PR firm to get $12 million to promote state’s health insurance exchange, new Caltrans spin on of Bay Bridge eastern span’s safety, a novel idea in Richmond to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, more.
- PG&E blamed a “mud-like mixture” on power lines for a power outage that left 5,000 customers in San Francisco and the Peninsula without electricity Sunday morning. Chronicle
- Covered California, the new California health insurance exchange to start up next year, is paying $12 million to a giant PR firm to help it market itself. SF Business Times
- A federal grand jury charged a parolee with stealing a 19th-century jewelry box worth $805,000, and which was later recovered, during a January break-in at the Oakland Museum of California. Chronicle
- Mayor Jean Quan is catching flak for pushing to increase her staff’s budget despite an earlier pledge to cut the budget by 5 percent over two years. Oakland Tribune
- Contra Costa Times on the new spin by Caltrans about the alleged safety of the engineering-plagued Bay Bridge’s eastern span.
- At San Jose State, resistance builds among some faculty to “cheap online education.” Oakland Tribune
- A new plan being considered by Richmond would have the city seize homes whose owners are underwater on the mortgage using imminent domain and work to refinance them under terms homeowners could afford. Contra Costa Times
- What a difference a quarter of cost-cutting and debt reduction makes: Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman is on the cover of Forbes magazine, but as the Mercury News points out, the story is less flattering than it may appear.
- The Mercury News publishes a quick glance at Santa Clara County taxpayers’ retirement and pension obligations over 10 years.
- San Jose Unified School District and its teachers agreed to a landmark contract. Mercury News
