Thien Ho, district attorney of CA's capital city since November, has pledged to sue Sacramento city leaders unless they pick up the pace on clearing illegal encampments and citing homeless people who refuse shelter. Some label his proposal as unkind, but Ho claims (along with folks like SCC's Johnny Khamis) it's all about keeping our streets crime-free. An Associated Press story.
Read MoreWith over four decades in the transit industry, former SoCal Rapid Transit District CFO Tom Rubin has consulted for and studied a plethora of high-profile projects in and beyond California. In this Opp Now exclusive, Rubin analyzes California High-Speed Rail: why the math just can't justify it, the myth of reduced GHG emissions, and what's keeping CA (despite failure after failure) from surrendering a mea culpa.
Read MoreAmidst Ellenberg and Cortese's pro-UBI PR parades, the Business Insider's Melissa Kearney and Magne Mogstad spell out why indiscriminately awarding citizens' payouts is wasteful and unhelpful. Gov't welfare programs should consider income, able-bodiedness, and other circumstances, or risk further expanding wealth discrepancies.
Read MoreLeading up to 2016's successful Prop 64, local pols touted promised benefits of legitimizing marijuana cultivation/distribution in CA. Almost seven years later, NPR reflects on these claims, finding that while the State budget is singing hallelujah thanks to legal pot revenue, crime rates and product prices haven't improved.
Read MoreActual results of State homelessness initiatives seem lost in the cosmos, remarks Jeff Vaughn on Twitter, and get this: The $17.5 bil CA's spent over the last four years could have paid for every unhoused person's rent. But where's it all going? In SJ, every unsheltered homeless person could get over $15k/yr from our $116 mil budget, but are instead reaping costly (and largely ineffective) PSH projects.
Read MoreDefunding the police. Confiscatory rent controls. Extremist racial equity policies. Back-door public housing. Decarceration. Brandon Poulter at the Daily Caller takes a look at the far-Left wing of the Democratic Party, and how it’s pressuring moderate Democrats in the Bay Area and around the country into extremist positions that are out of step with the party's mainstream.
Read MoreSan Jose's Housing First neighbor Los Angeles observes similar results when pols try to combat homelessness by building costly permanent shelters (while ignoring mental illness and substance abuse patterns). The Post Millennial reports that LA's homeless population has increased by 10% since 2022, and city officials are “disappointed” that dollars invested ≠ worthwhile outcomes. Time to switch gears?
Read MoreIn a letter to the Gilroy Dispatch, Joseph P. Thompson, Esq.—past Gilroy-Morgan Hill Bar Association president and Legislation Committee chair—highlights just how much taxpayer money subsidizes SCC's “bankrupt boondoggle public sector transit.” Why continue feeding a system designed to be unsustainable from ridership fees alone (which cover, yep, just 1% of costs), and needing the constant crutch of residents' cheddar?
Read MoreAs with San Jose, San Diego's high vacancy rates for city employees can be traced to marathon-long onboarding processes, finds a 64-page audit published in July. The San Diego Tribune lays out the audit's recs for clear, efficient hiring operations (hint: it doesn't involve more union strikes).
Read MoreIn a 7.27 letter, Oakland's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People condemns the city's hands-off position on public safety. Rather than garishly labeling policing as racist or subsidizing substance addiction, Oakland should ensure its streets are safe again by actually prosecuting crime. From Hot Air.
Read MoreWill Sherman reports on a recent Fairfax City Council public discussion on the possibility of repealing “extreme” rent control in 2024. Residents are concerned about investors gradatim pulling out of Fairfax, which feeds into a citywide revenue doom-loop.
Read MoreThe County is dipping its toes into “contingency management” techniques for substance abuse, which reward abstinence via tangible rewards (usually vouchers). But research hedges on long-term benefits of gov't cash incentives for sobriety. Two widely cited meta-analyses excerpted below.
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