Watkins: California’s budget surplus thanks to stock market, not Brown
California is adding jobs faster than the national average, and the state has a budget surplus for the first time since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. That’s led to some glowing national press for Gov. Jerry Brown, including a Rolling Stone article that called his budget turnaround a “miracle.”
Editorial: Smart management and technology could ease water woes
Gov. Jerry Brown’s timely drought declaration on Jan. 17 may become a pivotal moment in the history of California and the region. It may be the impetus needed to spur large infrastructure projects and get California’s vaunted technologists working on a problem.
Gov. Brown vetoes Amgen-backed anti-biosimilars bill
Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill supported by Thousand Oaks-based Amgen and other biotechnology companies that would have made it more difficult for pharmacists to dispense so-called biosimilars, the biotech industry’s analogue to generic pharmaceuticals.
Senate Bill 598, approved by both houses of the legislature, looked mostly like a procedural change to state’s pharmacy laws. If it passed, the bill would have allowed pharmacists to fill prescriptions with biosimilars that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deems “interchangeable” with brand-name counterparts.
Brown taps Ventura County as one of state’s ‘innovation hubs’
Gov. Jerry Brown has named Ventura and Kern counties among four newly-established innovation hubs designed to spur job growth. The so-called Kern-Ventura i-Hub is designed to foster the growth of high-tech companies in aerospace, energy and other fields and is part of the California iDEA Hub. It will be based in Ridgecrest, in Kern County Read More →
Editorial: Amendment would have been a blow to transparency
Sometimes small changes can make a huge difference — and not in a good way.
Editorial: Gov. Brown’s econ-devo plan likely to benefit region
The number of companies and cities in the Tri-Counties that might benefit from the new regime of tax credits and Go-Biz perks is substantial.
