My-turn

The federal opportunity zone program created by the 2017 tax overhaul, enables investors to defer capital gains taxes on funds invested in designated communities. Opportunity zones offer one path forward that relies on private capital to bear the cost.

Without a radical change to the corporate culture, a hard to swallow dose of transparency and all-hands-on-deck fire prevention effort, the next PG&E-sparked wildfire will mean a Titanic ending to the company.

As the cost of health care, housing, food, and transportation continue to rise, we must make work pay better. Expanding the California earned income tax credit will do that for those who need it most.

Our democratic spirit desperately needs to be replenished. Empowered with the tools to develop civic virtue, our students can lead the next voting rights revolution, bringing us out of the shadows of our current predicament and closer to the ideal of a more perfect Union.

Cannabis businesses make tens of thousands of dollars each week. They can’t put it in a bank account, so where do they turn? One business owner I’ve talked with stores over $1 million in a tractor trailer with 24 hour surveillance. Senate Bill 51 will help change this by allowing cannabis businesses to open bank accounts.

Under the "housing first" model, programs that require sobriety or engagement in life-improvement services are ineligible for government funding. This is a travesty for people seeking to escape the hold of drug addiction, and a threat to their children. Already traumatized children should not be placed in housing where drug use is permitted.

Recent decades have brought the slow collapse of the Delta and salmon runs. A half dozen species face extinction. Lacking natural flushing, the Delta now suffers outbreaks of toxic algae. Science points to a clear cause: inadequate flows caused by excessive diversions.

Thousands of inmates with records of violent and serious crimes have already been released from California prisons, and thousands more are now eligible for early release, including child molesters and sex offenders. The “Keep California Safe” initiative on the 2020 ballot would change that.

Sacramento is among the cities in the country with the greatest risk of catastrophic flooding. The destructive power of Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey, Super-storm Sandy and the bomb cyclone that hit Nebraska in March are yet more evidence climate change is upon us. We must adapt. We must prepare.

Proposition 13 of 1978 brought about a seismic shift in governance in California.  In 2020, 42 years after Proposition 13’s passage, voters will have an opportunity to reform the 1978 initiative by requiring that commercial and industrial property owners pay their fair share.