Opinion
OPINION: The recent flurry of stories about small business woes often miss an important part of the picture: Small businesses’ role in helping fund government’s important responsibilities. Consider the City of Placerville. Located in El Dorado County with the original colorful Gold Rush era monikers, the sometimes controversial Hangtown and the more staid Dry Diggings, the city is a tourist draw housing a number of buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.
Opinion
OPINION: In anticipation of a forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine, lawmakers in California must extend the authority of pharmacists to administer all vaccines approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Opinion
OPINION: California government agencies have focused on reducing traffic congestion when looking at the pollution impacts caused by new development and transportation projects. The result has been a lot of bad decisions that, taken together, have led to longer commutes, urban sprawl, and a failure to invest sufficiently in public transit, bike lanes, and pedestrian pathways.
Opinion
OPINION: The economic and health-related impacts of COVID-19 have perpetuated feelings of uncertainty, anxiousness and loneliness across a broad swath of California’s population. A third of Americans are experiencing these emotions, according to a recent Census Bureau survey, and that’s concerning because stressors can trigger or re-ignite more severe mental health issues.
Opinion
OPINION: Last week, I started as the vice president of Redistricting Partners, a Sacramento-based firm known for its advocacy before the California Redistricting Commission and work doing voting rights analysis and redistricting for local governments. As I take this leap, I am constantly thinking about one person, Congressman Darrel Issa, and the story that for me really crystalizes the importance of the redistricting process.
Opinion
OPINION: Earlier this month, the nation’s largest system of higher education, the California Community Colleges, reported that it had met a key goal of increasing by 20 percent the number of students who earn college credentials. While this is impressive, there is more work ahead to meet the remaining goals that are focused on closing achievement gaps for students of color and for students living in poorer regions of the state.
Opinion
OPINION: While we still do not know how all those impacts are going to affect us going forward, one thing we know won’t change is the need for housing in this state. While the housing market has slowed dramatically as Californians observe the state’s stay-at-home order, it will come to the fore again in our “new normal.”
Opinion
OPINION: Faced with the enormity of an economic fallout and public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 crisis, California must manage an unprecedented budget deficit, unemployment that rivals the Great Depression, and rising poverty. With mandated school closures across our state, the response by school districts has been swift and impactful, stepping up to provide free emergency meals despite increased costs and losses of traditional sources of revenue.
Opinion
OPINION: As a state, we are fighting this pandemic with a hand and a foot tied behind our backs. Decades of disinvestment in public health infrastructure has weakened our public health system, making this crisis even worse.
Opinion
As many Californians struggle with the effects of COVID-19, what this pandemic means for human trafficking victims is their abusers have yet another way to coerce and exploit. Before COVID-19, victims already faced extreme barriers to safety, health services, and employment; now, they are vulnerable to even greater unrelenting abuse.
Downtown Placerville, Calif. (Photo: Laurens Hoddenbagh, via Shutterstock)
