These are my links for May 3rd from 08:17 to 08:28:

• Budget Cuts In California Red Districts Could Make Sense – Last week, Treasurer Lockyer and Senate President Pro Tem Steinberg each called for targeted cuts in Republican districts.  They were both non-specific, but the clear target was to both shake the trees for a few Republican votes and to make voters in the district hold their leaders accountable.  The generality of the threat made it political rather than policy.
  But that's not Peter Schrag's style.  Schrag, the longtime columnist for the Sacramento Bee and author of several books on California governance, knows his policy.  So, rather than just saying cutting in red districts, he has some ideas with specifics.

  The obvious first question: are these serious ideas or just threats? And to what extent could the legislature's Democratic majority do it even if they wanted to? But in some instances, targeting Republican districts might be good policy even if it's not unequivocally good politics.
  The most obvious example is the state's costly class-size reduction program (CSR). Ever since Gov. Pete Wilson, in a blatantly political maneuver intended to punish the teacher unions, arm-twisted the legislature into the hasty adoption of CSR in grades K-3 some fifteen years ago, there have been serious doubts about its effectiveness. … Nonetheless, despite the program's erosion under the budget pressures of the past couple of years, it still costs the state over a billion dollars a year. CSR probably shouldn't be abandoned, but it should be focused on the low income students and English learners who most need the additional attention and who, according to most research, are the most likely to benefit.

  That change of focus would hit affluent Republican districts harder than those represented by Democrats, but it would almost certainly be the more effective use of resources that conservatives always demand. (CPR)

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  The class size expenditure was worthless when initiated 15 years ago and is ripe for some cuts.

  California has spent too much on a failed education system and instead would have been better served with a break up of failed school districts and a voucher system such as what Indiana just adopted.

  So, Democrat legislators, cut away but I know you won't.

• San Diego case hits right note on redevelopment – The timing could not have been more perfect – or more ironic.

  As the Legislature mulls Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to abolish local redevelopment activities, a San Diego judge has issued a denunciation of one redevelopment agency for running rough- shod over private property owners in its zeal to underwrite a big condominium.

  National City, a suburb of San Diego, wanted to seize their property under eminent domain to facilitate construction of a 24-story condominium building. To make the seizure legal, the city declared the property to be blighted and needing to be cleared for new construction.

  Taking property in that way was given broad clearance by the U.S. Supreme Court in its now-famous – or infamous – Kelo decision having to do with a similar case in Connecticut. But to exercise that power, National City still had to meet the state's requirement that it prove blight.

  One property owner, the Community Youth Athletic Center, resisted and challenged the city's blight designation. The center, which gives boxing lessons to underprivileged youth, received support from groups opposed to the broad exercise of eminent domain. And San Diego Superior Court Judge Steven Denton sided with the gymnasium as well.

  Last month, Denton issued a 50-page ruling that found National City's claim of blight to be bogus. "Because most or all of the conditions cited as showing dilapidation or deterioration are minor maintenance issues, the court cannot determine with reasonable certainty the existence or extent of buildings rendered unsafe to dilapidation or deterioration," he wrote.

  Dana Berliner, a lawyer for the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, an anti-eminent domain organization that backed the Community Youth Athletic Center, put it this way: "Their blight designation was a total sham."

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  Jerry Brown is correct about redevelopment in California.

  Most of what I have seen is local developers getting rich at the expense of California taxpayers with local government capturing tax revenue that ordinarily go to the state of California.

  Look at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza and Thousand Oaks City Hall. This area was considered blighted?

  The auditorium ha sucked up all of the Redevelopment Agency funds and Thousand Oaks Blvd. remains well – the same.

  The California Legislature and the Governor should either amended the redevelopment law or abolish them all together.