Hot Sheet for Thursday

At Last! Today is the final day that large stores in LA County unincorporated areas can use single use plastic bags! The movement to ban the use of these environmentally devastating and completely unnecessary tributes to pure laziness has been spreading throughout LA County. The incorporated communities of Malibu, Long Beach, Santa Monica, and Calabasas have also passed similar ordinances. The ban will take effect for smaller stores on Jan. 1, 2012.

Governor Brown is being praised for stripping $1.7  billion from redevelopment agencies in the budget that was passed on Tuesday, but he is being scorned for vetoing a bill that would have eased the process for farm workers to unionize. The legislation had been strongly supported by the United Farm Workers, and their leaders had hoped that Gov. Brown's past ties to Cesar Chavez would have led to his support. Unfortunately, the governor vetoed the legislation late Tuesday night, just an hour before it would have gone into effect.

“The fact that he didn’t believe that farm workers need this kind of assistance and change in law is very disappointing,” said Arturo Rodriguez, the president of the United Farm Workers. “I am angry and I am upset that this governor treated us just like all the rest of the governors.”

"Horrendous violations of the public trust" is the phrasing used by Building & Safety head Robert "Bud" Ovrom to describe the scandal plaguing his department. I think "Business as usual" is probably more appropriate.

** Hot Sheet by Joe B. of the "Great S.T."