The result is a long-term fiscal forecast that is, for many, cloudy.

Or, as Garden Grove City Manager Lisa L. Kim succinctly summarized in her recent budget message: “As we move forward, we continue to navigate a dynamic landscape shaped by inflationary pressures, increasing pension obligations and the uncertainties of the global economy.”

A review of data from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System — and from cities themselves — found that Brea and Anaheim devote what amounts to a quarter of their general funds to retirements, while Fullerton, Garden Grove, Costa Mesa and Orange devote between 20 and 24%.

With the caveat that some cities tap more than one fund to pay for pension obligations, the cost is generally born by general funds (see what we did there?), so we’re using that for a sense of scale. We acknowledge that not everyone likes it, but it’s the measure we used when we did this exercise a decade ago, and using it again allows us to more clearly track changes.

And, wow, there were changes. We were stunned that some cities have seen fourfold increases in their retirement contributions, while others have seen them double and triple.

The growth in general funds, meanwhile, has lagged far behind. It has more than doubled in many cities, but has grown much less in many others.

Simply put, more money for pension promises (which can’t be broken, as per California courts) means less money for everything else.

Old v. new

But the squeeze isn’t hitting every city. This is largely a tale of old and new.

Consider Laguna Woods, where pensions equate to a wee 1% of its general fund budget. And Lake Forest, Aliso Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita, where pensions account for about 2%.

It’s less than 3% in Dana Point, Laguna Niguel, Stanton and Villa Park; and less than 5% in Laguna Hills and Yorba Linda.

How can that possibly be?

It’s as simple as this: Old cities tend to have their own police and fire departments, and pensions for those public safety workers are crazy expensive.

Newer cities, in contrast, tend to contract out for police and fire services, rather than keep their own in-house departments. They essentially pool resources by hiring the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County Fire Authority. The costs of expensive public safety pensions are built into the annual rates they pay for service, but their budgets don’t wilt under the weight of expensive public safety retirement liabilities.

Also, newer cities tend to have fewer employees, period. They contract out for things like building maintenance and landscaping, so their budgets — and pension obligations — are generally leaner, meaner machines. Lake Forest City Hall[/caption]

“Lake Forest remains debt free because it’s a relatively newer city that contracts out for services, avoiding large pension requirements. We have fewer than 70 full time employees. And the contract process for landscaping, street repair, etc., allows us to regularly issue requests for proposals for services, ensuring we are getting the best possible price. Additionally, the closure of the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro created an opportunity ….”

The military land was rezoned from industrial/commercial to housing and developers paid a per-unit fee when the building permits were issued. Those fees turned into money for street improvements, a Sports Park and a Civic Center.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a former Marine base in their backyard, though. In lean Laguna Woods, the city council made six extra lump sum payments to erase its unfunded pension liabilities since 2017. That means, as of right now, “the city’s pension plans are fully funded according to the most current actuarial valuations,” said City Manager Christopher Macon.

How’d we get here?

First, the basics: Cities and workers send money to CalPERS; CalPERS invests it; then CalPERS pays the pensions when workers retire.

CalPERS will be releasing updates on the funded status of each city’s plans in coming weeks. It announced stellar returns of 11.6% on investments over the last year, which boosts its overall funded status to 79% (quite a bit rosier than the 71.4% it posted in 2023 and the 75% in 2024).

That means CalPERS is very nearly almost at the 80% funded status many experts say is acceptable — though others argue 80% is still far too low for comfort. (It means, as of right now, CalPERS only has 80% of what workers are owed.)

It wasn’t always like this. In 2001, CalPERS was once a beefy 112% funded. But lawmakers, believing the gravy days would last forever, started dramatically boosting retirement benefits for public workers while simultaneously failing to set aside money to fund them.

Then we had a Great Recession. By 2013, CalPERS’ funded status had plunged to 70%.

The climb, since then, has been swell. But when you consider the billions upon billions of extra dollars that agencies and workers have funneled into the system over the past dozen years, it’s a bit depressing that the status isn’t higher.

And it’s infuriating that, in light of all this, that lawmakers tried again this year to boost pension benefits for public workers. The bills didn’t get far, but they’ll surely be back in some form or other.

Many strategies to fill the holes

Lean Laguna Woods, like many cities new and old, has set up a “pension prefunding trust account” to pay down its pension debt. In this system, money is stashed away and can’t be used for anything else. And while it’s not yet accounted for in official figures, it will lighten the future load.

These trusts allow cities to invest more effectively than do other investment accounts, which aim for liquidity and produce lower returns, said Andy Hall, San Clemente’s city manager. When the trust’s balance has grown, and/or after a good investment year, cities can make prepayments to CalPERS to lower long-term liabilities.

“It is a really great option that allows cities to benefit from much higher investment returns,” Hall said.

Lean mean Villa Park has such a trust, which is approaching $1 million (and has another trust for promised health benefits as well). Villa Park contributes annually and expects to hit a funded status of 89% in just a couple of years, said City Manager Steve Franks.

Meanwhile, the full-service city of Newport Beach has been aggressive in paying down CALPERS debt, contributing some $15 million a year above and beyond what’s required for several years running, spokesman John Pope said. It will pay a total of some $60 million to CalPERS this year, said Finance Director Jason Al-Imam, and Pope said the city is on track to erase its pension debt by 2033.

For other cities, issuing bonds to pay down pension debt has been an arrow in the quiver. Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Orange, La Habra and Buena Park have done so.

Pension Obligation Bonds, as they are known, involve borrowing money at a low interest rate, investing it so that it earns a higher interest rate and then reaping the difference. It’s a useful tool in the hands of the right governments at the right time, The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has said. But, too often, it has been used by the wrong governments at the wrong time.

That doesn’t appear to be the case here, as cities borrowed when interest rates were super low. Fountain Valley made an extra $3 million payment to CalPERS in January, and will make another in the 2025-26 fiscal year, said finance director Ryan Smith. Such outlays will continue until the debt is paid down.

Orange’s pension-related bond payment this year will be $16.2 million, while the city will send $17.5 million to CalPERS. That will put its funded status at a lovely 92.5% for general workers, and 89.5% for public safety workers, said spokeswoman Charlene Cheng.

Meanwhile, La Habra will pay $4.8 million in pension-related bond debt this year. The city has a policy requiring that half the money it makes via its pension-related bonds goes back into the pension trust fund, which currently has nearly $13 million, said Jack Ponvanit, deputy finance director.

So yes, local cities are working on their future pension woes, and they’re counting on the burden easing in coming years. Reforms muscled through the Legislature by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013 lowered retirement formulas for new hires, and those folks will start retiring over the next decade or so.

Meantime, though, the pinch hurts. Anaheim is one of those cities that has seen pension obligations grow faster than its general fund.

“As Orange County largest city, no one should be surprised by Anaheim’s pension obligations and yearly costs,” said spokesman Mike Lyster. “We serve people, and it takes people to do that. And with that comes pensions. As we continue to work through retirement cycles, we expect to see improving pension costs in the years ahead as 2013 reforms fully play out.”

We’ll be circling back with more details on all this when CalPERS releases new data soon. ‘Til then, fingers crossed.

The five-year award announced July 15 will support UCI MIND’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, which has been studying memory impairments, sharing its knowledge and educating us little folks for more than 40 years (see tips on keeping your brain healthy below).

“We’re experiencing this wonderful period of rapid evolution in our field,” said Joshua Grill, Ph.D., director of UCI MIND (Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders) and co-director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC). “The new treatments represent the most obvious and important ones in clinical practice, but they’re not the only things that have changed. We have new tools to support diagnosis, many now FDA approved, and we need to make sure everyone benefits from these advances.”

As this humble scribe expects to be part of the silver tsunami, we’re rooting for the next big breakthroughs, and UC Irvine will surely play its part. Its Alzheimer’s Disease Research Institute was established way back in 1984, one of the first five federally designated Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers in the nation. That network has grown to include 35 centers teasing out exactly why some brains become diseased and others don’t, and precisely how to keep them healthy, and how to slow, stop or perhaps even reverse decline when it happens.

“I’m really thinking about future of ADRC and UCI MIND, about maximizing the impact we make with our science,” Grill said. “We want to begin the next chapter of translational research that we hope will reinvent clinical practice.”

Ah yes, we hope so too. California is on the cusp of an unprecedented demographic shift, with the number of folks 65 and older skyrocketing by 59% over the next 15 years. Dementia cases are expected to skyrocket along with it.

Alzheimer’s is linked to a buildup of two proteins in the brain: beta-amyloid and tau, researchers say. Plaques of beta-amyloid accumulate between nerve cells. Tangles of tau build up inside nerve cells. Cells can no longer communicate and are ultimately destroyed. Death usually occurs within 10 years.

UCI’s ADRC brings research directly to the community through clinical trials, educational programs and partnerships that empower people to make informed decisions, officials said. It’s the neighborhood hub for the latest information on brain health and aging, and is part of the NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium. Thousands of locals (including this one) have joined its Consent-to-Contact Registry, which connect folks to clinical studies they might be interested in, or can contribute to. It has generated more than 10,000 referrals, officials said, “greatly accelerating the pace of research and giving community members a straightforward way to contribute to scientific progress.”

The new grant also will fund initiatives to train the next generation of dementia researchers and clinicians, and will deepen community ties through outreach, recruitment and public education programs, officials said.

The work is supported by the National Institute on Aging (part of the National Institutes of Health, which has been cancelling grants for research willy nilly as of late). UCI officials say the renewal confirms the center’s status as a global research leader, as well as its critical role in addressing a growing public health crisis.

“This renewed funding reflects the exceptional work of numerous UC Irvine clinicians and scientists dedicated to studying dementia-causing diseases,” said Frank LaFerla, Ph.D. and co-director of the ADRC, in a prepared statement. “It highlights UC Irvine’s cross-disciplinary commitment to addressing one of today’s most pressing health challenges.”

And cross-disciplinary it is. UCI MIND’s work involves more than 60 faculty members from more than 20 different departments, including neuroscience, psychiatry, geriatrics, statistics and public health, looking at memory disorders from myriad different angles.

UCI’s was the first ADRC to establish a bank of “induced pluripotent stem cells,” which are reprogrammed from small samples of skin or blood, enabling researchers to generate different types of brain cells in the lab so they can study disease progression and test new treatments. Researchers here also have studied disease in the oldest of the old, and in people with Down syndrome, who are at significantly higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

“We widely share data, tissue and knowledge to accelerate science beyond the proverbial walls of the ADRC at UCI, not just nationally but internationally,” Grill said. There are about 1,500 brains in its brain bank, and it has sent brain tissue as far as Australia.

The big breakthroughs in the field as of late include the ability to test for precursors to disease — something he approaches with great caution — as well as drugs to potentially slow its progress. But Grill warns against “the tyranny of treatment” and stresses that there’s still no way to prevent or cure Alzheimer’s, and folks should be wary of charlatans who claim otherwise.

“We talk about lowering your risk, maintaining your brain heath, and anyone who suggests there’s a way to cure or reverse it is lying,” he said. “They’re preying on the desperation people feel. We endeavor to be the community’s place to get answers.”

There’s a blog. And podcasts. And a newsletter.

So, how can you keep your brain as healthy as possible? Exercise regularly. Eat healthy food, including fish and dark green, leafy vegetables. Remain socially active and cognitively engaged. If you have health conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, work with a doctor to get them under control. And a good night’s sleep, we’re learning, is critical to brain health, so see a sleep doctor if you have problems.

And, if you want to help science advance, consider joining thousands in the volunteer Consent-to-Contact Registry. We did! We hope to leave our brain to science, where it might finally do an honest day’s work. It always loved biology.

It’s probably best to confess up front that I wanted children mostly so I could go to Disneyland all the time and not seem really weird. But my Disney crush was not a straight-on sort of journey, and certainly not how I expected to explain my geolocation on Planet Earth to strangers.

See, in my youth, I was mighty sore at Disney. I blamed the entertainment behemoth for the “Cinderella Syndrome” — the conviction that Prince Charming is out there, eager to rescue the dainty damsel in distress lurking within (but only if we’re pretty and pure of heart, but mostly, pretty.).

This storyline is what my (very old school) parents envisioned for my life. When I said I was going to college, thunder clapped, lightning flashed and panic ensued. The nearby secretarial school was proffered as a far more sensible option.

Anyway, Cinderella wasn’t exactly Disney’s fault: “Cendrillon” was penned by Charles Perrault in 1697, drawing on fairy tales told and retold probably for centuries, as well as by the historical place of women in society. Disney’s “Cinderella” and “Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty” — save me Prince! — were the highly artistic products of their times.

And then, something happened. Times changed.

There was Belle, the feisty bookworm in “Beauty and the Beast.” And Jasmine, the princess who would not be pushed around in “Aladdin.” Pocahontas pointed out the savagery in European colonizers; Mulan, the kick-butt warrior, defeated the Huns with smarts, not brawn; Rapunzel’s optimism and curiosity couldn’t be stifled by Mother Gothel’s suffocating narcissism (and the golden-haired one taught us self-defense-by-frying-pan to boot). Tiana understood that wishes come true only if you work hard enough to get them, and a brave and independent Moana bucked expectations to save her people.

Suddenly, these Disney princesses were bona fide feminist role models! This provided the justification needed to indulge the 5-year-old lurking deep within. See, like most every other kid in America in the 1960s, I lived for Sunday nights and “Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.” Castle! Fireworks! Tinkerbell! Then Walt himself in what might be the best infomercials ever made….

“This is what we call New Orleans Square,” Walt said in one episode, waving a majestic hand over a scale model of same.

“And over here, we have a special attraction. We call it the Blue Bayou Lagoon. People are going to get on a boat here, ride through the lagoon, and then when they get around here, we’re going to take them down a waterfall and take them back into the past, into the days of the pirates.”

Oh. My. Gawd. I, like kids everywhere, quaked with ravenous, unbridled desire. I beseeched my parents please, please, for the love of all that is good in the world, please! take us to Disneyland. But, alas, I was 25 when I finally took myself to Disneyland for the very first time.

It was the late 1980s. The old Disneyland sign lorded over Harbor Boulevard. I parked my 1984 Mazda GLC on the lot that is now California Adventure, bought a ticket at an actual booth manned by an actual person, passed through the turnstiles…

And that thing happened.

Call it pixie dust, projection, illusion, artifice — who really cares? Years fall away. You have permission to be a kid again. Bands march down Main Street, barbershop quartets harmonize, Mickey Mouse hugs you, thrill rides do a far better job than primal scream therapy and are much more fun. This, truly, is some sort of magic.

And it’s why some 28 million people visit the Disneyland resort every year, and why Disney is the largest private employer in Orange County (with some 32,000 workers), and why it’s able to contribute more than $16 billion to Southern California’s economy (yes, that’s according to Disney’s own study, but it was done by Oxford Economics, a respected and reputable operation).

The city of Burbank passed on this vision (thank you, Burbank, for thinking small and assuming the proposed “Mickey Mouse Park” would usher in a carny atmosphere and unsavory crowd!), and its loss has been Orange County’s gain.

Disney paved the way, literally, for Orange County’s transformation. It was one of the first huge swaths of farmland to be repurposed for a more urban use, something soon to spread to Irvine, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, and, well, just about everyplace really, as strawberry fields gave way to housing developments and shopping malls.

It’s how we tell people where we live. When your town’s name doesn’t ring a bell, and then you try “Orange County” and still get a perplexed look, and then try “between Los Angeles and San Diego” and they’re still confused, you finally say, “Near Disneyland!” and their faces brighten with recognition. On a recent trip to Botswana and South Africa, I toted bags of Mickey ears to give to children. They were snapped up in seconds.

Not that all this is necessary a politically good thing. Complaints about Disney’s outsized sway over Anaheim city government are about as old as Disneyland itself. A recent FBI probe described a secretive cabal that pulled the city’s strings — with a rep from “Company A,” aka Disney, among them.

The city gives too much to Disney, critics say (Anaheim agreed to foot the bill for up to $200 million in infrastructure improvements when Disney built California Adventure; the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure cost the city $108 million, electrical improvements cost $17.6 million and a pedestrian bridge cost $3.6 million, city officials told us when we looked at corporate subsidies in California).

There are complaints over details in the $1.9 billion DisneylandForward expansion plan, which is slated to bring myriad new themed lands (based on Avatar, Frozen, Zootopia, etc.) to Anaheim.

And folks carp that the fun family day Walt originally envisioned has become exorbitantly and prohibitively expensive — easily totaling $1,000 a day for a family of four (if they want a Park Hopper and, uh, food). I bought my first mid-level annual pass during Disneyland’s 50th anniversary in 2005, shortly before my first baby came home. It cost $179, if memory and a Google archive search serve. I let our mid-level Magic Keys expire this year when the price rose to $1,374. Each.

Does Disney owe us affordable options? There are lower-priced days and discounts here and there for the Deals Mavens amongst us, but, in the end, Disney is a for-profit corporation, not a charity. Its business may be selling good cheer, but its mission is to make money; that’s what for-profit corporations do. And judging by the crowds these last few years, prices might not yet be high enough to curb ridiculously high demand.

We’ll be going back for Disneyland’s 70th, but probably not until the Christmas decorations go up (and probably with Costco SoCal tickets, if they’re still available). Til then, I’ll fervently hope to win the Lottery, and that Disney brings a show back to the Hyperion Theater in California Adventure. Seeing “Aladdin” with eldest on my lap, and her exclamation of “Mom! This is so fun!” remains one of my most treasured memories.

I’m eager to see what the next few decades bring. Maybe we’ll re-up those Magic Keys. As Walt said in “World of Color:”

“Anything’s possible at Disneyland.”

If the Medical Board of California has its way, you could be treated by a doctor wrestling with substance abuse and never know it.

Assembly Bill 408 would keep details about addicted doctors under wraps as long as those doctors voluntarily enter a new, confidential diversion program that the bill would allow the Medical Board to create.

That’s in stark contrast to what happens now: Drug-abusing doctors are disciplined in proceedings that are made public. This approach came into being several years ago after the Medical Board’s last confidential diversion system was deemed an utter failure and patients were harmed at the hands of struggling doctors.

What could be the justification for this about-face?

Getting help

“When our physicians struggle with substance use disorders, it is in the best interest of both patients and physicians to support them in seeking out help,” Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, said in an analysis of the bill he has authored.

The bill, he added, “builds off California’s longstanding efforts to destigmatize seeking treatment for substance use disorders…. Today, physicians struggling with substance use disorders can feel pressure to hide their condition and often never get the help they need. The creation of this program will help healthcare providers get the care they need, which will better protect patients in the end.”

The bill is fundamentally about patient safety, Berman said.

“(A)ll physicians deserve to recover and move forward with renewed resiliency and establishing a program would enable (the Medical Board of California) to prevent patient harm by connecting impaired or at-risk physicians with treatment before issues arise,” according to the analysis.

Doctors and other healthcare professionals are often hesitant to seek help thanks to stigma, confidentiality concerns and fears that they’ll ruin their careers, supporters argue. This reluctance can lead to “untreated or inadequately addressed conditions.”

The Medical Board’s mission is to protect consumers “and, too often, we first learn about a dangerous physician after their patient has been hurt,” said its statement of support.

“This legislation takes a proactive approach to prevent patient harm by providing a confidential pathway for physicians and other providers to seek care and treatment early, before they become unsafe to practice medicine.”

Avoiding accountability

Ha! respond consumer advocates, who couldn’t disagree more vehemently.

“The bill would allow doctors to seek treatment to avoid discipline even if they were impaired on the job,” said the group in Consumer Watchdog in opposition.

“For example: A San Francisco doctor suspected of stealing drugs from her hospital was recently arrested after she was found passed out in an operating room shortly after she was scheduled to participate in a toddler’s surgery. Under AB 408, the Board could send that doctor into diversion instead of the disciplinary investigation, treatment oversight and consequences for relapse that are all mandatory under current law. The bill does not require reporting of a positive drug test to the Board, so the doctor could continue treating patients while keeping diversion program violations secret and place patients in harm’s way.”

Another opponent of AB 408, the Consumer Protection Policy Center at the University of San Diego School of Law, takes a more dollars and cents approach.

“In light of the vacant staff positions and current budget concerns, it is a mystery how the Board will have dedicated staff to oversee this program,” it said.

“Without proper oversight, this program fails to address the previous program failures that led to catastrophic patient harm.”

The Medical Board’s attention and resources would be better focused on transparency, accountability and timely enforcement improvements to ensure meaningful consumer protection, the Center said.

The Consumer Attorneys of California points out that AB 408 does include two “important and commendable provisions:” It retains existing disclosure requirements for doctors who enter the program after allegations of patient harm or misconduct, and it mandates reporting of doctors believed to have a condition impacting their ability to practice safely.

“These are steps in the right direction, but they do not outweigh the risks created by the lack of enforcement clarity and the rollback of uniform standards,” the group said.

In a sobering assessment, a Senate analysis states simply, “Patient and public protection is lacking.”

This bill made it all the way through the Assembly and is now under consideration in the Senate. Have thoughts to share with your legislators? Find out how to contact them at https://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/.

I was in sixth grade, covering my brother’s newspaper route during football season, when an icy gray Weimaraner tore out of his yard.

“Freeze!” someone yelled. As I did, the beast sunk his teeth through my favorite pair of white shorts and deeply into my butt cheek.

I never saw him coming, and I hate those dogs to this very day.

Which is to say that I feel the pain of U.S. Postal Service workers who must face off with ferocious Fidos on their daily rounds (and not just because my first dog, Roark, returned the honor and set upon a mail carrier some 30 years ago).

Today, we bring some good news: Fewer California canines attacked mail carriers in 2024 than they did in 2023!

Overall, bites of intrepid letter carriers in California dropped 3.4%, from 726 in 2023 to 701 in 2024, according to data from the U.S. Postal Service. It was part of a happier long-term trend, in which dog bites of postal workers in California have fallen 12% since 2018.

But for all the good news, many big cities logged more attacks last year.

In Los Angeles, the number of dog bites on mail carriers jumped from 65 to 77. In Stockton, from 8 to 18; San Jose, 8 to 10; San Bernardino, 4 to 8; Huntington Beach, 5 to 7; Laguna Hills, 1 to 3.

Things held steady in places like San Francisco (20), Ontario (3),  and Brea, Corona, Fullerton and San Clemente (1 each).

Bites dropped in more than 50 cities, including Hawthorne (from 10 to 1), Pasadena (8 to 2), San Diego (41 to 35), Long Beach (19 to 14), Anaheim (8 to 4), Santa Ana (10 to 7), Los Alamitos (3 to 1), Torrance, La Habra and Seal Beach (each, 4 to 2), Garden Grove (5 to 3), San Pedro (6 to 4), Riverside and Costa Mesa (each, 3 to 2) and Glendale (2 to 1).

It’s summer, folks, which means it’s time for the USPS’ annual National Dog Bite Awareness Campaign, which seeks to remind us that these bites are preventable — and potentially quite expensive for dog owners.

The average cost for a dog bite claim is some $65,000, according to the Insurance Information Institute. Dog owners could be responsible for medical bills, lost wages, uniform replacement and pain and suffering if postal workers are hurt.

Even the friendliest dogs will do what they think is necessary to protect the homestead from intruders. They might bite if they’re startled, anxious or sick. It’s not just about bad or aggressive dogs, USPS says; it’s also about unpredictable moments.

But it’s not hard to prevent bites, and the USPS offers these suggestions:

• Use the “Informed Delivery” service, which lets you digitally preview incoming mail and packages (informeddelivery.usps.com) so you know when to expect a delivery.

• Know when the mail arrives each day, and ensure that your dog is inside, behind a fence or on a leash.

• Make sure doors are actually closed so pooches can’t burst through.

• Don’t let kids don’t take mail directly from a carrier, as the dog might conclude that’s threatening.

Carriers know to make noises or rattle fences before entering a yard. If they’re charged, they’re trained to stand their ground, protect themselves with the mail satchel as shield, and spray dog repellent if necessary.

There’s a “dog alert” feature on those handheld scanners they use, which can spread the word about potentially troublesome territories. If carriers feel unsafe, your home mail service could be halted and you’d have to pick up mail at the post office.

“The best way to keep safe from dog attacks is to recognize and promote the responsibility of pet ownership, such as teaching your dog appropriate behavior and commands and not allowing your dog to roam freely. All dogs — regardless of breed, size or age — have the potential to bite,” said Leeann Theriault, USPS employee safety and health awareness manager, in a prepared statement.

Was your city one of those in California where dogs bit postal workers? Find out here: USPS dog bites 2023 and 2024

My grandfather would wipe down the walls of our kitchen — a flashback to his busboy days in New York after arriving from Italy in 1920 — then suddenly rocket from past to present. He’d stare in horror at the rag in his hands, then at us. His face would collapse. He’d cry.

Alzheimer’s is a brain disorder known to slowly destroy memory, thinking skills and, eventually, one’s ability to carry out the simplest tasks. Now, though, a simple blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

What would you do if, today, of sound mind and body, you learned that amyloid plaques were circulating in your body — indicating you’re likely to descend into that tragic fog, but probably not for many years?

Many, many readers I’ve spoken with since my dad died in March have indicated, almost fervently, that they’d want the option to die with dignity before their memory was completely destroyed, before their loved ones had to endure the agony of watching them cognitively, but not physically, disappear.

That’s currently not legal in California. Access to medical-aid-in-dying drugs (MAID) is only available to patients with terminal diagnoses and six months or less to live. Alzheimer’s and dementia of all kinds, as well as slow-moving but debilitating and painful diseases like multiple sclerosis, ALS and Parkinson’s, take years to exact their vicious tolls, and thus do not make the compassionate cut.

Should they?

These are not idle philosophical questions. Last year, Senate Bill 1196 would have expanded access to MAID to people with “grievous and irremediable medical conditions,” launching California into the 21st century alongside Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

In those nations, MAID is available to a wider universe of pained people, not just those with fewer than six months to live. The bill would have included a dementia diagnosis as a “grievous and irremediable medical condition,” with MAID as an option if doctors determined the patient had the mental capacity to make that decision.

The idea freaked many folks out. The bill died. But the smart money, we hope, is on its resurrection in the not-so-terribly-distant future, as the “silver tsunami” grows ever larger. Populations are aging up in most advanced economies at a rate never before seen in human history. As that happens, cases of Alzheimer’s and dementia are skyrocketing.

“California is on the cusp of an unprecedented demographic shift, with projections indicating a dramatic increase in the older adult population by 2040,” the Public Policy Institute of California said in January. To wit:

• The number of folks 65 and older will expand by 59%,

• While those aged 20 to 64 (working age) will hold steady,

• And the number of kids (0–17) will plunge by 24%.

Folks like me — and the very many people I’ve heard from about this — will be part of the tsunami, and we will demand options.

“The whole business of being able to die without suffering too much, it just seems so important to people while they’re still healthy, to know that at the end it’s not going to be some horror show,” said retired psychiatrist Dr. Jeff Levine. “That has a great impact on people’s mental health in the here and now.”

Levine was one of the pioneers, charting how to implement California’s End of Life Option Act after it passed nearly a decade ago. He knows the tragic toll the law’s current narrowness can exact.

Early on, Levine heard from a woman with advanced Parkinson’s disease who was in misery and wanted MAID. But it wasn’t clear to Levine that she would die within six months, so he had to tell her she wasn’t eligible.

A week later, Levine got a call from the San Diego Police Department. His name was found on a pad, on a bedside table, at the site of a murder-suicide. Clearly desperate, the man had killed his wife, then shot himself.

“That really shook me up,” Levine said. “Why should people have to do that?”

Slippery slope?

Critics, meanwhile, assert that MAID can be grossly abused and misused.

When Canada recently expanded MAID to those suffering as well as those actively dying, opponents feared that the poor, marginalized, disabled and mentally ill would become its primary victims. Death, after all, is a lot cheaper than treatment.

A riveting piece in the New York Times magazine chronicled the quest for death of Paula, a Canadian woman whose suffering was acute, but who had no terminal illness. A psychiatrist argued that this is not what medicine is about, and that it’s not “assistance in dying” if the patient isn’t actually dying. “If you want to allow people to end their lives when they want to, then put suicide kits in hardware stores, right?” the psychiatrist told the Times.

Canada’s law is so broad it gives medical ethicists great pause. Its premise “is that the patient is the sole person who can decide whether additional treatments could be useful or viable alternatives to try,” said a paper in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.

“This emphasis on the absolute right of patients to decide to die rather than trying alternative means of reducing suffering may reflect an individualistic ethic in which people are considered to be free to make decisions about their well-being, even when a knowledgeable professional believes that the decisions are not in their best interest.”

And in 2027, Canada is slated to allow mental illness as a sole underlying medical condition to be eligible for MAID.

All this makes bioethicist Arthur Caplan uncomfortable.

Caplan, founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, contracted paralytic polio as a child in 1957. He is disabled, with post-polio syndrome and nerve damage to his spinal cord. “If abuse were likely,” he wrote in an op-ed for Newsday, “I would be first in line to object to legalization.”

And object he did, back when Oregon became the first state to adopt MAID almost 30 years ago. He feared the potential harms of rushing poor, minority and disabled people to expedient, unwanted deaths. He pored annually over statistics tracking its use. Talked to journalists looking for abuses.

And, eventually, he changed his mind.

“The people I was worried about weren’t dying,” he said. That’s because guardrails were in place and they were working: MAID patients had to be mentally competent, terminally ill people who chose to end their lives after a reasonable waiting period by voluntarily self-administering the lethal medications.

“The evidence for opposition just did not stack up,” said Caplan. “And another fact emerged: Even when people requested lethal medication, about a third weren’t taking it. It was a parachute. It let them live. In a weird way, the law was somewhat like suicide prevention. I didn’t expect that.”

Canada’s new approach, however, pretty much obliterates the guardrails.

Before ethically offering MAID to people without terminal diagnoses — those who are depressed, in great pain, suffering — you’d have to have real confidence that they had accessed a medical system that did everything, really everything, in its power to help. Even though Canada has universal health care, that’s not clearly the case. And in the U.S., where millions are uninsured and millions more soon will be, it’s definitely not the case.

“Say someone just got divorced, lost their job, went broke, lost a child, is depressed and doesn’t want to live anymore,” Caplan mused. “These are problems with living. Should medicine respond to them with lethal drugs?”

The Netherlands strikes what may be a much more acceptable middle ground. There, physicians and patients must agree that all potentially effective treatments have been tried, to no avail, before MAID can be approved. It’s a small country, doctors tend to truly know their patients, and can make a much more informed judgment, Caplan said.

• In the Netherlands in 2023, there were 9,068 deaths under the MAID law, according to its data report.

• Patients with dementia, who were still occasionally competent, comprised 328 of them.

• Eight dementia patients — who were no longer competent, but who had advanced directives for MAID — received MAID as well.

• 605 had neurological disorders, and 138 had psychiatric disorders.

Caplan wants New York’s governor to sign the traditional-guardrails MAID bill currently on her desk. Might advanced directives ever be enough in the U.S. for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients to access MAID? Possibly, Caplan said — but not just yet.

Two tracks

Canada’s MAID law started out like California’s, but was expanded in the wake of legal action. So who is using MAID now?

• The overwhelming majority of Canadian MAID patients were, indeed, actively dying, according to the latest data. They’re referred to as “Track 1” patients, and 96% of MAID requests came from them — a total of 14,721.

• Patients who were suffering, but not facing imminent death, comprised just 4% of MAID patients — a total of 622. These are referred to as “Track 2” patients.

• Dementia was the medical condition listed for 81 of the Track 1 patients, and 25 of the Track 2 patients.

“MAID involves a number of competing interests and values,” the Health Canada report said. “On the one hand is the autonomy of individuals to make decisions about their health care, including end-of-life care; on the other is the protection of individuals who may be vulnerable.”

Nearly 32% of people receiving MAID under Track 2 lived with a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability for more than 10 years, it found. Neurological conditions and other conditions  — such as diabetes, frailty, autoimmune issues and chronic pain — were the most commonly cited underlying medical conditions. And while Track 2 patients comprised just 4% of MAID cases, they represented 27% of rejected requests.

The task of assessing a Track 2 request weighs heavily on providers. A study published in 2023 found that they had “many challenges… including assessing individuals with concurrent mental illnesses, being uncertain that patients had been offered appropriate treatments prior to seeking MAID and being unsure whether patients had seriously considered available treatments,” it said.

“Many providers experienced moral distress in attempting to balance patients’ rights with what might be in patients’ best interests. This is different from experiences providers have had with patients making Track 1 requests, as most of these patients have end-stage malignancy or organ failure and seldom have unmet health care needs. This information could be used to enhance education and support for clinicians as they help patients with track 2 requests access their right to peaceful deaths.”

Overall, though, MAID is far and away more common in Canada than it is here in California. Though we’re about the same population-wise (40 million), California’s death with dignity option was exercised by only 884 people in 2023, while more than 15,300 Canadians did the same.

“That number in California makes you concerned,” bioethicist Caplan said. “Why is it so low?”

Baby steps

That’s partly because, despite the fact that it has existed for nearly a decade, most Californians simply don’t know about MAID, studies have found. And many who do know it exists don’t understand who’s eligible or how to access it (we’ll give you resources at the end of this story).

In Canada, though, MAID is a much more routine part of death management discussed by doctors and patients.

“We should be demanding that everyone, wherever they are, be informed of their options,” Caplan said.

People are clearly hungry for information. State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, held a forum on MAID in December titled “Chart your own Exit.” It was swamped with some 700 people — and broadcast online to accommodate them all.

“There’s a disconnect between what the populace wants, and the context of lawmaking,” said Blakespear, who is trying to get a simple bill eliminating the sunset date for California’s law — currently 2031 — through the Legislature. “Many lawmakers don’t know about this, or haven’t deeply considered it. That needs to happen.”

Janet Hager, a founding member of A Better Exit, a nonprofit devoted to broadening California’s law to include those suffering from progressive, incurable diseases, would agree. The options for those patients now are few, Hager said — such as going to another country (an expensive and potentially alienating proposition); voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (an arduous and miserable process that can take weeks to achieve its aim); and, all too frequently, violent suicide, often by firearms.

One of my dearest friends lost a parent that way. The trauma for survivors never, ever goes away.

“We need a carveout in the law for all degenerative diseases,” Hager said. She’s not sure, however, it will happen in her lifetime.

Change, Caplan predicts, will come — but in baby steps. Advance directives and trusted surrogates could eventually play a role, but the guardrail of terminal illness seems a wise one.

“The answer to the slippery slope,” he said, “is to put in stairs.”

To find MAID help, see socalendoflifeoptions.com, endoflifechoicesca.org, and/or aadm.org.

A gaggle of black-clad thieves targeted the Gucci store in Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza, grabbed designer handbags worth some $100,000, then escaped.

Another video of the Topanga Mall smash and grab pic.twitter.com/mzULJBtpMy

— Los Angeles Alerts (@AlertLosAngeles) August 13, 2023

A Nordstrom was ransacked at the Westfield Topanga mall in Canoga Park (some $80,000 worth of merchandise stolen); a 30-person strong “flash mob” hit the Yves Saint Laurent store at Glendale’s Americana at Brand mall; a Riverside jewelry store owner’s son had a gun, firing once and sending two robbers running for their lives — with whatever they could carry.

All this mayhem transpired in Southern California over the last few years, and the list could go on and on. It’s the phenom that helped obliterate much of Proposition 47 (the “drug users and small-time thieves should get treatment and rehabilitation, not jail,” initiative, passed in 2014)  — and usher in its antithesis, Proposition 36 (the “arrest those robbers and put them behind bars!” initiative, passed last year).

Retail theft has, indeed, risen over the last decade — unevenly, but sometimes sharply. Still, it remains far below historical highs clocked 40 years ago, according to data crunched by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. To wit:

• In the mid-1980s, there were about 1,100 retail thefts for every 100,000 Californians.

• In 2023, there were about 500 retail thefts for every 100,000 Californians, fewer than half the number back then.

“Retail theft remains well below historical levels,” the LAO said. “Specifically, between 1985 and 2023, the retail theft rate declined by 54 percent.” And there was a  similar decline for all types of property crime over this period, including residential burglary and motor vehicle theft.

Yes, crimes in 2023 were higher than in 2014 — 11% higher, actually — and we’ll get into why in a minute. But keeping the big picture in mind puts things into perspective.

It’s also important to understand that the increases haven’t been across-the-board statewide. They’ve been concentrated in the large counties — particularly Los Angeles, Alameda, Sacramento and San Mateo, while Orange and Riverside had sizable, if smaller, jumps. Small counties, meanwhile, tended to have no jumps at all, but actual declines, likely speaking to the placement of fancy malls and pricey jewelry stores in more urban areas.

It’s hard to say exactly what happened in San Bernardino. Much crime data for 2023 went unreported, the LAO said. We’ve asked why, but the county did not get back to us by deadline.

“Retail theft has implications for economic outcomes, as well as a sense of safety, well‑being and fundamental quality of life for Californians,” the LAO said.

Catch me if you can

Why the big drop since the days of Ronald Reagan?

There have been many studies probing that question over the past four decades, and it’s likely a combination of things, including more sophisticated, data-driven approaches to crimefighting, an emphasis on boots-on-the-ground community policing strategies and a strong economy.

But then 2014 happened.

The big change in the criminal justice system that year was the well-intentioned Prop. 47. Drug users should get treatment, not prison, California voters said. Counting small crimes as third-strike felonies — and thus putting people behind bars for life — was cruel.

Which may well be true, but the effective drug treatment and rehabilitation programs needed to make that approach actually work never materialized. Addicts didn’t really get treatment or prison, and the little crimes that shouldn’t have put folks behind bars for life could be repeated with virtual impunity, so long as the stolen stuff was worth less than $950.

So not only did Prop. 47 narrow officers’ authority to make arrests for shoplifting; in 2016, Proposition 57 expanded the state’s authority to reduce prison terms for good behavior.

One might argue smaller-time crime in California became a game of “Catch me if you can.”

Between 2014 and 2015, retail theft increased by 5%, then dropped by 20% between 2015 and 2021 (about half of that decline was between 2019 and 2020, as the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders and business closures dramatically limited the opportunity for mischief).

But once things opened up, retail theft rose, perhaps by more than official numbers indicate. Officially, retail theft leapt by 32% between 2021 and 2023, the LAO said.

Prisoners had been released early to limit COVID‑19’s spread. Folks were wearing face masks, making them harder to identify. Social media allowed ne’er-do-wells to easily organize smash-and-grab attacks. Online shopping platforms made it easier to sell stolen goods. There were more self‑checkout lines and more store policies directing staffers to avoid physically confronting shoplifters, which may have emboldened shoplifters, who felt they could avoid consequences for their actions, the LAO said.

“Within the criminal justice system, the available research has generally found that two key mechanisms can affect crime rates: (1) the likelihood of apprehension for crime and (2) the number of people incarcerated at a given time who might otherwise commit crime,” the LAO said.

You think?

Fed up

Voters have demanded action. They embraced a tougher approach by approving Prop. 36, and the Legislature has passed laws targeting retail crime as well.

These changes boost law enforcement’s authority to arrest and detain shoplifters; elevate some retail theft from misdemeanors to felonies; and boost jail time for some retail crimes.

A big change: “aggregating” multiple incidents of theft. Before, I could essentially steal $949 worth of stuff from one store, and then $949 from another store, and $949 from yet another, and not be dinged with a felony because each theft fell below the $950 threshold. They (usually) couldn’t be tallied. Now, however, they can be stitched together to equal a felony.

There’s also a new crime on the books called “organized retail theft,” which can elevate orchestrated flash-and-grabs to felonies; laws that allow for felony charges when shoplifters have two or more prior convictions; and longer possible jail sentences.

“(C)hanging crimes from misdemeanors to felonies will cause people to spend a longer time incarcerated — reducing their subsequent opportunity to commit crime, the LAO said. “This change could also make it more likely for people to be arrested given that law enforcement generally has greater authority to arrest people for felonies. This, in turn, could help deter people from engaging in retail theft if it causes them to perceive a higher likelihood of apprehension.”

Online marketplaces must collect information from high‑volume, third‑party sellers who may be trafficking in stolen goods and report them to law enforcement. The California Highway Patrol is setting up regional task forces to help local law enforcement address organized retail theft and other property crimes, and nearly $100 million in grant money has been set aside for the task.

It’s going to take some time to see if this new approach makes a difference — and lawmakers should keep an eye on whether reported retail theft is actually going down, and if the benefits actually outweigh the costs, the LAO said.

Lawmakers should also watch for the uneven application of these new powers. Prosecutors in, say, Orange and Riverside counties, might be more willing to include prior convictions for shoplifters than those in, say, San Francisco and Alameda counties.

“As with any new policy, unintended consequences can occur,” the LAO said. “(D)irecting increased enforcement resources toward retail theft could cause criminals to shift their focus to other illegal sources of revenue.”

Last week, the state Attorney General released statistics showing that the overall property crime rate decreased 8.4% between 2023 and 2024. Time will tell if that holds. Stay tuned.

Updated 7/8 with LAO data

How very convenient! Edison skeptics said. How’s that again?

Edison, actually, announced this bit of news in March, and has been reiterating its explanation ever since. Doubters, however, remain, so we’ll do what we can here to suss it out — though we hold no illusions that it will satisfy all.

Q. How the heck does a scratch in a nuclear waste canister suddenly shrink?!

A. It doesn’t. But technology evolves, Edison said.

We’re talking about Canister 72 here, which was scratched in 2018 by seismic restraints as it journeyed into its steel-and-concrete vault in the Holtec dry storage system.

In 2019, Edison sent robots and remote cameras inside that vault to inspect 72’s scratch. The camera system had some trouble locking on to it — flagged by a red dot beside the image, like trying to take a picture before autofocus has engaged, said San Onofre’s head of engineering. At that time, the tech estimated the scratch to be about 0.026 inches deep. That’s not deep enough to require any sort of remediation, but it was by far the deepest of several scratches observed on the canisters.

Engineering head Jerry Stephenson had his doubts about the measurement. It looked like bad data. But tossing it out would be “nonconservative,” he said, and he knew Edison would be criticized if it ignored the bigger number. It’s best to err on the side of caution anyway, so he decided to keep the measure and to check again at the next opportunity.

That came in March 2024, at the five-year inspection mark required by the state (not the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, mind you; the NRC doesn’t require inspections until the 20-year-mark). This time, Edison sent the camera back and forth over the area, giving it time to take a solid reading and make a good map. This time, 72’s scratch was found to to be less than half as deep as the original estimate — just 0.011 inches.

Puh-lease! some of Edison’s critics groaned.

Stephenson explained that, by 2024, the software locking in on the scratches and recording data to measure depth had improved. You can see it in the image of the scratch, he said — the dot that was red in 2019 was green in 2024. The scratch, it turns out, is actually small, about as thick as three or four human hairs, or one-third as thick as a credit card, he said.

Overall, last year’s inspection found the three canisters in good condition, with no corrosion in any of the scratched areas. Visible scuff marks caused by the shield ring — a radiation barrier — had minimal or no depth, Edison said.

Q. Do folks believe this?

A. The NRC declined comment on the remeasurement issue (thanks!), but David Lochbaum, retired director of the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists’ Nuclear Safety Project, said he had no reason to doubt it.

Improved tech has worked similar miracles when nuclear plant operators were required to monitor actual cracks — not just scratches — in steam generators and steel containment liners. As cracks got closer to the threshold requiring plugging or replacement, the industry developed more sensitive detection methods to more accurately measure them (and stave off expensive remediation, at least for a while).

Lochbaum, for his part, thinks Edison had ample justification for tossing the 2019 measure, and isn’t sure he would have kept it had he been in Stephenson’s shoes. Edison’s explanation for the change between 2019 and 2024 is, indeed, plausible, Lochbaum said.

Gary Headrick, founder of San Clemente Green and a regular thorn in Edison’s side, doesn’t buy it. On Canister 72, “Our photos show a large gouge the length of the canister and a patch of corrosion which can lead to ‘Chloride Induced Stress Corrosion Cracking’, the Achilles heel of nuclear waste storage containment throughout the United States,” Headrick wrote. “Their photo shows a shallow, shiny scuff mark with no corrosion, not requiring any sort of remediation.”

Edison responds: That picture of the long scratch on 72 is not trying to measure depth. The blotch on 72 is from a paint defect on the transfer cask (used to get waste out of spent fuel pools and into dry storage canisters). That allowed iron oxide to affix to 72. It was photographed in 2019 and reinspected in 2024, and the pictures are identical, Edison said.

Here’s the situation, according to spokeswoman Liese Mosher: The American Society of Mechanical Engineers code allows a defect up to 0.062” deep before requiring any analysis.

The deepest scratch identified on any San Onofre canister is far shallower — 0.016” deep — and most are less than 0.010” deep.

While a scratch deeper than 0.062” would require engineering analysis, it would not challenge the safety and integrity of the canister because of its robust design, Mosher said. “Edison added 0.125” of extra thickness beyond what is credited in the design analysis. We have tremendous margin.”

Q. Edison is inspecting the “oldest and coldest” waste canisters in its dry storage systems, not necessarily the hottest or scratchiest. Why?

This isn’t an Edison edict, but NRC and industry guidance.

Here’s the logic: The hottest and/or scratchiest canisters could well be the most recently loaded ones, which you’d expect to show the least degradation and wear-and-tear. The oldest canister, obviously, has had the most time to develop issues.

The coldest canister is likely to be among the oldest as well, but is of interest for another reason: Moisture won’t evaporate off cooler canisters the way it does off hotter canisters. That means condensation can accumulate, making the cooler canisters more susceptible to chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking. Over time, those cracks could present issues.

Q. Issues?! 

A. Breathe. Sixty spent fuel canisters at 25 sites nationwide have been inspected to date, Edison said, and all were in good condition, with none showing precursors to chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking.

Right here at San Onofre, we have canisters that are more than 20 years old. San O was among the nation’s first to be licensed by the NRC to build a dry storage system (because feds don’t have a disposal site yet). The Orano TN-NUHOMS sits a bit inland from the Holtec pad, and started loading waste in 2003. It holds 50 canisters.

As its 20th birthday approached a few years ago, the NRC’s aging management requirements kicked in. Two canisters were inspected in 2021. “Not only did it look fine, but it was shiny,” Stephenson said. “It looked brand new. We were giggling at how good it looked.”

The NRC relicensed the NUHOMS for 40 more years.

Q. How do we head off problems over the coming decades?

By looking for them. Some, however, think inspections don’t happen frequently enough, and/or don’t examine enough canisters when they do.

As we mentioned, the NRC doesn’t require inspections — or an aging management plan — for dry storage systems until they’re approaching 20 and must be relicensed. San Onofre’s more rigorous inspection protocol is required by the California Costal Commission, not the feds.

Edison peers at two loaded canisters every 5 years, and examines the test canister — weighted and heated to mimic a real nuclear waste canister, though devoid of radioactive waste — every 2.5 years. The test canister can be easily pulled out and pored over for defects; is positioned closest to the harsh ocean conditions; and serves as the canary in the coal mine, said Edison. If problems arise, officials expect to see them in the test canister first.

And they haven’t. “Scratches are still bright and shiny, no evidence of corrosion or chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking precursor activity,” Edison reported out of last year’s inspection. “Scratches are all shallow and not a challenge to the integrity of the canisters. No action required.”

Edison will inspect the test canister again in 2027, and will inspect the test canister and two more loaded canisters in 2029.

Of course, there are more than 70 canisters in the Holtec system.

Q. Should we be inspecting more?

Lochbaum isn’t a big fan of current protocols, which are less a “safety spotlight” than an “infrequent safety strobe light,” flashing every once in a while, he has said.

Rather than picking just a couple canisters, inspections should focus on flawed canisters and a “reasonable subset” — say, 10-15% — of the total. If results show that some are less susceptible to degradation than others, “that knowledge can be used to responsibly reduce the scope of canisters inspected,” he wrote.

You want the “Goldilocks” spot — not too much, and not too little, but just right. Lochbaum’s not sure we’re there now.

Edison’s Stephenson heartily disagrees. “All of the assessments, nationally and worldwide, have never found anything,” Stephenson said. “Not corrosion. Not precursors to corrosion.”

To wit: Scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory examined spent fuel rods that were in dry storage at the Surry nuclear plant in Virginia for more than 15 years. They examined fuel pellets and fuel rods, finding that 15 years of dry storage caused no discernible degradation.

“We’re doing more than what’s required,” Stephenson said.

Q. But we’re talking decades before a permanent repository is built. If problems are found, then what?

Nature will degrade all canisters sooner or later, Lochbaum has said. The good news is that a dry cask experiencing a through-wall crack isn’t like a balloon popping — all the contents would not be swiftly ejected. But the safety margins protecting the public would be reduced, and that would be bad.

The industry’s solution: Repair robots — sort of like high-tech St. Bernards — aiming to find and fix defects long before they become serious.

In a test run in 2019, robots were set upon a Holtec canister with two “mock” defects, like pock marks on its outer skin. One robot carried inspection cameras. The other, a nozzle mounted on a movable arm. Using magnetic wheels to crawl around, they found the trouble spots and applied a metallic overlay of nickel, effectively sealing them, Edison said.

Q. What now?

A. Activists want Edison to release all the inspection images, which are technically not public documents, to the public, as other plants have. But Edison has no plans to do that.

Why? Because when technical questions arise at other plants, experts explain and folks move on; while here, expertise is often rejected and misinformation often spreads, officials said.

Environmental activists like Headrick of San Clemente Green fear that, by the time the feds are ready to take possession of the waste (if that day ever comes), the canisters will be too degraded to safely move. “We need a plan to repair or repackage the waste before it can be shipped even a short distance,” he said. “Edison would rather deny the problem even exists.”

There is no problem, officials have said repeatedly. The tech to repair damaged canisters exists and could be easily employed if it were ever necessary (hot cells — heavily shielded enclosures — allow folks to handle radioactive materials remotely and could be set up pretty quickly, they’ve said).

People aren’t keen to trust industry or the government these days. The bottom line, we can all agree, is that nuclear waste should not be kept on a bluff in an earthquake zone a couple of hundred feet from the ocean and near 8 million people. The only way to change that, though, is to demand that the federal government finally find the permanent home it has promised us, and get nuclear waste the heck out of here. The Spent Fuel Solutions coalition, including Edison, lawmakers and officials, is dedicated to doing just that.

“Spent fuel on beach is the symptom. The problem is far greater. We’ve lacked a robust policy to address this,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-San Juan Capistrano.

Levin has introduced numerous bills to push the ball forward, and several communities have expressed interest in hosting a permanent disposal site and reaping the economic benefits. “I don’t think we need to sound the alarm immediately,” he said of dry storage. “I always say I want to get this done before I qualify for Medicare.”

Levin, incidentally, is 46.

“Why are the investor-owned utilities so much more expensive than the publicly owned utilities?” asked Anthony Cannella, vice chair of the Little Hoover Commission. Sometimes they’re almost 50 percent higher; sometimes nearly double.

Well! The very pleasant Shilpa Ramaiya of Pacific Gas & Electric and Adam Smith of Southern California Edison set about answering as best they could — but there wasn’t necessarily a lot of empathy.

Billions for wildfire mitigation! they said. Sprawling territories! The cost of borrowing to fund infrastructure improvements, and of “public purpose programs” (like discounts for low-income folks), and of subsidizing rooftop solar owners (which some say shifts $8.5 billion a year to the bills of non-solar household bills, and which the solar industry says is fiction)!

PG&E’s Ramaiya even shared a breakdown of what makes up our electric bills on our man George Washington.

Cannella wasn’t quite getting what he wanted. “Can we lower rates?” Cannella asked. “Sounds like you’re saying no.”

Our electric bills in California are the highest in the nation, save for poor Hawaii. Rates have doubled over the past decade. They’re about twice the national average and continue to rise, outpacing inflation. Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric rake in big profits — even as they seek rate hikes.

There are several bills in the Legislature designed to remake, at least a little, California’s electricity mess. If we were the betting type, smart money would be on major change for the IOUs in the not-too-terribly-distant future.

Profit or nonprofit? Private or public?

For-profit, investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and publicly owned nonprofit utilities supply the overwhelming majority of California’s energy.

Among them, the cost of electricity — not counting the transmission and distribution thereof — varies wildly, from a high of nearly 30 cents per kilowatt hour at IOUs (San Diego Gas & Electric, about 28; and PG&E, about 24) to a low below 10 cents per kilowatt hour (at nonprofit community cooperatives).

The conclusion drawn from Little Hoover’s pretty graph is inescapable: With just a few exceptions, publicly owned nonprofit electric companies charge much, much less than their for-profit counterparts (city of Anaheim, about 17 cents per kilowatt hour; Burbank and Riverside, about 16; Sacramento, about 15; and Santa Clara, about 13).

We’ll note here that Edison (IOU, about 18 cents per kilowatt hour) was lower than Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the cities of Glendale, Pasadena and Moreno Valley (public, about 19 to 20 cents per kilowatt hour).

Some key differences: IOUs supply most of the state with power. They have virtual monopolies and thus are regulated by the state Public Utilities Commission. The PUC must approve rate hikes and their profit margins (now, about 10%). They’re run by their own boards, answer to their own shareholders and make their money not on the actual cost of electricity — that’s a pass-through — but on infrastructure investments (giving them perverse incentive to spend way more than they have to, critics say). They go to the capital markets to borrow money for those infrastructure investments.

“To finance these large projects, IOUs need to attract lenders and investors, which means offering a return in the form of interest, dividends or rising stock value,” Little Hoover’s staff report said. “Indeed, in some cases, around 25% of customer payments cover utility profits, taxes on profit and interest.”

Ouch. In contrast, municipal power companies are public agencies owned and operated by local governments. They usually serve compact areas and don’t have to operate long-distance transmission lines. They’re not regulated by the PUC, but are run by elected or appointed officials close to home, making them more sensitive to customers. And since they’re nonprofits, they can finance projects with tax-exempt, low-interest municipal bonds, a much cheaper proposition than going to the capital markets, Little Hoover’s staff report said.

While the public utilities clearly emerged as the white hats at the hearing, the California Municipal Utilities Association’s Derek Dolfie stressed that they’re not immune from the pressures facing the IOUs.

“Even though we typically have lower rates than the IOUs, that doesn’t mean we’re not facing affordability challenges,” he said. “We are seeing cost of renewables increase. It’s more expensive to build infrastructure. Federal dollars are on pause…. If you have a bill that’s $10, and it increases by $5, that’s a huge increase, even though $5 might seem inconsequential if you have a $300 bill.”

Historically, America tends to swing back and forth between the virtues of publicly and privately owned enterprises, noted Commissioner David Beier. Regulation hasn’t always prevented harm.

All told, we’re kind of bummed we don’t live in Anaheim.

Fixes?

Several bills in the state Legislature seek to wrestle with California’s acute affordability issues. Some of the ideas floated include reducing operating expenses, lowering capital costs, phasing out programs and revising subsidies and rate structures.

Public financing of infrastructure projects can save up to $3 billion a year, experts have testified. Lowering the guaranteed rate of return for the utilities could save billions more, as could tying rate increases to inflation, exploring other funding sources for wildfire mitigation and scaling back rooftop solar subsidies, which would not please rooftop solar owners.

The IOU reps mentioned moving the cost of public subsidy programs from the bills of other electricity customers to the state’s general fund, where other welfare programs live. That sort of suggestion didn’t get far.

“You have to change in a much more comprehensive way,” Beier said. “People are unhappy and want reform. I’m hearing, ‘Let the taxpayers pay instead of the ratepayers.’ That’s not enough.”

Already in the works: Decoupling grid upkeep costs from electricity rates. After a wildly contentious proposal to marry grid charges to income, the PUC adopted a flat $24 monthly charge for most households, and a $12 charge for low-income customers. That’ll reduce the cost of power some 15% to 20%, but most customers’ bills are expected to be about the same. That’ll kick in this year and next.

Thursday’s hearing was the Little Hoover Commission’s third in a series examining the drivers of California’s high electricity costs. The not-to-miss next hearing, in July, will put the PUC itself in the hot seat. It has been derided as a weak watchdog that rolls over so the IOUs can scratch its belly. Stay tuned for that!

Here’s the beef, as we understand it: Three of our four examples involved serious criminal charges (the second-degree murder conviction of Judge Jeffrey Ferguson for shooting and killing his wife; former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu’s prison sentence for destroying evidence and making false statements to the FBI in a years-long corruption probe; and former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do’s sentencing for corruption and abusing the public trust).

Our fourth example was the $3 million civil verdict against District Attorney Todd Spitzer and his former chief-of-staff (now Superior Court Judge) Shawn Nelson, for harassment of a veteran female prosecutor.

We pointed out that Spitzer’s was a civil matter, not a criminal one like the others, and didn’t say more about it. But it reportedly stung the D.A. to be lumped in with those criminal cases. He wasn’t eager to chat for this story, but he did send us a statement, excerpts of which you’ll find below. While we stand by our decision to include the Spitzer/Nelson case as an example of recent ethical no-nos, we understand the feeling that it wasn’t fair and will ruminate a bit more on the nuances here.

We repeat: The D.A. and judge are not accused of engaging in criminal activity. And yes, the D.A.’s office is actually prosecuting two of the cases/examples we used — Judge Ferguson for killing his wife, and former Supervisor Do for accepting bribes and funneling millions of public dollars to a nonprofit that failed to feed seniors during the pandemic. (Sidhu, meantime, was prosecuted by the feds.)

Spitzer’s defenders argued that he inherited a District Attorney’s office in disarray from Tony Rackauckas, which was racked by the infamous “Snitch Scandal” — where the D.A. and Sheriff’s Department routinely placed informants near high-profile jail inmates and tasked them with digging up dirt that could help prosecutors’ cases. Problem was, those high-profile inmates already had attorneys, and thus extraneous info-fishing was illegal.

Spitzer and Rackauckas were bitter enemies, so one might expect a certain amount of skepticism from the new D.A. about the high-level staff left behind by the old D.A. Spitzer likened the transition to “going into battle in the lion’s den,” trying to correct the sins of the prior administration after Rackauckas cheated to get convictions.

Supervisor Tracy Miller was the highest-ranking woman in the D.A.’s office at transition time. It did not go smoothly.

In her lawsuit, Miller charged that several women in the office had been sexually harassed by a D.A. supervisor who was once Spitzer’s friend. Miller sought to shield these women, her suit said, and as a result she was humiliated, harassed and ultimately forced out of her job by Spitzer and Nelson.

The county’s attorneys argued that Miller’s issues at work sprang from the higher expectations that Spitzer and Nelson brought to the office. Spitzer said he had tasked Miller with overseeing extremely important assignments including opioid litigation, the Huntington Beach oil spill, real estate fraud lawsuits and a gang reduction program facing serious financial issues. He also said he made no secret of his frustration “with her lack of performance in handling these very serious matters.”

A San Diego jury sided with Miller, though, awarding her more than $3 million earlier this month.

We shan’t re-litigate the case here, but suffice to say that many an attorney believes they’re right even when a jury concludes otherwise.

“As prosecutors, we see juries return verdicts every day which we disagree with, but that is the system in which we must pursue justice,” Spitzer said in that emailed statement. “Even when we know we have the facts on our side to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, sometimes the jury doesn’t see it that way, and we must accept their decision…. while I respectfully disagree with the verdict return in this civil lawsuit, I respect it as I respect the rule of law….”

Spitzer said he’s proud that the D.A.’s office now employs more female than male prosecutors, and that he has continued to promote women to high-ranking management positions “based on their incredible skills and talent, not their gender.” He also said he “viciously” safeguards taxpayer dollars as well as victims’ rights, and “the minute I was informed of any allegation of harassment by one of my employees I took immediate steps to remove that individual from the office and launched a comprehensive investigation in conjunction with the County of Orange.”

Spitzer’s defenders point out that the verdicts weren’t unanimous (they don’t have to be in civil trials), and also suggested that $3 million isn’t much as these employment cases go. Perhaps they’re right. How much did former D.A. Mike Capizzi spend on failed political prosecutions of county supervisors for “willful misconduct” during the bankruptcy? Estimates at the time said at least $2.5 million. The price tag for Rackauckas’ Snitch Scandal may be incalculable, but we know that one mass murder case stretched for six years and cost $2.5 million all by itself, and that the scandal unraveled 57 others where convictions were overturned, charges were dropped and sentences were dramatically reduced.

You might say that these all cost roughly $1 per county resident. We’re not sure how much better that makes us feel, though. Proceed with greater care, officials, and perhaps We the People will foot smaller bills?

Spitzer made his electoral leap from prosecutor to the Orange County Board of Supervisors shortly after the county’s historic bankruptcy. We have covered him since those very early days — gulp — nearly 30 years ago. He has always had a bit of “The Greatest Showman” in him (consider his billboard blitz waring ne’er-do-wells in Los Angeles County that  “Crime doesn’t pay in Orange County. If you steal, we prosecute.” as Exhibit No.1) and has survived many a controversy over the years.

We trust that he’ll survive our observation as well — and will, someday, perhaps, speak to us again.