Lead Stories:
- California Governor Gavin Newsom's 'vaccine czar' is leaving her state post in favor of a private-sector gig in San Francisco. On Wednesday, Yolanda Richardson announced that she was leaving her post as secretary of the Government Operations Agency to head San Francisco's Medi-Cal plan. Her last day on the state payroll reportedly will be March 2nd. During her tenure with the state, Richardson reportedly was a key figure in shifting traditional public-sector employees to a home-based employment model in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The US Drought Monitor says about 99% of California is still in some level of drought. The state is mostly in the Moderate and Severe Drought categories. Del Norte County, just south of the Oregon border, is in the lowest of the five-category scale at Abnormally Dry. Officials say just a small fraction of Siskiyou and Trinity counties are in the second-worst Extreme Drought category. None of the state is in the highest Exceptional Drought category. Forecasters say there is no rain in the long-range forecast.
- California's Secretary of State Dr. Shirley Weber is releasing the grand total price tag for last year's Gubernatorial Recall Election of Governor Newsom. Assembly and Senate Budget Committees says the total statewide cost of the election was over 200-million dollars, which includes more than $174 million in county costs and $26 million in costs to the Secretary of State's Office. Dr. Weber notes while it is less than originally estimated, it still comes as a "substantial cost to taxpayers and a significant disruption to governing the state".
- This morning three California state lawmakers are proposing legislation that would prohibit the sale of firearms and ammunition on all state property. Which If passed and signed into law would effectively end gun shows on state fairgrounds. The San Diego union tribute reports the senate bill would extend an existing prohibition on gun sales in Orange County to all 73 California state fairgrounds. So far lawsuits to challenge the prohibition in of gun sales in Orange County have failed.