For critics of the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, this case is a poster child for the need for reform. Signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970 and often referred to as “see-kwuh,” the law calls for “preventing environmental damage, while providing a decent home and satisfying living environment for every Californian.” Environmentalists say […]
In fact, despite Brown’s reserves, the state may be less prepared for a future economic downturn than it was when he became governor for the second time in 2011. While higher spending is largely locked in place, the revenue stream is now even more unreliable because it is even more dependent on the rich. Their […]
A huge housing/multi-use project proposed for Silicon Valley faced strong opposition. Nearby residents hated it and blocked smaller versions of the project that were on the 2016 ballot. The mayor called it out of place and sniped at outsiders who criticized his city’s history in adding housing stock. The building trades unions which sometimes come […]
A far-reaching online privacy bill that got next-to-no vetting or legislative debate was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown last Thursday – the product of a quickly hammered-out agreement among state legislators, privacy advocates, tech firms and a real estate tycoon whose qualifying of an even more sweeping privacy measure for the November ballot […]
The news of Ontario’s impending withdrawal from the bi-national cap-and-trade program, after less than a year of partnership, has landed with a thud. The retreat of California’s largest emissions trading partner is a function of politics as much as policy, but the sting to the state’s ambitions is no less felt. The incoming premier of […]
LAUSD and other K-12 districts have recently seen a 50 percent increase in per-pupil financing from taxpayers, much more flexibility to spend special-purpose money, and extra aid to raise academic achievement of poor and/or English-learner students. However, the district’s enrollment is declining, mandatory payments into employee pension systems are rising sharply to shore up their […]
As detailed in this space a few days ago, the Legislature is using a budget “trailer bill” to deprive voters of vital information about local government and school bond issues. The legislation, drafted without public hearings or other input, would suspend for two years a new law, which took effect on January 1, requiring proposed […]
[Deregulation] opened the door to market manipulation by Enron and some other big energy players, drove one major utility (Pacific Gas and Electric) into bankruptcy, almost sent another (Southern California Edison) into insolvency, caused blackouts and wound up costing California consumers many billions of dollars. This brief excursion into not-so-distant history is important because the […]
When the California Housing Finance Agency was created in 1975 in Governor Jerry Brown’s first term, the mission was simple: help low- and moderate-income families buy their first home. More than 40 years later, amid skyrocketing housing prices and near-record low homeownership rates, that goal is getting harder and harder to attain. So much so […]
Even assuming that California avoids a long-overdue economic downturn, where would Newsom get the immense sums of money that he’d need to deliver his agenda? Just providing “guaranteed health care for all” would cost at least $100 billion more in taxes on someone, according to analyses of a single-payer measure that passed the Senate before […]
Carried by Sen. Holly Mitchell, a Los Angeles Democrat, SB 982 would reverse many years of stagnation, and even cuts, in family support grants under California’s version of welfare, dubbed CalWORKs. . . . SB 982 would incrementally, over three years, increase “maximum family grants,” which are based both on poverty and the size of […]
Senate Bill 863 is a double dose of sneakiness—combining, in just 17 words, two separate efforts to block Californians from knowing what their elected officials are doing. First of all, it continues the unseemly practice of misusing “budget trailer bills” for purposes that are unrelated to the budget. . . . In this particular case, […]
The California Taxpayers Association counted 98 proposals to raise local taxes directly, or indirectly through issuance of bonds that would require higher property taxes to repay. The proposed taxes on legal marijuana sales and other retail sales and “parcel taxes” on pieces of real estate were particularly noteworthy for how they were presented to voters. […]
The California Energy Commission, more or less on the fly, has decreed that beginning in 2020 all new single-family homes and low-rise multi-family residential projects must be built with rooftop solar panels. Although they would add perhaps $10,000 to the cost of a new home, the commission insists that solar arrays would pay for themselves […]
Plenty of workers still move West each year for a new job in California. But the state’s high cost of housing may be deterring many other job seekers from moving into the state. Business leaders up and down the state say California’s expensive housing makes it challenging to recruit new workers — and to keep […]