The California Highway Patrol graduated 780 new officers this year, including more than 130 cadets on Friday, underscoring the success of the agency’s recruitment push during a once-concerning vacancy rate.
Grappling with vacancies that ballooned 94% between 2015 and 2023, the agency in 2022 asked for $2 million from the state Legislature to hire more officers and launched a recruitment campaign known as the CHP 1000. In recent years, it also received some of its highest pay raises for officers, securing a 7.9% wage increase in 2023 and a $489-million, three-year labor contract in 2024.
Since those efforts kicked off, the agency hired more than 2,300 officers from 2022 and is on track to increase hiring by more than 60%, reports The Sacramento Bee. Applications also jumped by 52% — from more than 16,000 in 2022 to nearly 25,480 in 2024, according to the agency. This year, the CHP is on track to receive more than 33,000 applications.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom, in a statement: “As we close out the year, California continues to make real progress — strengthening protections across the state while staying focused on the needs of the people we serve.”
The hiring surge comes as the governor is deploying CHP “crime suppression” teams in six California regions, following similar state intervention efforts in 2024 in Oakland, Bakersfield and San Bernardino.
Though Newsom denied the teams were expanded in response to what the Trump administration called a crime crackdown in Democratic-led cities, enforcement activity from San Francisco police has reportedly ramped up due to potential threats of federal intervention.
CalMatters honored for homeless coverage: CalMatters was given the Stewart B. McKinney Award by the National Homelessness Law Center for “journalistic integrity that our country so desperately needs in this time of misinformation” and for the “high-quality reporting that CalMatters is bringing to the homelessness crisis.”
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Other Stories You Should Know
Debating CA’s AI data centers
Artificial intelligence proponents and skeptics of the technology’s promised benefits clashed over how California should approach AI data centers at a recent CalMatters’ event moderated by reporter Alejandro Lazo.
The Nov. 18 panel discussion included Liang Min, the managing director of Stanford University’s Bits & Watts Initiative, who said that forecasting the state’s electricity demand is difficult because since new AI apps roll out quickly. He argued that as AI puts more demands on the grid, the state will need to rely on other sources of power, such as nuclear, geothermal or natural-gas energy.
The explosive growth of data centers are also raising environmental concerns, as well as concerns from utility watchdogs that Californians may end up footing the bill for billions of dollars in grid upgrades. But AI supporters say overregulation could stifle competition in the state.
- Ahmad Thomas, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group: “It’s very hard to see a world where California is at the top of the AI pile if we do not have an approach to data centers that is — at minimum — mildly competitive with other states.”
One politician’s fight against pollution
Before voters elected her to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors in July, Paloma Aguirre spent two decades trying to mitigate Tijuana River’s sewage contamination, writes CalMatters’ Deborah Brennan.
Considered by Aguirre to be one of the worst environmental crises in the country, Tijuana River pollution dates to at least the 1930s. As the population grew in the border Mexican city, its waste exceeded what cross-border sewage plants could handle. In the early 2000s, sewage spills and beach closures along the southern San Diego coast became common. Contamination in the ocean leaves swimmers with illnesses, and toxic gas emissions near the river give residents headaches and nausea.
As the former mayor of Imperial Beach, Aguirre urged California and the federal government to declare a state of emergency over the pollution problem and lobbied to classify the area as a Superfund site. Once she became a county supervisor, she led plans to study the health effects of the pollution, and requested $50 million from the state to help ease the problem in a particularly contaminated area known as the Saturn Boulevard hot spot.
- Aguirre: “The river is carrying dangerous chemicals, pollutants, pathogens and toxic gases that are impacting South San Diego communities.”
And lastly: CA Coastal Commission’s pro-development shift?
To speed up coastal housing, the state’s Coastal Commission approved a rule change to give affordable projects more time after permits are issued. CalMatters’ Nadia Lathan and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on the commission’s shift away from its slow-growth reputation, as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.
SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.
California Voices
The challenges confronting California water — including changes at the federal level — are not going away, and the state needs to fund and maintain the technical expertise needed to manage our water systems, write Letitia Grenier and Jeffrey Mount, director and senior fellow, respectively, at the PPIC Water Policy Center.
Other things worth your time:
‘Evidence!’ Judge demands as lawyers spar over Trump’s National Guard takeover // The Sacramento Bee
H-1B: Feds to check applicants’ social media, orders accounts set to ‘public’ // The Mercury News
Yosemite loses MLK Day and Juneteenth free entry as Trump adds his birthday // San Francisco Chronicle
New York Times sues AI startup in SF over use of copyrighted work // The New York Times
He followed the law while waiting for asylum. ICE still tore him from his Oakland home // San Francisco Chronicle
4,000 gallons of oil, contaminated wastewater spill in Monterey County // Los Angeles Times
Will CA ever get more federal aid for LA County fires? It’s up to Trump // San Francisco Chronicle