Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. Governor Jerry Brown is proposing to use $10 billion in state funds next year to pay down what he calls the state’s “Wall of Debt” — about $24.5 billion in outstanding loans and other debts. Brown also wants to use next year’s expected surplus to increase funding for K-12 schools, higher education, and health and social services programs, and would set aside money for a “rainy day fund.” The SacBee$ reports that he also wants to divert up to $300 million from the state’s cap-and-trade program to help fund his proposed high-speed rail project.
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2. Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana has made the final cut to become the new city manager of Dallas, Texas, the Trib$ reports. Santana is one of three finalists — down from five — and will go Dallas later this month for a final round of interviews.
3. The Oakland City Council chose cars over pedestrians in downtown when it voted 6-0 to kill a pilot project that shut off lanes of traffic at Latham Square — where Broadway and Telegraph Avenue meet, the Trib$ reports.
4. It will be at least a month before the state can determine whether opponents of California’s new landmark law protecting the rights of transgender people have gathered enough signatures for a ballot measure that would repeal the statute, the SacBee$ reports. The state needs another month to go through the signatures gathered by conservative groups.
5. And the USDA has closed a factory farm poultry plant owned by Foster Farms in Southern California because of a cockroach infestation, the LA Times$ reports. The same plant was linked last fall to a salmonella outbreak that sickened numerous consumers.
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