Posts Tagged: people

News

Making history: Our first online census

An illustration of the 2020 census in California. (Image: census.ca.gov)

Most of us are already doing a lot of business online, from ordering products to banking to even filing our taxes. Now we will be asked to do one more task over the Internet — fill out a U.S. census survey. The next census, the all-important survey conducted every 10 years and next scheduled in April 2020, will be the first to be conducted largely online. People who choose not to will be able to respond over the phone or by mail.

Opinion

An open letter to Gavin Newsom: Address California’s poverty

A pair of homeless men asking for money on a Los Angeles street corner. (Photo: Hayk_Shalunts, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: Dear Gov.-elect Newsom: California has long stood out as a state that innovates and leads. As you begin your term, we at the Western Center on Law and Poverty are ready to work with you to ensure that California lives up to its ideals — including addressing poverty and its subsequent harms.

News

California’s valley fever on the rise

Lab supervisor Marilyn Mitchell pulls samples during tests for Valley Fever at the Community Medical Center lab in Fresno. (Photo: Fresno Bee/Craig Kohlruss, 2014, via AP)

The first sign that Rob Purdie had valley fever was when he woke up one day with what felt like a hangover but he hadn’t taken a drink. He had a splitting headache that was so bad that he had to stay in dark room with the blinds drawn and his sunglasses on. He was eventually diagnosed with coccidioidomycosis meningitis, the most severe form of valley fever.

News

Think elections are controversial? Try the census

U.S Census workers transfer birth data to punched cards, ca. 1940. (Photo: Everett Historical, via Shutterstock)

The once-a-decade national census is still nearly two years away but it’s already generating heated discussion. Among the myriad concerns raised so far is that this survey will be the first conducted in part online. People are also expressing alarm over the inclusion of a new citizenship question, the wording for questions on race and ethnicity and the way prisoners are counted.

Opinion

Transportation planning: People first, not cars

A rush-hour traffic jam on the approach to the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. (Photo: Aaron Kohr)

OPINION: If you’ve ever sat in traffic crawling at 5 miles per hour or been late to an appointment because of inadequate public transportation, I don’t need to tell you that transportation represents a constant challenge in California. Too many of those problems stem from a planning process that has consistently failed to put people first. California can do better. And let’s not kid ourselves about which people are most likely to get left out of transportation planning decisions: Low-income communities of color.

Recent News

A Capitol holiday gift list

Santa's sleigh zips past the state Capitol.

The holiday season is now well under way. Christmas carols are taking over every extant means of mass communication and there’s so much goodwill around the squirrels in Capitol Park have quit chasing each other across the lawn. In the spirit of peace and love, then, we bring forth our First Annual Gift List for California political types.

Opinion

DACA is the Dreamers’ lifeline

Demonstrators protest the elimination of DACA at a September 2017 gathering at UC Berkeley. (Photo: Sheila Fitzgerald)

OPINION: Adriana and her six-year old daughter are like two peas in a pod, taking walks on the beach together, baking brownies, cuddling at home with a book, and occasionally splurging on a trip to Orange County’s Disneyland Resort. Arriving from Guatemala when she was five years old, Adriana has always lived here in Orange County.

News

GOP’s Chad Mayes: A warrior in an uphill battle

Assembly GOP Leader Chad Mayes of Yucca Valley, during an August 2016 floor session. (Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli)

Chad Mayes, the affable leader of Assembly Republicans, says he wakes up every morning thinking about the low state of his party in California. Mayes has plenty to ponder. Republicans have no statewide officeholders, a paltry 26 percent of registered voters (just a bit higher than the 24 percent who decline to state a party affiliation) and Mayes himself has to deal with a 25-55 Democratic supermajority in his Assembly.

News

Unprecedented highway money okayed — now what?

Motorists along the Ventura Freeway in Sherman Oaks. (Photo: Oscity, via Shutterstock)

A California transportation plan of historic proportions has been approved – but what happens next? First, is the 12-cent increase in the fuel tax, starting in November. Then, other taxes and fees will kick in to help finance the $52 billion package in Senate Bill 1, which includes $34 billion over the next 10 years for repair and maintenance of roads, highways, bridges and culverts.

Opinion

Needed: Good-time credits for lifers

Sunlight streams through the bars of a prison cell. (Photo: nobeastsofierce, via Shutterstock)

OPINION: Proposition 57’s 50 percent good time credit should be applied retroactively to all incarcerated people, including lifers who committed violent crimes. Contrary to popular fears, releasing reformed lifers may be the best thing we can do to reduce violent crime.

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