Archive for December 2024
Spinning its wheels: SFMTA abandons a disastrous, experimental center-lane bikeway
Image generated using Dall-E SF Valencia St’s center-corridor bike lane took out parking places and made cyclists feel unsafe. To restore business to local merchants, SFMTA finally agreed to return the bike lane back to the sides of the road. But this won’t be cheap. The design, which might include dangerous “floating parklets,” will slash…
Read MoreEven Scott Wiener admits Bay Area Dems needs a rethink after 2024 election, though it’s like pulling teeth
Image by James Vaughan In a strange mea culpa, liberal SF senator Scott Wiener admits that progressive governance has failed local cities in many respects. But his apologia suggests he doesn’t really mean it. From an SF Standard editorial. Democrats must distinguish ourselves as the party of results by focusing on governing well in the places…
Read MoreSpinning its wheels: SFMTA abandons a disastrous, experimental center-lane bikeway
Image generated using Dall-E SF Valencia St’s center-corridor bike lane took out parking places and made cyclists feel unsafe. To restore business to local merchants, SFMTA finally agreed to return the bike lane back to the sides of the road. But this won’t be cheap. The design, which might include dangerous “floating parklets,” will slash…
Read MoreEven Scott Wiener admits Bay Area Dems needs a rethink after 2024 election, though it’s like pulling teeth
Image by James Vaughan In a strange mea culpa, liberal SF senator Scott Wiener admits that progressive governance has failed local cities in many respects. But his apologia suggests he doesn’t really mean it. From an SF Standard editorial. Democrats must distinguish ourselves as the party of results by focusing on governing well in the places…
Read MoreVoters want to tap the brakes on runaway crime in California. Will their leaders respond?
Image generated using Dall-E Across the Golden State, voters flagged their discomfort with pols and policies that accelerated social unrest. Prop 36 won because it reforms Prop 47, the starting gun for theft and disorder that collided with Californians’ sense of public safety. Soft-on-crime DAs have now been recalled in SF, Alameda, and LA—and some…
Read More☆ HJTA’s Susan Shelley: Defeat of Prop 5 a “tremendous victory” for CA taxpayers (1/3)
If voters’ Prop 13 protections are clearly under threat, they’ll push back, says HJTA Comms VP Susan Shelley. In this Opp Now exclusive Q&A, she recalls how Prop 5’s proponents claimed it wasn’t a tax, and they were “just asking questions”—but, she says, voters saw right through that tangled, deceptive messaging: although outspent, HJTA’s “shoestring”…
Read More☆ Election roundup (14/14): Bridging differences, finding consensus
Cinderella and Prince Christopher grew up in separate worlds, but soon find their similarities—and mutual affection—overcome everything else. From Cinderella (1997). Concluding our Opp Now exclusive Election ’24 series, SJ Housing Commissioner Roberta Moore rejects the notion that ideological polarization is just a fact we must accept in Silicon Valley—pointing instead to common goals we…
Read More☆ Opp Now contributor and Stanford prof nominated to head top nat’l science org
Since 2021, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya—Stanford prof of Medicine—has stared down efforts to silence and cancel his fact-based critiques of the medical and gov’t establishments’ COVID responses. His positions have been wholly vindicated over time, and now he has been nominated with much acclaim to lead the National Institute of Health (NIH). Here at Opp Now, we’re proud to…
Read More☆ Opinion: Change of administrations should doom San Francisco’s $8 billion rail extension
Depicted: Proposed high-speed rail dubbed the “Portal” project by TJPA With the incoming Trump administration planning to defund California High-Speed Rail, it’s time for local transit officials to revisit the already weak case for extending HSR and Caltrain from 4th and King Street in San Francisco 1.3 miles to Salesforce Transit Center. Below, an Opp Now…
Read MoreHow the 2025 D3 race will not be like 2022
“Take Back D3” We need change with a business mind and experience like Irene Smith… This time, it’s different. When I ran for D3 councilmember in 2022 against Omar Torres, I think it’s fair to say that the race was fundamentally a contest between: More of the same–won. But as we kick off the D3…
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