(12-11-12) A year after it was first unveiled, a panel tasked with brainstorming long-term fixes for New York’s tax code is beginning to take shape.
Former state Comptroller Carl McCall and Peter Solomon, the founder of New York City-based investment advisory firm Peter J. Solomon Company, have been tapped by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to co-chair the New York State Tax Reform and Fairness Commission, according to a list obtained by Gannett’s Albany Bureau. The commission was formed as part of a December 2011 deal to tweak the state’s tax brackets, an agreement that came while Cuomo and the Legislature were under pressure to prevent an added tax on the state’s top earners from expiring at the end of the year. That deal included a new bracket for those making more than $2 million annually, which expires at the end of 2014. Cuomo named ten people to the panel, including Deborah Wright, President and CEO of Carver Bancorp Inc. and Carver Federal Savings Bank.

“Three Michaels: A Berkeley Conversation”
Berkeleyside

(12-10-12) Authors Michael Chabon, Michael Lewis, and Michael Pollan appeared at the Berkeley Rep in “The Three Michaels: A Berkeley Conversation,”  to help enable the creation in Oakland of a tutoring and creative writing center for East Bay youth, dedicated to supporting students with their writing skills and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. Berkeleyside’s “Three Michaels: A Berkeley Conversation” is being supported by One PacificCoast Bank, founded in 2007 by Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor “to be a force for good,” according to Taylor who is the bank’s CEO.  “We want to be a model for how banks should operate, as it’s clear many banks have been responsible for unholy damage,” Taylor says, citing the mortgage crisis and the destruction of rain forests as examples.