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SACRAMENTO – Despite initial promises of saving billions by overhauling state government, it now appears likely that only a fraction of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to "blow up the boxes" of California bureaucracy will see the light of day. Key Schwarzenegger advisers are said to be divided over whether to push politically unpopular proposals, such as eliminating regulators of the state's air quality. Members of the team that crafted the California Performance Review have come forward, saying many proposals were conceived by staff who knew little about what they worked on. And as a Schwarzenegger-appointed commission to take public comment...

"My relationship to power and authority is that I'm all for it... People need somebody to watch over them... Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave." Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. News & World Report, November 26, 1990 In the eyes of many elected officials, America is no longer capable of self-government. Many Americans were stunned to learn that a small group of Congressmen have requested the United Nations to monitor our federal elections this November. Yet at the same time, other elected officials are working to ‘reinvent’ American government...

Those with vested interests in the status quo lined up the other day to denounce the reorganization of state government proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's California Performance Review. Witnesses took turns declaring that this change or that would transfer too much power to the governor and/or wreak havoc on civilization. It was, if nothing else, a graphic display of why true government reform is almost impossible. Those who work in and around a current system, no matter how illogical and inefficient it may be, instinctively oppose any systemic change because change brings uncertainty. And those opposed to change join forces...

DAVIS - The largest proposed reform of California state government in 30 years received its sharpest criticism yet Monday as witnesses called it a worker-unfriendly, corporate-influenced power grab by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. After all the research, meetings and hearings, one witness said Schwarzenegger's ambitious California Performance Review may ultimately fail, just like two of every three attempts to reform government or private industry. While some testified Monday to support the 2,700-page plan to change government, many others chipped away at various ideas. Car dealers, ethnic activists, union leaders and educators said the proposed elimination of 117 boards and commissions would...

DAVIS, Calif. (AP) - Critics of the largest proposed reform of California state government in 30 years called the plan a a worker-unfriendly, corporate-influenced power grab by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. ........ Car dealers, ethnic activists, union leaders and educators said the proposed elimination of 117 boards and commissions would make it harder for citizens and businesses to reach state government. Killing one third of those groups and putting their functions under the governor's control is "basically shoving government into the dark under the control of a single person," said University of California, San Diego, law professor Robert Fellmeth.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites)'s ambitious plan to reorganize almost every aspect of state government was influenced significantly by oil and gas giant ChevronTexaco Corp., which managed to shape such key recommendations as the removal of restrictions on oil refineries. Many corporations and interest groups participated in the governor's reform plan — known as the California Performance Review — but state records and interviews with the participants show Chevron enjoyed immense success in influencing the report through its array of lobbyists, attorneys and trade organizations. And few corporations have spent so much political cash on the governor, either....

After helping create California's highly anticipated government reform plan, George Passantino now is spreading the word about the plan at the grassroots level. For Passantino, a Palmdale resident, that includes a stop Tuesday at the Palmdale Rotary Club meeting, where he will explain the recommendations of the California Performance Review, or CPR. Passantino was a director for the CPR, which was organized by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who promised to dramatically reform the state's government. The CPR proposed thousands of ways to streamline the state bureaucracy, including dissolving hundreds of boards and commissions with highly paid appointees. The plan could save the...

NOTICE OF MEETING OF THE CALIFORNIA PERFORMANCE REVIEW (CPR) COMMISSION HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES AND EDUCATION, TRAINING AND VOLUNTEERISM AGENDA FRIDAY, August 20, 2004 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Price Center, Ballroom AB UC San Diego UCSD 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, California 92093-0076 This is the second of six public hearings on the recommendations in the report generated by the CPR. It will focus on CPR recommendations to improve the efficiency and management of the State Health & Human Services and Education, Training and Volunteerism programs. I. Call to order - Welcome remarks by Co-Chairs II. Introduction of Commission...

Riverside -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took his 2,500-page plan to change California on the road Friday, but quickly found that his two-month statewide tour will be anything but a victory lap. Hecklers, demonstrators and commissioners with plenty of questions showed up for the first of seven scheduled public hearings on the plan, which is the centerpiece of the governor's effort to reorganize state government. "In my State of the State address, I promised to shake up government, get rid of all the waste and inefficiency and make government smarter, faster and a better servant to the people,'' Schwarzenegger told 600...

Governor Schwarzenegger's California Performance Review Releases Results The much-anticipated report from the California Performance Review has just been handed to Governor Schwarzenegger and you can now see it online at www.cpr.ca.gov. Through Executive Order S-5-04, Governor Schwarzenegger established the California Performance Review (CPR) to restructure, reorganize and reform state government to make it more accountable and responsive to the needs of its citizens and business community. In five productive months, the 275-member CPR team analyzed thousands of issues and interviewed hundreds of people and organizations to determine the root causes of today's problems in state government and make dramatic recommendations...

Performance review instead says payroll growth should be slowed, not stopped. If a proposal to overhaul state government to be released today amounts to "blowing up the boxes," state workers won't catch much shrapnel. The California Performance Review doesn't envision a radical shrinking of the state work force in favor of privatization or curtailing government services. Instead, it calls for a relatively modest reduction of 12,000 in the projected growth of the payroll in the next five years. The state's work force would keep growing - just not as fast as anticipated. By comparison, the state payroll - in real...

SACRAMENTO — Some of California's most influential business interests — including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and EDS — were given easy access to a state commission as it met privately to recommend sweeping government changes, according to disclosure reports and interviews. Public interest groups, in contrast, complained Friday that they were largely excluded from the five-month study, ordered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A Microsoft sales official met with a top aide that Schwarzenegger appointed to the California Performance Review, and former Michigan Gov. John Engler, now working for Electronic Data Systems, spent about an hour with the review team because "we wanted...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR My name is Licorice, and I am a hamster. I have never shared my story before because, frankly, sometimes all a hamster has is his privacy. Thursday night, however, Alexandra Kerry described the circumstances of my rescue by her father after I had fallen off a pier in Massachusetts. I have come forward now to set the record straight. I was the hamster of Alexandra's sister, Vanessa, and she, on balance, was a good person, although a bit of a tickler. On this occasion, as the family gathered on the pier to depart for a vacation, somebody -...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Bystanders who want to help a heart attack victim are increasingly being told by 911 dispatchers to skip the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and concentrate on giving chest compressions until medical help arrives. Driven by medical surveys and continued public resistance to giving mouth-to-mouth, emergency medical groups across the country have either changed or are considering changing the traditional instructions given over the phone to untrained individuals helping a heart attack victim. "If someone is going to do nothing because they are apprehensive about doing mouth-to-mouth, it is simple to tell them to find the middle of the...

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has so many government reform proposals in the air that one wonders how he can keep track of them all. Among other things, the new governor is trying to overhaul education finance, completely remake the Medi-Cal system for the poor and fix a prison system rotten with corruption and abuse.</p>

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans to streamline state government moved forward Tuesday with a call to state workers to begin offering their ideas and a June deadline when recommendations would be presented to the public.</p> <p>Schwarzenegger promised during his State of the State speech last month to "blow up" the bureaucracy in an effort to remove waste and fraud. Administration officials announced Monday the opening of a campaign office for the Californian Performance Review as well as a Web site and hot line.</p>

<p>Dr. Peter Safar, a medical pioneer at the University of Pittsburgh who spent a half-century perfecting landmark treatments in emergency care and became known as the father of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, died Sunday night from complications of cancer. He was 79. Safar, who was convinced that too many people die needlessly before reaching emergency rooms, is best known for crafting modern first-aid techniques now used inside and outside hospitals, including mouth-to-mouth rescue breathing, a hallmark of CPR. His internationally recognized work was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in medicine, most recently in 1994.</p>

C-P-R pioneer Peter Safar dies August 4, 2003 6:05 PM The Associated Press Pittsburgh-AP -- One of his proteges is calling it "a loss for mankind." Dr. Peter Safar (SA'-fur) has died of cancer at 79. Safar is regarded as the father of C-P-R and a pioneer in emergency medicine. Safar is credited with developing the nation's first doctor-staffed, multi-disciplinary intensive care unit. And he also developed the "A-B-C's of C-P-R" -- a technique taught to everyone from surgeons to Boy Scouts. It was in the 1950s that Safar developed a method of combining mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with chest compression....