High-cables connected to a server. (Photo: Everything You Need, via Shutterstock)OPINION: With explosive wildfires once again raging across California, public safety must be paramount as legislators take final action on bills. Action is needed now to ensure that Governor Newsom’s $6 billion broadband plan enacted in July protects all Californians no matter which provider or network delivers their communications service.
An illustration of high-speed broadband connections serving a city. (Image: kkssr, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The gaps between the connected and unconnected have never been clearer as California continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of access to online classes, employment opportunities and telehealth visits became more apparent when COVID-19 shut down our state.
A curved pedestrian footpath and open space adjacent to housing units. (Photo: Tarnet VIC 3029, via Shutterstock)OPINION: But not everyone in California has a neighborhood with safe places to walk or a park around the corner. There are deep inequities in access to nature in our country – a fact that has become even more glaringly obvious during the pandemic.
A young girl in Oakland, a key member of a community targeted for health inequities. (Photo: Roots Community Health Center)OPINION: Much attention has been focused on the barriers and challenges to accessing health care, highlighted by a pandemic that disproportionately harms Black, Latinx, Asian American Pacific Islander, and Indigenous communities. Barriers to technology or lack of broadband impeded access to MyTurn and other scheduling tools. Barriers to transportation made it impossible or difficult for folks to access mega-sites and wait in hours long lines for the vaccine.
Graduation ceremonies, pre-pandemic, at Santa Monica City College. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us the hard way that too many Californians face barriers to opportunity. As California looks to recover, it’s time to reexamine our old institutions and programs to determine if they meet today’s needs and serve residents as intended. One such program in need of reform is the Cal Grant system.
A computer user searches for housing using bro0adband. (Photo: Tada Images. via Shutterstock)OPINION: Even as the internet has kept us connected – there is more work to do to close the digital divide – especially for rural and low-income families. During this time of great disruption to our daily lives and dramatic shifts in behavior, our state’s broadband networks rose to the challenge despite unprecedented demand and network traffic.
Sunbathers in San Francisco's Dolores Park during the pandemic. (Photo: eddie-hernandez.com, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Latinos have long-been committed to protecting public lands and rivers. Yet, California Latinos are almost twice as likely to live somewhere that is “nature deprived” than white communities, meaning there are far fewer parks, streams, beaches, and other natural places nearby.
The state Capitol's East Annex. (Photo: State Department of General Services)A fight is brewing in the Capitol – about the Capitol. It’s all about plans to build a new Visitors Center beneath the domed West Wing and demolish the 68-year-old East Annex, replacing it with one of three proposed buildings.
Stem cell research using what's known as a PCR strip. (Image: Science Photo via Shutterstock) California’s ambitious stem cell agency has launched itself on a new, $5.5 billion journey, approving a plan to hand out $182 million to researchers by the middle of next year and beefing up its efforts to bring equality to therapies and scientific labs.
This week we posted four special editions of the Capitol Weekly Podcast, broadcasting the content from our September 17 conference on health care in the Golden State. We focused this year on the unprecedented public health emergency: COVID-19. Exactly six months and one day after the first Shelter-in-Place order, we examined the response to the crisis and looked at what comes next.