While the Fair Housing Act forbids rewarding housing based on race, HUD in 2020 encouraged cities to change their scoring systems to “dismantle embedded racism,” which, they said, can lead to disparate impacts based on race. Judge Glock surveys the disastrous results for our northern neighbor in City Journal.
Read MoreDisenfranchisement. Voter suppression. Lack of transparency. Backroom deals. The list of concerns about SJ Council’s wrongheaded moves to deny District 8 and 10 citizens the right to vote continues to grow. Irene Smith, head of Bay Area Housing Network—SJ adds a new critique: The appointment process aims to erase the city’s much-vaunted diversity. From an exclusive phone chat with Opp Now’s Christopher Escher.
Read MoreThe snatching of citizen voting rights by SJ City Council has some people wondering if our deeply centralized, bureaucratic model of city governance has gone too far. Irene Smith, former candidate for D3 (and critic of the council appointment process, see here) laid out a new way of looking at municipal governance that focused on a more bottoms-up, "deconcentrated" approach, excerpted below.
Read MoreCharging stations and electric car rebates were supposed make the 2035 plug-in mandate easier on working-class Californians. But now these programs are running on fumes. Voters, after all, didn’t want to raise income taxes to pay for electrification. To keep the dream alive, Newsom hopes to juice the state with federal money, and may ask the legislature for a bond issue. CalMatters explores.
Read MoreBad ideas often reveal themselves in time—and so it is with SJ City Council's rushed decision on 12.5.22 to appoint CM's to open seats, bypassing historic precedent and citizen rights for a district vote. In the six weeks since council's poorly-crafted resolution was passed, what looked like a dubious idea has turned into a train wreck, as promises of transparency and competence have gone off the rails. The Opp Now team surveys the wreckage and the unsound nature of the appointment undertaking. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreThe surprise election of Bien Doan in SJ’s District 7 highlights a significant national trend: Asian American voters are increasingly rejecting the extremist Woke policies embodied in the progressive wing of the local Democratic Party for more common sense politics. Kenny Xu examines what’s behind this development in the National Review.
Read MoreFormer two-term D10 councilmember Johnny Khamis spells out San Jose’s need for creative solutions on public safety, homelessness, and blight — a tall order, but the same ongoing underlying needs, says Khamis. An Opp Now exclusive on Local Gov't Hopes & Fears.
Read MoreEdward Ring reports for the California Policy Center on CA’s Reparations Task Force, which proposes to pay local descendants of enslaved people for “snowballed” generational trauma. Instead, Ring suggests, lawmakers should focus on improving educational opportunities for low-income and minority students — whose zip code schools are often inadequate.
Read MoreFrequent commentator and housing provider Dean Hotop shares his tongue-in-cheek “wish” for the SJCC to pass COPA in the new year — highlighting how the initiative will weaken the free market, drive up housing stock costs, and disempower local homebuyers. An Opp Now exclusive installment in the Local Gov't Hopes & Fears series.
Read MoreAnalyzing SB 1100 (which lets legislative bodies remove members of the public from meetings if deemed “disruptive”), Joe Mathews suggests it will only flame local politician–community member conflicts. Rather than avoiding communications with residents, who may feel frustrated already, lawmakers should consistently adopt more open relations.
Read MorePat Waite, president of SJ-based Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility (CFR), launches an Opp Now exclusive series on 2023 Local Gov't Hopes & Fears. Waite’s biggest wish and apprehension for this year’s City Council (respectively: budgetary oversight and combative “permanent campaigning”) below.
Read MoreConventionally tech-reliant Bay Area cities like San Francisco should consider drastic budgetary cuts going forward, says CATO Institute’s Marc Joffe. With office vacancies soaring—most recently by tech layoffs and remote work trends—SF no longer can rely on early Internet development for the city’s fiscal stability.
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