The California State Auditor has delivered a deeply critical report on San Jose's Housing Department (HD), finding that the HD "failed to adequately track $300 million in homelessness spending" (Merc headline).  But did the failures of San Jose's housing department start in 2020 or did they begin much earlier? We exclusively interview former San Jose council member and financial watchdog Johnny Khamis about his experiences with overt San Jose Housing Dept mismanagement during his years in office (2013 to 2020).

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While the CA16 voting drama plays out, local political watchers opine that perhaps California's voting protocols could use some updating. Lance Christensen VP of Education Policy and Gov't Affairs at California Policy Center and Brian Hoeltz of the Santa Clara County Libertarian Party, below. An Opp Now exclusive.

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Amid all the drama surrounding the second place tie in the CA16 primary congressional race--and political shenanigans informing calls for a recount--an important principle is being sidelined: what matters most is the accuracy of the vote--not achieving a preferred result.  The Opp Now team analyzes, in an exclusive. 

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Matt Mahan defeated Labor-backed Cindy Chavez in the SJ 2022 mayoral race--even though he was outspent substantially. And in this year's primary election, Labor didn't even mount a challenge to Mahan, who waltzed to an 86% victory.In this Opp Now exclusive, we asked local political watchers from across the political spectrum* why South Bay Labor has trouble competing in the bigger, most important South Bay races. Their answers (edited/consolidated below)  suggest the following conclusion: Labor's sharp turn to the left collides with the Valley's more moderate political demographics, and that severely limits Labor's political footprint. 

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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 her Top Five observations about Prop 19: how it works, who's impacted, and where she thinks we're headed.

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In light of Monday's antisemitic incident at San Jose State—and SJSU's official acknowledgment on 2.20—Opp Now called up three locals well-versed in issues of free speech and ideological discrimination in higher ed. Insightful comments below from Jay Sures (lone regent voice opposing UC faculty council's pro-Hamas letter), Elizabeth Weiss (whom SJSU tried silencing for her bone reburial views), and Tim Rosenberger, Jr. (then-president of a Stanford student group whose speaker was heckled by students/a dean). Also, Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) Bay Area weighs in. An Opp Now exclusive.

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It is very likely that CA voters will have the choice of repealing the Costa-Hawkins Act (which exempted certain properties from rent control) this November. Local housing provider Dean Hotop takes the 30,000-foot view, and teases out the core legal and civic issues at play. An Opp Now exclusive.

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Downtown SJ has gone through its ups and downs over the decades. But most recently, the developments that have delivered the best business—and community—benefits have not been big, disruptive ideas. Former D3 Council candidate, and current head of the local Independent Leadership Group and United Housing Alliance, Irene Smith takes a look at the latest bright, shiny idea for downtown—electronic billboards—and finds that they're not right for San Jose. From Medium.

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For this installment, Opp Now visited the office hours of three econ professor–researchers (San Jose State dept chair Matthew Holian and prof Tom Means, and Stanford prof Alvin Roth) with one big question: What books could yield the most acumen for folks digging into economics, whether as novices or savants or somewhere in between? An Opp Now exclusive.

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Recent media coverage of BART to SJ's wild cost overruns--and opposition from leading pols--has BART advocates scrambling for a convenient excuse. Here's what BART fans have come up with: the problem, they say, is that we're just not building it fast enough. Brian Holtz, an officer of the SCC Libertarian Party, takes a critical look at VTA's business logic, and finds their "build-now" thesis spurious. An Opp Now exclusive. 

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It's 2024: you're back in Econ 101, but this time, you're much more invested in both the “Required Texts” and “Additional Reading” lists. Below, economics professors at San Jose State, Foothill College, UC Berkeley, and Santa Clara University share their go-to texts that are informative, approachable, and, yep, just plain fun (did you know game theory intimately affects local politics?). An Opp Now exclusive.

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