Image by zimmytwsOPINION – Housing is the solution to homelessness. This year housing is on the ballot in California and voters have a chance to be part of this solution by voting yes on Proposition 5.
Image by udra11 via shutterstockCalifornia governments up and down the state spend millions in taxpayer dollars to lobby government officials in Sacramento.
The scene at the Last Kind Words Saloon in Furnace Creek, in Death Valley. (Photo: Thomas Trumpeter, via Shutterstock)Jerry Brown said the bill would cause “mayhem” and vetoed it, now its author has another plan to extend bar closing hours from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. – this time limiting it to cities that already want it. “There is no mayhem,” Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said of Brown’s memorable phrase. “That was our grumpy governor. And I love him to death, but he was wrong about this.”
A homeless man asleep on the street in San Francisco. (Photo: Izzy Bouchard, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Nearly 5,000 unhoused Californians died in 2021, many of them drawing their last breaths alone on our streets. California, which boasts the fifth largest economy in the world, cannot continue to let our neighbors die in public; it’s time for something different.
A map illustration of some cities, counties in California. (Photo: Kent Weakley, via Shutterstock)“Why is this so hard?” That’s what Matt Rexroad, owner of Redistricting Insights, tweeted repeatedly when he saw news that downtown Sacramento City Councilmember Katie Valenzuela faced a recall from residents of the uptown neighborhoods in East Sacramento. The problem: It wouldn’t be a legal recall. But confusion over that fact seemed to drag on for weeks.
An illustration of a voter making choices online, as opposed to a traditional ballot or petition. (Image: Marko Aliaksandr, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Most everyone has had the experience of being approached by someone outside a library, grocery store or entertainment venue carrying a clipboard, asking you to sign their petition for some issue they want on the ballot. Many of us have had someone come to our door asking us to sign a petition to get their favorite candidate on the ballot.
A crowd at the Santa Monica pier during the height of the pandemic. Some people wear masks, some don't.(Photo: Hanson L, via Shutterstock)To mask or not to mask? That is the question — and there are a lot of answers. California on March 1 lifted its rule requiring unvaccinated people to wear masks in most indoor settings, but still strongly recommended that everyone wear masks indoors while in public. After fully two years of self-imposed isolation and masking, many people were delighted with the move.
Prison inmates at a California institution, many of whom were "realigned" to counties' custody.(Photo: Pubic Policy Institute of California)In 2019, California outlawed private prisons. By the time the ban went live in January 2020, the world’s biggest private prison contractor, the Florida-based GEO Group, lost $223 million in contracts with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
A young inmate is escorted through a detention facility. (Photo: Thomas Andre Fure, via Shuterstock)California sought to reform its juvenile justice system by housing young people closer to their communities in facilities that are intended to replace the youth prisons run by the Department of Juvenile Justice. If Los Angeles County’s experience is any indication, making that shift is more difficult than expected.
Metal scrap awaiting recycling. (Photo: TonelsonProductions, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The state is at it again. This time, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is attempting, in an end-run around the normal regulatory process, to impose “emergency” harsh and unjustified new rules on the metal-recycling industry — the one aspect of California’s troubled recycling sector that is still going strong. Why? Because they believe they can, I guess.