The very high cost of Project Homekey
Project Homekey, the successor program to the Project Roomkey hotel-homeless-housing effort, is going to cost taxpayers a lot of money, and according to state law, there’s not a thing you can do about it. The state law is Assembly Bill 83. Signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on June 30, AB83 was first introduced as a […]
Sacramento’s misguided attacks on single-family housing
“Honest question,” a housing activist wrote to me on Twitter, “since you mention the ‘impacts to all’ of housing policy, what do you say to someone who wants to live in Pasadena but can’t afford $875K to live here (or $3K/month in rent)?” The topic of discussion was Senate Bill 1120, a housing bill that […]
California’s homelessness crisis is about to get real
The homelessness crisis is about to get real. Up until now, the crisis that has been termed “homelessness” has been made up of a significant, if disputed, percentage of problems that can’t be fixed with housing alone. Billions of dollars have been thrown at non-solutions such as “supportive housing” that costs up to $700,000 per […]
The hubris of the teachers’ unions could backfire
The definition of “hubris” is foolish excessive pride, arrogant overconfidence. In a related story, California teachers’ unions won a victory when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a budget trailer bill that bases school funding levels for the new school year on the attendance in the previous school year. This cheats growing charter schools, often non-union, of […]
Keep John Wayne
The Democratic Party of Orange County passed a resolution calling John Wayne a “racist symbol,” which is preposterous. John Wayne is a symbol of many things, but racism isn’t one of them. That’s not to deny that the actor held views or made comments that today are rightly regarded as racist. It’s only to point […]
California’s Restaurant Industry Slowly Being Suffocated by Overregulation
It was the fourth week of the shelter-in-place order that finished off a Sonoma County restaurant called Bistro 29. “I’m just officially done,” said owner Brian Anderson, who along with his wife had spent years building the business. Anderson had battled the local government’s parking policies and problems caused by the city’s homeless population. More […]
Big Tech Surveillance and Our Privacy
Everyone seems anxious to help out during the coronavirus pandemic. Google, for example, has created online reports in 131 countries to help governments find out where people have been. The company says the published information will not include any personally identifiable information, such as the location, contacts and movements of any single person. Google will […]
Intrusions on Our Liberties Cannot End Soon Enough
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had a message for people who gathered in groups over the weekend at beaches and parks. “We know who you are,” he said. What? What does that mean? Is the city conducting surveillance of residents by capturing the location data from cell phones? Is the mayor demanding records from phone […]
Jerry Brown’s quixotic quest to save the world
Former California Gov. Jerry Brown was in Washington a couple of weeks ago to testify to the House Oversight Committee that Republicans are “flat Earth” science deniers who don’t understand the “life-and-death” stakes of California’s effort to require automakers to increase the average mileage of the vehicles they sell from 37 miles per gallon in […]
No wonder good people don’t run for office in California
At the very beginning, I said I was going to make them do this in full view of the public. They’re doing it, and I am making it fully public. The California Fair Political Practices Commission is proposing to fine me $12,500 for late filing of campaign finance reports during a 90-day period in 2013, […]