California Voices

Jen Flory, Western Center on Law & Poverty: California doesn’t have the beds or community services that would be required if we start arresting everyone who police deem mentally unwell. The state can’t arrest its way out of the housing crisis. Proposals to do so don’t address the underlying problem, which is that people can’t afford housing, whether they are living with a mental health issue or not.

Although Gavin Newsom promised to jump-start housing construction in California, his first year as governor saw production decline.

Michael Rushford, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation: Building enough housing required to accommodate the 130,000 people living outside in California would be extremely expensive. But there are alternatives. Sacramento County taxpayers, for example, have paid $2.3 million over the past five years to maintain the vacant Boys Ranch sitting on 140 rural acres with 12 buildings. It could easily accommodate homeless people.

Kate Gordon and Lenny Mendonca, Office of Planning & Resource and GO-Biz: California is a high road economic development state. Our innovative spirit includes a responsibility to leave the world better than we found it. We are excited to see regions step forward with their own visions for this high road approach to regional economic development. Metro Bakersfield and Kern County is a great example.

Ellen Hanak and Jeffrey Mount, PPIC: Gov. Gavin Newsom has put forward a framework for managing water and habitat in the Delta and its watershed. The many Delta interests should try to make this agreement happen. This is an opportunity—the kind that comes along rarely—to shift from fighting about the Delta’s future to actually shaping it.

Fraud is rampant in California's system of compensating workers for employment-related disabilities and its' concentrated in Southern California.

Spreck Rosekrans, Restore Hetch Hetchy: San Francisco’s Water Department has persuaded Congress to deny long-promised access to unreachable areas of Yosemite National Park. This power play ban environmentally benign boating on Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, and reverses the guarantees of access made by San Francisco in 1913.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has unveiled the "framework" of a long-sought compromise on divvying up water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Re: “Gov. Newsom: California must get past differences on water. Voluntary agreements are the path forward,” Gov. Gavin Newsom, Feb. 4, 2020. Our water status quo isn’t working. We’ve accepted a false choice that pits our environment against our farmers – and ultimately, it’s a false choice that serves to flood our courts with lawsuits […]

Re: “Why desalination can help quench California’s water needs,” By Wendy Ridderbusch, Jan. 29, 2020. Wendy Ridderbusch shouldn’t confuse diversifying one’s portfolio, a good thing, with making bad investments. Those are not the same thing. Investing hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in the most expensive, climate impacting and environmentally destructive local water […]