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- Written by: Lake County News reports
“My administration remains committed to keeping the Legislature informed, but churning out 2,600 annual reports – some ordered more than two decades ago – is a waste of time and money,” Governor Brown said. “All state agencies and departments have been asked to take a closer look at these reports and will work with the Department of Finance and the Legislature to get rid of those that are no longer needed.”
Under Monday’s executive order, agency secretaries and department directors will prepare a list of all reports that they are required to submit to the Legislature, and identify those that may no longer be of significant value.
Each agency and department will report its findings to the Department of Finance, which will then review the findings and work with the Legislature to determine whether specific reports should be discontinued.
The Monday directive follows an executive order issued last week to cut costs, increase efficiency by using honest, common-sense budgeting methods.
Earlier this year the governor also ordered reductions in cell phones, fleet vehicles and swag given out by state departments.
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- Written by: Dr. Tony Phillips
The 2011 Geminid meteor shower peaks on the night of Tuesday, Dec. 13, and into the early morning hours of Wednesday, Dec. 14, and despite the glare of a nearly-full Moon, it might be a good show.
"Observers with clear skies could see as many as 40 Geminids per hour," predicted Bill Cooke of the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office. "Our all-sky network of meteor cameras has captured several early Geminid fireballs. They were so bright, we could see them despite the moonlight."
The best time to look is between 10 p.m. local time on Tuesday, Dec. 13, and sunrise on Wednesday, Dec. 14.
Geminids, which spray out of the constellation Gemini, can appear anywhere in the sky.
"Dress warmly and look up," said Cooke. "It's that simple."
The source of the Geminids is near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon. Most meteor showers come from comets, so having an asteroid as a parent makes the Geminids a bit of an oddball.
"This is the thing I love most about Geminids," said Cooke. "They're so strange."
Every year in mid-December, Earth runs through a trail of dusty debris that litters the orbit of 3200 Phaethon.
Comets vaporizing in hot sunlight naturally produce such debris trails, but rocky asteroids like 3200 Phaethon do not. At least they're not supposed to. The incongruity has baffled researchers since 1983 when 3200 Phaethon was discovered by NASA's IRAS satellite.
One clue: 3200 Phaethon travels unusually close to the sun. The asteroid's eccentric orbit brings it well inside the orbit of Mercury every 1.4 years. The rocky body thus receives a regular blast of solar heating that might somehow boil jets of dust into the Geminid debris stream.
In 2009, NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft saw this process at work. Coronagraphs onboard the solar observatory watched 3200 Phaethon as it was swinging by the sun. Sure enough, the asteroid doubled in brightness, probably because it was spewing jets of dust.
"The most likely explanation is that Phaethon ejected dust, perhaps in response to a break-down of surface rocks (through thermal fracture and decomposition cracking of hydrated minerals) in the intense heat of the Sun," wrote UCLA planetary scientists David Jewitt and Jing Li, who analyzed the data.
Jewett and Li's "rock comet" hypothesis is compelling, but they point out a problem: The amount of dust 3200 Phaethon ejected during its 2009 sun-encounter added a mere 0.01 percent to the mass of the Geminid debris stream – not nearly enough to keep the stream replenished over time. Perhaps the rock comet was more active in the past?
"We just don't know," said Cooke. "Every new thing we learn about the Geminids seems to deepen the mystery.”
Led by Cooke, the Meteoroid Environment Office has just released an app for iPhones and iPads to help citizen scientists count meteors and report their observations to NASA. The "Meteor Counter" is available for free from Apple's app store:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meteor-counter/id466896415 .
Cooke hopes sky watchers everywhere will use it to monitor the mysterious Geminids.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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- Written by: Lake County News reports
The town hall will begin at 7 p.m.
Constituents interested in participating in the telephone town hall event should contact Rep. Thompson’s Napa District Office at 707-226-9898 and leave their name, phone number and city of residence.
Thompson represents California’s First Congressional District, which includes the counties of Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa and Yolo.
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The site can be found at http://sco.ca.gov/compensation_search.html.
Monday’s posting includes wages and other forms of compensation worth $38.8 billion.
"Holding public officials accountable for how they manage public dollars relies heavily on transparency," said Chiang. "The struggles of the city of Bell remind us that corruption and fiscal mismanagement are often the byproducts of keeping the public in the dark."
The county of Lake and cities of Lakeport and Clearlake are in compliance with the filing requirements, according to the states.
However, four counties and 37 cities did not file in time for the Web site update.
The counties that did file are Marin, Mono, San Benito and Tuolumne, according to the State Controller’s Office.
Cities that failed to file 2010 salary and compensation reports are Adelanto, Amador, Angels, Atwater, Cerritos, Cloverdale, Coalinga, Corning, Cudahy, Del Rey Oaks, Dunsmuir, Farmersville, Folsom, Fort Jones, Hawthorne, Hercules, Hillsborough, Hughson, Ione, Isleton, Kerman, Lindsay, Livermore, Loyalton, Maricopa, Oakdale, Palmdale, Placentia, Point Arena, Rio Vista, San Buenaventura, South El Monte, St. Helena, Tracy, Trinidad and Turlock.
Each noncomplying agency could face a penalty of $5,000, the Controller’s Office reported.
The State Controller’s Office’s salary and compensation Web site originally was created by Controller Chiang in late 2010, after he ordered local governments to provide salary and other wage information for their employees to his office.
In October 2010, Chiang’s office collected and posted 2009 wage information for more than 600,000 city and county employees. He then added 2009 information for the employees from 2,379 special districts.
In June, he added 2010 compensation information for 256,222 employees from the state of California and 123,406 from the California State University System.
The data postings drew heavy Internet traffic, and the site has logged nearly 5.3 million page views since October 2010.
The Web site covers elected officials as well as public employees. It includes minimum and maximum salary ranges, actual wages paid, the applicable retirement formula, any contributions by the employer to the employee’s share of pension costs, any contributions by the employer to the employee’s deferred compensation plan and any employer payments for the employee’s health, vision and dental premium benefits.
In addition, the Web site shows employees who hold multiple positions within either state government or the CSU system.
The State Controller’s Office continues to update and expand the site to include more public-sector data.
The 2010 compensation information for special districts, and 2011 information for state and CSU employees will be phased in over the next six months.
In August, Chiang and Community College Chancellor Jack Scott wrote to all 72 community college districts across the state, requesting they also submit their payroll data by early 2012.
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