Fox and Hounds Daily Says Goodbye
With this article, we end publication of Fox and Hounds Daily. It has been a satisfying 12½ year run. When we opened in May 2008, our site was designed to offer an opportunity to those who wished to engage in public debate on many issues, especially in politics and business, but found it difficult to get placed in newspaper op-ed pages.
Co-publishers Tom Ross, Bryan Merica and I have kept F&H going over this time investing our own time, funding, and staff help. Last year at this time we considered closing the site, however with an election on the horizon we decided to keep F&H going through the election year. With the election come and gone, and with no sense of additional resources, we have decided to close the site down.
Fox and Hounds will live on, at least, with my articles collected in the California State Library.
On a personal note, I have spent over 40 years in California policy and politics. There have been some incredible high moments and some difficult low points. It pains me that politics too often is a blood sport, frequently demonizing the motives of opponents and using the legal system as a weapon in public discourse. At Fox & Hounds, we tried to adhere to the practice of giving all a voice in the debate, yet keep the commentaries civil and avoided personal attacks.
F&H offered the opportunity to publish different perspectives (even ones that criticized my writings!). We had success as indicated by the Washington Post twice citing Fox and Hounds Daily one of the best California political websites and many other positive affirmations and comments received over the years.
Tom, Bryan and I want to thank our many readers and writers for being part of our journey. The publishers of Fox and Hounds Daily believe that we added value to California and its people. We hope you agree.
Boeing Provides a Spark to the Economy
A job is like a fire, providing energy, light, heat and sustenance to the life of the person who holds the flame. It illuminates the vision ahead to see a brighter future of caring for oneself and our families. Last week, the Los Angeles region received the promise of many more lights with The Boeing Co.’s announcement that it would soon be moving 1,000 high paying skilled engineering jobs to our communities.
“The Company’s announcement … indicates that much of the work on next-generation aircraft will transition from Washington state to California by the end of 2015,” stated the Los Angeles Times. This could be the start of reversing the trend we have seen over the last 20-plus years in the aerospace industry in California.
Governor Brown Unveils His Rainy Day Reserve – A Reform That Fits The Times
Governor Brown was in office when the first state spending limit was passed in 1979. Yesterday he proposed a measure that might actually work as advertised.
We’ve learned a lot about state budgets, revenues and unintended consequences during the past 35 years. Governor’s Brown’s rainy day reserve nods to that experience, and brings forth a proposal more focused yet more achievable than past efforts.
Reformers have been at this a long time.
Prop 13 Poll Question Not About Split Roll
Advocates for a split roll property tax probably hailed the results of the Field Poll question about business property changing ownership. Trouble is, the question wasn’t about a split roll property tax in which all business property would be taxed differently from residential property. The question was about certain commercial property transfers of ownership.
Here is the question asked by Field: Because of complexities in the way businesses and commercial properties are sold, they, unlike residential properties, are not always reassessed when ownership is transferred. Do you favor or oppose changing Prop. 13 to insure that when business and commercial properties are sold or transferred, their property taxes are reset and based on their current assessed value?
The Governor Should Move to the Delta
When you’re faced with two different thorny problems, sometimes the best way to make progress is by combining them. I’m talking to you, Jerry Brown.
Your first problem involves water. Residents of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta—California’s most vital estuary and source of water—fiercely oppose Brown’s plan to build tunnels that will divert water from north of the Delta to provide more reliable supplies to San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California. Their opposition is based on fear. In the short term, they fear construction of the tunnels will disrupt their lives. In the long term, they fear that the tunnels, by allowing other parts of the state to bypass the Delta, will lead Californians to forget the Delta. A forgotten Delta, they fear, will slowly die under the stresses of climate, habitat loss, and encroaching salt water from the San Francisco Bay.
San Jose’s Public Safety Pensions – Reduce Now or Slash Later
“Once people get the facts, they do not support slashing people’s pensions.” – Dave Low, chairman, Californians for Retirement Security (Washington Post, February 25, 2014)
Really?
Making sure “people get the facts” is difficult when most “facts” the public sees are promulgated to the media by pension fund PR departments eager to preserve the torrent of taxpayers money flowing into their favored investment firms, along with PR firms representing taxpayer-funded public sector unions whose primary reason to exist is to increase the wages and benefits of their members.
Keeping Our Government in the Open
On many levels, the advent of the Internet fundamentally transformed our society, giving us access to information literally at our fingertips.
Without question, it offers a lot of good. But it also exposes our personal information in ways that decades ago would have been unimaginable. Little did we know that what we would have to worry about would be our own government spying on us as we surf the net.
Like many Californians, I have been troubled by revelations over the last year of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) activities online. With a recent report now alleging that the NSA posed as Facebook in order to contaminate computers with malware, it is just one more misstep eroding confidence in our government.