HEMET — Hemet’s adopted 2026-27 budget is not a secret. Combined General Fund and Measure U spending is $96,123,000. Combined revenue is $86,535,000. The city plans to spend $9,588,000 more than it takes in.

The city’s own explanation is in the same book. Revenues have begun to flatten. Costs keep rising. The document cites inflation, personnel costs, insurance, and contracts. Liability premiums are about $7.0 million, plus a $2.0 million self-insured retention. Measure U is budgeted at $16,985,000 in and $21,406,000 out, including $1.5 million for retiring police payouts and $1.5 million toward the insurance premium.

The city also lists cost-containment: a hiring freeze on vacant posts, new hires limited to mission-critical and revenue-generating jobs, a 10 percent cut in department maintenance and operations, and 17 frozen positions, including six police officers and a deputy fire chief. Reserves are reported at about $28.9 million as of June 30, 2025, against a 40 percent policy.

That is the city’s case, at its strongest. It is not enough to justify another tax.

Measure Q would add 1 cent on each dollar of taxable purchases. The city estimates about $16 million a year. It is a general tax. Proceeds go to the General Fund for any lawful city purpose. The ordinance does not require a spending cut, a headcount cap, or an efficiency audit as a condition of collecting the money. Groceries and medicine are exempt. Oversight language is in the city’s materials. None of that changes the structure: more tax revenue, same open-ended spending.

Public-employee costs and insurance keep climbing. The pattern on offer is higher taxes and thinner services. Frozen officers and a new sales tax in the same year is not a reform. It is a request for residents to pay more while the city spends more than it collects.

The solution is not to raise taxes. The solution is to cut government spending. It is never enough for the public-service payroll. Voters should not be told the only choices are a higher tax rate or fewer services. Efficiency is the third choice, and it is not on the November ballot.

The news account of these figures is here.

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City Council adopted the Fiscal Year 2026-27 operating budget on June 23 by Resolution 2026-105. Combined General Fund and Measure U revenues are budgeted at $86,535,000. Combined expenditures are budgeted at $96,123,000. The difference is $9,588,000, a $9.6 million use of fund balance.

Those figures come from the adopted budget tables. They are the city’s official plan for the year ending June 30, 2027.

Across all city funds, the adopted budget lists $150,757,303 in revenue and $154,184,303 in expenditures.

The combined General Fund is two pots. Fund 110 is the city’s main operating fund. It is budgeted at $69,550,000 in revenue and $74,717,000 in spending. That is a $5,167,000 gap.

Fund 115 is Measure U. Voters approved that 1 percent transactions and use tax in 2016. The adopted budget describes it as a general sales tax restricted solely to public safety by resolution. Measure U is budgeted at $16,985,000 in revenue and $21,406,000 in spending.

The Measure U gap is $4,421,000. The adopted budget says Measure U fund balance is being used to buy equipment such as radios, cameras, hoses and vehicles, to rehabilitate fire stations, and to help pay liability insurance for police and fire.

One-time Measure U uses listed in the budget total $4,537,000. The largest items are $1.5 million for retiring police personnel payouts and $1.5 million toward the liability insurance premium. Other listed items include four police interceptors, 50 radios, two traffic motorcycles, cameras, Fire Station 5 work, and fire hose replacements.

One-time General Fund uses listed in the budget total $1,233,000. They include downtown parking lot repavement, a truck routing ordinance, radios, storage work, branding, Christmas decorations, and other one-time purchases.

The budget says revenues have begun to flatten while costs keep rising. It cites inflation, personnel costs, insurance, and contracts. Cost-containment steps in the document include a hiring freeze on vacant posts, limiting new hires to mission-critical and revenue-generating jobs, and a 10 percent cut in department maintenance and operations spending.

Citywide positions are down 8.5 full-time equivalents from the prior adopted budget. The document lists 17 frozen positions, including six police officers, a deputy fire chief, and other public safety and civilian posts.

Liability insurance is called out as a major pressure. For fiscal 2026-27, the budget puts liability premiums at about $7.0 million, plus a $2.0 million self-insured retention for claims. That is about 4.9 percent higher than the prior year, the document says.

Hemet’s written reserve policy requires spendable, unrestricted General Fund reserves equal to at least 40 percent of current expenditures. The City Council raised that target from 20 percent to 40 percent beginning in fiscal 2023-24. The adopted budget says the reserve totaled about $28.9 million as of June 30, 2025.

The city’s latest posted Annual Comprehensive Financial Report remains the report for the year ended June 30, 2024. That is the newest ACFR on the Finance Department’s financial information page.

The operating budget is separate from the capital program. The city’s five-year Capital Improvement Program for fiscal 2026-27 through 2030-31 lists a grand total of $159,501,108. The fiscal 2026-27 column is $21,736,408. Those totals are in the CIP project summary, not the operating-budget tables.

On the November 3, 2026, ballot, Hemet voters will decide Measure Q. It is a separate 1-cent transactions and use tax. The City Council placed it on the ballot on July 14. The city’s Measure Q FAQ and the city attorney’s impartial analysis both say the tax is estimated to generate about $16 million a year.

Measure Q would be a general tax. Proceeds would go to the General Fund and could be used for any lawful city purpose, according to the proposed ordinance and the impartial analysis. The tax would last until ended by voters. The city says groceries, prescription medicine, diapers, and feminine hygiene products are exempt. The city also says the money would stay in Hemet, with public disclosure, independent citizens’ oversight, and audits.

Hemet’s current sales tax rate is 8.75 percent, the city’s FAQ states. Measure Q would add 1 cent on each dollar of taxable purchases.

The city has scheduled three Measure Q open houses at the Hemet Public Library, 300 E. Latham Ave.: Sept. 16 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Sept. 26 from 10 a.m. to noon, and Oct. 16 from 6 to 8 p.m.

The adopted operating budget does not include Measure Q revenue. The November vote is a separate question from the books the council already adopted for this fiscal year.

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The measure, which takes effect Oct. 1, 2027, expands California’s long-running Safe at Home program to cover immigration support workers, following what Democratic lawmakers describe as a troubling increase in harassment and threats directed at immigrants and the advocates who assist them.

For Inland Empire residents who work in immigrant services — from legal aid attorneys to nonprofit volunteers — the change could offer new protections. But the law has also become a flashpoint in a broader political fight, with Republican critics arguing it tramples on constitutional free press protections.

Tensions boiled over last week in Sacramento, where Terry Schanz, chief of staff for Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, got into a heated, recorded confrontation outside the state Capitol with Nick Shirley, a conservative social media personality and vocal opponent of the legislation. In the exchange, which quickly spread across social media, Schanz hurled a crude insult at Shirley. Assembly officials have declined to say whether Schanz will face any disciplinary action.

What the law actually does

The legislation, Assembly Bill 2624, allows immigration support workers, employees and volunteers to enroll in California’s Safe at Home program. Enrollees — along with family members living in their household — can use an alternative mailing address issued through the California secretary of state’s office instead of disclosing their actual home address in public records. Participants are also permitted to vote confidentially.

The law further bars any “person, business, or association” from knowingly publishing online the home address, photograph or personal information of a program participant, or their spouse or child, with the intent of inciting someone else to cause serious physical harm. Violators could face civil penalties of up to $4,000.

Assemblymember Mia Bonta, who championed the bill, said the protections respond to real cases of intimidation.

“We heard directly from organizations whose staff and volunteers have been doxxed, harassed, followed and filmed at their workplaces and threatened, with that harassment sometimes reaching their families at home,” Bonta said during the bill’s final vote in the Legislature last week. “These are not hypothetical concerns. No one should have to fear that doing their job will put their family at risk.”

A program with a long history

California created Safe at Home nearly three decades ago to protect the identities of domestic violence survivors. Since then, lawmakers have steadily broadened who qualifies, adding survivors of stalking, sexual assault, human trafficking and elder abuse, as well as reproductive health care workers and, during the pandemic, public health officials.

Last year, the state extended the program to workers in gender-affirming care, using similar language barring the public posting of their addresses or personal details. That measure also passed largely along party lines, though it picked up some bipartisan support in committee votes.

How to enroll

To participate, applicants must live in California and schedule an appointment with a designated enrolling agency, where they’ll work with an application assistant to complete the paperwork. Applicants need to show evidence of credible threats — such as police reports or court records — and submitting false information is a misdemeanor.

Once the secretary of state’s Safe at Home program approves an application, participants receive an official ID card bearing their substitute address, which state and local government agencies are required to accept. Private businesses and the federal government, however, are not obligated to honor it. Enrollment lasts four years and can be renewed.

Republican pushback

Opposition from Republican lawmakers has been intense, with some vowing to challenge the law in court on First Amendment grounds. Assemblymember Carl DeMaio of San Diego, one of the law’s most vocal critics, has branded it the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” claiming its real intent is to shield organizations from scrutiny by journalists and investigators like Shirley.

Shirley has built a following by investigating alleged fraud at child care centers, including a 2025 video accusing Minnesota facilities of wrongdoing that preceded a surge in federal immigration enforcement there. He also visited several Somali-run day care centers in San Diego this past February, alleging they were “ghost facilities” without children actually present.

“They’ve essentially created a protected class by calling this group — the immigration support service providers — saying that I and you cannot expose them,” Shirley told supporters at a rally outside the Capitol last week. “None of our money should be going towards illegal migrants, nor should it be going towards the nonprofits that are funded by your tax dollars.”

Jenny Rae Le Roux, a Republican running for California’s 47th Congressional District, called the law unnecessary, noting that inciting violence is already illegal. She also criticized the bill’s wording — including its use of the term “image” — as overly vague. Le Roux said she intends to keep investigating government spending regardless of the new restrictions, even inviting arrest under the statute.

“We will double down on our efforts … to expose waste, fraud and corruption wherever we find it, including immigration service providers,” she said at the rally. “And if Gavin Newsom doesn’t like it, he can come arrest me himself.”

Supporters of the bill reject the idea that it protects organizations from legitimate oversight. Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Santa Cruz Democrat who backed the measure, noted that no news organization has formally opposed the law.

“The opposition to AB 2624 has not come from them,” Pellerin said during the floor debate. “It has come from bad faith actors looking for an available vehicle to smear immigrant communities and the people who serve them.”

Original source: CalMatters

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The Republican Party of Riverside County calendar lists an Ed Delgado meet-and-greet tonight, Friday, Aug. 28, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Perris. The address is not posted. The listing says to call for details.

Canvassing follows Saturday, Aug. 29, at 9 a.m. Volunteers are to meet at Box Springs Elementary School, 11900 Athens Drive, Moreno Valley. The calendar also lists postcard writing and phone banking. The contact is Christine Fontes, 951-640-5597.

Those events sit just outside the San Jacinto Valley. They are the county party’s posted work this week for the Assembly District 60 nominee. Delgado is the Republican in that race. The county party has endorsed him.

The June HSJCR newsletter is the latest issue posted for the local club. It asked members to volunteer for two campaigns tied to the valley. It described Delgado as “an excellent candidate” and said Republicans have “an opportunity to take AD60.” It listed Fontes as the volunteer contact for that race.

The same newsletter asked members to help Males. Males is Hemet’s mayor pro tem. He is the Republican nominee in Congressional District 25 against incumbent Democrat Raul Ruiz. The county party has endorsed him. The newsletter identified Males as an HSJCR member and “an excellent candidate challenging Raul Ruiz.” It listed Michael Curry, 707-548-1007, as the volunteer contact for that campaign.

HSJCR is the valley’s grassroots Republican club. It is chartered as an affiliate of the California Congress of Republicans. Its public site is hemetrepublicans.com. Mail goes to P.O. Box 304, San Jacinto. Officers named in the June newsletter include President Tom Wilson and Immediate Past President Norm Kyriss. The club’s meetings page says dinners are usually held on the fourth Monday of the month at the Hemet Elks Lodge, 1305 W. Florida Ave.

Kyriss is now a candidate himself. City of Hemet Clerk records show Norman W. Kyriss III pulled papers July 27 and filed Aug. 7 for City Council District 1. The November 3 municipal election lists that seat as a two-year term. He faces Constance Howard-Clark, who filed Aug. 4, and Carlos Michel, who filed Aug. 6. All three names are posted on the city’s official election page.

The county party’s posted 2026 endorsement list includes Males in CD-25, Jeff Gonzalez in Assembly District 36, Delgado in AD-60, and other federal, state, and county races. City council names on that page are in Riverside. Hemet Districts 1, 2, and 5 are not listed. San Jacinto City Council is not listed. Measure Q is not listed. Those local contests simply do not appear on the posted endorsement page.

Hemet/San Jacinto Republican Women Federated is not currently meeting, according to the club’s meetings page. The page says the group “may be back soon.”

No Hemet or San Jacinto campaign headquarters is listed for this cycle. The club’s headquarters page says the valley maintains an office during presidential general elections. It lists local contacts for signs and voter registration. The county party lists its office at 41923 2nd St., Suite 404, Temecula.

Looking ahead on the county calendar, a Guns, Faith and Freedom Rally is set for Saturday, Sept. 19, from 4 to 8 p.m. at Monteleone Meadows, 35245 Briggs Road, Murrieta. Vendor and candidate participation applications are posted with the event.

Valley residents looking for this month’s posted work are pointed to the county calendar and to the contacts already in the June HSJCR newsletter. Fontes is listed for Delgado. Curry is listed for Males. The Perris meet-and-greet is tonight. The Moreno Valley canvass is Saturday morning.

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The child was Camila Leon, 8, of Perris, according to the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner. Next of kin have been notified. The coroner’s file is marked final.

Silvia Corona, 52, of San Jacinto, was identified by the Perris Sheriff’s Station Traffic Reconstruction Team as the suspect in the two-vehicle collision, the department said. The charges described in the sheriff’s release are allegations. Corona has not been convicted.

Deputies from the Perris station responded at 5:36 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15, to the intersection of Ramona Expressway and Rider Street on a report of a major-injury crash involving two vehicles, the sheriff’s release said. The file number is PE262270081.

The coroner listed the time of injury as 5:35 p.m. at that same intersection.

Upon arrival, deputies found five injured people in one of the vehicles, the department said. Two had life-threatening injuries. The driver and sole occupant of the second vehicle was also hurt. All were taken to local hospitals.

One juvenile passenger was later pronounced dead at a hospital, the sheriff’s release said. A second juvenile passenger remained hospitalized in critical condition, according to that account. The department has not issued a later public update on the second child’s condition.

The coroner said Camila died at 6:04 p.m. Aug. 15 at Riverside University Health System, 26520 Cactus Avenue in Moreno Valley. The injury location matches the crash scene. The investigating agency is the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, Perris Station, under the same file number.

The sheriff’s first account said the identity of the dead child would not be released at that time. The coroner’s office later posted the name.

Perris traffic investigators continued the case and identified Corona as the suspect, the department said. On Aug. 17, she was arrested and booked into the Cois M. Byrd Detention Center for gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury, according to the sheriff’s update.

On Aug. 18, Corona posted bail and was released, the department said. The sheriff’s release does not state the amount of that first bail.

On Aug. 20, the Riverside District Attorney’s Office issued an arrest warrant for an additional charge of second-degree murder, the Sheriff’s Department said. Perris deputies went to Corona’s residence and took her into custody without incident. She was booked into the Cois M. Byrd Detention Center for second-degree murder. Bail was set at $1 million.

The investigation remains open, the department said. No further details would be released at the time of the Aug. 20 update.

Sgt. Evan Bechtold is listed as the reporting supervisor on the Perris station item, titled “Fatal Traffic Collision – Suspect Arrested (Update).”

Anyone with information is asked to call Deputy Joseph Puente at the Perris Sheriff’s Station at (951) 210-1000, or Riverside County Sheriff’s Dispatch at (951) 776-1099.

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The San Jacinto Station conducted a DUI and driver’s license checkpoint from 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 21, to 2 a.m. Saturday on State Street north of 7th Street, according to a department update posted Aug. 22. Deputies screened 961 vehicles and conducted 10 field sobriety tests, the Sheriff’s Department said.

Besides the five DUI arrests, deputies issued 28 citations for driving without a license and six other Vehicle Code citations, the department said. Two people were arrested on misdemeanor warrants, and 16 vehicles were stored or impounded.

Sgt. Daniel Chico is the reporting supervisor. In an Aug. 17 announcement of the checkpoint, Chico said impaired drivers put others on the road at significant risk.

“Any prevention measures that reduce the number of impaired drivers on our roads significantly improve traffic safety,” Chico said.

The Sheriff’s Office said checkpoint sites are chosen from data on impaired-driving crashes. The stated purpose is public safety — taking suspected impaired drivers off the road, not maximizing arrests.

The Aug. 21 stop was part of a longer Labor Day enforcement window. The San Jacinto Station said additional deputies have been on patrol since Aug. 19 and will remain through Labor Day, Sept. 7, looking for drivers suspected of being under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The extra work is part of the national “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” campaign.

“Enjoying the last days of summer should be all about fun and that starts with making safe choices before making plans,” Deputy Post said in the station’s campaign release. “Everyone deserves to get home safely, and it starts with your everyday actions.”

Citing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Sheriff’s Office said 11,904 people were killed in drunk-driving crashes in the United States in 2024 — one person every 44 minutes. Impairment is not limited to alcohol, the department said. Prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications and cannabis products can also impair driving. Recreational and medicinal marijuana are legal in California, the Aug. 17 release noted, but driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal.

A first-time DUI carries an average of $13,500 in fines and penalties and a suspended license, the Sheriff’s Office said.

The Hemet Police Department separately announced extra DUI patrols for the same Aug. 19 through Labor Day period and said it would hold a DUI and driver’s license checkpoint in Hemet from 8 p.m. Aug. 21 to 2 a.m. As of Friday, Aug. 28, Hemet Police had not posted results from that checkpoint.

Both agencies said the enforcement is funded by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through NHTSA. The Sheriff’s Office advised anyone who sees a suspected impaired driver to call 9-1-1.

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Water rates passed 4-1. Sewer rates passed 3-0 after two members left the dais. Both schedules take effect Jan. 1, 2027, and rise each Jan. 1 through Jan. 1, 2031.

City water bills will go up. The mailed Proposition 218 notice gave this example: a typical single-family home using 1,100 cubic feet of water in a monthly billing period would go from $59.54 now to $92.53 under the 2027 rates. The same notice lists a separate Water Adjudication Fee on every unit. The Willdan rate study in the agenda packet, using a 3/4-inch meter and the same 1,100 cubic feet, put the full city water bill at $79.01 now and $104.63 in 2027.

The city’s sewer collection charge for a single-family home would rise from $8.22 a month to $10.48 on Jan. 1, 2027, up $2.26, the sewer notice says. Eastern Municipal Water District treatment charges are billed on top of that. The city does not set EMWD’s rates.

The meeting was at 625 S. Pico Avenue. Mayor Crystal Ruiz, Mayor Pro Tem Clarisa Sanchez, and Councilmembers Phil Ayala, Alonso Ledezma, and Valerie Vandever answered roll call. City Clerk Julia Espinoza called the roll. Staff reports name Travis Randel as interim city manager.

The water hearing ran from 7:02 to 8:29 p.m., the action minutes say. The council first voted 5-0 on Resolution 4144, findings on exhaustion of administrative remedies, and to proceed. Vandever moved. Sanchez seconded. Ayes: Ruiz, Sanchez, Ledezma, Vandever, Ayala.

Public Utilities Superintendent Mat Osborn and Finance Director Kimberly Ganimian presented.

Five people spoke, the minutes say: Michael Siordia, Brian Hawkins, Mike Sullivan, George Evans, and Ashley Macias. The minutes list the names. They do not say what anyone told the council.

The clerk recorded 12 written protests against the water rates. The city’s notice said a majority of affected parcels would have blocked the increase, and that the water system serves about 4,666 customers. Oral comments did not count as protests unless a written protest was filed. Email protests were not accepted.

Ledezma moved Resolution 4145, the water rate schedule, with CEQA findings. Sanchez seconded. The vote was 4-1. Ayes: Ruiz, Sanchez, Ledezma, Ayala. Nay: Vandever. The minutes give no reason for the no vote.

The adopted water schedule keeps the current structure and raises the numbers, according to the notice in the packet.

Most homes pay a monthly meter charge. For a 5/8-inch or 3/4-inch meter, that charge goes from $24.89 now to $51.84 on Jan. 1, 2027, then $75.17 in 2028, $86.45 in 2029, $90.77 in 2030, and $93.49 on Jan. 1, 2031. A 1-inch meter goes from $34.82 to $86.19 in 2027.

Residential use is billed in two tiers, per 100 cubic feet (748 gallons). Tier 1, the first 11 units, goes from $3.15 to $3.70 in 2027. Tier 2, above 11 units, goes from $3.90 to $4.49. By Jan. 1, 2031, those volume rates would be $6.67 and $8.10. Nonresidential customers pay a uniform rate, $3.73 now and $4.26 in 2027.

All water customers also pay the Water Adjudication Fee, $1.77 per 100 cubic feet now and $1.10 in 2027. The notice says that fee covers groundwater-basin management and replenishment under the Hemet-San Jacinto Groundwater Management Program.

The sewer hearing opened at 9:54 p.m. and closed at 10:22 p.m., the action minutes say.

The council voted 5-0 on Resolution 4146, the exhaustion findings, and to proceed. Vandever moved. Sanchez seconded. Ayes: Ruiz, Sanchez, Ledezma, Vandever, Ayala. Osborn and Ganimian presented again.

Four people spoke: Michael Siordia, Brian Hawkins, Manuel Sotelo, and Susan Acevedo. The minutes give names only.

The clerk recorded 13 written protests against the sewer rates.

Ledezma moved Resolution 4147, the sewer schedule, with CEQA findings. Sanchez seconded. The vote was 3-0. Ayes: Ruiz, Ledezma, Sanchez. Absent: Ayala, Vandever. The minutes do not say why they were off the dais. Both voted later on a 1st Street contract, which passed 5-0. Mayor Ruiz adjourned the meeting at 11:05 p.m.

Most residential sewer customers pay a monthly city collection charge per equivalent dwelling unit. That charge goes from $8.22 now to $10.48 on Jan. 1, 2027, then $14.15 in 2028, $19.10 in 2029, $19.67 in 2030, and $20.26 on Jan. 1, 2031. Some businesses, restaurants, and most schools pay by water use instead: $0.75 per 100 cubic feet now and $0.95 in 2027.

Customers pay the city’s collection rate plus EMWD treatment and disposal charges. For city water customers, EMWD’s charges appear on the city bill. Others may see the city sewer charge on an EMWD bill. The notice lists EMWD’s present charges as $8.22 per EDU and $40.31 per sewage unit and says those figures can change.

Staff reports from Ganimian, approved by Randel, and the Willdan Financial Services rate study say existing rates will not cover later years of the plan. The city cited higher costs for labor, materials, energy, chemicals, construction, and contracted work, plus repair of aging pipes, wells, reservoirs, and sewer mains. Water rates also cover debt service. Both staff reports say that without the increases, the general fund would have to subsidize the utilities.

The notices went out under Article XIII D of the California Constitution, commonly called Proposition 218. The new rates apply to service on and after Jan. 1, 2027.

The City Council meets next on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026, 6:30 p.m. open session, at the San Jacinto Community Center, 625 S. Pico Avenue. Agendas: https://horizon.agendalink.app/engage-v2/sanjacintoca/agendas

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Several bills moving through the Legislature this session would require data center operators, rather than everyday ratepayers, to shoulder more of the cost of the electrical infrastructure needed to power the massive facilities. Other measures would force companies to disclose or estimate how much water their data centers consume and would require environmental review for all such projects going forward.

Tech companies have pushed back hard, arguing the proposed regulations would slow innovation and put California at a competitive disadvantage. That opposition has come with a hefty price tag. Amazon alone spent more than $1.7 million on state lobbying last year, while AI firm Anthropic spent $90,000. The Data Center Coalition — whose membership includes Google, Microsoft and OpenAI — spent roughly $60,000 fighting nearly every bill aimed at regulating the industry.

The strategy has paid off before. Last year, four bills that would have imposed limits or additional oversight on data centers were either killed outright or significantly weakened before reaching the governor’s desk.

But the political landscape has shifted since then. A Gallup poll conducted in March found that seven in 10 Americans oppose having data centers built in their communities, and survey data from the Public Policy Institute of California suggests a similar level of unease among state residents.

Assemblymember Diane Papan, a San Mateo Democrat who authored two of the bills under consideration, said the growing public frustration is impossible for lawmakers to ignore.

“When you’re looking down the barrel of public outcry that says we don’t want (data centers) at all, and you’ve got localities that are saying they’re going to ban them, then you know the atmosphere has changed,” Papan said.

Whether that shift in sentiment will be enough to overcome the tech industry’s deep pockets remains an open question as the legislative session moves toward its conclusion.

OTHER STORIES WORTH KNOWING

A new statewide report suggests that a decade-old criminal justice reform may have contributed to California’s homelessness crisis. Researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California found that Proposition 47, the 2014 ballot measure that reclassified certain low-level drug and theft felonies as misdemeanors, likely drove a roughly 10% increase in street homelessness between 2015 and 2019 — adding an estimated 7,000 people to the ranks of Californians sleeping outside, in cars or in parks.

The measure was originally intended to ease prison overcrowding, and the findings arrive as many voters have grown skeptical of past efforts to reduce incarceration — sentiment reflected in the passage of the tougher-on-crime Proposition 36 in 2024. Still, the report has drawn criticism over what some see as an uncomfortable implication: that jails effectively served as a form of housing for some vulnerable residents. Margot Kushel, director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, pushed back on that framing, noting that “criminal legal systems were not designed to be places for people to live.”

Meanwhile, Democratic legislators are fast-tracking a bill that would ban the use of electric shock gloves by federal immigration agents, along with state and local law enforcement. The move comes after the federal government announced plans to spend up to $20 million on thousands of the taser-like devices for use by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Civil rights advocates back the ban, pointing to cases such as a Kentucky man who died last year after reportedly being shocked roughly 40 times while in custody. Law enforcement groups oppose the measure, arguing it would limit officers’ ability to safely de-escalate confrontations. Legal experts have also raised doubts about the bill’s enforceability, since states generally cannot dictate how federal agents perform their duties — a limitation UC Davis law professor Vikram Amar says makes the legislation “more performative than real.”

In other Capitol news, lawmakers reached a compromise on legislation addressing sexual abuse claims against California schools. The deal reduces some of the financial exposure school districts face and raises the evidentiary threshold for older claims, though it stops short of capping payouts as some public agencies had hoped.

Original source: CalMatters

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State lawmakers advanced Assembly Bill 2760 this week, a measure that would bar ICE agents, along with state and local law enforcement officers, from wearing any equipment capable of delivering an electric shock. The bill would also prohibit California police departments from spending public funds to acquire such devices.

The legislation comes from Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins, a San Diego Democrat, who introduced it just days before the legislative session was set to wrap up. She used a legislative maneuver known as a “gut and amend,” which strips an existing bill of its original content and replaces it with new language, allowing it to move through the process on an accelerated timeline.

The rush to act follows a Department of Homeland Security filing published earlier this month indicating that ICE intends to spend as much as $20 million on shock-emitting gloves manufactured by Compliant Technologies, a company based in Kentucky. The product, marketed under the name G.L.O.V.E. — short for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter — is described by the manufacturer as a non-lethal tool designed to help officers de-escalate confrontations. The Associated Press first broke the story after reviewing the federal notice.

By Thursday, ICE had confirmed it awarded the company a $16.7 million contract to supply 6,000 pairs of the gloves.

Sharp-Collins told colleagues at a hearing this week that she felt compelled to act before any incidents occur in California. “While the gloves are not currently being used in California, waiting for a tragedy to act, in my personal opinion, and so many others, would be something that California could not handle,” she said.

She pointed to a case in Kentucky in which a man died last year after being shocked 27 times with the gloves and an additional 13 times with a Taser while in custody, according to reporting from The Guardian.

The controversy has also drawn attention in Washington. U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla joined other congressional Democrats in sending a letter Thursday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, calling on the department to scrap its contract with the glove manufacturer. The lawmakers described the devices as “hand-worn tasers disguised as restraint equipment.”

Civil rights advocates have rallied behind the California bill, framing the gloves as a dangerous and unnecessary escalation of force. “Electroshock gloves by any law enforcement agency makes Californians less safe,” said Anallely Martin of the California Immigrant Policy Center during testimony at the hearing.

Law enforcement groups, however, are pushing back hard against the proposal. The California State Sheriffs’ Association and several other organizations representing police argue the measure would strip officers of a useful tool for defusing tense encounters. Cory Salzillo, a lobbyist for the sheriffs’ association, told lawmakers the bill amounts to little more than a symbolic gesture aimed at the federal government. “This is a bad policy from a California law enforcement perspective, and it’s really only gonna be a message to the feds that’s going to fail to land,” he said.

The shock glove ban is the latest in a series of efforts by California Democrats to push back against the Trump administration’s expanded immigration enforcement operations. Earlier this week, lawmakers approved a separate bill that would prevent federal agents from serving alongside state or local police, and another that would make it easier for individuals to sue federal agents over alleged civil rights violations.

Not all of these efforts have withstood legal scrutiny. In April, a federal court struck down a 2025 California law that required masked immigration agents to identify themselves, ruling that the state had overstepped its authority by attempting to impose rules on federal personnel.

Legal experts expect the new legislation, if signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, to face a similar fate in court. Vikram Amar, a law professor at UC Davis, said states generally lack the authority to dictate how federal agents carry out their duties. “States simply can’t regulate how federal officers do their jobs, even if we don’t like how they do their jobs. That’s up to the federal government,” Amar said.

He added that without a stronger constitutional argument tying the gloves to violations of individual rights, the bill may carry more symbolic weight than legal force. “It makes a lot of bills like this kind of more performative than real,” Amar said.

Original source: CalMatters

The post California Lawmakers Push to Ban Electric Shock Gloves Before ICE Can Purchase Them appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

There was a time when putting together California’s annual spending plan was a relatively clear process. The governor and lawmakers would agree on how much tax revenue the state expected to bring in, then argue over how to divide it up. Disagreements were common, especially in years when Republicans held enough seats in the Legislature to influence the outcome. But for the most part, voters could look at news coverage and get a reasonable sense of where their tax dollars were going.

That clarity has eroded over the years, and few could say exactly when the budget process turned into the tangle of accounting maneuvers, borrowed funds and projected revenue that never quite materializes that it is today. But under Gov. Gavin Newsom, the complexity has grown dramatically — a byproduct, critics argue, of one-party dominance in Sacramento that leaves little room for outside accountability.

Newsom and the Legislature have repeatedly approved spending that outpaces actual revenue, then closed the resulting gaps with what they call budget “solutions,” later touting the final product as balanced.

The newest example is the 2026-27 state budget, signed into law in June and pegged at $351.7 billion in state funds, plus another $188 billion in federal money. The plan is so complicated that even the Legislature’s own nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, Legislative Analyst Gabe Petek, admits his team had difficulty making full sense of it.

In a recent report breaking down the spending plan, Petek wrote that this year’s budget doesn’t fit the usual analytical framework. In most years, his office can clearly identify the size of a budget shortfall or surplus and explain how lawmakers addressed it. This year, he said, that straightforward explanation simply doesn’t apply.

Petek pointed to what appear to be contradictory moves within the budget — spending levels that exceed near-record state revenues, reliance on reserves and borrowed funds to cover the difference, and yet also setting aside additional money in a newly created “surplus holding account.” Even though the budget contains some familiar tools for balancing the books, Petek said the overall picture is difficult to summarize in simple terms.

To make sense of it, his office broke its review into two parts: one examining spending decisions, the other looking at how the state closed the gap between what it’s taking in and what it’s spending.

According to Petek’s analysis, the budget relies on roughly $14 billion in budget maneuvers to close that gap, mostly by drawing down reserve funds and borrowing. Part of that borrowing comes from delaying $3.9 billion in constitutionally required funding owed to local school districts — money the state will eventually have to repay.

But even that $14 billion falls short of the $18.5 billion operating deficit the Newsom administration itself projects for the fiscal year, meaning the state is continuing the pattern of deficit spending that has defined every budget of Newsom’s second term.

That pattern traces back to 2022, when Newsom announced the state had a $97.5 billion surplus, fueled by a temporary surge in income tax collections. That announcement triggered a wave of new spending commitments. The surplus, however, proved illusory, and the administration later admitted it had overestimated state revenues by a combined $165 billion over a four-year period.

Petek’s report notes that the state has never kept a running, cumulative tally of exactly how much it owes from years of covering these operating shortfalls. His office estimates that “wall of debt” now stands at roughly $29.2 billion, which includes the $3.9 billion currently being withheld from schools.

Some observers have suggested — with a fair amount of skepticism — that Newsom’s approach to managing repeated deficits and mounting IOUs might be useful preparation should he seek the presidency, given that the federal government has its own chronic deficits and a national debt now approaching $40 trillion.

Original source: CalMatters

The post Even Budget Experts Can’t Fully Decipher California’s Complex Spending Plan appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.