This month, expect the final California’s Middle Class stimulus deposits to make their way to taxpayers across the Golden State. Christian Martinez explains in the LA Times how debit cards will be mailed to people who have changed banks since 2020 — part of a dysfunctional program widely hailed “either a cheap political stunt by Newsom or a failure of bureaucratic management.”
Read MoreIn Daily Breeze’s reflective “naughty or nice” list, Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association president Jon Coupal highlights how local taxpayers were protected by some district attorneys, informed by high-quality journalists, and — most importantly — how they advocated for themselves through intelligent voting.
Read MoreIt’s that time: our chance to take a look back at the Year That Was through the lens of Opportunity Now’s most popular stories—our Top Ten most visited, the most linked, the most controversial—heck, even the best-written. In addition to revealing the coveted rankings, we offer some analysis as to how those results reveal changing perceptions within Silicon Valley regarding free market and neighboring concepts, and how they are faring in our current political climate.
Read MoreSanta Clara County is deep blue, so it's (sadly) no surprise that our local political and media class fails to hold its leaders accountable when their favored candidates break democratic norms. But even so: in 2022, Sylvia Arenas' supervisor campaign may have set a new record for ugly campaigning, as her team trafficked in anti-Arab, anti-immigrant and (arguably) homophobic conventions in her campaign against independent Johnny Khamis. Local media and progressive advocates, predictably, ignored the shameful bigotry, leaving it to Opp Now to daylight the unpleasantries in the article below. The piece went viral, was picked up by national media, thus catapulting the story to our #1 slot for 2022.
Read MoreA staple campaign technique of local Labor/left media and advocates has been to fling ridiculous charges of racism against moderate candidates — while indulging in straight-up, deplorable race-baiting themselves (see 10/10). Something very different happened in 2022, however, as centrist candidates--for the first time--responded to the bogus charges with muscular argument, effectively standing down the Woke mobs. In October, we reported on this refreshing change in local political dynamics with our Trump Tactics story, below, which went viral across a broad range of social media platforms.
Read MoreOur readers constantly tell us that extreme--and often hilarious--local media partisanship is a key reason for their support of Opp Now. The Mountain View Voice provided a classic case study in June: The Voice may be Sally Lieber's hometown newspaper (she's currently a Mtn View City Councilmember and is running for Board of Equalization), but home-cookin' can go a little too far, as we discovered from their election night coverage.
Read MoreIn October, Campbell Union High School District board candidates James Kim and Elisabeth Halliday addressed pursuing unity on boards with ideologically diverse members. In the thick of contentious conversations around CUHSD board campaigns, Kim and Halliday emphasized that school boards must serve constituents first and foremost — not squabble and build petty divides. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreOpp Now was honored to host finalists in the SJ Mayoral race in a thoughtful discussion on the key issues in their race. In this August posting, County Supervisor Cindy Chavez and D10 Councilmember Matt Mahan dig into the history of land use and housing policy decisions that led to our unaffordability crisis, and their plans to fix it. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreScott Beyer, Founder of the influential Market Urbanism Report and author of the widely respected book: Market Urbanism: A vision for free-market cities, is a leading proponent of classical liberal reforms to address the national housing crisis. In Part I of an exclusive, epic 3-part series for Opportunity Now, Beyer introduced housing solutions ignored by our Housing Department and local media. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MorePerhaps the funniest--and most revealing--headline in local media during the year was in a Labor-funded website that bemoaned how conservatives were trying to "Infiltrate" local schoolboards by--get this--actually running for election. Shocking: The California Policy Center’s Jackson Reese got inside how liberal-leaning school boards fund teachers unions, which fund the Democrat party—together keeping state gov’t overinflated and progressive. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreMost of the analysis of Sam Liccardo's eight years as mayor have focused on the failures of the SJ Housing Dept to address homelessness and housing supply. Local political watcher Tobin Gilman used the mayor's September State of the City address to ask an even better question: how does the next mayor refocus council spending where it's supposed to be: onto core city services? An Opp Now exclusive.
Read More2022 was a bad year for Housing First advocates, as national and state media—along with an increasing number of politicians (see Newsom)—came to the belated conclusion that Shelter and Services needed to be the priority for addressing homelessness, not $1m/unit apartments a decade from now. SJ's Dean Hotop wondered where all of SJ's Housing money went. An Opp Now exclusive.
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