In his pro-transit bailout Merc op-ed, SJ CM David Cohen gets a lot wrong, spins a lot of fabrications, and displays a lack of understanding about basic transit and tax truths. For an Opportunity Now exclusive, former CA Gov candidate Thunder Parley fact checks five of Cohen’s biggest misleads:
What does this November’s election say about which way California and the nation are headed? As part of an Opportunity Now exclusive series on this November’s election, SV Log Cabin Republicans President Shane Patrick Connolly says that despite many reasons for optimism, acute price pressures and media bias weigh on voters and will favor the out-of-office party.
The Mercury News reports that passenger traffic at airports is sinking--with SJC and OAK getting the worst of the downturn. How long before city officials call for a bailout, and promulgate yet another round of doomsday scenarios if we don't pony up more taxes?
In an Opportunity Now exclusive comment for our series on the election, Silicon Valley Chinese Association VP Tony Guan predicts we’re headed toward bigger government with a billionaire’s tax very possible, and only cautious hope for voter ID reform.
Unjustified assumptions. Unpublished data. Undisclosed financial ties. Zero analysis of alternatives. These are just a few of the concerns local transit experts have with SPUR's widely-panned (and widely quoted by local media!) puff research about the impact of the upcoming RTM tax.
So SJ’s tentative agreement with the public sector unions may prevent a strike. But that’s “a very low bar,” says The Municipal Financial Crisis author Mark Moses in an Opportunity Now exclusive commentary: did the city surrender its authority in the deal? If so, why? CPC’s Lance Christensen points to a “conflict of interest” when councilmembers who are endorsed by the unions then ratify milestone agreements with the unions.
The state’s lavish handout regime comes at a cost -- ever increasing taxation that threatens the opportunity and prosperity that once made California attractive. So says former Monte Sereno Mayor Liz Lawler in an Opportunity Now exclusive comment for our ongoing election series: the tax-and-spend tyranny of Sacramento’s supermajority is matched only by voters’ willingness to endorse it.
