Morning Splash: Storms on the Way; SF Police Chief Says Sit/Lie Enforcement to Start Soon

...Rain is forecast today for the first time since Jan. 30, followed by more storms and cold weather...Rain is forecast today for the first time since Jan. 30, followed by more storms and cold weather.

The City’s controversial sit-lie ordinance remains unenforced, but the Police Department hopes to finish training for officers and unveil a public education campaign in the next “couple of weeks,” interim police Chief Jeff Godown said Sunday.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has struggled for nearly two decades with a computer system intended to keep track of the characteristics of its natural gas transmission lines, a battle that resulted in the company lacking information crucial to understanding its pipes' potential weaknesses, a Chronicle investigation has found.

A state panel tasked with stemming the decline of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is expected today to release the first draft of a long-range management plan that could revive controversial plans for a peripheral canal or other water-conveyance system. Along with measures to improve water quality and wildlife habitat, the sweeping proposal probably will include at least one version of a multibillion-dollar aqueduct to shunt water around the West Coast's most important estuary to Southern California and parts of the Bay Area.

...Proposition B...lost by a wide margin. (T)he emboldened unions and the City Hall politicians who had lobbied against it had won the tough task of coming up with an alternative solution. Three months later, the pressure is building. Deadlines are looming to ready new initiatives for the November ballot. Control of the group -- and hosting honors -- has been claimed by the new mayor, Edwin M. Lee. Stakes are high: The city's annual budget is $6.6 billion, and it anticipates a $380 million deficit in the coming year. Widespread layoffs and continued deep cuts in services may be inevitable.

Alarmed by a police backlash against pot dispensaries in some California cities, lawmakers and advocates for medical marijuana are calling for statewide regulation of medical cannabis stores and new laws to clarify rules under which they operate. Additionally, some medical marijuana advocates are pushing lawmakers to consider regulations – similar to those in Colorado – that would permit medical marijuana providers to operate as for-profit businesses.

Alarmed at the urban sprawl that gobbled up Los Angeles orange groves, vast cherry orchards around San Jose and cattle ranches east of Oakland, state lawmakers struck a bargain with farmers 45 years ago. Sign a contract promising not to develop your land for 10 years, and your property taxes will be slashed. But now the program -- California's main strategy for preserving farms and ranch land amid relentless population growth -- may itself be bulldozed as the state tries to balance its budget. A proposal last month by Gov. Jerry Brown to eliminate state funding for the Williamson Act is alarming county leaders and creating rare alliances between people who drive Priuses and people who drive pickup trucks.

Nearly a year of protests by a handful of animal rights activists hasn't stopped vendors at the Heart of the City Farmers' Market at United Nations Plaza from selling live poultry. The activists say the fowl - chickens and game birds - are mistreated, pointing to the manner in which they are trucked in crates and given to customers in bags to take home.

Santa Rosa Assemblyman Michael Allen said the $3,000 fine levied against him by the state's political watchdog agency does not pose a conflict for him serving on a committee tasked with investigating ethics complaints brought against his fellow legislators. “In a sense, it's made me more appreciative of how complex ethics is,” the first-term Democratic assemblyman said.

Today, Luz Sigman and Cynthia Gamino will walk up to the city clerk of San Francisco and ask for a marriage license. And the city clerk will reject them. So they will sit down in the clerk’s office and watch other couples walk past them and receive licenses. Sigman said it “sucks to go up there with the person you love and not be able to get married.” This is the 10th year same-sex couples will engage in this type of civil disobedience...

Pandora, the pioneering online music service that creates personalized "radio stations" based on songs that users like, filed documents late Friday for an initial public stock offering worth up to $100 million. The filing makes Oakland-based Pandora the second well-known Internet startup to announce plans to go public in as many weeks, after a similar filing last month by LinkedIn, an online networking and résumé service for professionals.