Continuing an Opp Now exclusive series, two housing and urban design experts parse ACA 10's consequences—or lack thereof—for our housing market. Under ACA 10, CA would enshrine the right to housing into its constitution, and require that local jurisdictions “fulfill this right, on a[n]... equitable basis.” Two opposed takes below.
Read MoreThe specter of censorship looms over public school districts, as some locals worry their school libraries are pulling content parents label as inappropriate. Really, do parents have the constitutional right to request—even demand—a book is removed from their public school's selection? Opp Now asked four legal experts (three from CA) to speak to this controversy. Their exclusive varied takes below.
Read MoreTime has validated former CM Johnny Khamis' opposition to SJ's slow and wasteful Housing First ideology. After the most recent Council voted to continue draining city coffers with its Measure E compromise, Khamis examined why SJ is devoted to a discredited housing dogma in an exclusive conversation with Opp Now's Christopher Escher.
Read MoreHaving gotten a bailout in the latest California state budget, Bay Area Transit agencies are seeking further subsidies from bridge users. If the $1.50 toll hike is passed by state legislature, transit agencies will be able to return to business-as-usual despite carrying a fraction of the passengers they transported in 2019. Mark Joffe reports in this Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreThe latest kerfuffle at SJ City Council about interim vs. permanently subsidized housing revealed not just competing ideologies, but also a competing sense of what housing metrics SJ should monitor. SCC Libertarian Party secretary Brian Holtz suggests that removing SJ's affordable housing mandates will accelerate new construction (who knew the free market works better than constrictive laws?): allowing the City to prioritize more valuable metrics like supply, cost, and population change. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreMarc Ang, former Director of Outreach at Californians for Equal Rights (CFER), was a local leader in the “No on 16” fight against affirmative action in 2020. Here, Ang celebrates and unpacks the SCOTUS' landmark decision that bans discriminatory race-based college admissions, and why he believes it's a “win” for all CA'ns who oppose racism. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MorePat Waite, president of Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility (CFR) in San Jose, unravels a Biz2Credit report that drops the City from #1 best city for small businesses in 2022 to #7 in 2023. He attributes our dismal new ranking to a business-unfriendly regulatory climate. But what's more boggling: San Francisco has made its way to the nation's top spot—and Waite isn't quite buying it. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreDistricts around the Bay continue mixing instruction with ideological agendas, while ignoring basic performance failures and budgetary follies. Atascadero USD board member Rebekah Koznek exhorts CA'n school districts to refocus on teaching students valuable skills and spend funds more moderately. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreAtascadero Unified School District board member Rebekah Koznek campaigned on several key priorities, including trade school opportunities for students. This rings true for San Joseans, given that the City's primary tech ed school, Silicon Valley CTE, is seeing recently increased enrollment via added programs (whereas Covid-era stats were less encouraging). Koznek argues in this Opp Now exclusive that the Silicon Valley should better promote trade schools to HS students.
Read MoreSan Jose's nonprofit affordable housing complex took a body blow earlier this month, as its widely discredited Housing First strategy was—for the first time—examined fully in a frisky citywide public debate. And the end result was a compromise weakening nonprofits' unquestioned control over Measure E spending. Planning Commission Chair Pierluigi Oliverio and Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility chief Pat Waite parse the politics of it all and the way forward for our homeless neighbors and advocates of smart housing policies. First in an Opp Now exclusive series.
Read MoreIf State legislature is good at one thing, it's enshrining new liberties into our constitution that residents find puzzling, polarizing, and even downright paradoxical. Their latest proposed addition (ACA 10) establishes a "fundamental human right" to housing. Opp Now sat down with a local real estate expert, housing provider, researcher, and urban policy analyst to parse ACA 10 for the Bay Area's housing market. A variety of exclusive perspectives below.
Read MoreContinuing an exclusive Opp Now series, constitutional law expert Dr. Margaret Russell parses CA'n Education Code provisions to answer a hot question about opt-out programs: Can parents opt their kids out of content they're morally opposed to, such as controversial sexuality-based lessons? Unlike CRI's Karen England, Russell concludes (below) that students can legally withdraw from “instruction in human development and sexuality” but not community-specific teachings.
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