The Board of Equalization (BOE) in California plays a vital role in safeguarding taxpayer rights and tax fairness, defending citizens from the ongoing encroachment of the administrative state. A recent SJ Mercury Op-ed about the BOE bizarrely ignores this vital function, and in fact calls for the shuttering of the Board. BOE District 2 candidate Peter Coe Verbica sets the record straight in a Merc letter to the editor.
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Recent campaign mailer hit pieces which targeted Arab-American County Supervisor candidate Johnny Khamis have been roundly criticized by this website and the SJ Merc editorial board as being full of disinformation. More surprising, however, is that the mailers, which are funded by the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, are awash in anti-Arab, anti-immigrant, and nativist tropes. The bigoted nature of the mailers has gone unremarked upon by our local political and media community. Opp Now co-founder Christopher Escher examines the history of the disease/immigrant narrative and unpacks the unique nature of anti-Arab discrimination as revealed in the Labor hit pieces.
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The problems we see every day in our cities are not Acts of Nature. They are the predicted and avoidable results of generations of flawed decision making from our local political representatives, says Randall O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute. He breaks down the five most notable government blunders over the last half-century and finds a troubling linking theme: big government hubris and arrogance. An Opportunity Now exclusive.
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Better late than never: local candidates are continuing their journey away from SJ's flawed Housing First strategy to address homelessness, and onto a system that focuses on Treatment First. Author of San Fransicko, and independent gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger unpacks the reasoning in Reason magazine.
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Cal Chambers’ most recent polling of Californians (conducted by Core Decision Analytics and Pierrepont Analytics) finds that local county and city governments continue to pursue legislative goals that run contrary to popular will, especially around taxes, subsidized housing, schools, and environmental issues. Loren Kay of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education reports.
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Joe Matthews, Fellow at the Center of Social Cohesion at Arizona State and co-Author of California Crackup, explores the rising power of county governments, as city governments cede power. Many of his concerns are reflected in the changing relationship between local cities and Santa Clara County.
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In the final installment of his exclusive three-part series about the local housing crisis, national housing expert Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report explores the advantages of a strategy based on market forces. Previously, Beyer has examined how San Jose’s approach to fixing its affordable home crisis has included a mix of supply-side and demand-side subsidies, including tax credits, bond initiatives, rent control and more. Yet these policies have not prevented housing in the city and metro from being some of the nation’s least affordable. According to Beyer, the answer to increasing supply in San Jose is simple and largely cost-free to taxpayers: restore property rights and let the free market work. This means overturning certain laws that have now distorted land markets there.
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San Jose’s urban growth boundary has gone unchanged since the 1970s, effectively giving the city only one choice to increase housing: go up. It’s a costly, unsustainable model, as there's no way to build affordable housing on expensive land without absurd subsidies. There’s lots of cheaper land to the south in Coyote. Valley. But strangely, SJ treats the Urban Growth Boundary as some holy line in the weeds. Gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger shows how to build out while conserving the environment in The Spectator.
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Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report continues his exclusive analysis of SJ Housing woes. In Part 1, Beyer examined the negative effects of the supply-side solutions that San Jose has implemented to address its affordable home crisis. “Supply-side” means taxpayer-funded subsidies that let governments increase overall home supply. In Part II, Beyer discusses San Jose’s demand-side policies, which have an even worse effect. “Demand-side” means efforts the city takes not to increase supply, but to manage demand for units that already exist. These include policies to cool prices, such as rent control and inclusionary zoning; and policies to help individuals better afford housing, such as rental assistance.
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Let’s say you decided to run for San Jose City Council. You would have to submit a written statement of your qualifications. That’s all the official document asks for: qualifications. What can you say to convince voters that you’re “qualified”? The answer can take many forms, as professional linguist Dr. Alan Perlman discovered when we provided him with .pdf versions of the Candidate Statements for Public Examination, per Elec. Code § 13313. There were 21 statements of qualification and Perlman's analysis, an Opp Now exclusive, is below.
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A mere 40 miles to the north, in the Tenderloin district of SF, city leaders, in their vast wisdom, have to decided to enable an unfettered and unregulated drug market. The market's main customers are, sadly enough, deeply afflicted homeless individuals with severe mental health and pre-existing addiction concerns. Independent gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberg is appalled, in the Spectator.
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