California labor groups have their list of priority bills and the California Chamber of Commerce has a list of “job killers” it wants to defeat. Sometimes the two lists collide. The inestimable Dan Walters comments in Calmatters.
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Alert Opp Now readers will know that we have bemoaned the paltry number of housing permits the oracles at SJ City Hall have approved, greatly contributing to local housing unaffordability. Turns out we're not alone: the number of new housing permits in CA went off a cliff last year, prompting mass exodus. Daily Caller reports, below.
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SJ City hosts another panel aiming to solve the city’s housing and homelessness crisis. Another echo chamber ensues. Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report explores how City staff privileges consideration of failed, costly programs that advantage favored non profits and systemically shut out public deliberation of more effective, market-proven solutions. An Opp Now exclusive.
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Even as San Jose's homelessness crisis lengthens, city staff continue to slow-walk shelter solutions as proposed by CM's Doan and Batra--and choose instead to throw millions more at their failed Housing First model. San Diego offers a more humane, cost-effective approach: increase shelter capacity quickly via conversions of vacant warehouse space. NBC San Diego outlines the way forward, below.
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Susan Dyer Reynolds of the Marina Times notes that SF's self-proclaimed progressives need to read the room, as moderate Dems have routed the far left slate in spring elections and taken control of the San Francisco DCCC — and those coveted party endorsements.
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As the price tag for BART's misbegotten extension through downtown San Jose soars past $12bn, key civic leaders such as former Mayors McEnery and LIccardo have grown dubious, and now the Merc's editorial page (on 4.5.24) is calling for a re-evaluation of the whole project.
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Local media likes to position SJ politics as bloodsport between Labor and Business--but independent Counclmember Dev Davis isn't buying it. She walks us through the process she led for building trust, agreement, and ultimate win-win on the prickly wage theft issue. An exclusive comprehensive phone interview with Opp Now's Christopher Escher.
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To reclaim neighborhoods from rampant homelessness, high-tech shelter tents, as advocated by CM's Doan and Batra, are a first step, notes housing expert Lawrence McQuillan in the Independent Institute.
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Not so fast. Last week, SJ's City Council unanimously passed a so-called "Tenant Preference" policy that privileges a subset local residents in what the city deems "High Displacement" areas with special access to subsidized, city-funded affordable housing. Scott Beyer of the Market Urbanism Report looks deeper and finds that the good intentions may be misguided, and that rules like these for affordable housing actually perpetuate ghettoization. An Opp Now Exclusive.
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SJ CM Peter Ortiz raised more than a few eyebrows last week when he wondered aloud if businesses that provide minimum wage jobs "shouldn't be in business." Former CM and Professor of Public Policy Pete Constant differs, and tells of his own--and his family's--lived experiences on the value of minimum wage employment. An Opp Now exclusive.
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Eight years ago, during a big press conference in front of what used to be called The Jungle, elected officials led by Cindy Chavez told taxpayers that passing the Measure A tax increase would be “the best opportunity to solve the problem” of homelessness. Although nearly all the $1 billion of this bond has been spent, the county homelessness numbers are worse than pre-Measure A. Something's not working, notes former CM and small business owner Johnny Khamis in his latest Measure A Mythbuster report. An Opp Now Exclusive.
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Stanford's Institute for Economic Policy Research unpacks the sad story of how monies and resources that could've (should've?) gone to cheaper and faster shelter and congregate homelessness solutions got sidetracked into the brutally expensive, slow and ineffective subsidized Housing First farrago.
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