Morning News Round-Up -- 1.28.09: Less Bad Economic News and a Bit of Good...

A few more stories today to continue Recession Repercussions' Week at Watch Dog...again, we'll start where we left off yesterday...

Recession Repercussion 12: The County budget has some problems. Dropping property tax revenue, erratic funding from Sacramento, and a structural budget deficit all mean the County has shortfalls of over $23 million. They started addressing some of these problems last year, so the County seems to be in better shape than some other folks. County Manager David Boesch has a funny quote in the Daily Journal story. Discussing Sacramento, he said: "Our staff continues to try to make sense of the nonsense in Sacramento..." Good luck Mr. Boesch -- people have been trying to do that for decades...

Recession Repercussion 13: San Bruno's problems are in smaller dollars, but...San Bruno is putting off major purchases, implementing a hiring freeze, and not increasing wages to cut $1.4 million of their anticipated $2.2 million budget problem.

In a (small) bit of economic good news around the County today, Menlo Park's new Stanford University/Rosewood Hotel is having a job fair on February 8th and they are looking for 250 folks. Watch Dog predicts several thousand will show up for the fair.

San Bruno is debating banning Styrofoam food containers starting April 1, 2010. Restaurant owners are pissed, however. The City Council passed it, but will reevaluate the ban 90 days prior to April 1, 2010. Weird how there is so much controversy with this now because it has already happened Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Union City, and elsewhere...

Yesterday, the Board of Supervisors approved a resolution banning folks from serving on County Advisory Panels if they also serve as elected officials for other agencies. Specifically, many elected coastsiders want to serve on the Midcoast Community Council -- but now won't be able to. The Half Moon Bay Review is the only paper covering this story because it affects their readers, their elected officials, and their Community Council most frequently.

Pacifica Riptide runs through the Committee assignments of Senator Leland Yee and Assemblymember Jerry Hill. Yee's most impressive assignment is Appropriates...Hill's is Budget. Both Yee and Hill are on committees that help them raise lots of money: Yee is on Business and Professions, Hill is on Government Organization (think gambling oversight). Thank you Riptide (as always) for rocking the coast...