Free Republic

LAUSD .. schools are under-enrolled. "There are places where we have schools that are basically four blocks away from each other — and at a time, that made sense," Rodriguez says. Now, he says, "Buildings built for 1,000 kids may have something like 400. "It's expensive." ... Today, LAUSD's enrollment is around 514,000, a number that the district estimates will fall below half a million by 2018. But L.A. Unified's costs have not gone down. They've gone up. This year's $7.59 billion budget is half a billion dollars more than last year's. The nation's second largest school district is facing...

The other day we told you that former state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, 74, and his 43-year-old wife, Nadia — who nearly divorced after a meth-fueled sex scandal ended her tenure on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors — are expecting another child. Well, as luck would have it, they’re actually expecting two.

The toll-road authority of Orange County, Calif., is nearing the biggest municipal default since Detroit's record bankruptcy ... The Foothill-Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency... risks default on $2.4 billion in debt, according to a consultant to the Debt and Investment Advisory Commission of California Treasurer Bill Lockyer.

The Poway Unified School District in California is facing a whopping $1 billion repayment on a loan of just $105 million. It borrowed the money using bonds that the state treasurer has compared to payday loans -- and more than 200 other California districts are in the same boat. More than 200 school districts across California are taking a second look at the high price of the debt they've taken on using risky financial arrangements. Collectively, the districts have borrowed billions in loans that defer payments for years — leaving many districts owing far more than they borrowed. In 2010,...

A former county supervisor and the estranged wife of California's Treasurer has been arrested after police found methamphetamine stashed in the Orange County home she was living in with the couple's nine-year-old son. Mr Bill Lockyer, the state's former attorney general and current treasurer, helped his much younger wife with $1.6million in campaign funding when she won her supervisor seat in 2010, but has since filed for divorce and is seeking joint custody of their son. Police received a tip last week that led them to a house where Mrs Lockyer was staying with relatives, district attorney's spokeswoman Farrah Emami...

The former Alameda County supervisor reportedly checked herself into a drug rehab after being released from jail.Former Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer faces new drug and child-endangerment charges after she was arrested last week in Southern California. Nadia Lockyer is the estranged wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer. She made headlines in February after an violent incident at a Newark hotel involving a man she was having an affair with. She admitted at the time that she had a drug addition. Two months later in April, she resigned her supervisorial seat. According to court records, the arrest in Orange County...

Former Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer, estranged wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, faces drug and child-endangerment charges after her arrest last week in Orange County. Police went to the Orange home where Lockyer, 41, and her 9-year-old son, Diego, were visiting a relative on Aug. 28 after a caller tipped them that she might have drugs there, said Farrah Emami, spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney's Office. Officers found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia -- tubular aluminum foil with a burned end -- at the house. "When they later contacted the defendant, she showed objective signs of being under...

(07-16) 17:08 PDT HAYWARD -- State Treasurer Bill Lockyer has filed for divorce from his wife of nine years, Nadia Lockyer, three months after she resigned from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors in the wake of a sex and drug scandal. Bill Lockyer cited irreconcilable differences in the filing Friday in Alameda County Superior Court. He is seeking joint custody of the couple's 9-year-old son. His spokesman declined Monday to discuss the reasons that led the 71-year-old state treasurer to seek to end his marriage to Nadia Lockyer, who is 41. "Bill's desire is that this matter be resolved...

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer said this afternoon that he will vote for Gov. Jerry Brown's November ballot initiative to raise taxes, despite concerns about the measure's burden on California's highest-income earners. Lockyer, who said last year that California had neared its reasonable limit for taxing the rich, told the Sacramento Press Club that the alternative -- billions of dollars in spending reductions, including to education -- is intolerable. "I'm voting for the governor's tax proposal," said Lockyer, a Democrat. "The cuts to education if it doesn't pass are so severe that it will injure our ability to produce an informed...

OAKLAND -- Eight candidates are vying to replace disgraced ex-Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer including three veteran city politicians and Lockyer's predecessor Gail Steele. The major names in addition to Steele are Union City Mayor Mark Green, who also is running for State Assembly; former Union City Councilman Richard Valle, who also is running to be that city's mayor; and Newark Councilwoman Ana Apodaca, who lost a mayoral bid last year. County supervisors next month are scheduled to appoint Lockyer's successor, who will serve through the November general election, when voters in Hayward, Union City, Newark, Sunol and north Fremont...

Former Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer obtained a restraining order against her former lover this week, even as he sat in a café 30 miles away claiming she tried to frame him for battery and broke his heart. Lockyer, 41, has claimed Stephen Chikhani attacked her Feb. 3 in a Newark hotel room. But the state Justice Department investigated and declined to charge him with any crime. Still, Lockyer, who resigned her seat on the board last month, claimed in court papers filed this week that she, her 8-year-old son and her husband -- state Treasurer Bill Lockyer -- continue...

The East Bay Municipal Water District captures water from the Sierra snowpack in reservoirs on the Mokelumne River and sends it via sealed pipeline 90 miles to customers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, saying it "assures that all customers get high-quality drinking water ..." One wonders, however, whether the East Bay's water is contaminated by a germ that compels its politicians to misbehave. While there's a long history of aberrant behavior in the region, it's been particularly evident recently. Within a few months, East Bay politicians were arrested on a shoplifting charge (Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi), resigned after becoming involved...

He's almost 71. And his wife just resigned from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors after a drug-fueled affair with a meth addict. Her sensational downfall included shocking allegations that he once supplied her with drugs and encouraged her to commit suicide during a recent argument. So now, after months of personal turmoil and four decades as one of the state's most powerful Democrats, is state Treasurer Bill Lockyer preparing to quietly fade away? Not a chance. In fact, he's already squirreled away more than $2.5 million to run for another statewide office when he's 73. Asked whether recent events...

The ex-lover whom former Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer had accused of attacking her Feb. 3 in a Newark hotel room won't face criminal charges, the state Justice Department announced Friday. Communications director Shum Preston said the department "has thoroughly reviewed the matter referred to us by the Alameda County District Attorney's office regarding the Feb. 3 incident at a Newark hotel involving Nadia Lockyer. After reviewing the evidence, the department has determined that it will not file charges." No further details were available, Preston said. Nadia Lockyer resigned her supervisorial seat last week, months after the Feb. 3 brought...

Maybe there's something about one of the Alameda County Board of Supervisor's five seats that attracts troubled Bay Area politicians. Less than a week after Nadia Lockyer resigned her seat on the board following weeks of scandalous revelations of drug abuse and a sexual affair with a meth adddict, disgraced Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Hayward, reportedly inquired about the post. Hayashi, who is termed out of the Legislature after this year, contacted three of the four remaining members of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to gauge their interest in appointing her to fill out Lockyer's term until 2014, the Bay...

It's easy to dismiss the dramatic fall of Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer as the failings of an addict. But it was much more than that. A system - our political system - created her. Our political system allows one person, like state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, to run for a statewide office, collect millions of dollars in donations and then bestow those funds like a kingmaker in lower-level races - like a county supervisor's race. Our system here in Alameda County allows one party - the Democratic Party - to declare for the rest of us who should be in...

We are pleased that Nadia Lockyer last week resigned her seat on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors . . . frankly, she's an addict who behaves like one and, by her own admission, has lied . . . Nevertheless, her account raises questions about her husband's actions. For, while she tried to defend her husband by saying that she holds responsibility for her consumption of drugs, she did not deny her earlier claim - that her husband bought and supplied her some of those drugs years ago. In the time the two have known each other, Bill Lockyer has...

Last month, we told you about the sex/drugs/beating/cheating/porning scandal surrounding the daughter of Santa Ana community activism royalty and wife of California Democratic politics royalty. This weekend, it was not only reported that the scandal led to Nadia Maria Davis-Lockyer's resignation as an Alameda County supervisor but an eye-opening interview where the 41-year-old claimed state Treasurer Bill Lockyer angrily told her to "go ahead and commit suicide" and her rehab lover "bashed my head into the stone floor."The seventh child of the late Wallace R. Davis, one of Santa Ana's first Latino lawyers to stand up for immigrants, Nadia Maria...

Week after week, messages from Nadia Lockyer came in a barrage of lurid and disjointed emails, texts and photos. They were a confusing attempt to explain her tortured, drug-fueled affair with a meth addict and her crumbling marriage to state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who is three decades her senior. One email that ended "Goodbye to everyone" seemed so desperate, so disturbing that the newspaper called police to rush to her home.Then, in an effort to be believed and understood, the woman who had held office as an Alameda County supervisor for little more than a year sent us one more...

Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer, who for two months has been embroiled in a sex and addiction scandal that riveted the Bay Area, told the Bay Area News Group today she is resigning from office. Lockyer, the wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, will tell her colleagues and constituents in a letter that she wanted to focus on the well-being of her 8-year-old son and recovery from chemical dependency and her alleged beating by her ex-lover. "Today is a significant day for me personally and professionally," she told a reporter in the living room of their home in the Hayward...