November 7, 2016   TRANSPORTATION / INFRASTRUCTURE Culver City and Newport Beach to sue FAA over new flight paths (Southern California Public Radio) Culver City and Newport Beach plan to go to court to block the Federal Aviation Administration's effort to remap the routes jets use to get in and out of LAX and 20 other Southern California airports. The two municipalities' city councils voted this week to sue the FAA in federal court. The complaints will challenge the adequacy and accuracy of the federal agency's environmental assessment of the new flight paths' impacts. The FAA has been working for several years to remap the airspace around the 21 airports from San Diego to Santa Barbara collectively known as the Southern California Metroplex. The project is part of a nationwide effort known as NextGen to improve operations throughout U.S. airspace. Culver City, Newport Beach   LOCAL CONTROL Ontario International Airport returns to local control (Press Enterprise) Nearly 50 years after Los Angeles took over management of Ontario International Airport, the Inland facility is back under local control today, Tuesday, Nov. 1. It is the final note of a years-long battle by Ontario to regain the airport from Los Angeles World Airports, the successor agency to the one that assumed control of the facility in 1967 and ownership in 1985. Los Angeles and Ontario officials announced a $250 million settlement in August 2015, and have been working since then for an orderly transfer of the airport to the Ontario International Airport Authority, a joint powers agency created in 2012. That happened Tuesday with the Federal Aviation Administration issuing an airport operating certificate to the authority, and the voiding of $55.5 million in outstanding LAWA airport bonds. The OIAA issued its own bonds in that amount. Ontario WATER / DROUGHT Reservoir expansion could store water for millions in Bay Area (Mercury News) Millions of Bay Area residents could get extra drought insurance against water shortages and quality problems from a proposed $800 million expansion of the Los Vaqueros Reservoir that may have up to 10 water suppliers as partners. Ten water agencies serving San Jose, Fremont, Oakland, Concord, Richmond, Antioch, San Francisco and other communities have negotiated preliminary deals to contribute a combined $1 million for feasibility studies on expanding the reservoir south of Brentwood. Boards of some of those agencies recently agreed to share the costs. Others are considering approval soon, including the Santa Clara Valley Water District board on Tuesday and the East Bay Municipal Utility District board on Nov. 22. San Jose, Fremont, Oakland, Concord, Richmond, Antioch, San Francisco HOUSING Pop goes the housing: Real estate industry in midst of biggest boom since recession (Los Angeles Daily News) As a result, more agents are getting real estate licenses, brokerages are opening offices, mortgage banking is on the rise and title insurance companies are expanding. Rising home prices are behind this growth, fueled by near-record-low mortgage rates. In Los Angeles County, dollar volume generated by combined home sales totaled $24.5 billion this year so far, up 78 percent from 2009, according to figures from the California Regional Multiple Listing Service, an industry group that maintains a database of homes for sale. Cities in the Orange, Riverside and Los Angeles County Divisions, Cities in San Bernardino County   Outcry over hearing on housing plan ‘not a campaign stunt’ (East Bay Times) About 70 people went to the Fremont City Council meeting Tuesday night to protest the scheduling of a public hearing on a controversial housing development after the Nov. 8 election. The Fremont Citizens Network, which openly supports candidate Vinnie Bacon for council and Vice Mayor Lily Mei for mayor, put out a call on its website, which spread to local online message boards, for people to attend the meeting to object to “Mayor Harrison’s hiding of his decision on another giant housing complex.” The network alleged that Mayor Bill Harrison sets the agenda for council meetings and wanted to delay a vote on the project until after the election. Fremont   Rent and home prices in Burbank are higher than residents can afford, city official says (Los Angeles Times) Recognizing the shortage of affordable housing in the city, members of the Burbank City Council started a conversation this week on how they can fix the shortfall. Maribel Leyland, who is in charge of the Section 8 program for the city, said during a meeting on Tuesday that the median price of a home was far higher than what the average Burbank resident can afford with what they earn. Burbank   MARIJUANA Who is funding the effort to legalize marijuana in California? (Sacramento Bee) Eight campaign committees and roughly 800 itemized contributions later, one thing is clear about the effort to pass Proposition 64, the measure on Tuesday’s ballot that would legalize recreational marijuana: Its flow of money has been really complicated. Money has gone to, and through, eight different accounts. The most generous donor is billionaire businessman Sean Parker, who has given about $6 million directly to the main Yes on 64 campaign, $1.5 million more through other committees, and another $1.5 million to different accounts. Another big source of money has been the Fund for Policy Reform, which has given $6.1 million to a campaign arm that in turn has given to other pro-Proposition 64 committees. Other donors have clear ties to the issue and could profit immensely from a legal marijuana marketplace. Statewide   California cities see chance to cash in on marijuana (Reuters) Californians are expected to pass a ballot measure on Election Day legalizing recreational marijuana, and the prospect has cities and counties seeing dollar signs. Proposition 64 would impose state taxes on the cultivation and sale of marijuana. But it also allows local jurisdictions to add taxes of their own, something many cities and counties said they plan to do. Economists warn that burdensome taxes and fees on the nascent industry could backfire, fueling the black market and pushing marijuana businesses to decamp for towns where it’s cheaper to operate. For many city and county officials across California, however, the promise of new revenue to fill budget gaps and fund services is too alluring to pass up. Statewide   CITY IN THE SPOTLIGHT Yuba City hosts biggest Sikh event outside India (Sacramento Bee) The largest gathering of Indians outside India filled Yuba City on Sunday with the tastes, smells, sounds and colors of Punjab for the 37th annual Sikh Parade Festival. Celebrants clad in blue, purple, green, red, magenta, white, yellow and saffron turbans and salwar kameez – traditional flowing gowns – lit up the streets. They included descendants of the first Sikh pioneers who came here 110 years ago from Punjab, “land of five waters,” where their ancestors farmed for some 4,000 years. Their stories can be found at Pioneering Punjabis, pioneeringpunjabis.ucdavis.edu, a new digital archive created by the UC Davis Library and UC Davis historian and lecturer Nicole Ranganath. Yuba City   Sacramento’s ‘strong city manager’ heads for the door (Sacramento Bee) Shirey, less than two weeks away from his final day as Sacramento city manager, is less of a politician and more of a details guy. He seems as impressed with rehabbing a water treatment plant as he does with building a downtown sports arena. But as Mayor Kevin Johnson tried time and again to make himself a “strong mayor,” Shirey played the role of a “strong city manager,” threatening to quit if the mayor was given more power than him. Sacramento

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