As Californians consider hundreds of local ballot measures, they hear (and mostly believe) an underlying narrative: elected officials and staff are doing their best to provide essential services with insufficient resources. It is this narrative that not only entreats for "yes" votes on local taxes and bonds, but also for state Proposition 5, which will make it much easier for cities and counties to borrow. But is this narrative true? An Opp Now exclusive from Cato Institute's Marc Joffe.

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Pat Waite of Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility says decreased population, fleeing young families, and our county’s already chart-topping tax rates make the wave of school bond propositions coming at us this November a bad idea. An Opp Now exclusive.

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Proposition 5 will blow a massive hole in Prop 13 and Prop 218 protections, said Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers' Mimi Willard to North Bay residents this summer. She warned that cutting voters’ threshold from two-thirds to 55% to pass housing and infrastructure bonds would trigger a tidal wave of tax hikes, with nothing to stop them except, perhaps, voter fatigue. Prop 5 could also let Fairfax property owners get slammed with a 30-year road bond. Will Sherman reports in this Opp Now exclusive.

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Says past Palo Alto mayor Lydia Kou: Sacramento completely failed at promoting housing production, yet still wants cities to comply with the “un-compliable” Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA). In Part 2 of this Opp Now exclusive, Kou explains how cities that fail to meet the RHNA cycle midpoint quota by 2026 will lose control of the approvals process. Expensive, lousy projects will fall short of RHNA but still plague midpen neighborhoods with traffic congestion, environmental havoc, and an unraveling of the social fabric.

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According to former Palo Alto mayor Lydia Kou, it’s not only arrogance and sloppy math that undid RM4, the $20 billion housing bond that got unceremoniously yanked off the November ballot at the eleventh hour. In Part 1 of this Opp Now exclusive, Kou argues that the measure’s failure can be traced back to an impossible housing needs assessment figure, which was pushed through with little to no public input.

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Roberta Moore of San Jose's Housing and Community Development Commission (HCDC) chimes in on the City's proposed Seismic Retrofit ordinance, which is intended to keep our buildings structurally safe but—she says—could reap disastrous consequences for property owners, while failing to protect San Jose's most vulnerable properties. An Opp Now exclusive.

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According to SiliconValley.com, the city is considering an incentive plan that will waive business taxes and parking requirements for downtown businesses that purchase or lease office spaces downtown of over 1,000 sq ft. Former SJ CM and local business leader Johnny Khamis hopes it's the start of a new era of biz-friendly policies at 4th and East Santa Clara. An Opp Now exclusive.

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On his way to Milpitas last week for a meet-and-greet, presidential hopeful Chase Oliver—dubbed by the Rolling Stone as the “most influential Libertarian in America”—chatted with Opp Now's managing editor Lauren Oliver about some of Bay Area voters' biggest issues. The conversation, a special Opp Now exclusive, reads in its entirety below. (Psst: Stick around to the end for Oliver's #1 pick for your Libertarian reading list.)

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Just like that, it's fall. Fog-sky lingers past noon, school traffic wakes us in the morning, whiffs of smoke waft from fires somewhere. Peter Coe Verbica checks in with three haikus for the season in this Opp Now exclusive.

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Noted linguist Dr. Alan Perlman notes that euphemisms—the sometimes awkward efforts to rename people and ideas to avoid unwanted connotations—can end up obscuring more than they illuminate. He takes a look at County Supe Ellenberg's latest use of the gauzy "justice-involved" word-choice to describe people slotted for her widely-panned "jail-diversion" site in South San Jose. An Opp Now exclusive.

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Proposition 5 undermines protection against runaway taxes, said Gilroy Mayor Marie Blankley, who cast the tie-breaking vote last week at the Gilroy City Council meeting to oppose Prop 5. Blankley said that Prop 5, which aims to reduce voter approval from two-thirds to 55%, would inflict hardship on working families. In a divided vote, the SJ City Council previously endorsed Prop 5, with CMs Doan and Batra voting "no." An Opp Now exclusive.

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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 what she sees as the devastating fallout from rushed implementation, and asks, “Can’t we do better?”

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