Guest Commentary

Re “‘Tax exhaustion’ may be on the horizon,” Dan Walters, Dec. 9, 2019. Conflating Marin and Los Angeles parcel tax defeats misses the billion-dollar elephant in the room.    In the four highest cost counties in California—Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara—well over half a billion dollars of property tax, collected for and allocated […]

Re “Spending California’s surplus, how lobbying affected one consumer protection bill, and what came of Schwarzenegger’s Million Solar Roof goal,” WhatMatters, Dec. 10. It really upset me to see the reporting on Assemblyman Phil Ting’s proposal to use California’s budget surplus to throw more money at undocumented immigrants. Although a noble and generous gesture, I […]

Nat Kreamer and Mark Ferron, Advanced Energy Economy: More than half a million Californians work in the advanced energy industry, which makes the products and services required to power economies with 100% clean, reliable, safe electricity. Partnering with this industry will provide Gov. Newsom and his team expertise and resources to help solve California’s wildfire and blackout crisis.

an Smutny-Jones, Independent Energy Producers Association: It is understandable why lawmakers are angry about PG&E’s failure to invest properly in its infrastructure as local communities have suffered greatly from power shutoffs and wildfires. It is wrong, however, to blame California’s world-leading renewable energy policies.

Dr. John Maa, San Francisco surgeon: An entire generation of youth has been exposed to the dangers of a lifetime of nicotine addiction by Juul’s actions. As California is home to Juul, we have a special obligation to take the lead in ending this epidemic.

Laura Holmes Haddad, cancer-patient advocate, speaker and author: I was 37 years old, and the mother of two children ages 1 and 4, when I was diagnosed with Stage IV inflammatory breast cancer. It is a rare, aggressive form of breast cancer that attacks the lymphatic system around the breast. A clinical trial saved my life. So why aren’t more cancer patients enrolling?

Jeffrey Mount, PPIC Water Policy Center: The federal endangered species act protection is often used as a proxy for protecting the environment, something the act are not intended to do. Here’s why we need a better tool.

Jason Peltier, Coalition for a Sustainable Delta: We have a choice: continue to live the never- ending “Groundhog Day” of conflict, apocalyptic rhetoric and litigation, or embrace the opportunities to meaningfully improve the way we make decisions and get things done for the good of all. More science and less politics will be key.

Ted Lempert, Children Now: From criminal justice reform to environmental stewardship to humane immigration policies, California’s leaders make the state a model of effective governance for the federal government and other states. But no matter how you look at it, the state ranks near the bottom of states when it comes to our kids.

Dick Ackerman and Mel Levine, California Coalition for Public Higher Education: As the state continues to improve higher education access and success, we must support Proposition 13 to provide the funding needed to revitalize aging facilities so that they will be safe places to learn and will have the capacity to meet the increasing number of students seeking higher education.