Free Republic

Florida’s Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis, suggested that In-N-Out Burger should move to the Sunshine State after several In-N-Out locations were shut down by California officials.Patronis appealed to In-N-Out CEO Lynsi Snyder to move to the state, arguing that Florida has a superior business climate—noting the state has no personal income tax, low corporate taxes, and no mandates.“I’m writing you today not only as Florida’s Chief Financial Officer, but as a small business owner who grew up in a family-owned restaurant and worked there for more than 30 years,” his letter reads. “I know how hard it is to turn...

KCBS 106.9 FM/740 AM @KCBSRadio BREAKING: The #Martinez couple caught on video painting over the approved #BlackLivesMatter mural on #FourthofJuly are being charged with a hate crime, according to a release from the #ContraCostaCounty District Attorney's office.

Contra Costa County in California will not allow church services until June 15. But it permits outdoor social gatherings of up to 12 people right now. And it permits protests of up to 100 people right now.

Suit: East Bay teacher caught with child porn, then molested students after she was allowed to keep her job Chance encounter A chance encounter at a Lafayette cemetery in 2016 is what led to felony charges being filed against a teacher who allegedly molested two students in the 1990s, according to a lawsuit that alleges Acalanes High officials missed serious warning signs that could have prevented the abuse. The suit was filed Friday by a woman who reported that former Acalanes teacher Kyle Ann Wood molested her in the 1990s, when she was a photography teacher. According to the lawsuit,...

The killings of five people at a Halloween party remain unsolved more than a week later as a victim's family clashed with the company in the aftermath of violence at an Airbnb rental home in the San Francisco Bay Area. Police have not addressed a possible motive in the fatal shootings in Orinda that sent more than 100 terrified partygoers running for safety, nor have they announced any arrests, though local media has reported that the violence may have stemmed from a fight between two rival groups. Authorities have not addressed the reports and Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office spokesman...

A panel discussion of California Republicans: Catherine Baker, FORMER Assemblywomen R-16; Kevin Faulkoner, Mayor of San Diego; Kristin Olsen, FORMER Minority Leader, California State Assembly, etc. etc.; Matt Shupe, Director John Cox for Governor and Chair of Republican party in Contra Costa county (East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area); Snarky Moderator Scott Shafer, KQED (PBS) Senior Political editor. All discussed how evil Trump was and how he cost them their races! I attended and feel obligated to report on this pathetic exercise.

Police in the Bay Area are searching for a 27-year-old man who they say brutally stabbed two sisters at an Oakland train station Sunday night, leaving one of them dead. John Lee Cowell is accused of stabbing 18-year-old Nia Wilson and her 26-year-old sister in the neck and body around 9:30 p.m. at the MacArthur Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Oakland, according to BART police. Wilson died of her injuries at the scene, while her older sister remains in stable condition, officials said. News of the killing stoked public concern that a hate crime had been committed. Cowell is...

Catherine Stefani has an article up over at the SacBee talking about how she became the head of the Kaliforniastan chapter of Moms Demand Action… Its not much more than a shameless plug and link bait for the civilian disarmament cult, but I thought it was pretty interesting for a couple of reasons… one, I had never heard of Catherine Stefani before this and two, I thought it was incredibly interesting how she talks about how she became involved in MDA:

U.S. Congressman George Miller, a senior Democrat from California who has long championed education system, labor, health and the protection of natural resources, announced on Monday that he will not seek a 21st term in the House this fall. “This is a great institution and I cannot thank my family and my constituents enough for having given me the honor and privilege of representing my district in Congress these past 40 years,” the 68-year-old Miller said on his website. ““I will leave Congress with a full heart and a crowded plate, because the challenges of our times demand our constant...

The 32½-point margin of victory in Danville Mayor Candace Andersen's win Tuesday over college board President Tomi Van de Brooke in the Contra Costa supervisor election is a stunner. Internal polling reportedly showed Andersen's strong ballot designation -- mayor and attorney -- gave her a boost but "not 30 points worth," one political consultant observed wryly. Some of those points were undoubtedly due to Andersen's higher name recognition in the San Ramon Valley, where she has held public office for nearly a decade and where the population outnumbers the northern part of the district in Lamorinda. But other than a...

Diverse appointments to superior, appeals courts Gov. Jerry Brown appointed a former State Bar leader to a judgeship in Contra Costa County on Friday. He also nominated a former San Francisco school board attorney as the first Latino on the state appeals court in San Jose, and chose a Los Angeles prosecutor as California's first Muslim judge... (snip) Halim Dhanidina, 39, of Los Angeles to the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Dhanidina has been a deputy district attorney since 1998 and will be the first Muslim on the bench in California, said Aziza Hasan of the Muslim Public Affairs Council....

A massive plan to turn Lamorinda cities into Fruitvale Transit Villages to force drivers out of their cars and rely more heavily on public transportation was unveiled Thursday, February 9 at a joint meeting of the city councils of Orinda, Lafayette, and Moraga. The plan proposes a major reconfiguration of the layout of all three cities. The plan was unveiled by Martin Engelmann of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, a public agency formed, in 1988, by the voters of Contra Costa County. The agency is charged with county-wide transportation planning. The plan proposes to concentrate housing and population growth near...

As Jaycee Dugard gets to know her family again after 18 years in depraved captivity, a California sheriff admitted today that his officers booted a chance to rescue Jaycee nearly three years ago. "We missed an opportunity to bring earlier closure to this situation," Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren E. Rupf said in a news conference today.

Emphasis on announces . I’ve read this piece three times and can’t convince myself that I’m not missing something obvious that makes it all perfectly rational. Surely if a D.A. were forced to turn his district into a free-fire zone for certain crimes, he wouldn’t broadcast to the public what those crimes are. Right? The decision not to go after any perpetrators of certain offenses, Grove said, amounts to “holding up a sign and advertising to the criminal element to come to Contra Costa County, because we’re no longer going to prosecute you.”Don’t even bother submitting the cases, Kochly said...

Color the brake lights red as the column of cars backs up from the Caldecott Tunnel, the often bottled-up gateway between Contra Costa and Alameda counties. Color drivers' moods red as the congestion worsens over a span of 45 years. Many drivers are looking forward to relief from a long-planned $420 million fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel, but a lawsuit by Alameda County neighborhood groups and a bicycling advocacy organization could delay the project scheduled to begin in the summer and finish in 2014. A ruling on the lawsuit is expected soon from Alameda County Superior Court judge Frank...

A Marine Corps sergeant from Brentwood prevented a tragedy Sunday, when he pulled an 8-year-old girl from the bottom of an apartment complex swimming pool. Miguel Hinojosa is being heralded by police and fire officials for his quick actions, which they say saved the child's life. Around 2 p.m., dispatchers received a call that a girl who was not breathing had been pulled from the bottom of a pool at an apartment complex at 2400 Shady Willow Lane in Brentwood. East Contra Costa Fire District Battalion Chief Jeff Burris said the pool was crowded, and that he believes the girl's...

Somewhere between the drafting and the enforcement of a rental housing inspection ordinance, Contra Costa crossed the line from government for the people to government against the people -- that was the underlying message from an angry gallery of Crockett residents at a town meeting last week. Speaker after speaker in a packed Crockett Community Center berated county Director of Building Inspection Carlos Baltodano and planner Bob Drake with complaints about the county's enforcement drive in their unincorporated West County town. Aimed at bettering the lot of tenants, the law buries landlords in costly red tape, ultimately hurting tenants as...

A Contra Costa County school was educating seventh-graders about Islam, not indoctrinating them, in role-playing sessions in which students used Muslim names and recited language from prayers, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit by two Christian students and their parents, who accused the Byron Union School District of unconstitutionally endorsing a religious practice. "The Islam program activities were not overt religious exercises that raise Establishment Clause concerns,'' the three-judge panel said, referring to the First Amendment ban on government sanctioning a religion. During the history course at Excelsior School in...

<p>Wednesday, March 24, 2004 - In an emotionally charged meeting Tuesday, the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors voted to prohibit the sale of .50-caliber "sniper" rifles in unincorporated areas of the county.</p> <p>By a 4-0 vote, the board approved the restriction. Supervisor Millie Greenberg of Danville was absent, as she spent the afternoon in Sacramento to testify on traffic safety.</p>