Stories you shouldn’t miss:
1. BART unions seem likely to go on strike tomorrow after the transit agency’s management team effectively ended negotiations yesterday by issuing a “final” offer. Democratic legislators, including Berkeley Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner and San Leandro state Senator Ellen Corbett, criticized the move by BART managers and urged them to withdraw the final offer so that negotiations could continue, the Chron reports. But BART General Manager Grace Crunican indicated that she had no plans to do so.
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2. Governor Jerry Brown vetoed legislation that was designed to help finance more affordable housing in California, particularly in cities. The bill would have allowed cities like Oakland and Berkeley to reinstate so-called “inclusionary zoning” ordinances that require housing developers to build or pay for a certain number of affordable units in a city, the SacBee$ reports. But Brown said that such laws discourage urban development overall.
3. In a victory for environmentalists, Brown signed legislation banning the use of lead bullets by hunters in California in order to protect wildlife from lead poisoning, the SacBee$ reports.
4. But in a defeat for gun control advocates, the governor vetoed legislation that would have banned semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, the LA Times$ reports. Gun-rights activists had vowed to launch recall efforts against vulnerable Democrats if Brown had signed the bill.
5. And the governor also vetoed legislation that would have allowed Oakland to enact stricter gun control policies, the Trib reports.
