{"id":1541011,"date":"2025-06-10T23:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T03:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1541011"},"modified":"2025-06-10T23:45:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T03:45:00","slug":"waste-of-the-day-secrecy-surrounds-california-capitol-annex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/waste-of-the-day-secrecy-surrounds-california-capitol-annex\/1541011\/","title":{"rendered":"Waste Of The Day: Secrecy Surrounds California Capitol Annex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waste Of The Day: Secrecy Surrounds California Capitol Annex<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

Topline: <\/strong>An annex to California\u2019s Capitol Building was supposed to cost $543 million, but the price has doubled to $1.1 billion and now includes hallways designed to hide lawmakers from journalists.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Key facts: <\/strong>KCRA 3 reported<\/a> that the annex will include a new parking garage and visitor\u2019s center and office space for 120 state lawmakers. The news station pointed out it is almost as expensive as the $1.3 billion spent on Levi\u2019s Stadium, the San Francisco 49ers\u2019 football stadium that seats 68,500 people.<\/p>\n

KCRA 3\u2019s sources revealed the annex will include private hallways. The building\u2019s current layout means lawmakers must walk through a public \u201cswing space\u201d to get from hearing rooms to the elevators, where journalists can ask them questions about the day\u2019s proceedings. The new layout will allow lawmakers to avoid the swing space.<\/p>\n

Other details are still unknown.<\/strong> There has not been a public update on how tax dollars are being spent since 2021. The Joint Rules Committee of the state legislature, which is overseeing the project, denied KCRA 3\u2019s request for an interview and did not provide diagrams of the private hallways.<\/p>\n

Taxpayers might have learned more from the project\u2019s environmental impact report, which all public construction projects must complete under the California Environmental Quality Act. But lawmakers wrote a bill that exempts the Capitol annex from the report and signed it into law just 10 days later. The law was upheld<\/a> by a state court of appeals.<\/p>\n

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with <\/em>the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Supporting quote: <\/strong>\u00a0State Senate Pro Tempore Mike McGuire told KCRA 3, \u201cSecure corridors have always been included in plans for the new annex \u2026 and are designed to help ensure the safety and security of lawmakers, which is even more important today given the events that unfolded on January 6th at our nation\u2019s capital building and the active threats public officials continue to face. Regardless, legislators will continue to be accessible and responsive to the public, staff, and reporters no matter what hallway, elevator or stairwell they choose to use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critical quote: <\/strong>\u201cI think this is the height of hypocrisy,\u201d state Assemblyman Josh Hoover told KCRA 3 about the hallways. \u201cYou are using taxpayer dollars for a taxpayer-funded facility and yet you are going to design it in a way that shields you from the public and shields you from accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Summary: <\/strong>A $1.1 billion taxpayer-funded project should have full transparency and be in the public\u2019s best interest. California\u2019s new Capitol annex might not meet either of those criteria.<\/p>\n

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 06\/10\/2025 – 19:45<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/waste-day-secrecy-surrounds-california-capitol-annex<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Waste Of The Day: Secrecy Surrounds California Capitol Annex Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations, Topline: An annex to California\u2019s Capitol Building was supposed to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1541012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1541011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1541011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1541012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1541011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1541011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1541011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}