By Jon Coupal at Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

January 24, 2016

Notwithstanding California’s leftward drift, Prop 13 remains remarkably popular. Indeed, polling suggests that if Prop 13 were on the ballot today, it would pass by about the same two-thirds margin that it did in 1978. But the enduring embrace of this landmark measure by California homeowners is a huge irritant to those who want ever more taxpayer dollars.

For 37 years, detractors have made a parlor game of criticizing Prop 13. Our favorite is blaming Prop 13 for the acquittal of O.J. Simpson. The latest salvo is that Prop 13 is to blame, at least in part, for California’s housing crisis.

Read more at Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

By Ivan Penn in the Los Angeles Times

January 20, 2016

Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric are pushing back against a regulator proposal for new rules on compensating California homeowners and businesses for the solar power they produce.

The three investor-owned utilities have united in an unusual counterproposal that would be less generous to solar-panel owners than the plan that the California Public Utilities Commission is set to vote on next week.

The utilities maintain that electricity customers will continue to shoulder an undue financial burden if the PUC approves the proposed new rules on the compensation system, known as net-energy metering. In regulatory filings and a news release, Edison said the utilities see the need for “a more sustainable future for all customers,” not just those with solar.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times

By Elliot Spagat in The Sacramento Bee

January 20, 2016

SAN DIEGO 

By Roland Li in the San Francisco Business Times

January 21, 2016

On a rainy night last Thursday, a group of prominent real estate developers gathered to speak at the City Club of San Francisco in the North Financial District.

Developer Oz Erickson, chairman of the Emerald Fund, had some good news and some bad news for the real estate crowd. The good news was that Erickson’s 400-unit project in Mid-Market, 100 Van Ness, was fully leased.

Read more at the San Francisco Business Times

By Jon Coupal at California Political Review

January 19, 2016

Armed with a clipboard and a smile, they stand on the sidewalk in front of popular stores and public buildings. “Want to support schools?” or “Do you want to end poverty?” they call out to passersby. Those who respond positively are asked to sign a petition to place a measure to accomplish the stated goal on the ballot.

These are signature gathers, usually paid by the interests advancing the initiative they tout. They are not obligated to fully explain who would actually benefit from the passage of measure which, more times than not, is the sponsor of the initiative. And they do not have to volunteer if the initiative would raise taxes. In fact, for tax increase measures, saying that the proposal would hike taxes is likely the last thing they would admit.

Read more at California Political Review

By Denis Cuff in the Contra Costa Times

January 8, 2016

A California lawmaker is dramatically raising the stakes in water management, proposing fines that could reach thousands of dollars a day and public shaming of people who use too much.

Legislation introduced this week would require the state’s 411 urban water districts to set local limits on household water consumption during drought emergencies.

Violators would be fined at least $500 for every 748 gallons of excess use.

An Alamo house identified last month as using more than 11,200 gallons per day would be assessed $6,800 a day in fines, or more than $200,000 a month, under the penalties called for in the bill.

Read more at the Contra Costa Times

By Dan Walters in The Sacramento Bee

January 16, 2016

It’s time once again for some fun with numbers, in this case the data on California’s serious – and worsening – housing crisis.

Since 2010, the state’s population has risen by 1.8 million to 39 million human beings who live – most of them, anyway – in 14 million units of housing of all types.

That translates into an average of 2.78 persons per dwelling, implying that since 2010, we’ve needed about 650,000 new units to keep pace with population growth, or about 130,000 a year.

However, the Great Recession clobbered housing construction, which fell to as low as 44,000 units in 2010 and has averaged only 70,000 a year during the decade so far, half the demand.

Read more at The Sacramento Bee

By John King in the SF Gate

January 14, 2016

It’s not the ban on market-rate housing sought by some Mission District activists last year at the ballot box, but San Francisco’s Planning Commission on Thursday approved interim controls that will require some developers to provide information on how their proposed projects might affect the larger neighborhood’s economic diversity.

The new controls would be applied to any project that includes 25 or more units unless at least one-third of those apartments or condominiums are reserved for low-income residents. The controls would also cover any project — no matter the size — that removes one or more rent-controlled units from the city’s housing stock.

Read more at the SF Gate

By Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times

January 15, 2016

John Duarte is a fourth-generation California farmer. Just outside Modesto, his family owns one of the biggest agricultural nurseries in the country.

Duarte Nursery is famous for its grapevines, and its almond, walnut and pistachio root stock. The family also cultivates vineyards and orchards. In all, it’s a $50-million-a-year concern.

Which is why Duarte is able to finance his million-dollar legal fight with the federal government, a fight where the government will almost certainly find itself on the losing side.

The trouble started in 2012. That’s when Duarte, 49, hired a guy to plow 450 acres that he’d purchased here in Tehama County, about two hours north of Sacramento.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times

By Paul Rogers in the San Jose Mercury News

January 13, 2016

In a milestone for San Francisco Bay restoration that also raises questions about who should pay to protect property from rising seas caused by climate change, a low-profile government agency is expected to place a $12 annual parcel tax on the June ballot in all nine Bay Area counties.

The measure, whose campaign is being bankrolled by Silicon Valley business leaders and Bay Area environmental groups, is believed to be the first local tax ever placed before voters in all nine Bay Area counties.

If approved by two-thirds of voters, the tax would raise $500 million over the next 20 years to build levees and restore thousands of acres of wetlands and tidal marshes as a buffer to storm surges and floods in every Bay Area county.

Read more at the San Jose Mercury News