By Mike Eiman in The Sentinel
July 9, 2016
Kings County District Attorney Keith Fagundes is urging citizens to read up before voting on an upcoming ballot measure that could spell early releases for an untold number of prison inmates.
Proposition 57, also known as “The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016,” qualified for the Nov. 8 ballot last week. The initiative proposes an amendment to the state constitution that would do the following:
Read more at The Sentinel
By Darrell Smith in The Sacramento Bee
July 7, 2016
A new Yolo County District Attorney’s Office website lists the names of inmates released early on parole, joining Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office in publicly releasing parolees’ names.
Yolo officials tout the site launched this week as a community service, informing Yolo County residents of designated nonviolent second strike offenders sentenced in Yolo County and released early from California prisons.
Read more at The Sacramento Bee
By Daniel Borenstein in East Bay Times
July 7, 2016
When BART officials rolled out their $3.5 billion bond measure planned for the November ballot, they said repayment would cost the average homeowner about $35 to $55 annually for 30 years.
In fact, the average annual property tax for a home would be roughly twice that. And it would last for 48 years, according to BART’s own projections.
Read more at East Bay Times
By Jon Fleischman in California Political Review
July 8, 2016
Just a week ago, California Attorney General Kamala Harris released an alarming report detailing how violent crime in California is on the rise, increasing 10% over the last year.
Violent crimes were up last year by about 15,000 to a high of 166,588. Homicides went up 9.7 percent, robberies 8.5 percent, aggravated assaults 8 percent. Rapes increased 36 percent!
Read more at California Political Review
By Christopher Cadelago in The Sacramento Bee
July 1, 2016
California violent crime increased 10 percent last year, the first rise since 2012, according to a report Friday from Attorney General Kamala Harris.
The number of violent crimes reached 166,588 in 2015, about 15,000 more than the previous year. Aside from the small uptick four years ago, and a few earlier blips, violent crime has been on a steady decrease over the last two decades.
By David Siders in The Sacramento Bee
June 30, 2016
Gov. Jerry Brown’s constitutional amendment to make some nonviolent felons eligible for early parole qualified for the November ballot on Thursday – the statutory deadline – after a harried signature-gathering effort and intervention from the California Supreme Court.
The measure’s qualification, the 15th for the fall ballot, followed a Supreme Court ruling earlier this month overturning a bid to block the measure on procedural grounds.
By Patrick Tyrrell at The Daily Signal
June 28, 2016
A recent report out of Harvard University has found the number of struggling household renters at an all-time high. A table in the appendix of the report shows that almost half (49.3 percent) of renters in 2014 spent at least 30 percent of their household income on housing costs.
Why are so many spending so much?
Read more at The Daily Signal
By Susan Shelley at California Political Review
June 25, 2016
From 2011 through the first quarter of 2014, more building permits for single-family homes were issued in the city of Houston than in the entire state of California.
That might be one reason that in April, the median selling price of a single-family home in Houston was $217,000 while in California it was $509,100.
Read more at California Political Review
By Jon Coupal at The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
June 26, 2016
In Chicago, escalating property taxes are headline news. With the average property tax bill due to go up by 13 percent – and more increases in subsequent years virtually guaranteed – home ownership in the Windy City is in deep peril. No one seems happy except the moving companies.
This drastic tax increase is the result of bad decisions by corrupt officials who have caved to city employee pension demands that are unsustainable without massive borrowing. And that borrowing will be paid for by massive property tax hikes. But if homeowners are considering fleeing exorbitant taxation, they may have to travel a good distance. Illinois residents, even without the Chicago pension tax, are already paying the highest effective property tax rate in the nation at 2.67 percent, according to a recent study by CoreLogic, an Irvine, California-based provider of data to the financial and real estate industries.
Read more at The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
By Johnathan Lansher in The Orange County Register
June 26, 2016
Nicholas Dunlap is at the heart of the Southern California housing crunch.
In his day job, as president of the Apartment Association of Orange County, Dunlap helps the trade group perform the tricky dance of keeping property owners profitable while creating and maintaining an adequate supply of rental housing.
Read more at The Orange County Register