A lawsuit representing over a dozen people who were injured in 2020 downtown demonstrations was minimized by Judge Phyllis Hamilton; some elements of suit remain. Robert Salonga at the SJ Merc reports.
Read More
Gov. Newsom signed into law SB9, the wide-ranging upzoning law that effectively abolished single family home zoning in California and stripped cities of control of their own residential areas. Now, SJ housing advocates are promoting an even more radical local effort, euphemistically named Opportunity Housing, which takes SB9's increased densification, and nearly doubles it. Get ready for seven housing units on what used to be a one-unit lot. Former SJ Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio (who served on a prior SJ City General Plan Task Force which protected neighborhoods) and Families and Homes leader Tobin Gilman survey the potential damage.
Read More
Extremist ideas to reform (or defund) police continue to get an airing in local media. As a counterpoint, political analyst Joel Fox provides a case study from the Southland about how to engage constructively local police, community members, and activists in a reform process that actually brings results without defunding the police and increasing crime. Originally from Fox & Hounds Daily.
Read More
Local media quivered in fear at the end of the nation's eviction moratorium. The moratorium was launched during the height of the pandemic, and greatly constrained landlords' abilities to demand payment by renters. As it turns out, the moratorium ended, and....crickets. National Review explores.
Read More
Government unions, sometimes referred to as public sector unions, have very little in common with unions that represent employees in the private sector. While there is debate over what sorts of regulations should govern private sector unions, there is general agreement that they have played a vital role in protecting the rights of workers. Government unions are completely different. The California Policy Center examines the differences.
Read More
Sometimes it seems that our state's and county's problems defy solution--the endless government meetings, the cascades of wasted money, the increasing taxes, the ever-widening income gaps and the proliferation of blight. But perhaps the solutions are right in front of us and much simpler. Noted policy analyst Edward Ring provides some clear-eyed suggestions.
Read More
Does diversity really mean inequality? Are disparate outcomes really just another way of embracing difference? Edward Glaser at City Journal celebrates cities' ability to create an environment of economic transformation.
Read More
The vast majority of local officeholders (we polled SJ City Council and Sta Clara Cnty Supervisors) refused to communicate to their constituents their position on the statewide abolition of single-family zoning bill (SB9), recently signed into law by Governor Newsom. Four SJ councilmembers, however, did wade into the controversial water: CM's Davis, Foley, Mahan, and Peralez. Their statements are below.
Read More
Time was, Palo Alto was renowned as the place for hot startups, but no more. Greg Tanaka, Palo Alto Council Member and US Congressional Candidate for California District 18, criticizes a vague new business tax proposition as "a solution looking for a problem," noting that the council hasn't even identified the specific need for the new tax. Interviewed by Pierluigi Oliverio of the Silicon Valley Taxpayers' Association, in an Opportunity Now exclusive.
Read More
Local parents may successfully push back against their school districts' extremist, Critical Race Theory-inspired teachings. But Tony Woodlief, author of I Citizen, argues that those victories could prove pyrrhic, as big, left-wing bureaucracies will swallow up the reform in spreadsheets and evasive maneuvering. The real solution: cut down the size of the school districts to a manageable, accountable size. First published in the Wall Street Journal.
Read More
That's the headline chosen by the noted George Skelton, not us, in describing the impact of SB9's passage on Santa Clara County neighborhoods. Skelton is responding to the bait-and-switch offered by housing advocates who told us that SB9 was a necessary game-changer to increase housing stock, only to suggest within minutes after its passage that it's no big deal--and if you want real change consider San Jose's radical Opportunity Housing proposal. Originally in the L.A. Times.
Read More
Edward Ring at the California Policy Center takes a look at California’s “Transportation Plan 2050” and finds it a depressing journey into groupthink {perhaps he's attended some of the city's or county's "community meetings"}. He contends it is a bland product of endless meetings between “stakeholders” with the only common thread being a terror of contributing anything that might violate the pieties of climate alarm and the desperate need for “equity.”
Read More