Web Version [link removed] | Update Preferences [link removed] CBRT in the News ‘SPLIT ROLL’ ballot battle heats up

THE BUZZ — THE BATTLE IS ON: Will revising California’s landmark property tax initiative, Prop. 13, help or hurt recession-slammed businesses and communities during the Covid-19 pandemic?

That’s the war being waged on the ballot over Prop. 15, the so-called “split roll” tax measure that’s arguably the most high profile item on the November ballot. At a time when polls show that consumers aren’t in the mood for tax increases, that’s the challenge: it means the measure’s fate will be shaped by how successfully the warring sides make their case to Californians — renters, homeowners and businesses alike — on a matter of economic survival in troubled times.

The initiative — backed by Schools and Communities First, a coalition of powerful labor groups — calls for reassessing property taxes for commercial and industrial properties, exempting those under $3 million in fair market value. The coalition says passage would close a property tax loopholes long enjoyed by big corporations while reclaiming $12 billion a year for schools and communities now “struggling to respond to the Covid 19 crisis.”

The California Business Roundtable, the major opponent to the measure with its No on 15 campaign, argues the reassessments for commercial and industrial properties would be a job-killer, and hurt not just major employers but also small business and retail at a time when they can least afford it. At its press conference Wednesday, small retailers and restaurant owners came forward to talk about how Covid-19 has already put their businesses on life support. They argued that commercial and industrial property tax increases would be passed on to them in the midst of a pandemic — and then to the consumer.

Read More [[link removed]] All Californians Lose If Split Roll Passes

The California Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of business and taxpayer groups are leading a strong effort to defeat the split roll property tax measure, Proposition 15 on the November ballot.

Proposition 15 is an $12.5 billion a year property tax increase—the largest in state history—that is riddled with flaws which will hurt all Californians. Contrary to what its supporters claim, Proposition 15 will not help local governments and schools recover from the COVID-19 induced economic crisis.

The measure will also hurt the small businesses that employ half of all California employees.

The California Assessors’ Association is opposing Proposition 15, stating that it will cost more than $1 billion to implement in the first three years and would be impossible to administer

Moreover, groups representing two direct beneficiaries of the tax funds are not supporting the measure: the League of California Cities refused to support Proposition 15, while the California School Boards Association voted to remain neutral.

In addition to the CalChamber, the Californians to Save Prop 13 and Stop Higher Property Taxes coalition leading the campaign against Proposition 15 includes the California Taxpayers Association, California Business Roundtable, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and California Business Properties Association.

Read More [[link removed]] California Energy Prices Continue To Rise Higher Than Other States

The Center for Jobs and the Economy at the California Business Roundtable reports that California gas and energy prices continued to rise higher in July than nearly all other states. “These outcomes mean that even as many households struggle under the current economic conditions, the state’s energy policies continue to take an increasing share of household incomes both directly in gasoline and utility bills and indirectly as these costs are incorporated into the prices of every other component of the costs of living,” the Center for Jobs and the Economy reported.

Just over one year ago in June 2019, California Globe reported that the Sacramento Municipal Utility District began charging Sacramento electricity users and ratepayers a new rate system that charges residential users higher rates between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m… much higher rates, just in time to get home from work, feed the family, do a couple loads of laundry, bathe the kiddies, maybe vacuum a room or two, and watch a little Netflix.

These new summer “peak” rates appear to be about 40% – 200% higher, looking at the bill.

Read More [[link removed]] Business Climate and Job Creation U.S. Jobless Claims Fell To 1.2 Million In Latest Week

Filings for jobless benefits fell to their lowest level since the coronavirus hit the U.S. in March—a sign layoffs eased somewhat in a still struggling labor market—but remained at historically high levels for the 20th straight week.

Initial unemployment claims fell by a seasonally adjusted 249,000 to 1.2 million for the week ended Aug. 1, the Labor Department said Thursday, well above the pre-pandemic record of 695,000 in 1982. The decline came as an extra $600 a week in pandemic-related unemployment benefits ended.

The number of people receiving benefits through regular state programs, which cover the majority of workers, also decreased, by 844,000 to 16.1 million for the week ended July 25. Those continuing claims, reported with a week lag, fell to lowest level since April.

“It’s promising that initial unemployment claims number ticked down, but we’re certainly not out of the woods,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at job search site Indeed.com. “The magnitude of layoffs is so much higher than in the pre-Covid era.”

Read More [[link removed]] Unemployment Rate Fell To 10.2% In July, U.S. Employers Added 1.8 Million Jobs

Hiring increased in July for the third straight month, though overall gains have yet to restore half of the U.S. jobs lost due to the coronavirus pandemic.

July’s addition of 1.8 million jobs and a lower unemployment rate of 10.2%, after a peak of nearly 15% in April, showed the U.S. economy continued to mend during the summer coronavirus surge. It also reflected how far the economy has to go to overcome the shock from the pandemic and related lockdowns.

The U.S. now has about 13 million fewer jobs than in February, the month before the coronavirus hit the U.S. economy, the Labor Department said on Friday. Unemployment remains historically high. Before the coronavirus drove the U.S. into a deep recession this year, the unemployment rate was hovering around a 50-year low of 3.5%.

“We’re in a pretty strong rebound,” said David Berson, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. chief economist. “But the downturn was so big—the hole that was dug was so deep—that it will still take probably at least a couple of years to dig ourselves out.”

Read More [[link removed]] Covid-19 Pandemic Triggers Wave Of Long-Term Unemployment

An increasing number of workers were unemployed for more than three months in July, a signal that the coronavirus pandemic is likely to have a lasting economic impact on many people.

The number who were unemployed between 15 and 26 weeks rose by a seasonally adjusted 4.6 million to 6.5 million people last month, according to the Labor Department. The July reading is the highest on record for the category in data going back to 1948, and it is nearly double the prior peak, set in 2009 at the end of the last recession.

It is an ominous signal that even as overall hiring improves, millions of workers are facing the prospect of being out of a job for a long time.

Research has shown that the longer a person is out of work, the harder it is to regain employment. Economists attribute that to factors such as skills erosion and a bias among employers to hire those who are already employed or only recently lost their jobs.

Read More [[link removed]] Lapse In Extra Unemployment Benefits To Hurt U.S. Recovery, Economists Say

Many economists expect last week’s expiration of $600 in enhanced weekly unemployment benefits to lead to a sharp drop-off in household spending and a setback for the U.S. economy’s near-term recovery, even if the lapse turns out to be temporary.

The federal government was providing billions of dollars a week in extra jobless payments to workers—more than 12 million people in mid-July, the Labor Department said. The program, approved as part of a coronavirus aid package, expired at the end of July, and Congress and the White House remain at odds over how to extend the benefits.

The payments, economists say, allowed consumers to pay rent, utilities, car loans and credit-card bills, protecting the economy from the cascading effects of a sudden drop in consumer demand as the coronavirus pandemic swept across the U.S.

“It could take weeks and weeks and weeks to get this money to people, which means of course they will default on a number of obligations,” said Trevon Logan, an economics professor at Ohio State University.

Read More [[link removed]] Cash Or Jobs: How U.S. Economic Protection Stacks Up Internationally

The gap between the 11.4% U.S. unemployment rate and its equivalents in Germany, Japan and the U.K.—still all below 4%—illustrates the hugely different policies deployed to protect jobs and income during the pandemic.

A few months into the pandemic, the real risks and rewards of these different approaches are starting to become clear.

The policies can be split broadly into those that aim to support income first and foremost, such as the U.S. $1,200 flat payments and expanded $600 unemployment payments, and those designed to maintain links between employers and employees, preventing workers from entering unemployment rolls in the first place.

Tokyo and Berlin opted for expanded versions of their existing income-support programs for temporary layoffs and cuts in working hours: the Employment Adjustment Subsidy in Japan, and the Kurzarbeit system in Germany. Britain’s quickly established furlough program, due to end in October, offers workers 80% of their salary, up to the equivalent of £2,500 (about $3,300) a month.

Read More [[link removed]] More Farmers Declare Bankruptcy Despite Record Levels Of Federal Aid

More U.S. farmers are filing for bankruptcy, as federal payments projected to reach record levels this year fall short of compensating for the coronavirus pandemic and a yearslong slump in the agricultural economy.

About 580 farmers filed for chapter 12 bankruptcy protection in the 12-month period ended June 30, according to federal data. That was 8% more than a year earlier, though bankruptcies slowed slightly in the first half of 2020 partly because of an infusion of federal aid and hurdles to filing during the pandemic, according to agricultural economists and attorneys.

The pandemic has pressured prices for many commodities, squeezing farmers who raise crops and livestock, and prolonging a six-year downturn in the Farm Belt.

The Trump administration is expected to dole out a record $33 billion in payments to farmers this year, according to the University of Missouri’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute. The funds, including those intended to help farmers hurt by trade conflicts and the coronavirus, would push government payments to 36% of farm income, the highest share in nearly two decades, the institute said.

Read More [[link removed]] California Lockdown’s Job Losses Spell Trouble for the Nation

California’s second round of coronavirus-related shutdowns, among the nation’s strictest measures, are already causing pain for the most populous state’s labor market and portend a deterioration in the overall U.S. employment picture for July.

When Governor Gavin Newsom announced on July 13 that indoor operations at businesses including salons and gyms would close to curb the resurgent virus -- cases in the state have doubled in the last month -- owners scrambled to figure out whether they could stay open. Some establishments, particularly restaurants, took advantage of outdoor space, but many closed completely, causing workers to be laid off a second time.

Jessica Van Auken, a hair stylist at Define Mi Hair Salon in San Diego, was finishing her final appointment on July 13 when her client received a text message about the state’s new shutdown measures. Suddenly, her last client of the day became her last client for the foreseeable future, and she found herself applying for unemployment insurance for a second time since March.

Van Auken, who works as an independent contractor with the salon, is still waiting for her most recent unemployment claims to be processed, but she expects to receive less than $200 per week. The extra $600 a week in federal unemployment benefits expired on July 31, with the White House and lawmakers wrangling over an extension.

Read More [[link removed]] Critics Demand Fairer Prop Ballot Labels and Summaries, But Lawsuits Are Flaming Out

In California elections, it’s practically tradition.

About 100 days before the election, the state attorney general writes up a label and succinct summary of each ballot proposition. And then, like clockwork, pro- and anti-camps spend the next 20 days feverishly filing lawsuits. Their goal: convince judges, before the ballot goes to print, that the attorney general has linguistically tilted the playing field against them.

This year has been more of the same — only more so.

Over the last two weeks, Attorney General Xavier Becerra has been sued six times for the way he has labeled and summarized some of this year’s most contentious ballot measures. That’s a modern record. No election cycle has seen more proposition summary battles since at least 2008, according to a CalMatters review of court filings.

But despite the surge, state courts continue to defer to the attorney general’s choice of verbiage. And that’s sharpening critics’ demands that California transfer at least some of the task of describing ballot measures to more objective, nonpartisan hands — as Utah, Michigan and the city of San Francisco do.

Read More Prop. 15 Split Roll Will Eventually Cancel Prop. 13

It was elderly widows who were being thrown out of their homes for unpaid property taxes in 1975 before Proposition 13. Now with Proposition 15 it will be mom and pop businesses in leased buildings, and Uber drivers who own their homes who are going to be displaced.

Proposition 15 – the so-called split commercial/residential tax roll – on the November ballot is being advertised as solely a commercial property tax. But there is a trojan horse contained in Proposition 15 that will unravel Proposition 13 property tax protections even for residential properties.

Single-family residential homes used for home offices or UBER drivers who park their cars at their owned residences will have their homes reclassified as commercial properties under proposed Proposition 15. Eventually, property taxes will be equalized by the legislature, and the mandates of Proposition 15 will apply to all owners who hold multiple homes and apartments, not just commercial properties. Moreover, small business owners will have the higher property taxes passed through to them in the form of higher rents and will not be able to stay in business after a couple of years. But it will be the consumers who will ultimately pay the so-called higher commercial property taxes.

Read More [[link removed]] ‘Hanging On’ – Almost 25% Of Small Businesses Hit Hard By Pandemic Fear Closure

Many small businesses nationwide are reaching breaking points in an economy with the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression. Small firms have survived the pandemic so far with a mix of government aid, forbearance on debt and rent and creativity in selling to an increasingly homebound and financially distressed populace.

As the first wave of U.S. aid runs short – and landlords and lenders lose patience – lawmakers are in tense negotiations over a new round of stimulus, which could include more money for small business.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Most firms have already run out of the money they secured from the $600 billion Paycheck Protection Program, according to a survey released last week by the National Federation of Independent Business, a leading trade group for small U.S. firms.

A number of local programs and policies have been created in an attempt to fill the gaps for small businesses. Local cities and San Diego County have both created relief programs and the city of San Diego, for instance, has widened the availability of outdoor options for restaurants and other businesses.

Read More [[link removed]] Recession Furthers Downward Spiral Of Some CRE Sectors

In the wake of the pandemic-induced economic recession, there is uniform pessimism and a drop in sentiment for developers across all commercial real estate spaces. The biannual/summer Allen Matkins-UCLA Anderson Forecast California Commercial Real Estate Survey projects a three-year-ahead outlook for California’s commercial real estate industry, and forecasts potential opportunities and challenges impacting the office, multifamily, retail and industrial sectors.

Survey panelists see office market demand decreasing due to work-from-home policies, industrial only moderately decreasing due to the shift to online shopping, retail continuing its downward spiral and multifamily only moderately decreasing due to the continued shortage of housing across the state.

“Overall, although it’s not surprising that people are more pessimistic than last survey, there are some silver linings in areas such as multifamily and industrial,” John Tipton, Allen Matkins partner, tells GlobeSt.com. “I look forward to seeing where things are at the end of the year when we survey again. We’re certainly rooting for the optimistic outcome.”

Given the continuing pandemic, there is much uncertainty about how working from home will affect today’s office space market. The panelists’ shared sentiment is about as gloomy as it was in December 2008 during the height of the last recession. This time with rising vacancy rates and downward pressure on rents forecast for the next three years. This is consistent with UCLA Anderson Forecast’s projection that a rapid return to pre-recession/office-using employment is not likely.

Read More [[link removed]] California Democrats Divided Over COVID-19 Stimulus, Millionaire Tax To Fund Economic Recovery

They show up at county meetings. They post calls to action on Instagram. In the age of coronavirus, they organize car caravans and Facebook town halls.

For Crisantema Gallardo, the 29-year-old director of Central Valley youth organizing group 99Rootz, years of groundwork are coming to a head with a high-stakes battle over how to dig California out of a sudden $54 billion deficit. Her goal: tax the state’s millionaires and commercial landlords, then reinvest the cash in communities like hers.

“It’s the cool thing right now to be talking about budgets,” Gallardo said in a video interview from Atwater, where she was raised by undocumented parents who worked in the fields.

Gallardo’s group is fueled by outsider energy and, of late, first-hand knowledge of communities ravaged by the pandemic. But 99Rootz has also joined a coalition of powerful labor unions and other left-leaning groups, the United Front, in campaigning for a new 1%-3.5% millionaire tax proposal, AB 1253, plus this fall’s “split roll” ballot measure to raise taxes on commercial property, Prop 15.

Read More [[link removed]] California Labor Commissioner Sues Uber And Lyft For Alleged Wage Theft

Uber and Lyft are facing a new round of legal pressure in their home state of California over how they classify their workers.

California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office said Wednesday that it filed lawsuits against the two companies for allegedly committing wage theft by misclassifying their on-demand workers as independent contractors instead of employees.

Under a new California law, which went into effect on January 1 and is known as Assembly Bill 5 or AB-5, companies must prove workers are free from company control and perform work outside the usual course of the companies’ business in order to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees.

The law has long been viewed as a potential existential threat to many gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft, which built up their businesses in large part by treating their on-demand workers as independent contractors. In addition to not receiving basic worker protections, drivers also pay their own expenses, including gas and vehicle maintenance.

Read More [[link removed]] Uber Confronts California In Turning Point For Gig Workers

The stakes are higher than ever for Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. as they line up Thursday against their most fearsome opponent yet -- their home state of California -- in the fight to determine whether ride-share drivers should be treated as employees with benefits.Gig-economy companies, and Uber and Lyft in particular, have successfully deflected many previous lawsuits that threatened their business model. They now face an unprecedented threat, experts say, in California’s enforcement of Assembly Bill 5, the year-old state law that vastly expands the universe of workers who qualify for overtime, health care and other benefits.“This hearing is very important -- it’s possible that at the end of it, Uber and Lyft will finally have to start complying with A.B. 5 and treating their drivers as employees,” said Charlotte Garden, a professor at Seattle University School of Law.The raised stakes are reflected on the ground –- for both sides. While drivers have for years organized in their fight to be treated as employees, rallies around the hearing are scheduled Thursday in Los Angeles and Oakland in support of Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s demand for a court order enforcing A.B. 5.

Read More: California Asked by Judge About Harm to Uber in Driver Pay Fight“This does feel different in terms of the suit filed by the attorney general, as compared to other litigation,” said Lauren Casey, a spokeswoman for Gig Workers Rising, one of the groups behind Thursday’s rally. Drivers are energized, she said, by the state stepping in and “making the argument that the harm done to drivers is so dire, so grave, as a result of their misclassification.”

Read More [[link removed]] Trump Administration Seeks Crackdown On Chinese Companies With Shares Traded In U.S.

Chinese companies with shares traded on U.S. stock exchanges would be forced to give up their listings unless they comply with American accounting requirements under a plan recommended Thursday by the Trump administration.

The proposal addresses a long-simmering dispute over U.S. regulators’ inability to inspect the auditing standards of Chinese companies that sell shares here.

Under the plan, Chinese firms that are already listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market would have to comply by 2022—or give up their listings on those exchanges.

To comply, Chinese auditors would have to share their work papers with U.S. audit regulators. Chinese firms that are not yet public—but plan an initial public offering here—would have to comply before they can go public on NYSE or Nasdaq, according to senior Treasury Department and Securities and Exchange Commission officials. It would require rule making by the SEC, which ultimately oversees the auditing standards of companies whose shares are traded in the U.S.

Read More [[link removed]] California Sees More Than Half Of UI Applicants A Second Time

Evidence of the U.S. economic recovery’s unpredictability in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic is on display in California.

More than half, or 57 percent of the initial unemployment claims filed in California for the week ending July 25 were from workers who reopened previous claims.

The report by the University of California, Los Angeles and the California Employment Development Department found there are an average of 160,000 of these former claimants weekly.

Till von Wachter, a co-author of the analysis and a UCLA economics professor, said researchers were surprised to discover that most of the July unemployment claims were from workers who had collected benefits previously this year.

“These individuals likely found or returned to work temporarily after their original unemployment claim, but then re-filed their claims as their hours or positions were cut again in response to communities re-instituting restrictions to combat a recent surge in COVID-19 cases,” he wrote in the report. “It’s become apparent that for the individuals who have been lucky enough to return to work, they’re seeing that this new employment is especially unstable. Our data provides evidence that the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic is leading to more people cycling in and out of the UI system.”

Read More [[link removed]] Energy and Climate Change How To Drive Fossil Fuels Out Of The US Economy, Quickly

In the runup to World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt enlisted the entire US economy in an effort to scale up production of war material. All of the country’s resources were bent to the task. In 1939, the US had 1,700 aircraft and no bombers; in 1945, it had 300,000 military aircraft and 18,500 B–24 bombers.

By the time the war was won, the economy was up and humming with a massively expanded workforce (drawing in women and African Americans) and turbocharged productive capacity. Investments made during the war mobilization yielded a robust middle class and decades of sustained, broadly shared prosperity.

A similar mobilization will be necessary for the US to decarbonize its economy fast enough to avert the worst of climate change. To do its part in limiting global temperature rise to between 1.5° and 2° Celsius, the US must reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest. To achieve this, the full resources of the US economy must be bent toward manufacturing the needed clean-energy technology and infrastructure.

FDR began with two questions. First, he asked not what was politically feasible but what was necessary to win the war. He also asked not how much funding was available in the federal budget but how much productive capacity was available in the economy — what was possible.

Read More [[link removed]] California Loses Thousands Of Jobs And Crucial Fuel As Marathon Martinez Refinery Goes Idle

California just experienced a catastrophic loss from the COIVD-19 impact on the economy, as one of its major refineries, Marathon Martinez, has just announced it will be idled indefinitely.

With airlines and cruise ships virtually shut down, and vehicle transportation at an all-time low, the demand for fuels and petroleum derivative products manufactured from petroleum, are at an all-time low. The Northern California refinery, one of the largest in the state has just become a COVID victim.

We have all seen the photos of those foreign tankers with crude oil parked off the coast of California. This, as the refineries had no use to manufacture products that were in limited demand. With in-state crude oil production at an all-time low and going lower with pressure from the Governor, California’s dependency on other suppliers has increased imported crude oil from foreign countries from 5 percent in 1992 to 58 percent today of total consumption. The imported crude oil costs California more than $60 million dollars a day, yes, every day, being paid to oil-rich foreign countries, depriving Californians of jobs, careers, and business opportunities.

Read More [[link removed]] Climate Change Could Lead To More Incidents Like The Oroville Dam Spillway Failures, Experts Warn

Nearly 200,000 people were evacuated when the spillways failed at Oroville Dam in 2017, an infrastructure disaster that cost around a billion dollars to repair.

Three years later scientists say events that partially led to the incident could become more frequent. It comes down to how and when snow and rain fall.

With Oroville, there was unusually deep snow in the Sierra Nevada, which was later melted by a four-day warm wet storm known as an atmospheric river, according to Brian Henn, former researcher at the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps Oceanography.

“That's a long time to have sort of a plume of warm, moist air pointed at one particular area,” Henn said of the about 27 inches of rain the storm produced. “The amount of runoff into Lake Oroville was like the second highest in the last 30 years.”

All that rain falling on existing snow resulted in as much as 36 inches of water filling California’s second largest reservoir,straining its capacity, Henn says.

“Without the unusual warmth that caused extreme snowmelt from the atmospheric river, the inflows to Lake Oroville would have been less, and the situation around the spillway failures may have been less critical,” Henn said.

Read More [[link removed]] Bringing Offshore Wind Into California’s Future

The California Public Utilities Commission estimates that about 7 GW of offshore wind could be part of California’s ideal zero-carbon electricity mix by 2045. This is equal to around 9 % of the total electricity producing capacity in California. Any strategy to develop offshore wind in California needs to solve for offshore wind’s own three-body problem: avoiding local environmental impacts; figuring out how to meet stakeholder needs which includes state and federal regulatory requirements, the needs of the fishing industry, and the Department of Defense; and building enough offshore wind to make it profitable to developers while being a cost-effective investment for Californians.

To solve this problem in a timely manner, the state and stakeholders need to commit to getting the first 100 MW of offshore development commissioned within the next year. 100 MW is enough to meet the electric demand of approximately twenty five thousand average California homes and more than three times the amount of floating offshore wind that exists worldwide today.

This initial project is big enough to pique the industry’s interest. It will also be a valuable source of data to (1) figure out the impacts these wind farms have on the environment, (2) balance stakeholder needs and figure out smooth regulatory processes to permit offshore wind build-outs, and (3) enable the industry to get going in California to bring down the cost of future offshore wind development.

Read More [[link removed]] Extremist Proposals Will Not Help California's Economy Get Back On Its Feet

It doesn’t take long reading this site to see how our society is absorbing three crises: COVID-19, the economic meltdown and the long-overdue move for racial equality. What those crises have wrought is job loss, overriding fear, educational disruption and in some cases, overblown rhetoric. We see that rhetoric surrounding radical environmental change and new legislation like AB 345 which would disrupt oil production in California. The rhetoric is fueling policy changes that are neither warranted nor supported by the facts.

Just at the time when America needs gas, diesel, and jet fuel to keep America’s supply chain moving and provide the energy we need to get back to work, some are trying to pass new laws aimed at shutting us down.

The language used to describe oil and gas companies’ operations in California is offensive, unfair, and wrong for all the reasons bias distorts rational discussion. It ignores facts while attacking the thousands of men and women who work in our industry – men and women who are husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. They care passionately about the health and well-being of their children, families and neighbors as well as the children and families in the communities where they live and work. To suggest otherwise is preposterous, maligning everyone who works in the industry.

Read More [[link removed]] Workforce Development Alternative Schools' 'Relentless' Fight To Keep Track Of Students During Pandemic

When Amistad continuation high school closed its campus in March due to the pandemic, the staff went into overdrive to stay in touch with students. They called all 205. If a student’s phone was disconnected, they went to the student’s house. If no one answered, they asked neighbors.

“The effort was relentless,” said David Gustafson, principal of the public school in Indio, near Palm Springs, that serves students who’ve been expelled or are at risk of dropping out of traditional schools. “Our staff was working seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day, to keep these kids connected to school.”

Amistad High is typical of California’s 430 alternative schools in its commitment to keeping track of students during the pandemic — students who are at especially high risk of dropping out, said Gerardo Abrica, president of the California Continuation Education Association and a math teacher at an alternative school in Tulare County.

Read More [[link removed]] Los Angeles Unified Reaches Deal With Teachers Over Distance Learning While Other Districts Struggle To Finalize Plans

Students in Los Angeles will have about five hours of distance learning daily under an agreement announced Monday between Los Angeles Unified and the union representing teachers in the district.

Each school day will run from 9 a.m. to 2:15 p.m., and will include a mix of live instruction and independent work. Most students will receive at least 90 minutes of daily live instruction.

L.A. Unified, the largest school district in California, with about 600,000 students, joins other districts in the state that have reached last-minute deals with teachers over how to deliver distance learning this fall as students in most districts across the state learn from home because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have all learned from our experiences with distance learning since March, and we’ve applied what we learned to this agreement. Our shared goal is to provide the best possible education for students in our schools,” Superintendent Austin Beutner and United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz said in a joint statement.

Read More [[link removed]] California Health Officials List Conditions For An Elementary School Waiver

The California Department of Public Health issued information Monday on what it would take for elementary schools to open for in-person instruction in counties where schools otherwise would be closed because of high rates of the coronavirus infection.

The new requirements are extensive, and the sample application form is lengthy. County public health directors will have latitude to phase in schools’ plans and limit the number of schools that can open in their counties.

The state document also recommends, with a passage in bold print, that county health departments prohibit any exceptions in counties where the numbers of coronavirus infections are more than 200 cases per 100,000 population. That’s twice the rate of the current threshold that puts counties on the school closure list and would rule out elementary school waivers for 14 of the 38 counties currently on the state’s monitoring list. They include hot spots Kern (429 cases per 100,000) and Los Angeles (338 cases per 100,000) counties, along with Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin and Santa Barbara counties. Fresno County is close to the threshold.

Read More [[link removed]] Infrastructure and Housing Landlords Call For End To California Eviction Moratorium

Landlords said they feel stuck and abandoned because of California’s temporary eviction moratorium, which was put into place to help people who may be struggling to pay rent due the novel coronavirus outbreak and the resulting public health restrictions.

“We cannot exercise our rights in court,” said Diana Polyakov.

Diana and Michael Polyakov said they are at the mercy of the state’s eviction moratorium. They recently purchased their dream home in Granite Bay and temporarily rented it out. But they said now, the renters aren’t paying and aren’t leaving.

“School starts and my kids don't have a permanent house, right now," Diana Polyakov said. "So, I have chills. I'm going to start crying. I don't know what to do."

Her husband, Michael Polyakov, feels helpless.

“We are currently $20,000 down from what we’re supposed to get for all these months that we didn’t receive the payments,” he said.

The Polyakovs said his issue with the eviction ban is not just the financial ramifications, but more importantly, the legal ones. He wants to see government officials help landlords when renters may be taking advantage of the eviction moratorium.

Read More [[link removed]] What To Do About Rent: California Running Out Of Time To Avoid Catastrophic Wave Of Evictions

The California Legislature has less than a month left in its pandemic-shortened session to deal with one of the state’s worst economic crises in decades, and there’s no greater emergency than what to do about the rent.

Millions of residents who lost their jobs this spring as the state shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus now fear they will lose their homes as well. One in 7 tenants in California did not pay rent on time last month, according a survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, and nearly 1 in 6 doesn’t expect to pay on time in August either.

Several bills are moving through the Legislature to prevent what many worry could be a wave of evictions, potentially compounding California’s crippling homelessness crisis. But landlord groups and tenant advocates are divided, raising financial, legal and logistical concerns over the competing approaches.

An emergency judicial order that largely halted eviction proceedings for the past four months could end as soon as Aug. 14, heightening the sense of urgency in Sacramento.

Read More [[link removed]] How Cities Are Keeping People In Their Homes

In the summer of 2019, Elizabeth Bell’s apartment building in San Francisco’s Mission District went up for sale, and real estate agents were soon giving tours to prospective developers. As fear of eviction or rent hikes sank in, Bell, 74, started getting heart palpitations. Her apartment was cheap and rent-controlled, necessities for Bell, who supplements Social Security with gig translation work to make ends meet. There’s a rail stop less than two blocks away—useful, because Bell does not bicycle as easily as she used to. And she loves the place, which has a “beautiful arch over the front door” with cracked stained glass above the frame. The other residents are a diverse mix—longtime Latino families, one with a disabled son; low-income seniors like Bell; a young couple. All depend on rent control to live in the Mission, the historic home of San Francisco’s Latino community, now riven by some of the city’s most intense gentrification.

If forced to leave, Bell knew she could not afford to stay in San Francisco, where she has lived since 1975. “I am very bonded to the city, she said in an interview. “I don’t know where I would pick up and start again at this point in my life.”

To save the building, she and other tenants contacted housing advocates, who eventually introduced them to the Mission Economic Development Agency, a longtime Bay Area nonprofit. Over the past few years, MEDA has emerged as a leader in an anti-gentrification effort, known as a “right-to-purchase” policy, where local nonprofits obtain residential buildings to prevent development and displacement. The average income of residents in properties acquired by MEDA is more than 30% lower than the area’s median income. Before the COVID-19 economic downturn, the average rent for a one-bedroom in San Francisco was $3,360 a month, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. To date, MEDA has acquired 32 buildings (more than 250 units), with two more on the way.

Read More [[link removed]] Rental Assistance Program Helping Lift Up Struggling Coachella Valley Residents

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic caused the statewide stay-at-home orders, it was a struggle for Cathedral City resident Sabina* and her family to make ends meet. But when everything closed, both she and her husband lost their jobs as housecleaner and restaurant busboy, respectively. Since April, they have been unable to pay their rent and, up to now, have only been able to keep their home because of the kindness of friends and relatives and the eviction moratorium.

“The property manager said we owed April, May and June, and if we didn’t have July rent, we could be evicted,” said Sabrina through a translator.

Sabina’s family will get some relief as they are among the first recipients of the United Lift Rental Assistance Program, a partnership between Lift to Rise, the Inland SoCal United Way and Riverside County. In June, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $33 million in federal funding from the CARES Act and Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) to assist households affected by COVID-19. It provides rental assistance for back rent only for three months up to $3,500 to eligible applicants.

“The goal is how do we keep people in their homes, and how do we prevent eviction,” said Lift to Rise President and CEO Heather Vaikona. Lift to Rise recognized in early March that help would be needed for the region’s low wage workers as big events such as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Stagecoach Festival and the BNP Paribas Open were canceled. The organization first created a $200 cash assistance program distributed to about 3,500 low-wage workers to help them with essentials.

Read More [[link removed]] Editorial and Opinion Trump’s Trillion-Dollar Choice

s negotiations for another giant spending bill proceed in Washington, President Trump faces a choice. Does he do another deal giving Speaker Nancy Pelosi most of what she wants, perhaps splitting the GOP in the process? Or does he press his own economic agenda and, if the Speaker blocks it, take that to the voters in November?

On present trend Mr. Trump is headed for the first choice. Mrs. Pelosi’s House passed her $3 trillion spending bill in May, and the President is moving toward her step by step. Even if the final number ends up somewhere between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, the Speaker would get most of what she wants.

That includes more money for profligate Democratic-run states, more money for income-transfer payments, more payments to schools whether or not they reopen for classroom instruction, and perhaps even an extension of $600 weekly federal jobless payments that subsidize unemployment by paying workers more not to work than they earn on the job.

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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin seems to have convinced Mr. Trump that this is necessary to get a grand deal and help the economy through Election Day. We’d say the opposite is closer to the truth. The jobless payments will keep unemployment higher than it would otherwise be, as University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan has shown. If schools stay closed, fewer parents will be able to return to work.

Read More [[link removed]] The Nation Is Facing A Housing Crisis. But Private Equity Firms Just See Dollar Signs

The nation is facing an accelerating housing crisis. Too many people had no stable housing before the pandemic hit, and covid-19 has made the problem even worse. Renters who were already facing an affordable housing shortage (with many spending more than half of their income on rent) now have no federal rental assistance or federal protection from eviction. Homeowners have less than a month left of foreclosure protection. And more than 30 million people receiving unemployment insurance just saw their benefits cut by $600 a week, raising the threat of a wave of defaults that could trigger a double-dip recession.

Families see a looming catastrophe. But private equity firms just see dollar signs.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that investors are “preparing for what they believe could be a once-in-a generation opportunity to buy distressed real-estate assets at bargain prices.” This profiteering is far from “once-in-a-generation” though: It’s straight out of private equity’s playbook during the 2008 financial crisis. We all know what happened then: Homeowners targeted by predatory mortgages lost their homes to foreclosure, and private equity swept in to buy those homes at depressed prices. Communities of color were hit fastest and hardest. Just a handful of years after Black homeownership hit its highest point, the devastating waves of foreclosures wiped out nearly all of the growth in Black homeownership since the Fair Housing Act repealed Jim Crow redlining in 1968.

Read More [[link removed]] The Tesla Secret

Wall Street is narrowly focused on Tesla’s stock price, the press on a brainless debate about whether electric cars are good or very, very good. But try listening to Elon Musk.

Last quarter the company lost $100 million on electric cars and reported a profit thanks to $400 million in mandated government gifts from other car makers who get their profits from trucks and SUVs. Mr. Musk has stridently complained about regulators encouraging others to build their own electric cars rather than buy fuel-economy credits from Tesla. He urged Detroit to farm out its production of compliance vehicles to Tesla. He renewed the proposal again this week. Essentially, he wants Tesla to help itself to a big share of the profits these companies are obliged, under green mandates, to shift to EVs.

I know certain readers don’t want an analysis, only a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on Tesla. This column has long said it’s great that people voluntarily want to make and buy electric vehicles. It’s the policy environment, to borrow a phrase, that has entered ludicrous mode.

Let’s understand: If a market opportunity exists for electric vehicles, it hardly requires an existing car maker to exploit it—Tesla has proved that.

Read More [[link removed]] California Would Benefit From A Client-Crisis Action Plan

Across California, members of our communities are no strangers to the catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis, particularly the devastation wrought by wildfires. In 2018, when over 1.8 million acres in the state burned, the Camp Fire in Northern California officially became the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in our state’s history, breaking a record set only a year before with the Tubbs Fire in Napa and Sonoma counties. These two historic wildfires in back to back years add to the Thomas Fire — the second largest in California history — that tore through communities in Ventura County and Santa Barbara County, leaving many people without homes and to pick up the pieces of their lives.

The reality is that the catastrophic wildfires that California is already experiencing will only become more intense and severe unless we take immediate action to combat the climate crisis. This year, much of the Western U.S., including parts of California, are at an above average risk of wildfires. Firefighters and first responders are already stretched thin by the coronavirus pandemic, further complicating this dire situation.

We also know that climate change and pollution, just like the coronavirus pandemic, harm low-income communities and communities of color first and worst. In California and around the country, Black and Latino communities face disproportionate burdens from pollution that exacerbate existing health inequalities. As we start to rebuild in a smarter, more resilient and more equitable way, we need to invest in a 21st century infrastructure that can withstand the test of time and stand strong against climate-fueled threats.

Read More [[link removed]] How Expanding Apprenticeships Can Fuel Economic Recovery

In the past five months, we have faced a pandemic, record unemployment and nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd that have laid acutely bare ongoing systemic racism. Yet again, low-income Asian, Black and Latinx communities have been disproportionately hurt in this compounded crisis. Much uncertainty remains about how soon the economy will fully reopen and what jobs will remain when it does. What is certain is that we need to start now to ensure that workers hit hardest by the shutdown have a clear path back to the workforce.

Even in the best of times, in the words of Gov. Gavin Newsom, “for too many, our economic (success) has become a spectator sport.” As lieutenant governor, Newsom called for the creation of 500,000 “earn-and-learn apprenticeships” by 2029. As an upcoming report by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute highlights, investing to scale up apprenticeship programs can be a game changer in getting displaced workers into new good-paying jobs, addressing structural racial inequities that have blindly hampered career advancement and restarting our economy.

Modern apprenticeships — more and more embraced in Silicon Valley and throughout California — are proving to be one of the best paths we have for those who have been systematically held back from advancing into high-skill, high-pay jobs. Most of California’s 4.9 million job losses have been in the leisure, hospitality and service-heavy sectors, but in some parts of the state, technology and financial jobs have actually grown. California doesn’t need to just get people back to work, it needs to get many into new lines of work, a very difficult task.

Read More [[link removed]] Gov. Newsom’s ‘Chronically Delinquent’ Property Taxes And Unreported Income Must Be Investigated

The United States is a Constitutional Republic which means we are a government without a king, accountable to the people and governed by the “rule of law,” in which the law is applied equally to all citizens.

Or so we’ve always been told.

America’s political elite who deem themselves royalty, and live accordingly, are the same politicians who have been keeping their citizens in states under total lockdown for the purpose of destroying the economy, they mandate the wearing of face masks which they themselves do not wear, they prohibit travel to second homes and family cabins while traveling themselves, are keeping schools locked down, attend funerals while our dead cannot be mourned in a service, and they are thwarting the use of hydroxychloroquine – a known prophylaxis (prevention) to coronavirus, and a successful cure… all to try to force President Donald Trump out of office one way or another.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of the most Aristocratic, elite politicians to come along, has some serious, quite large, tax delinquency issues, according to RedState:

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