Calls for greater transparency in the inner fiscal dealings of foundations based at California State University campuses are mounting, after some of those details became public.

State Senator Leland Yee (D-SF) has championed legislative action to apply the state’s Public Records Act to the CSU academic foundations and other auxiliary organizations. He says these latest revelations about their lax fiscal management only reinforces the need for such a measure.

California Faculty Association president Lillian Taiz, a history professor at Cal State Los Angeles, charges that the newly revealed CABO minutes make it clear that the CSU administration’s opposition to Senator Yee’s sunshine bill, SB 330, was driven not by principle, but protective self-interest.

At Sonoma State, there are four separate auxiliary organizations, explains Chief Financial Officer and Vice President for Administration & Finance, Laurence Furukawa-Schlereth. But the budget for the Academic Foundation is much larger than those of  the other three  combined.

Here's the link to the SSU tranparency webpage. You can also read the Executive Summary of the CFA report on the CABO minutes they found. To read the full report, go here. Scroll down for the links to the minutes themselves.

Land-based sewage discharges into the ocean are illegal. Soon that ban will apply to big ships, too, under new EPA rules being announced today.

Jared Blumenfeld, Regional Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was Environmental Director for the City and County of San Francisco before he was appointed his new job by the Obama administration last January. He would prefer that the ship sewage discharge ban reached at least twice as far offshore, but says three miles is all his agency can cover.

 Even these new rules will only restrict about 4/5ths of the sewage discharges into the state’s bays and other coastal waters; most of the remaining 20% comes from smaller vessels not governed by the new rules. Blumenfeld would like to see an eventual system of controlled dockside flushes into regional treatment facilities, but acknowledges that’s little more than a vision right now.

While the new EPA rules are welcomed, some environmental groups are pushing for more stringent standards. There is also a separate  move underway to impose a full ban on sewage discharges from all vessels on Tomales Bay.

When a child is born or diagnosed with deafness or hearing impairment, both medical responses and educational interventions are available. But how are parents to make informed choices? That’s the subject of a bitter debate right now in Sacramento.

All of this debate is focused on a bill that mainly sets out to create an informational brochure intended to give parents of hearing-impaired infants a roster of resources they can explore. The brochure is to be created by a panel of 15 people knowledgeable about this issue, but even that has become a point of contention. Jim Brune, Executive Director  of the Deaf Counseling Advocacy and Referral Agency, Director of charges that the panel will not be representative, but Assemblyman Tony Mendoza says that's not accurate, as the most recent changes in the panel will make it more inclusive.

Perhaps the most vehement opponents of AB 2072 is the The California Deaf Newborn Identification & Advocacy Stakeholder Coalition, a lengthy list of organizations who have mounted a web-based campaign against the bill that includes this list of arguments against it.

They also strongly support early access to American Sign Language.  Sheri Farinha, CEO of Deaf Newborn Intervention and Advocacy, says that past failures to do this are now being reflected in the academic performance of students whose exposure to language was delayed past their earliest formative years.

You can read the full text of Assemblyman Mendoza's AB 2072, including the most recent amendments made last Aug. 2o, here.

The federal health care bill, passed earlier this year, will also boost the fiscal well-begin of community clinics in Sonoma County, as well as the patients they serve.

Mary Szecsey, Executive Director of the five West County Health Centers,  explains that the local clinics, and many of their counterparts across the county, have helped pioneer and refine the concept known as a “medical home” for patients.

This approach, developed in considerable part out of necessity, has proven to be both efficacious and cost-effective, Szecsey adds, which is why it is being more widely adopted.