November 15th, 2009 01:51pm
by PeteGolis
For Californians hoping that state and local government could stop the bleeding, there is more grim news. On Saturday, the San Jose Mercury News reported that the state’s budget deficit – worst case - could reach $25 billion next year.
Twenty-five billion dollars. Translation: That’s 29.5 percent of the current $84.5 billion general fund budget.
This may explain why California’s finance director was quoted on Friday as saying that earlier this year …
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November 8th, 2009 08:43am
by PeteGolis
For Sonoma County people who value the services provided by hometown government, another dispiriting week has come and gone. Local agencies continue to be hammered by budget shortfalls, and the latest financial updates offer no reason to be optimistic about what will happen next year or the year after.
In the beginning, local government may have escaped the adversities being visited on the private economy, but it was only a matter …
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November 2nd, 2009 08:38am
by PeteGolis
“Few vying for state’s top job,” reads this morning’s headline, and I’d wager many readers had the identical response. They thought to themselves: No surprise there. Who would want to be governor anyway?
By now, the futility of California government has become the story line of our time – an era marked by partisan paralysis, chronic budget deficits and a general ineptitude when it comes to responding to the state’s most …
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October 25th, 2009 09:00am
by PeteGolis
A much-anticipated report on the state of American journalism was published on Monday, and I would like to say that its recommendations provide a road map for a new golden age of journalism.
I would like to say that.
But as I read “The Reconstruction of American Journalism” – which is nothing if not long – I kept thinking to myself: All this blah-blah-blah is giving me a headache.
At “Silicon Alley Insider,” …
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October 20th, 2009 11:37am
by PeteGolis
In April, we stopped watering our small front lawn, and now the results are in: Over the past six months we reduced our water consumption, year over year, by more than a third – 4,000 gallons of water saved each and every month.
Meanwhile, a funny thing happened this past week: It rained, and the lawn that wouldn’t die turned green again. I wouldn’t say it is pristine – there are …
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October 15th, 2009 07:14am
by PeteGolis
For the past two weeks, I’ve been using Zagat to Go, the iPhone version of the popular restaurant review network. Wherever I am in the U.S., one tap of the screen will give me a list of the nearest restaurants, their ratings for food, decor and service, and the average cost of a meal. A second tap will lead me to a page with a photo, the address and phone …
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October 13th, 2009 07:47am
by PeteGolis
I’m a student of what cities are doing to bring new energy to old neighborhoods – which is how I came to walk the length of a unique urban park on Thursday.
Built on what was once an elevated railway, the High Line In New York City now stretches 22 blocks from the West Village to Chelsea. Thirty-feet in the air, locals (and visitors, too) stroll through what were once old …
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October 11th, 2009 07:40am
by PeteGolis
“Will California become America’s first failed state?”
- Headline last Sunday in Britain’s Guardian.
NEW YORK
Friends here ask whether California will be OK. They have read the news about a state that seems to be spiraling downward, and they worry. In the American mythology, the Golden State has always been the place that promises new possibilities, which means that even New Yorkers want the best for their West Coast rival.
It is not …
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October 1st, 2009 10:14am
by PeteGolis
In August, I wrote about the need for downtowns to prepare for an influx of aging baby boomers – who “now want to exchange the hassles of suburban life for the smaller scale and convenient amenities available in pedestrian-friendly cities.”
Now comes the Wall Street Journal with a Sept. 19 special report on suburban towns’ rush to become more accommodating to an aging population. “That sense of urgency is understandable,” said …
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September 29th, 2009 02:22pm
by PeteGolis
Fooling around with the new CNN iPhone application - which was released today. (You can read the Associated Press story here.) Is this new ap worth $1.99? Probably not.
Still, this reworking of existing technologies reminds us again that communication and journalism are being transformed. On my phone, I’m watching a video posted a few minutes ago by a guy half-way around the world. The video shows flooding caused …
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Pete Golis is a columnist for The Press Democrat and a longtime resident of Sonoma County.
