Web Version [link removed] | Update Preferences [link removed] CBRT in the News 'Agreement' Reached At California Capitol On Proposal To Cap Rent Hikes

California would limit annual rent increases to 5 percent on top of inflation — with a maximum of 10 percent — under a rent cap deal announced Friday night by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders.

Under the agreement, landlords could raise rents 5 percent plus the cost of inflation during any 12-month period, as calculated under a set of regional consumer price indexes. Landlords would also need to show “just cause” in order to evict tenants after their first year — a key provision contained in a separate bill that stalled earlier this year.

Business and landlord groups — including the California Business Roundtable and California Apartment Association — have said they need stability and certainty so they can obtain financing to build new construction.

Read More [[link removed]] Business Climate and Job Creation What Happens To Uber And Lyft Drivers Once AB 5 Passes?

Over Labor Day, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared his support for reclassifying an estimated 2 million California workers as employees instead of independent contractors. Powerful unions view AB 5 as the year’s signature labor achievement, and the bill is expected to pass the state Senate next week – its last stop before heading to the governor’s desk.

But while Democratic presidential candidates have seized upon labor standards of gig workers as a campaign issue, many questions remain about AB 5’s implications, particularly for Uber and Lyft drivers who number in the hundreds of thousands. Will they become employees when AB 5 becomes law? Will their pay go up? Will they lose flexibility?

Much of this remains in flux. Uber and Lyft say today’s on-demand economy calls for a new, first-in the nation framework, and they want California to forge it. Last week major gig employers seeded $90 million for a ballot measure unless lawmakers find a way to protect their business model. At the same time, the companies acknowledged their drivers deserve better pay, more benefits and greater representation by offering some kind of bargaining with the rideshare industry.

Read More [[link removed]] A Slowdown In US Business Formation Poses A Risk To Economy

Despite a decade-plus of economic growth, Americans have slowed the pace at which they’re forming companies, a trend that risks further widening the gap between the most affluent and everyone else.

The longest expansion on record, which began in mid-2009, has failed to restore entrepreneurship to its pre-recession levels, according to a Census Bureau report based on tax filings.

Between 2007 and the first half of 2019, applications to form businesses that would likely hire workers fell 16%. Though that pace improved somewhat after 2012, it dipped again this year despite President Trump’s assertion that his tax cuts and deregulatory drive would benefit smaller companies and their workers.

Business formation has long been one of the primary ways in which Americans have built wealth. When fewer new companies are established, fewer Americans tend to prosper over time.

Read More [[link removed]] U.S. Employers Added 130,000 Nonfarm Payrolls In August

U.S. employment grew modestly in August and unemployment showed signs of stabilizing at historically low levels, signs that a global economic slowdown isn’t driving the U.S. into outright recession but has dented the growth outlook.

The U.S. economy added 130,000 payrolls in August, the Labor Department reported Friday, and has averaged 156,000 over the past three months. That was down from average growth of 190,000 a month in the eight years since jobs started growing after the last recession. The August number was propped up in part by the addition of 25,000 temporary Census workers by the U.S. government, while estimates of payrolls in July and June were revised down.

At the same time, the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.7% in August for the third consecutive month. The jobless rate remains near a 50-year low, a sign of job security and plentiful work opportunities for millions of individuals. Still, its downward trajectory appears to have lost some momentum. At its August level, the jobless rate was little changed from 3.8% a year earlier. Between 2010 and 2018, by contrast, it fell on average 0.6 percentage points a year.

Read More [[link removed]] Is Fresno’s Measure P Headed To The State Supreme Court? Local Judge Rules On Parks Tax Question

A Fresno County Superior Court judge on Thursday agreed with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that two-thirds voter approval was needed to enact the citizen-led Measure P parks sales tax on the November 2018 ballot.

Fresno Building Healthy Communities, a leader in the Yes on P campaign, argued in a lawsuit that the city unjustly required two-thirds approval and that only a simple majority was needed since Measure P was a citizen-led tax initiative instead of one proposed by the government.

Measure P on the Nov. 6 ballot proposed a 3/8-cent sales tax that would’ve generated $37.5 million annually for 30 years for Fresno parks and cultural arts. Measure P received about 52% yes votes.

But Judge Kimberly A. Gaab agreed with Howard Jarvis, which intervened in the case and sought a judgment.

Read More [[link removed]] Energy and Climate Change DOJ Launches Antitrust Probe Over California Emissions Deal With Automakers

The Justice Department has launched an antitrust investigation into four automakers that defied the Trump administration in signing a deal with California on vehicle emissions standards.

The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the situation, said DOJ lawyers are looking at whether Ford Motor, Honda Motor, BMW and Volkswagen “violated federal competition law by agreeing with each other to follow tailpipe-emissions standards beyond those proposed by the Trump administration.”

Honda, BMW and Ford all confirmed that they’ve been contacted with respect to the inquiry.

“Honda will work cooperatively with the Department of Justice with regard to the recent emissions agreement reached between the State of California and various automotive manufacturers, including Honda,” the automaker said in an emailed statement.

Ford and BMW both said they received a letter from the DOJ and will cooperate with investigators. Volkswagen declined to comment on the probe, saying that it’s in regular contact with U.S. authorities.

Read More [[link removed]] A Ban On Gas-Powered Cars? 2020 Democrats Embrace What Once Was A California Fantasy

Democrats running for president had a message for Americans on Wednesday night: you are going to have to wean yourselves off your gas-powered cars.

“It’s not something you have to do. It’s awesome,” entrepreneur Andrew Yang joked.

That didn’t satisfy CNN host Wolf Blitzer, who pressed Yang during Wednesday’s live presidential town hall on climate change. “What’s the answer? Are we all going to have to drive electric cars?” Blitzer asked.

“We are all going to love driving our electric cars,” replied Yang, while conceding “there will still be some legacy gas guzzlers on the road for quite some time, because this is not a country where you’re going to, like, take someone’s clunker away from them.”

Over and over, Yang’s fellow candidates made the same point when it was their turn to answer questions on their plans to combat climate change. While the 2020 Democrats vary in the precise method and timeline for doing so, they agree that transportation in America must change dramatically in a matter of a few decades or less.

Read More [[link removed]] It’s Crunch Time For California’s Plan To Phase Out Single-Use Plastics By 2030

With pressure mounting to address the state’s recycling crisis, California lawmakers are close to deciding on three far-reaching pieces of plastics legislation, including one that would phase out non-recyclable single-use packaging containers by 2030.

All three bills are potentially close to landing on the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom, but they face varying levels of opposition from plastics makers and consumer goods companies, some of which have mounted 11th-hour campaigns to kill or weaken the proposals.

California has been a trailblazer in banning single-use plastics bags and turning plastic straws into fast-food pariahs, but a sunset for single-use containers would thrust the state into new territory. So would a bill by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), which would require beverage containers to contain no less than 75% recycled plastic content by 2035.

“We’re taking a hard look at ourselves,” said Ting, the author of AB 792. “We have to take more drastic action. We need to not be a disposable society, but a recyclable society.”

Read More [[link removed]] Workforce Development What Happened To California’s Crackdown On For-Profit Colleges?

Just a few months ago, California’s Democratic-controlled legislature seemed poised to pass the nation’s toughest restrictions on for-profit colleges. School owners publicly fretted that they’d have to shut down.

Supporters of the seven-bill package, which sailed through the Assembly, hoped California could help close a gap in oversight as the Trump administration has backed away from policing quality in a sector that relies heavily on public money but has been plagued by fraud and poor outcomes. But as the legislative session draws to a close, nearly all of the bills have died or been significantly weakened, felled by a costly lobbying blitz and the complexity of crafting a state-based solution to a nationwide challenge.

Their demise marks a victory for an industry that has been plagued by scandals and school closures in recent years — and a setback for consumer and veterans groups that supported the legislation.

Read More [[link removed]] Parking Lots Stay Off-Limits Overnight For Homeless Community College Students

The demise of a high-profile proposal to let homeless students sleep overnight in community college parking lots illustrates just how much California has struggled to solve the student housing crisis.

When Assemblyman Marc Berman introduced the bill in the Legislature earlier this year, it was met with equal parts applause and ridicule. Homeless students said they desperately needed safe places to park the cars that double as their bedrooms. Community colleges worried about security. And everyday Californians wondered, “How did things get this bad?”

Now Berman, a Democrat from Palo Alto, has decided not to move the bill forward after the Senate Appropriations Committee added amendments that delayed it until 2021, made it easier for colleges to opt out, and exempted colleges within 250 feet of an elementary school.

That last caveat would only serve to stigmatize students, Berman said in a statement in response to the amendments, which were made without public debate. “Homeless students are not pedophiles that need to be kept away from children,” he said. “They are men and women — many of them barely adults themselves — who are trying to improve their lives by obtaining a better education.”

Read More [[link removed]] Infrastructure and Housing Here’s How California’s New Plan To Cap Rent Increases Would Work

California lawmakers are on the verge of approving one of the only state laws in the nation to limit rent increases after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a deal with legislative leaders last week on a bill to cap annual rent hikes.

The measure, Assembly Bill 1482, would limit yearly rent increases statewide to 5% plus inflation for the next decade. Experts believe the measure would provide more stability for renters while also potentially leading to more regular rent hikes for tenants. Powerful interest groups have lined up against the measure, and its passage by the Legislature’s Sept. 13 deadline is far from assured.

What would the bill do?

Supporters of the measure have pitched it as a way to prevent sudden increases in rents at levels that could drive people from their homes as the state experiences a surge in housing costs.

“It’s critical that this passes to address the plight of millions of tenants during the worst housing crisis in our state’s history,” said the bill’s author, Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco).

Read More [[link removed]] Why Can’t California Solve Its Housing Crisis?

When the shimmering, state-of-the-art, $1.3 billion Levi’s Stadium opened its doors in Santa Clara, it was hailed as the pinnacle of technological innovation. Concessions delivered to your seat at the touch of a button! Bluetooth beacons to navigate you with pinpoint precision! High-speed internet throughout! And to top it all off, not a single public cent was spent. The whole thing was privately financed, partly through seat licenses sold to fans at prices ranging from $2,000 to $250,000 — a testament to the exorbitant, almost incomprehensible wealth generated in the greater Bay Area in recent decades, and a gambit that happened to price out a huge swath of 49ers faithful.

Adelle Amador has been a Niners fan since she was a kid living on the east side of San Jose. Her husband, Maurice, is a supervisor at one of the stadium’s club-level restaurants. “He’s been working there since they cut the ribbon,” she says. The stadium opened five years ago. The couple and their children, ages three to 14, have been homeless for about the same amount of time. Adelle works too, as a cashier, but the couple’s combined income is not enough to afford a market-rate apartment in the city where they’ve spent their entire lives.

They’ve stayed with friends and family, cycled through shelters, motels, and garages, slept at drive-in movie theaters, and parked their Ford Explorer near Coyote Creek, a homeless encampment San Jose has been trying to eradicate for years, where Adelle and her husband would trade shifts sleeping. “We’ve been where there’s people trying to open the handles to your car door,” Amador says. Most nights, “My main thing was just, ‘Oh, God, just please get us to the morning, please, God.’”

Read More [[link removed]] Making California’s Water Supply Resilient

As with the stock market, climate change requires a diversified portfolio of solutions. California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed an executive order to develop a comprehensive strategy for making the state’s water system climate-resilient. The order calls for a broad portfolio of collaborative strategies to deal with outdated water infrastructure, unsafe drinking water, flood risks and depleted groundwater aquifers.

In a related study published earlier this year, Stanford researchers Newsha Ajami and Patricia (Gonzales) Whitby examined effective strategies to rising water scarcity concerns. Ajami is director of Urban Water Policy at Stanford’s Water in the West program and a hydrologist specializing in sustainable water resource management. Whitby is a recent Ph.D. graduate from Stanford’s civil and environmental engineering department and currently a water engineer at environmental consulting firm Brown and Caldwell. Below, they discuss their research and how a diversified water portfolio can meet the water needs of California into the future.

Read More [[link removed]] Editorial and Opinion Gavin Newsom Tells Southern California To Plan For Housing. A Lot More Housing

If Southern California leaders were questioning whether Gov. Newsom is serious about ending the state’s housing crisis, he’s given them a very clear answer.

He is.

His administration recently overruled a long-term housing plan from Southern California leaders that vastly underestimated the number of homes needed to ease the existing shortage and to shelter the next generation of Californians. Instead, the state Department of Housing and Community Development declared that cities and counties in Southern California will have to plan for the construction of 1.3 million new homes in the next decade. That number is more than three times larger than what local elected officials had wanted to commit to.

By overruling Southern California leaders’ slow-growth impulses, Newsom made clear that his administration is going to be far more aggressive in requiring cities and counties to make room for new housing. And that’s a very good thing.

Read More [[link removed]] Solutions For Data Privacy Already Exist — Silicon Valley Just Has To Use Them.

Some of the Bay Area’s most recognizable companies have created massive data privacy messes. Just last month, Twitter admitted to sharing user data with advertisers without consent. Apple faced controversy for recording private conversations through its voice assistant Siri, and Facebook was hit with a $5 billion fine by the FTC over data privacy violations.

But the privacy problem spans far beyond the technology industry. As more and more businesses adopt digital channels to engage with customers and constituencies, the cloud hanging over data privacy will soon extend to nearly every company, regardless of size, industry or location.

As the collateral damage mounts, the tech industry has a responsibility to clean up what we started. Part of this comes down to the law; the upcoming California Consumer Protection Act promises to give consumers ownership, control and security over their data. While it likely will have a broad impact on technology platforms that do business in California, the jury is still out on whether the legislation’s proposed intent and its actual impact will align.

Read More [[link removed]] Newsom Wheels And Deals

Gavin Newsom wasn’t born when the TV game show “Let’s Make a Deal” began its run but he’s channeling its host, Monty Hall, during the final days of his first legislative session as governor.

Every few days, it seems, Newsom announces that he and legislative leaders have agreed on one of the session’s major issues, most prominently — so far — rent control and charter school oversight.

Additionally, Labor Day saw a Newsom declaration that he supports Assembly Bill 5, arguably this year’s most controversial bill. It would place in state law, with some modifications, a state Supreme Court ruling that tightens up the legal definition of employment, striking a blow at widespread use of contract workers.

As the overall tone of Newsom’s initial year emerges, one bill at a time, he’s clearly moving California at least a few notches to the left, into ideological territory that his predecessors, including Jerry Brown, were not willing to explore.

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