Archive for August 2025

FYI, it’s been a big week! Here’s what you need to know this week — in 30 seconds or less: Keep scrolling for all the data and details. Dear Neighbor,  Almost exactly a year ago, I stood at a site that looked a lot like the one you see below. But I was about…

Dear Neighbor, Tomorrow, we are starting our biggest clean-up operation since we cleared the Jungle — Operation Clean-Up Columbus.  It won’t be easy. It won’t happen overnight. And it may get worse in the area before it gets better. But continuing to do nothing, allowing this encampment to grow out of control, is not an…

Here’s what you need to know this week — in 30 seconds or less: Keep scrolling for all the data and details. Dear Neighbor, Tomorrow, we are starting our biggest clean-up operation since we cleared the Jungle — Operation Clean-Up Columbus.  It won’t be easy. It won’t happen overnight. And it may get worse in…

An absolutely enormous amount of money is spent every year in Bay Area cities to address homelessness. San Francisco in particular spends at least $672 million/year and plans to add another $500 million/year. Oakland spends $120 million/year. Is this seriously not enough to make any visible change? Can anyone with insight please help explain where this money goes? As…

Red Hook Housing Project, Brooklyn, New York. General view III by itoldya420 As free marketeers, the Opp Now team tends to look askance at public housing schemes. However, the left-leaning Mission Local website in SF does a literate and intelligent job of making the pitch in favor of better public housing management, so we respectfully…

Photo by Andre Taissin When local gov’t makes huge energy mandates—looking at you, Bay Area Air Quality Mgmt District—it’s renters and homeowners who get stuck with the bill. What’s more, “renewable” goods aren’t always ethical—or, um, good for the environment. Opp Now contributors Denise Kalm and Sandra Delvin analyze boosting affordability in the Valley in…

Santa Clara County officials want their largest city’s support in hiking sales taxes to keep their public hospital system alive against federal cuts. But San Jose leaders have conditions. Congressman and former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo suggested the city could tie its support for the sales tax measure — now known as “Measure A”…

Image from SHIFT-Bay Area The failures of RM4 and Prop 5 notwithstanding, SJ Mayor Mahan voted (as a member of VTA board) to opt into Senate Bill 63, which aims to raise local taxes to help bail out our obsolete and spectacularly wasteful county transit system–especially when compared to emerging alternatives. SHIFT-Bay Area on Substack explains. Senate…

Photo by cottonbro studio At the end of the day, whether you’re a free marketeer or socialist, or somewhere else on the spectrum—cost of living matters. Like putting food on the table. Being able to pay rent, a mortgage. Running a business without gov’t running it into the ground. So we asked Opp Now contributors…

Santa Clara County leaders keep stacking “just a little more” onto the sales tax rate—now eyeing a countywide health-care tax atop SB 63’s potential 0.5% transit levy. With flat population and a county budget that’s tripled since 2012, residents are paying more for the same potholes and emptier buses & trains. Athan Joshi reports in…