal Edison shut off power lines in the Idyllwild area, and Harrington said this was a good example of the kind of conditions that can make a shutoff necessary.
First of all we're looking at red flag warnings, so those are conditions of elevated fire threats. Other conditions that go into that of course are humidity, expected winds and conditions on the circuit that we'll consider [when deciding] whether or not we want to de-energize a line.
When preventative shutoffs do happen, Harrington said the utility tries to give customers as much advanced notice as possible, especially when customers have medical equipment like oxygen devices that run off electrical power in their homes.
Shutting off power is a last resort for the utility, Harrington said, but it does become necessary in certain situations.
These are balanced decisions. There are many factors that go into a decision on whether to shut off a customer or not, and at the end of the analysis, it is essentially a judgment call. As a system operator, we're trying to make the best decision we can with safety of our customers and communities first and foremost.
There are other tools that SoCal Edison has to help prevent fires, related to procedures and how equipment is built, Harrington said.
Circuit design of course for one thing. We have standards for pole design. Circuits in high fire areas we have a way that we actually make those circuits less likely to cause a fire by not re-energizing if they do trip. We have very aggressive vegetation management, so clearing away brush from our lines.
SoCal Edison is involved in ongoing lawsuits alleging that its equipment could have contributed to the recent Thomas fire. Harrington said he could not comment on the litigation.