Modesto

Attention, Hive bloggers. The system that allows public comment on our stories and editorials on modbee.com will be undergoing some maintenance late Sunday night. There may be a few short stretches where commenting will be disabled. This work will not affect the Hive.

Dan

A tiff occurred at the end of last week over The Bee's attendance at the Modesto City Schools' budget advisory committee meetings.  I ended up going to the meeting, and you can read the story here.

This group of about 25 people will dissect the district's budget and make recommendations for cuts to the district's cabinet -- the superintendent, deputy superintendent, associate superintendents and two directors of business.  The board of education will make the final decision.

In case you missed the forecast from the Legislative Analyst's Office this morning, you can find it as a pdf here or visit the LAO's Web site here.

It's not good news.

The state will have annual $20 billion shortfalls even if state employees receive no salary increases through 2014-15, according to the report.  The office recommends making more spending cuts for the current fiscal year and looking at tax hikes.

With the University of California system today considering raising tuition fees 32 percent for next year, the impact of the state's financial woes might have drastic impacts on education for years to come.

Michelle

Take the link to watch and listen to the Coty Council meeting tonight 1110/09.

When you can't be at the meetings this is the next best thing.

http://media.modestogov.com/

This is a few weeks old, but I came across it today and thought it was worth sharing.

North Modesto's Prescott Senior Elementary held its monthly student-of-the-month assembly Oct. 30, and teachers wanted to surprise students with a performance of Michael Jackson's "Thriller."  They mirrored the pop king's video, dressing as zombies and following similar choreography that made the video so popular.  Click here to watch the teachers in the five-minute video.  To view Jackson's original video, click here.

The print media often claims that its purpose is to provide information to the citizens. Does anyone believe this?

The Bee recently sued to obtain pension information on Stan County retired employees. Public employee are also citizens. Who agrees this information should be public information?

Since the print media has the ability to decide elections, sway peoples oppinions, and choose which facts it puts in a story or leaves out, should'nt they provide the salaries of all its staff and employees?

If the  print media were concerned about quality factual reporting, all papers would be free. If the goal of papers is to inform the public of what is occuring, then all papers should be free. The cost of making papers would be paid for by Ads.

It seems our newfangled spam controls ran amok and blocked everyone from posting. I apologize. That shouldn't have happened.

You should have clear sailing through the weekend.

Dan