Irene Smith and Omar Torres, candidates for downtown D3, go back in time and critique what they see as profligate downtown redevelopment spending and misguided pension reform. An Opp Now exclusive.
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Editor and urban studies fellow Joel Kotkin and assistant professor Marshall Toplansky explain how California’s exorbitant cost of living has seen tech workers electing to work remotely out-of-state. With Silicon Valley as a pivotal foundation of the State’s economy, this change — combined with rampant tech company exoduses — could spell trouble for California cities' economic and planning models.
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Ginny Gentles (co-founder of the Educational Freedom Center at the Independent Women’s Forum) responds to Dan Lips’ National Review article, which explains that parents are justifiably demanding public school reform, particularly expanded parental choice, amidst local schools’ academic failures. Gentles unpacks the challenges of modeling CA’s education system after states like Arizona (which leads the nation in educational savings account programs), as suggested by Lips. Adopting a local program may not be as simple as plug-and-play, but CA’s abundance of charter schools offers us a leg-up, says Gentles. An Opp Now exclusive.
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Fred Tovar, Gilroy councilmember since 2016, was one of several longtime Democrats recently un-endorsed by the local Dem Party — for backing nonpartisan SCC supervisor candidate Johnny Khamis and Republican Gilroy councilmember Dion Bracco. Below, Tovar speaks with Opp Now about this troubling mission drift in the Dem Party, and how collaboration must trump polarization in local political movements. An Opp Now exclusive.
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Mark Hinkle — former Libertarian Party Californian state chair and current Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association president — sat down with Opp Now to analyze drug legislation. Arguing for diminished local governance, Hinkle discusses the Libertarian perspective that all substances should be legalized, a policy stance recently rejected by Gov. Newsom. The first of an Opp Now series on Libertarian approaches to policy. An Opp Now exclusive.
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We asked County Supervisor District 1 candidates to answer the question: If you could go back in time to fix something in gov't, what would it be? Candidate Johnny Khamis explores how to address the management problems in county government. Candidate Sylvia Arenas has not yet replied.
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Renewable energy may be expensive, unreliable, and far from “green,” but at least it does away with crude oil, right? Highly respected energy expert Ronald Stein breaks down why a full conversion to “breezes and sunshine” will disproportionately hurt poor residents, who struggle to shoulder exorbitant prices and manage without the 6,000+ everyday products reliant on non-renewable energy. This article originally appeared in CFACT.
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While California senator Sydney Kamlager pushes for SB 1304 (to award ex-inmates with roughly $2,500, as opposed to the current $200, upon their release from prison), The Davis Vanguard’s David M. Greenwald points out that mere money-gifting can’t tackle the heart of prison-to-street pipelines. If local housing were affordable for everyday Californians, there wouldn’t be a need for taxpayers to contribute to additional “gate money” checks.
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California’s quite successful efforts to empty local jails (25% reduced prison population over the last ten years) have observed high re-offense and homelessness rates for previously incarcerated people, reports Iris Murillo of Housing California in the Western Center on Law & Poverty. Advocating for AB 328, Murillo calls for our state government to dedicate money saved from closed prisons to programs that “break these cycles” of crime and homelessness.
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Opp Now spoke with the California Policy Center’s VP Jackson Reese about the SCC Democratic Party’s latest actions to revoke endorsements of candidates who have recommended or endorsed nonpartisan Supervisor hopeful Johnny Khamis. While pulling local endorsements are generally unusual, says Reese, their frequency amongst organized progressives highlights their party’s hard-ball self-policing practices.
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While cities like SJ work industriously to convert hotels into homeless housing, Los Angeles wants residents to vote on a more ambitious ordinance in 2024. This measure would force hotels to provide unused rooms to homeless locals, free of charge. The Cato Institute’s Walter Olson explains why this and similar laws—while perhaps kindly intended—dangerously erode rights to one’s property.
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In a new Opp Now exclusive, Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report deconstructs the Merc's confused, critical article about tiny homes, and explains the important role tiny homes can play in a holistic housing strategy.
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