Californians tend to be credit card debt-laden and don’t seem to mind adding more debt to their monthly financial commitments. That may be why they, as voters, do not flinch when Sacramento legislators put bond measures on the ballot. These propositions usually receive enough votes to succeed and permit the state to borrow more money....
Demisemiseptcentennial. Try saying that several times fast. On Sept. 9, we celebrate 174 years since California was admitted to the United States and prepare for its 175th anniversary—or demisemiseptcentennial—in 2025. Despite its over-the-top and often messy politics, I dig its good vibrations. There’s something mystical and magnetic about California. It’s the Olympus of America and...
The many California agencies that have placed new taxes on the November ballot owe it to their residents and businesses to wean their organizations from reliance on serial tax increases to remain afloat. It’s disconcerting that such a clearly unsustainable strategy has become the go-to solution for so many municipal leaders. The problem is that...
As spectator sports go, November’s ballot propositions have everything – drama, intrigue, the manipulation of language. But for California, this is no mere entertainment: the stakes are very high, indeed. The ballot includes 10 important propositions, few of which are likely to be the source of more smoke, light and heat than Proposition 36, which...
The state is spending billions on water-rationing and tens of billions on a giant tunnel even though far better measures exist to keep faucets flowing. Chronic water scarcity in California is indeed the new normal, but it’s not because of climate change. Even if the state is destined to experience lengthier droughts and reduced snowpack,...
Last October, California’s State Auditor took down a dashboard that had been tracking the financial health of high-risk cities in California since 2019. Just another loss for transparency in the Golden State. Providing important public data and key financial metrics for over 470 California cities, the dashboard was an essential tool for holding local governments accountable for...
Probably the most consequential and controversial water policy decisions in California involve how much water to pump out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and into southbound aqueducts, and we’re in the middle of another one right now. For the last several years, as summer turns to fall, state and federal regulators reduce the amount of...
But delivering the electricity it generates is the next big challenge. California’s official policy to combat climate change is to achieve “carbon neutrality” by 2045. There are many ways to get from here to there. As the state legislature and agencies navigate these options, they should take into account a few cautionary statistics. California currently consumes...
In 2018, Daryn Coleman and his wife invested their life savings into launching Ghost Golf, an indoor miniature golf venue. But, in 2020, their California business was shut down for more than a year due to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide business shutdown orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the governor’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy,”...
Nearly every analysis of energy policy in California, to the extent it delves into the numbers, tends to focus on one variable, CO2. But if you’re just trying to figure out how much energy we use today, where it’s coming from, and where we intend to source the clean energy of tomorrow, data on CO2...
Last week we examined California’s plans to install between 2,500 and 10,000 floating offshore wind turbines approximately 20 miles off the coast of San Luis Obispo and Humboldt counties. The estimated cost to install 25 gigawatts of capacity, which equates to 10 gigawatts of steady power if adequate storage assets are available, is at least...
There are several reasons for someone to run for public office. My journey set its own course, thanks to the nature of my previous occupation. As a certified public accountant, I would be asked to serve on nonprofit boards and invariably become the organization’s treasurer. So when I was asked to run for county treasurer,...
In an unlikely victory against government excess in the ultra-liberal Bay Area, a regional housing authority has decided to remove a $20 billion housing bond from the November ballot. If successful, Regional Measure 4 (RM4) would have been the largest local government bond initiative in American history. Led by the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority...
Bakersfield’s first charter school opened its doors to hundreds of students last week in a victory for students and parents. The local teachers union brought in the big guns to fight against the charter — 94-year-old Dolores Huerta herself. Thankfully, Huerta lost. There are nine charter schools spread throughout the most remote parts of Kern...