At the April 28, 2021 SJ Rules Committee meeting, residents who take issue with the proposal to abolish single family zoning in the city explained the multi-faceted reasons for their opposition.
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The current racial mix of the Garden Alameda neighborhood in San Jose is roughly the same as the City as a whole, except Garden Alameda has a higher percentage of Black and Mixed Race residents. At the March 24 Rules Committee Meeting, however, Coucilmember Sylvia Arenas suggested that efforts of neighbors in that district to preserve their 100-year-old homes were racist and that the neighborhood was segregated. Arenas also confused many in the audience by conflating New Deal federal financial loan terms from the 1940s with racist property lot covenants from the 1920s. The Opportunity Now web editor team tries to clarify.
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Virtue- and wealth-signalling often seem endemic to Silicon Valley. Millionaires and billionaires talk about their desire to help to the poor and the environment—all from their comfortable enclaves of mansions and private schools and private jets. The scientist Stephen Hawking offers an explanation for the hypocrisy in The Spectator.
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For all the local talk of equity regarding vaccine distributions, a sobering truth emerges: the hardship of lockdowns fell disproportionately on the poor and people of color, while wealthy whites skated by on zoom calls. The UPI reports.
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Increasingly, homeless advocates and public policy experts suggest that shelters and triage services are most appropriate for many of our unfortunate homeless neighbors. But cities, many in Silicon Valley, keep throwing huge sums at overpriced, new housing. Katy Grimes at California Globe explores a Sacramento case study.
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Fiscal mismanagement has pushed many city and county governments close to insolvency: El Dorado County's experience shines a light on how it happens and how governments take the first steps down the slippery slope of bankruptcy, Village Life has the lowdown.
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As the Opportunity Housing debate heats up, and city staff manifests systemic bias in favor of vast upzoning even before the Council votes, Planning Commissioner Pierluigi Oliverio asks: shouldn't a policy change this broad, this influential, this contentious, be put in front of the voters? An exclusive Opportunity Now interview.
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Ben Leech, Executive Director of Preservation Action Council San Jose explains how the current historic preservation process works, and advocates for including a broad discussion of a building's past when considering historic status. An Opportunity Now exclusive interview.
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In surprising comments at the March 24 San Jose City Rules meeting, SJ councilmember Sylvia Arenas equated neighborhood efforts to preserve 100-year-old homes on Schiele Avenue in San Jose with racism. Planning Commissioner Pierluigi Oliverio disagrees. {Editors' note: more than 70 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that race-based property covenants (which had been applied to the Schiele Avenue properties 1920s through 1940s) were unconstitutional and unenforcable.}
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As California's tax rate goes ever skyward, and the state's quality of life goes ever downward, guess what happens? People leave. David Bahnsen in National Review parses the grim data about the state's decline and offers a prophecy.
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A main topic of discussion surrounding education during the pandemic has been the superior performance of charter schools in comparison with district schools. Linda Jacobson explores the data for Los Angeles School Report.
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Matthew Kah is a leading American educator in the field of environmental economics and the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University. He recently spoke at a Saurman Provocative Lecture at San Jose State and explored the question of whether or not we are ‘passive victims’ to climate change.
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