Joining a growing chorus of municipal officials from all across the political spectrum, Aurora, Colorado mayor Mike Coffman (who's actually spent time living in homeless encampments) reports what many have been saying for too long: Housing First's orthodoxies exacerbate the inhumanity of the homelessness crisis—and has to go. Perhaps Silicon Valley officials will take note. USA Today reports.

Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility's chief Pat Waite offers SJ Council some tips on managing its $60m deficit. Spoiler alert: he recommends putting core services first. An Opp Now exclusive.

Chatting with The Free Press, SF’s president of the Board of Supes (Rafael Mandelman) says progressives have gotta start prioritizing “basic gov’t services” before auxiliary social justice initiatives. Plus, Mandelman wonders if 2020-era changes—defund the police, anyone?—were even helpful.

SJ City Council and Housing Dept recently raised eyebrows by gifting a local nonprofit a cool $5m to "preserve" some older affordable housing in ESJ. Turns out, such a strategy may run counter to Best Practices for cities that want to decrease the overall cost of living and housing. From Local Housing Solutions.

Join us, below, as we waft through reviews from Amazon/Goodreads (plus Opp Now’s resident English majors!) on three highly-rated anthologies from local poets.

Silicon Valley's obsession with “fast” and “more” (news headlines, social media updates, gov't comm's) isn't leading us to better perspectives on the world, says LA Review of Books. Rather, this “onslaught of information” overwhelms and makes many prioritize hyperrealism over reality.

Susan Dyer Reynolds of the excellent Voice of SF says the quiet part out loud: unaccountable nonprofits and virtue-signalling tech execs have blown through hundreds of millions on homelessness, to little effect.

Hopelessly late. Wildly over budget. And ridiculously over-hyped. California's High Speed Rail project may finally be sent back to the shed, unless new sources of funding are found, says local State Senator Dave Cortese. LA Times reports. 

Kinfolk magazine's theory of “subtraction neglect” may explain why local pols are eager to expand their jurisdictions (adding more and more initiatives on homelessness, basic income, etc.) but have trouble backing off. Even when they're far outside their charter. Or the projects fail—miserably.

Many Silicon Valley pols worry that excessive taxes can poison the goodwill between a city’s government and its people. Taxation-by-citation is no exception. Case study: one small police force took a big step back from ticketing—and property crime dropped by 80%. A Route Fifty commentary by James Small and Joanna Weiss.

Ostensibly pro-business electeds on the San Jose City Council (Mahan, Casey, Foley, Mulcahy) surprised recently by advocating for lowering voter thresholds for new taxes. This is a position many local businesspeople (and most Californians) oppose. Below, The Harvard Gazette explores how this reflects national trends, in which business leaders self-segregate around political groupings.