It was a somber and at times tearful meeting Monday as lawmakers and advocates endorsed a bill that would hold juvenile behavioral treatment centers more accountable.
Most of the attention went to one (sometimes perhaps unexpected) speaker: hotel heiress, socialite and media personality Paris Hilton.
Hilton is the latest celebrity to use her fame (or, as she said, “shine my spotlight”) to persuade the Legislature to change state policy. In Hilton's case, the physical and emotional abuse she says she experienced at juvenile treatment centers in California, Utah and Montana led her to a personal crusade against institutional abuse in the “troubled teen industry.”
- Hilton: “I was subjected to abuse disguised as therapy, isolated from the outside world and denied even the most basic rights… The sounds of my comrades' screams as they were tied up and injected with sedatives will never leave me…” If these facilities If they are afraid of a simple transparency measure, then I think we should ask them: 'What do they have to hide?'”
Senate Bill 1043 was unanimously approved by the Senate Personnel Committee later Monday. The California Department of Social Services would be required to detail the use of “security rooms” and restraints at a center by January 1, 2026, via a publicly accessible online dashboard. The information would include descriptions of the incident, the duration of the incident, etc. The incident involved employees, among others. Facilities would also be required to provide a report to the person who was detained or detained, and to the person's parents or guardians if the person is a minor.
Hilton's nonprofit 11:11 Media Impact is co-sponsoring the bipartisan bill, which was led by Sen. Shannon Grove, a Republican from Bakersfield, and co-authored by Democratic Sens. Angelique Ashby of Sacramento and Aisha Wahab of Fremont. Disability Rights California and Children's Law Center of California also support the proposal.
- Grove: “It doesn’t matter if you’re worth a billion dollars or $20. The word trauma still exists.”
In 2021, after reports of rampant abuse, California passed a law banning the practice of sending troubled youth, including foster children, to for-profit treatment centers out of state. Alternatively, youth may be sent to “short-term residential treatment programs” licensed by the state’s Department of Social Services. Two years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law funding residential crisis treatment facilities for children on Medi-Cal.
During Hilton's time in these juvenile facilities, including the 11 months she spent at Provo Canyon School in Utah when she was 17, Hilton said she lived in constant fear.
Near the end of her remarks, Hilton also made a not-so-blatant threat: “If you abuse children, I will find you and I will come with my giant spotlight and shine it on you, wherever you are.”
In other news: Newsom postpones pension costs
According to the California Public Employees' Retirement System, more generous than expected pay raises for California state employees are increasing the cost of public employee pensions.
But for one year, Gov. Newsom has a plan to save some money that would otherwise have to be spent on those retirement savings. He wants to use the money he set aside 10 months ago to pay down CalPERS' debt and instead use it toward some of next year's pension costs for state workers.
This will save the state fund $1.7 billion, a small but important part of Newsom's plan to address California's huge budget deficit.
There's a catch: The independent Legislative Analyst's Office wrote that Newsom's pension plan “appears unconstitutional” because it relies on previously planned debt repayment.
Newsom's balance sheet shift is possible because California paid down its debt to comply with Proposition 2, the 2014 ballot measure that was intended to put the state's financial house in order. It obliges the state to make additional payments until 2030, even in years of deficit. Recently, Newsom used the Prop. 2 payments to pay down the state's significant pension liabilities, including the $1.7 billion portion earmarked for CalPERS debt in the current budget.
The analyst's office claims the governor's new proposal conflicts with Prop. 2 by using a planned debt payment to “replace, not supplement, what the state would otherwise provide to CalPERS in 2024-25.” would have to”.
The Newsom administration disagrees. “Simply put, it is the government’s position that this proposal is consistent with Proposal 2,” Treasury spokesman HD Palmer said.
The details of how much California will spend on state government pensions next year — regardless of whether lawmakers approve Newsom's proposal — will be presented to the CalPERS board of directors this week.
Capture carbon
As California sets a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045, a controversial plan to collect carbon emissions and trap them underground has divided residents in a Kern County community, writes CalMatters climate reporter Alejandro Lazo.
The state's largest oil and gas producer, California Resources Corp., is seeking federal and county approval to move forward with the state's first carbon capture project. It proposes injecting 1.46 million tons of carbon dioxide annually into a kilometer-deep underground reservoir for 26 years – the equivalent of the annual emissions of several hundred thousand gasoline cars.
The process keeps greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere; and the Newsom administration supports carbon capture and storage as a way to reduce the state's carbon footprint. Dave Noerr, the mayor of Taft, which is near the project site, says the technology will allow the 14,000 Kern County residents employed in the oil and gas industry to keep their jobs.
- Noerr: “If we can learn how to do it right here, on a commercial scale, then we can help these people.”
But residents and environmental justice groups argue that such projects support fossil fuel companies struggling in a decarbonized world and allow oil fields and power plants to spew toxic substances into local communities. Analysts are also skeptical about whether the process will noticeably reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Sonia Sanchez, a resident of Buttonwillow, which is near the project site: “We cannot afford to spoil the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil we rely on jeopardizing interest in experimental solutions.”
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