The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a District Court's grant of summary judgment to two adult bookstores. The stores had claimed that a Los Angeles ordinance requiring the dispersal of adult businesses violated the First Amendment. The Ninth Circuit found that the declarations upon which the summary judgment was based were biased did not amount to "actual and convincing" evidence sufficient to cast doubt on the rationale for the ordinance.

The ruling is the latest in a 15-year-old case that the court called "resilient." Yet the ruling settled nothing. All the Ninth Circuit did was return the case, known as Alameda Books, to District Court for trial. 

Unpermitted dispensaries fails to get ordinance invalidated

By Cori Badgley

A medical marijuana dispensary has lost its fight to invalidate a Los Angeles County ordinance regulating dispensaries and to overturn an injunction shutting down the operation.

With different aspects of City of Bell scandal continuing to come to light, "Bell" is starting to become short-hand for government corruption. Still, this one scandal can't displace San Bernardino County from its longtime position at the top of the corruption charts.

The mess in Bell is easily summarized: At least two top-level city employees and four councilmembers abused their powers to get rich at taxpayers' expense. According to prosecutors and news investigations, the city officials may have received millions of dollars in excess salaries.

Meanwhile, the corruption allegations, indictments and convictions in San Bernardino County are so numerous they are nearly impossible to track.

Lots going on in Sacramento these days.

Basketball fans around the country know that the NBA's Kings desperately want to flee to Anaheim. The capital's aging arena and small market won't cut it for the financially strapped owners, the Maloof brothers. The City of Sacramento has been trying to build a new arena for years -- most likely as the centerpiece of a massive redevelopment of downtown rail yards. That project appears to be falling through, so for the past few months the city, led by former NBA star-turned-mayor Kevin Johnson, has been trying to convince the team to stay. 

California is on the verge of "five major, protracted water crises" and must change its system of governance to address the urgent situation, according to "Managing California's Water," a comprehensive examination of the subject recently produced by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The report recommends creating a Department of Water Management that is headed by an appointed director whose term overlaps different governors' administrations. This department, which could have cabinet-level status, would house a "public trust advocate" to ensure water is put toward reasonable uses and, for the first time, would have significant groundwater oversight.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has aside a summary judgment in favor of a city in a dispute over a church's request to relocate and develop an expanded church facility in an industrial park.

The unanimous three-judge appellate panel ruled that District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton's decision in favor of the City of San Leandro was erroneous, and the Ninth Circuit sent the case back to the trial court for further proceedings. The Ninth Circuit did not rule on the merits of the case.

Gov. Jerry Brown entered office three months ago with a vow to close the state's $26 billion budget gap as pragmatically as possible. What started out as an exercise in accounting has now risen to high political drama, most recently with the issuance of a 'list of demands' from state Republican lawmakers. 

The wait continues.  

Reports indicated that the leadership in both houses would push for a vote on the elimination of redevelopment in today's 9 a.m. floor sessions. The vote on the mirror bills SB 77 and AB 101 has been anticipated for two weeks as Gov. Jerry Brown has attempted to shore up support for his budget package, including some $12 billion in taxes.

Those sessions have come and gone. 

In two years the world's biggest event on water will take place in San Francisco. But, like many other mega-sporting events, the 34th America's Cup is expected to have no small impact on land. 

With an expected draw of hundreds of thousands of spectators, San Francisco is already contemplating plans to capitalize on the crowds and prestige of the America's Cup. While it's no Olympics or World Cup in terms of scope, the event does present the city with an opportunity to bring about long-term changes. San Francisco was named as the host of the event on December 31, and its plans – both short- and long-term – are already unfolding.

A great deal of literature has already anointed the hero in the fight against climate change: the city. Beginning with David Owens' Green Metropolis and including the work of Paul Hawken, Ed Glaeser, and countless others, the city has come to symbolize all the ways that humans can live densely and tread lightly on the Earth. 

These accolades might be premature. In his brief but wide-ranging book Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in a Hotter Future, Matthew Kahn renders no such heroes. 

Alvaro Huerta grew up in a forlorn place, where urban planning surely failed. Living in Los Angeles' Ramona Gardens housing project, the son of Mexican immigrants, Huerta read only two books and wrote a single two-page paper through 13 years of elementary and secondary school in the public school system. But he knew what he was missing, and he is now in the process of completing his doctorate at UC Berkeley's Department of City & Regional Planning. Currently a visiting scholar at UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center, Huerta has emerged as a leading voice for disenfranchised urban poor. Last fall, the American Planning Association awarded Huerta its national Advancing Diversity & Social Change award for his service to the planning world and to minority communities. 

The redevelopment system in California was still standing when the Legislature broke for the weekend Thursday night. But that's only because the bill has gotten caught up in the partisan wrangling over the budget as a whole.

The Legislature will return on Monday, and the betting in Sacramento is that redevelopment will be killed early next week. And discussion around the Capitol is quickly turning to what Gov. Jerry Brown will propose as the "replacement tool" for redevelopment.

Updated Thursday morning.

Yesterday the Senate and Assembly considered AB 101, which is the budget bill that includes the provisions to eliminate redevelopment, per Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal.  

AB 101 fell one vote short in the Assembly. It had passed the Senate Budget Committee, 10-7, but, upon failing in the Assembly, it did not come up for a vote in the full Senate. While the Assembly voted on AB 101, the Senate deliberated on SB 77, which is a mirror of AB 101.

Legislators did, however, approve $7.4 billion in spending cuts. 

Both houses are expected to reconsider the redevelopment bills in the 11am floor session today.