Morning Splash: PG&E Expects At Least $200 Million in S. Bruno Fines; House Bill Would Send NorCal Water to Central Valley

PG&E Corp. expects to pay at least $200 million in fines tied to the deadly 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion, company executives said Thursday.

Representatives from the Central Valley pushed legislation through a House committee Thursday that would upend the state's system of water rights, deploying the federal government to extract water from Northern California farms, fisheries and cities to send to farmers in the valley.

Three new medical cannabis facilities in the Excelsior district were approved by the Planning Commission on Thursday despite increasing interest from the federal government to shutter such businesses across California.

...[A] measure proposed in Sacramento would make it easier for districts to say no to charters. It would change a provision in the law that dictates that charter school applications must be considered without regard to the strain it might put on a school district's finances. AB1172 would allow districts paying off a state loan or those with a negative budget balance to use that as a reason to reject a charter. That would include Oakland and dozens of other districts across the state.

...[A collision between a paratransit shuttle bus and a man with a cane is] the latest in a string of high-profile crashes involving the burgeoning fleet of private shuttles that zip around San Francisco ferrying tech workers to Silicon Valley companies like Google and Yahoo! and students to universities like the Academy of Art Institute and the University of California, San Francisco.

When Menlo Park officials sit down with Facebook representatives in the coming weeks to negotiate an agreement that would allow the social networking company to expand, they'll likely try hard to avoid making their requests for community benefits sound like a Mafia shakedown. Although the company is not threatening to unfriend Menlo Park any time soon, Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman told the city council Tuesday night it may choose to eventually leave if the negotiations go nowhere.

Following reports that Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s wife, Eliana Lopez, sought immunity from prosecution for her testimony in her husband’s domestic violence case, District Attorney George Gascón said Thursday he has no intention of charging her. “Quite frankly we’re really confused” as to why Lopez is requesting immunity, Gascón said.