Discovery Bay residents to offer input on increased law enforcement funding

With more than $1 million available for additional law enforcement, Discovery Bay residents will meet tonight to offer their suggestions on how the money should be spent.

The meeting will focus on how Contra Costa Sheriff Warren Rupf should propose to spend a portion of $1.2 million in P-6 District funds — a special tax on certain areas within the county for increased sheriff's services.

Rupf frustrated a number of residents when he made a proposal to the county board of supervisors without consulting the community, Discovery Bay resident Bob Mankin said.

Budget bear takes a bite out of high-tech crime fighting

A regional team of law enforcement specialists that helped crack some high-profile Bay Area crimes by digging into cell phones and computer hard drives shut its doors Friday, another victim of severe state budget cuts that threaten similar teams across the state.

The Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force, which included agencies from Contra Costa, Solano and 11 other counties north to the Oregon border, was among five teams statewide that lost more than 40 percent of their funding in a freeze on public safety grants that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered this month. No new funding was projected for next fiscal year.

Colleges working on own economic stimulus

As Congress works out the details of its economic pick-us-up, community colleges are figuring out how to provide a stimulus of their own.

Enrollment is soaring as tens of thousands of unemployed California workers return to school, and the two-year colleges are renewing efforts to train a relevant work force. But they're trying to do it with the same meager funding that has come to characterize the poor segment of California higher education.