Archive for September 2023

Dear Neighbor, Our fight to change San José is about creating a city that works for all of us – and YOU are integral to that fight.  The Revolution of Common Sense is just getting started – but because of a change to the city charter just a few years ago, my first term as…

Children are our future, and we want the best for them from the day they are born until they go through school and eventually become adults and grow into their own. As parents, we spend hours pouring through internet searches to find the best grade schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges for our young…

SJ’s City Council bestowed generous increases on the unions representing about half of its employees. Up to $20 million may need to be removed from the 2025/26 budget to bring things into balance. Where should this come from, asks Pat Waite of Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility? Perhaps from SJ’s overspending, underperforming Housing Dept, he suggests…

Dear Neighbor, After 3.5 hours of debate at the VTA board meeting last night, we took an important step forward on the long road to ending homelessness. I want to thank my colleagues and the dozens of residents who came out to speak in support of placing 200 units of interim housing on the Cerone…

Overly broad, antiquated fire egress regulations drive up home costs in San Jose. Meanwhile, many European countries don’t even bother with multiple staircase requirements, given modern-day fire risk mitigation strategies. It’s time for reform, says Market Urbanist’s Scott Beyer. An Opp Now exclusive. Overregulation is the main culprit behind high home prices in San Jose.…

A converted hotel is creating a home and hope for unhoused foster youth transitioning out of the system, families and individuals. Unlike other hotels that have been redeveloped as short-term supportive housing, the Crestview Hotel in Mountain View will provide permanent, supportive affordable housing to youth aging out of foster care and small families experiencing homelessness when it opens…

The Cato Institute team parses outcomes from California’s and Utah’s Housing First policies, and wonders why pols keep pouring taxpayer funds into initiatives that have only seen elevated homelessness rates. Between 2016 and 2022, for instance, CA’s rose by 93%—so really, what’s stopping us from moving on to alternate, data-evidenced approaches like requiring sobriety? Unfortunately,…

San Jose is planning cuts to a beloved parks program to compensate for raises for its unionized workers—a move that leaders warned would happen in the wake of contentious contract negotiations. Viva Calle returns for the final installment of the year Sunday. The event will shut down about six miles of streets to traffic through…

Joe Dehn and Brian Holtz—respectively the Santa Clara County Libertarian Party’s chair and secretary—parse last Tuesday’s vote by the SJ City Council to boost city workers’ paychecks by 14.5% over three years. Raising salaries that are, by and large, already competitive creates short-term goodwill between pols/Labor, but needlessly shifts funds away from core services. An…