Just like that, it's fall. Fog-sky lingers past noon, school traffic wakes us in the morning, whiffs of smoke waft from fires somewhere. Peter Coe Verbica checks in with three haikus for the season in this Opp Now exclusive.
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Noted linguist Dr. Alan Perlman notes that euphemisms—the sometimes awkward efforts to rename people and ideas to avoid unwanted connotations—can end up obscuring more than they illuminate. He takes a look at County Supe Ellenberg's latest use of the gauzy "justice-involved" word-choice to describe people slotted for her widely-panned "jail-diversion" site in South San Jose. An Opp Now exclusive.
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Proposition 5 undermines protection against runaway taxes, said Gilroy Mayor Marie Blankley, who cast the tie-breaking vote last week at the Gilroy City Council meeting to oppose Prop 5. Blankley said that Prop 5, which aims to reduce voter approval from two-thirds to 55%, would inflict hardship on working families. In a divided vote, the SJ City Council previously endorsed Prop 5, with CMs Doan and Batra voting "no." An Opp Now exclusive.
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Bay Area-raised Anne Gray volunteers with For Californians, focused on restoring Prop 58 parent/child transfer rights that were lost when Proposition 19 passed in 2020. In this Opp Now exclusive, Gray walks us through what she sees as the devastating fallout from rushed implementation, and asks, “Can’t we do better?”
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SJ CM David Cohen's confused embrace of Prop 5 (which would lower from 66% to 55% the threshold for new local taxes) struck many Opp Now readers as surprising, as just a few week's prior, he was advocating against the Taxpayer Protection Act. In the former, he championed letting locals vote on tax thresholds; in the latter, he opposed the tax threshold initiatives—aligning himself with Gov. Newsom and others who worked to prevent the TPA from even being on the ballot. An Opp New exclusive.
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In this exclusive Opp Now installment, four history educators (from SJ, Berkeley, and SF) discuss what book/documentary/podcast they'd assign local politicians as “required reading.” Spanning from the beginning of time itself, to ancient Greece, to our modern world—their recommendations (poignant and powerful) read below.
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Despite local officials acting like full funding has been secured for the super late, wildly expensive, and widely panned BART-to-downtown-SJ project, the facts don't support their claims. According to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the FTA has been very clear with VTA that their funding is only for preliminary work—and further funding is still contingent on future developments and achievements by VTA that are by no means guaranteed. An Opp Now exclusive.
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According to Palo Alto councilmember Greg Tanaka, SB-1047, ostensibly designed to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) and prevent potential harm—if signed into law—will hamstring technological progress, stifle small businesses, and harm California’s competitive edge in the global AI race. His Opp Now exclusive comments below.
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Austrian economist and vice presidential hopeful Mike ter Maat put out the Libertarian Intelligence System Application (LISA) as a public resource providing limited-gov't perspectives on policy issues. Considering a few of SJ's extant debates, Opp Now peppered LISA with exclusive questions on bond measures, shady nonprofits, and more—the resulting discourse (our questions embellished for flair) below.
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The irony was delicious: BAHFA last week was compelled to admit it had been peddling prejudicial and inaccurate information in its RM4 ballot language. So the Merc played defense for BAHFA by employing—you guessed it—a bushel of bias of its own in its coverage of the walkback. An Opp Now exclusive media analysis by FOON (Friend of Opp Now) Susie Murillo.
Read MoreAs VTA pushes to lock in $6 billion of federal support for Phase II of its Silicon Valley BART extension, a required evaluation of Phase I remains incomplete. Cato Institute’s Marc Joffe provides analysis in this Opp Now exclusive.
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Greg Tanaka, Palo Alto CM, chimes in on San Jose's debate about city councils taking positions on ballot initiatives that should be decided by the people. He says cities need to respect diversity of opinon and not sideline that diversity "in pursuit of artificial consensus." An Opp Now exclusive.
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