The loophole that let state school administrators retire with a big extra bonus, San Jose’s homicide problem, pot growers let toxics flow into San Mateo’s Crystal Springs Reservoir, more.
- California’s top-paid school administrators collected six-figure lump sum cash payments in addition to their pension for nearly a decade under a little-known law aimed at helping retain and recruit teachers during the dot-com boom. AP
- The Chronicle looks at the increasingly problematic violence in San Jose, where there were eight homicides in the span of 11 days during August.
- A monument honoring victims of the 1991 Oakland Hills fire was vandalized over the weekend—for at least the third time. AP
- In a dramatic rescue, the California Highway Patrol used a helicopter to extract a San Francisco woman from a steep cliff on Mount Tamalpais Sunday and airlift her to a hospital. Marin IJ
- Toxic pesticides long banned in the U.S. were among the 7,200 pounds of trash left behind by illicit marijuana growers and collected last week from the steep hillsides that funnel rain and creek water into San Mateo’s Crystal Springs Reservoir. Mercury News
