Morning Splash: UC Says 8 - 20% Tuition Hike Coming; Report Cites OPD Bailey Case Cover-Up

The University of California may charge higher tuition each of the next five years even if the state stops cutting its budget, UC leaders said Wednesday. Administrators presented four budget scenarios Wednesday to help the Board of Regents plan future budgets. Under the rosiest scenario -- which is unlikely, given the state's financial crisis -- UC would raise tuition 8 percent per year, starting in 2012. Regents in November approved an 8 percent increase that will take annual undergraduate tuition to $11,124 for the fall term. The increase followed a 32 percent tuition hike in 2009-10.

San Francisco police assigned to the FBI's terrorism task force must abide by local policies protecting civil rights rather than looser federal rules, under an order revealed Wednesday night by Police Chief Greg Suhr... Under the new order issued by Suhr this week, San Francisco police policy trumps FBI policy, even for officers serving on the federal task force, Suhr said. ACLU lawyers applauded Suhr's announcement, but they said the real question now is whether the FBI will go along with the order, which alters a 4-year-old agreement between the federal agency and the San Francisco Police Department.

As the eight-week trial of the alleged mastermind of the Chauncey Bailey murder heads to the jury this week, KTVU Channel 2 News has obtained hundreds of pages of legal documents never seen publicly that explain for the first time the inside story of the controversial homicide investigation. It's a story that KTVU has largely been prevented from telling because of a gag order imposed by the command staff of the Oakland Police Department. The documents paint a troubling picture of former top commanders at Oakland police misleading the public about several key aspects of the Bailey case.

San Francisco police Chief Greg Suhr said Wednesday that he is looking into providing his plainclothes officers with video cameras when they go into residences. Speaking to reporters prior to a justice forum he was attending in San Francisco Wednesday morning, Suhr said he decided to look into the use of cameras in the wake of a string of videos released by Public Defender Jeff Adachi that appear to show misconduct by officers during drug busts around the city.

With or without an agreement from labor unions, Mayor Ed Lee will introduce a proposal Tuesday for the November ballot that would rein in San Francisco’s skyrocketing pension costs, City Hall sources said. Lee has just six days to solidify an agreement with labor unions before the May 24 deadline to submit a charter amendment to the Board of Supervisors for placement on the Nov. 8 ballot. While both sides have for months insisted a deal is close, consensus has remained elusive.

...On Wednesday, two former San Francisco supervisors began a cyber "Run, Ed, Run" campaign. Last week, a business group had a poll on the mayor's race that had several questions about Lee. The results were not made public, but one insider who was briefed on it said voters had positive feelings about Lee...When asked Wednesday about the prospect of running for a full four-year term in the November election, Lee began his answer with another joke, saying the only running he's dong right now is "running away" from the idea. Then he listed a number of critical issues that he's focused on, among them crafting a balanced budget plan and trying to negotiate a pension reform ballot measure.

Anybody looking for evidence that Silicon Valley is in a full-blown bubble needed look no further than Wall Street Thursday morning, when LinkedIn -- the social networking site for professionals -- made its debut as a public stock. After raising its initial public offering price to $45 a share, up from a projected low of $32, the shares zoomed out of the gate at a jaw-dropping $83 apiece. With an implied market capitalization of some $8 billion, that put the Mountain View startup above the likes of Electronic Arts (ERTS) and Hyatt Hotels.

Every September, thousands of Californians head to the beach during the state's annual coastal cleanup day. But Saturday, a different kind of cleanup will take place at 45 streams, creeks and rivers across Silicon Valley. Waterways from San Francisquito Creek in Palo Alto to the Guadalupe River in downtown San Jose to Upper Miller Slough in Gilroy are scheduled to receive a massive spring cleaning during the annual National River Cleanup Day from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. Organizers are still looking for volunteers to work the three hours.

Now what? That's what many are asking now that protesters have occupied a disputed Native American burial site in Glen Cove for more than four weeks. Greater Vallejo Recreation District officials want to build a park, but grass-roots activists say the plans would desecrate their land. The path forward, however, remains murky. It could boil down to money, and the city says it won't pay for a potentially costly legal fight. "We are not stalling to stall. We really are trying to find a way out of this that keeps as many people as happy as possible," said district board Chairman Gary Salvadori, a former Vallejo planning commissioner. "It's not easy, but that's truly what we've been working toward since the beginning." Meanwhile, both sides are examining their legal options.

Judgment Day is fabulous for business. Just ask Family Radio, the evangelical nonprofit that has plastered billboards and driven vans across the Bay Area and the world proclaiming the end of the world will be Saturday. The Oakland-based nonprofit has raised more than $100 million over the past seven years, according to tax returns. It owns 66 radio stations across the globe and was worth more than $72 million in 2009. As The End nears, donations have spiked, a board member says, enabling Family Radio to spend millions of dollars on more than 5,000 billboards. But it is not about money, say President Harold Camping and board member Tom Evans. It's about spreading the Gospel and saving as many people as possible.

A proposal to criminalize male circumcision will go before San Francisco voters this November after the Department of Elections verified Tuesday that supporters have gathered enough signatures to place the measure on the ballot. Proponents of the circumcision ban submitted 12,271 signatures to the city's Department of Elections, which was able to verify 7,743 of them, a clerk with the department said today. The measure needed a minimum of 7,168 to qualify.

A long-simmering fight over appellate court nominee Goodwin Liu will boil over today as the Senate considers the fate of the University of California, Berkeley, law professor. Democrats may be calculating that they'll win whichever way the Senate moves. If the 40-year-old Liu secures the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, he's well on his way to confirmation on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If he falls short, Democrats can highlight Republican intransigence and spotlight GOP opposition to a highly accomplished Asian American.

When Rep. Hilda Solis inserted remarks in the Congressional Record praising Los Angeles activist John Perez as “an asset to the labor movement,” she was recounting the life story of a man who would later become California’s Assembly speaker. “After graduating from the University of California Berkeley, John began working on designing and organizing education programs,” Solis, then a Los Angeles congresswoman and now U.S. secretary of labor, wrote in 2004. But the record is wrong: Perez dropped out of UC Berkeley and never returned.

...What would end up as a 7-3 loss for the Sharks to the Vancouver Canucks in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals Wednesday night was still a one-goal game after two periods at Rogers Arena...The Sharks now find themselves where they didn't want to be -- 0-2 in yet another series that is one step shy of their first trip to the Stanley Cup finals, done in by undisciplined play and a penalty kill that gave up three goals.

This year, San Jose's hard-core cycling fans and curious spectators for the Amgen Tour of California race delighted in one difference from previous segments that came through Silicon Valley: They finally saw a thrilling mountaintop finish...Last year, San Jose played host to a race stage that began in downtown but finished in Modesto. On Wednesday, thousands of local cycling fans cheered as American Chris Horner of Team Radio Shack zoomed along Sierra Road, crossing the summit finish line well ahead of his teammate and fan favorite Levi Leipheimer of Santa Rosa. Horner won Wednesday's leg, but the Tour of California, the country's biggest bike race, continues in Seaside on Thursday and finishes Sunday in Thousand Oaks.