By George Avalos in East Bay Times
May 2, 2016
More than one-third of Bay Area residents say they are ready to leave in the next few years, citing high housing costs and traffic as the region’s biggest problems, according to a poll released Monday.
Of the 1,000 people polled by the Bay Area Council, 34 percent said they are considering leaving. Those who have lived here five years or less are the most likely to want to leave.
Read more at East Bay Times
By Larry Salzman in The Orange County Register
April 22, 2016
It shouldn’t require a team of lawyers and tens of thousands of dollars in legal expenses just to replace an aging mobile home with a new, substantially identical one in a mobile home park. But that has become the reality for individuals with mobile homes on the California coast, where they must first get a permit from an aggressive and increasingly unlawful California Coastal Commission.
Among the victims are Eric Wills and his family, who have enjoyed the Capistrano Shores Mobile Home Park in San Clemente as a second home for more than a decade. It’s an enviable spot: They have an unobstructed ocean view and a beach that lies just beyond the seawall that protects theirs’ and their neighbors’ mobile homes. That seawall, protecting the mobile home park since 1960, has become a battlefield.
Read more at The Orange County Register
By John King in San Francisco Chronicle
May 1, 2016
Talk with anyone working to restore marshes and wetlands along San Francisco Bay, and they’ll say there’s no shortage of projects that are all but ready to go — except for the lack of funds.
If Measure AA passes on June 7, that job gets easier to the tune of roughly $25 million a year.
Read more at San Francisco Chronicle
By Steven Greenhut at reason.com
April 29, 2016
If there were 30 loaves of bread and 50 people who wanted them, you can guess what would happen. Prices for those loaves would rise, from, maybe, $2, to $3 or even $10, depending on how desperate people were to make sandwiches. Those prices wouldn’t fall until some buyers switched to tortillas or bakers started baking more bread.
That concept is so simple it’s almost embarrassing to point it out. Yet when policymakers talk about other products, they lose sight of these basics. The housing market jumps to mind. Prices throughout California are still going up. Affordability is down.
Read more at reason.com
By Orange County Register Editorial in The Orange County Register
April 29, 2016
Tax Day may have fallen on April 18 this year, but Americans had to work until April 24, on average, just to pay their federal, state and local taxes for the year according to the Tax Foundation, which calculates Tax Freedom Day each year. But Californians will not see their Tax Freedom Day until tomorrow, April 30, as the Golden State has one of the largest tax burdens in the nation.
It also has the most progressive income tax structure, with the top 1 percent of filers paying 45 percent of the state’s income taxes, and the top 20 percent, who earn at least $91,000, paying nearly 90 percent of the taxes, according to the Franchise Tax Board.
Read more at The Orange County Register
By Georiga Wells in The Wall Street Journal
April 28, 2016
A California state appeals court ordered a trial over the public’s right to access a beach by crossing venture capitalist Vinod Khosla’s multimillion-dollar property.
On Wednesday, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco said the trial will examine land-access activists’ claim that, under California law, if property is opened for public use, the land’s owners can’t suddenly close it to the public. In a 52-page ruling, the court said the activists had presented enough facts to allow a trial.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal
By Jon Ortiz in The Sacramento Bee
April 25, 2016
Last fall, more than $118,000 of designer furniture rolled into to a new downtown Sacramento high-rise office suite for Jerome Horton.
Then the chairman of the tax-collecting Board of Equalization, Horton had moved operations a few months earlier from the ninth floor of U.S. Bank Tower to its 21st floor. The new space offers a stunning view of the Statehouse and grounds out his office window, 300 feet above Capitol Mall. Some board staff privately call the office “Jerome’s aquarium” for its conference room’s floor-to-ceiling glass walls embossed with the agency’s seal.
Read more at The Sacramento Bee
By Eric Kurhi in The Mercury News
April 26, 2016
SAN JOSE — Santa Clara County supervisors aren’t yet ready to put a $750 million affordable housing bond measure on November’s ballot, but they were encouraged Tuesday by a consultant’s poll showing some support for the idea.
The poll, conducted by EMC Research, found that concerns among likely voters about housing have reached new highs and that a possible bond measure might get the two-thirds approval required. Housing was cited as a top-mentioned issue by 31 percent of those polled — above transportation, education and public safety concerns.
Read more in The Mercury News
By Rachel Swan at SF Gate
April 20, 2016
Oakland has a new solution for its affordability crisis: Beginning in September, the city will impose impact fees on new housing developments, adopting a mechanism that many Bay Area cities use to generate money for transportation, infrastructure and affordable housing.
“It’s long overdue,” said Councilman Dan Kalb, who supported the measure when it went before the City Council on Tuesday, prompting a debate that lasted well into the night. The council approved the fees by a 7-1 vote, with Councilwoman Desley Brooks dissenting.
Read more at SF Gate
By Greg Totten, Marc Klaas, Pat McGrath in Ventura County Star
April 23, 2016
“Serving Victims. Building Trust. Restoring Hope” — this was the official theme for the 2016 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, and it underscores the importance of establishing trust with victims. Each April, Crime Victims’ Rights Week brings attention to the plight of those falling prey to the insidious acts of criminals.
Unfortunately, while the rest of the country is reflecting on the challenges of victims, California’s governor is trying to strip away decades of victim protections with an initiative that threatens the rights of every California crime victim.
Read more in Ventura County Star