☆ Local business leaders: City homelessness audit "long overdue and urgently necessary"

Tracey Enfantino, chair of the Silicon Valley Business PAC--the leading group advocating for local small and medium businesses--is thumbs up on the Doan/Batra city homelessness audit. The main reason? According to Enfantino, the City Housing Dept has ignored basic business logic and ethics for decades, and the bill is way past due.

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Jax OliverComment
☆ Santa Clara County Association of Realtors (SCCAOR) backs Doan/Batra call for City of SJ homeless audit

Continuing the bipartisan support for the proposed audit of SJ's homelessness expenditures, SCCAOR Gov't Affairs Director Gina Zari urges much greater transparency, accountability, and effectiveness in how the city addresses its homelessness crisis--which is clearly the #1 issue for residents. An Opp Now exclusive

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Thanking CMs Doan and Batra, Mahan says city needs to be "laser-focused" on cost-effective homelessness services

Mayor Mahan underscores calls from CMs Doan and Batra for greatly improved transparency and efficacy re: city homelessness services, urges public dashboards to daylight program costs and impacts.

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After dumping $36.5 million into a homeless housing development, LA may have to abandon the structures

Six old supportive housing buildings can’t seem to find a home after both Los Angeles and the buyer walked away from a deal last month. The nonprofit set to take on the properties didn’t have a plan for addressing social services and code violations, said the city. The nonprofit for its part balked at millions of dollars in repairs, and major operating losses. Liam Dillon writes via California Political Review.

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☆ More community leaders advocate for Doan/Batra homelessness audit

Momentum grows for implementing a comprehensive audit of how City of SJ spends millions upon millions of local taxpayer dollars on homelessness programs--spends that appear to have zip impact on solving the problem. Shane Patrick Connolly of the Santa Clara County GOP and Tobin Gilman, board member of Families and Homes SJ, chime in. An Opp Now exclusive.

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☆ Former Councilmembers in support of Doan/Batra call for audit of SJ City homelessness spend

Concerns about unaccountable spending by the SJ Housing Dept. go back years--even decades. Johnny Khamis and Pierluigi Oliverio, the two SJ CM's who sounded the klaxon most urgently about ineffective and misguided homelessness programs back in the day--give thumbs up to the Doan/Batra audit proposal. An Opp Now exclusive.

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☆ SJ homelessness audit discourse reveals need for targeted, relevant metrics, say local fiscal watchdogs

Pat Waite of Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility (CFR) responds to State and Doan/Batra homelessness audit proposals with a call for an independent, non partisan, metrics-based committee untethered from past mistakes. An Opp Now exclusive.

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☆ Leading community group says Doan/Batra homelessness audit "a step in the right direction"

Families and Homes, SJ's leading grass-roots community group, gives thumbs up to the Doan/Batra homelessness audit proposal, noting the need for an independent, accountable, and transparent process. An Opp Now exclusive.

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SJ CM's Doan and Batra thank State Senator Cortese for leadership on state homeless audit

The State homelessness audit which found shocking levels of ineffectiveness and unaccountability in SJ's homelessness programs was the direct result of the governance direction of State Senator Dave Cortese, who championed the audit, beginning in 2022. SJ CM's Doan and Batra, who are calling to extend the audit to city programs and spend, acknowledged Cortese's leadership in their call for a city of SJ audit.

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Jax OliverComment
Reckoning: SJ Councilmembers call for audit of city's much-derided and strategically flawed homelessness programs

Even though SJ's City Manager and staff tried to wave away the blistering, devastating critique of the city's hugely expensive and ineffective homelessness programs by the State Auditor, SJ CM's Doan and Batra follow the path of fiscal responsibility by demanding an audit of the city's homelessness spend. Their press release excerpted below. 

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Case study Portland: Another far-left DA gets the boot

National Review suggests that the clock is running out for far-left politicos, as the City of Roses joins SF and LA (and perhaps Oakland?) in bidding adieu to soft-on-crime prosecutors.

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Leading nat'l small business group: thumbs up on TPA

Local pols always say they're in favor of small business--that is, until their insatiable yen for new tax monies reveals their true leanings. National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) comes out in favor of CA's Taxpayer Protection Act (TPA), contra SJ City Council (save Doan) and Gov. Newsom. Their formal statement below.

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