Web Version [link removed] | Update Preferences [link removed] CBRT in the News Another Soda Tax Bill Dies. Another Win For Big Soda

A rogue industry. A gun to our head. Extortion.

That's how infuriated lawmakers described soft drink companies — and what they pulled off in 2018 when they scored a legislative deal that bars California's cities and counties from imposing taxes on sugary drinks.

Yet, despite its tarnished reputation, the deep-pocketed industry continues to exert its political influence in the nation's most populous state, spending millions of dollars on politically connected lobbyists and doling out campaign contributions to nearly every state lawmaker.

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The American Beverage Association declined an interview request to discuss its political giving and this year's bill that would have upended the soda tax moratorium it helped orchestrate. Coca-Cola and Pepsi did not return requests seeking comment.

In 2018, the industry spent $8.9 million to boost a statewide ballot measure sponsored by the California Business Roundtable that would have made it more difficult for cities and counties to levy taxes — not just taxes on sugary drinks — by requiring them to be approved by two-thirds of voters instead of a simple majority. Fearful that local governments could face a higher voting threshold for taxes and fees that would fund libraries, public safety and other services, lawmakers at the time said they had no choice but to negotiate with the industry.

Read More [[link removed]] Voters Will Opt To Tax The Rich — If They Know How The Money Will Be Spent

At a moment of stubborn party identification in a nauseating culture war, ballot initiatives are an attractive means of pursuing progressive reforms. Many state minimum wages around the country have been raised through ballot initiatives, despite heavy (and well-funded) opposition by local Chambers of Commerce.

Oftentimes, as in the case of Florida in the 2020 election in which Floridians simultaneously voted both for Donald Trump and a $15 minimum wage, these initiatives pass at a much higher margin than Democratic candidates win. It seems that some people who balk at anyone with a D next to their name on a ballot are willing to support measures often more progressive than many of those Democratic politicians themselves would ever introduce.

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Schools and Communities First put together an impressive $56 million for the campaign, but it was not to be outdone by the “No on 15” coalition, including groups like the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Business Roundtable, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (a front group for commercial property interests), which raised $61 million.

Read More [[link removed]] Business Climate and Job Creation U.S. Household Income Surged By Record 21.1% In March

Household income rose at a record pace of 21.1% in March as federal-stimulus checks helped fuel an economic revival that is poised to endure with an easing pandemic.

The 21.1% March surge in income was the largest monthly increase for government records tracing back to 1959, largely reflecting $1,400 stimulus checks included in President Biden’s fiscal relief package signed into law in March. The stimulus payments accounted for $3.948 trillion of the overall seasonally adjusted $4.213 trillion rise in March personal income.

Spending was also up sharply, increasing 4.2%, the Commerce Department said on Friday. That was the steepest month-over-month increase since last summer.

Consumers shelled out more money on goods, particularly big-ticket items such as autos and furniture, compared with services in March. But economists expect that to change in the coming months due to widespread vaccinations and the broader reopening of the economy.

Read More [[link removed]] U.S. Economy Grew Robustly In First Quarter

A burst of growth put the U.S. economy just a shave below its pre-pandemic size in the first quarter, extending what is shaping up to be a rapid, consumer-driven recovery this year.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services made in the U.S., grew at a 6.4% seasonally adjusted annual rate in January through March, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That left the world’s largest economy within 1% of its peak, reached in late 2019, just before the coronavirus pandemic reached the U.S.

Households, many of them vaccinated and armed with hundreds of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money, drove the first-quarter surge in output by shelling out more for cars, bicycles, furniture and other big-ticket goods. The federal government also stepped up spending—on vaccines and aid to businesses.

“If you had asked me a year ago where we would be today I certainly would not have said we would have recouped the pre-pandemic levels of economic activity,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “Everything about this crisis has been unique. The speed and the magnitude of the contraction in economic activity was unprecedented. The amount of policy support put in place was extremely rapid.”

Read More [[link removed]] Behind Biden’s Big Spending Plans, The Waning Sway Of Economic Caution

When Lawrence Summers criticized the Biden’s administration’s new economic policies in recent weeks as being the least responsible in 40 years, you might have expected the warning to jolt Democrats. Mr. Summers, after all, was formerly the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton, the president of Harvard University and the economic adviser personally tapped by Barack Obama to help him navigate the financial crisis of 2008-09.

Instead, Mr. Summers was largely dismissed by his fellow Democrats. Progressives shouted him down on Twitter after he warned that the new administration’s $1.9 trillion economic rescue program could overstimulate the economy and spark inflation. Then Mr. Biden one-upped the stimulus program with a new $2 trillion spending plan for infrastructure and other projects. “It’s big, yes,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s bold, yes.” On Thursday he added another $1.8 trillion to his wish list, this time for family programs, adding up to $6 trillion in proposed or approved additional spending over a decade, a large chunk of it up front.

Behind the drama, the party’s resistance to Mr. Summers’s call for moderation is a sign that a torch is passing in economic thought and economic policy. Exiting the stage after a long run in power is a group of accomplished centrist economists who came of age during an inflation spiral in the 1970s and governed from the 1990s to the 2010s, with a mixed record of success and failure.

Read More [[link removed]] Biden Tax Plan Leans On Banks To Help Find Unreported Income

Part of the funding for President Biden’s $1.8 trillion American Families Plan hinges on a beefed-up reporting requirement for banks designed to identify unreported income.

The proposal would require banks to report annual account inflows and outflows to the Internal Revenue Service. The requirement would also extend to peer-to-peer payment services such as Venmo but wouldn’t require individuals and businesses to report any additional information to the government, according to people familiar with the plan. Financial institutions already must report interest, dividend and investment income, and the IRS can get bank information during audits.

“Providing the IRS this information will help improve audit selection so it can better target its enforcement activity on the most suspect evaders, avoiding unnecessary (and costly) audits of ordinary taxpayers,” the Treasury Department said in a statement Wednesday.

Read More [[link removed]] U.S. Unemployment Claims Fell To 553,000 In Latest Week

Jobless claims fell again to the lowest level since the pandemic took hold more than a year ago, another sign the labor market is rebounding this spring.

Initial unemployment claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell by 13,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 553,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The previous week’s figure was revised up to 566,000. The latest reading marked the third straight week jobless claims were below 600,000, their lowest levels since early 2020. The four-week moving average, which smooths out volatility in the weekly figures, was 611,750, also a pandemic low.

New claims this month are well below the millions of claims filed weekly a year ago, but still more than double the roughly 200,000 weekly applications submitted in the months before the pandemic began.

Fewer workers being laid off comes as hiring is picking up, with states lifting restrictions on gatherings at restaurants, baseball stadiums and tourist venues, and Americans, who are increasingly vaccinated against Covid-19, becoming more willing to spend time and money outside their homes. Consumer spending is the primary driver of the U.S. economy.

Read More [[link removed]] Newsom Gets Strong Ratings On Schools, Economy Despite Recall Attacks

Gov. Gavin Newsom just got the most concrete evidence to date showing why he’s positioned to survive a recall vote.

Recall proponents have made a simple pitch: The Democratic governor’s pandemic mismanagement has devastated California’s economy and failed schoolchildren. They said they were vindicated this week when election officials validated enough signatures to force a fall election.

But a new statewide poll suggests those two pillars of anti-Newsom sentiment aren’t as sturdy as his foes think. The Public Policy Institute of California found 59 percent of likely voters approve of how Newsom has managed school reopening — and 59 percent approve how he has handled jobs and the economy. That figure is a few points higher than the share of likely voters who told PPIC in March they would vote to keep Newsom in office.

“To me, the significance around schools and the economy can’t be overstated,” said PPIC president and CEO Mark Baldassare. “These are really two central challenges, big problems the governor has faced, and today most people are with him in terms of how he’s handled these issues.”

Read More [[link removed]] California Loses Congressional Seat For First Time

For the first time in its 171-year history, California’s political voice is about to get a little quieter.

After months of delay, the U.S. Census Bureau today released new population estimates for each state. The bad news for California: It loses a seat in Congress, down from 53 House districts to 52.

The worse news: Not only does that mean the state will have one fewer representative in the House, it also means one fewer vote in the Electoral College that decides the presidency and proportionately less of the $1.5 trillion in federal money distributed by population each year.

Maybe the hardest news to take of all: While California is seeing its national stature shrink ever-so-slightly, that power is being shunted to our faster-growing rivals, Texas (which adds two seats) and Florida (which gets one). In all, seven House seats will shift among 13 states, the smallest change since 1941.

Read More [[link removed]] State's 'My Turn' Website Bypassed For Most Vaccine Appointments

For months, Alyssa Jenkins logged countless hours on MyTurn, California’s COVID vaccine registration site as she searched for precious appointment slots for her fellow teachers.

“I’d become obsessed,” said Jenkins, who teaches high school English in Pacifica. “I was living in the system.”

When MyTurn debuted in mid-January, it was supposed to be a one-stop shop, a place where every Californian could register to be notified when they became eligible for the COVID vaccine and eventually make an appointment for their shot.

Instead, it’s become a lightning rod for many Californians frustrated by their inability to get vaccinated quickly and return to a normal life.

Read More [[link removed]] Is This The Year The California Legislature Closes The Digital Divide?

It only took a global pandemic, a year spent working and studying at home and a once-in-a-generation spending blitz from the federal government, but 2021 might be the year that California finally goes big on broadband.

Expanding internet access has long been a cause that lawmakers of all stripes — Democrat and Republican, rural and urban — have been happy to get behind. Few, however, have been willing to actually prioritize it.

That might change this year, just so long as politics and industry resistance don’t get in the way.

This time, there’s plenty of money to throw at the problem, there’s an undeniable sense of urgency to act and there’s commitment to the cause coming from both the governor’s office and legislative leadership.

Read More [[link removed]] California Needs More Affordable Homes. This Union Stands In The Way.

California legislators proposed more than a half dozen major bills last year to address the state’s affordable-housing crisis, which researchers say is one of the worst in the nation. None of them passed.

Most died or were withdrawn, according to people involved in the processes, in large part because of campaigns waged against them by the state’s powerful construction-workers union.

California’s State Building and Construction Trades Council, which represents 450,000 ironworkers, pipe fitters and other skilled laborers, has blocked numerous bills it says don’t guarantee enough work for its members. It contributes tens of millions of dollars to political candidates and campaigns, engages in aggressive lobbying, and pays for advertisements that portray opponents as lackeys of greedy developers.

Legislative insiders say the success of the union known widely as “the Trades” is one of the main reasons Sacramento politicians have struggled to pass bills streamlining construction approval and easing zoning restrictions. Researchers say those steps are urgently needed to address skyrocketing real-estate prices and rents, as well as homelessness.

Read More [[link removed]] Raising Standards For Fast-Food Workers In California

Fast-food workers across the United States, often adults living in or close to poverty, typically earn very low wages with few benefits and experience poor working conditions. Setting and enforcing high standards in the industry is particularly challenging: It is heavily franchised, many small employers in the industry have little ability to profitably raise standards, and most workers are not unionized, making the fast-food sector in urgent need of improvement.

California can take action at the state level to address these problems and improve the lives of the state’s more than half a million fast-food workers by creating a sectoral council, as called for in the proposed FAST Recovery Act.1 A sectoral council brings together representatives of workers, employers, and the public to make recommendations regarding minimum compensation, safety, scheduling stability, and training standards for the industry. This important step could help build a new model of standard-setting for the fast-food industry and the country.

Read More [[link removed]] Sempra Energy Named One Of 'America's Best Employers For Diversity' By Forbes

Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE) has been named to Forbes' "America's Best Employers for Diversity" list for 2021, marking the third consecutive year that the company has been recognized. Sempra Energy ranked 79th out of 500 companies this year, up from 328th last year, and was the second highest-ranking employer in the utility industry.

"At the Sempra family of companies, we are committed to building a high-performance culture that advances the interest of all of our stakeholders," said Karen Sedgwick, senior vice president and chief human resources officer for Sempra Energy. "Consistent with that commitment, we believe that advancing diversity and inclusion helps to shape an innovative workforce, where employees are encouraged and empowered to be their authentic selves. This is critical to elevating performance and allowing us to partner responsibly with our communities as we look to build North America's premier energy infrastructure company."

Promoting a High-Performance Culture Across the Company

Sempra Energy's focus on building a high-performance culture across its family of companies is underpinned by its long history of promoting safety, advancing workforce training and development, and fostering an inclusive environment where diverse perspectives and backgrounds are embraced. The Sempra Energy family of companies offer a variety of programs to enhance diversity and inclusivity in the workplace, including 16 employee councils, mentorship programs, trainings and an annual Diversity & Inclusion Summit. Understanding that a commitment to diversity and inclusion starts at the top, Sempra Energy is a founding member of the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion initiative and a member of the Paradigm for Parity coalition, which promotes gender parity in the workplace.

Read More [[link removed]] A Bottleneck At California Ports Squeezes Manufacturers

Following President Joe Biden’s first presidential address to Congress, National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons released this statement:

“Thanks to the leadership of vaccine manufacturers and the Biden administration’s successful vaccine distribution efforts, Americans are getting back to the activities and the people they love. Though the capacity limits in the House chamber tonight remind us that we still have a long way to go, our future is looking brighter.

“We look forward to working with President Biden to achieve historic infrastructure investment, including the many priorities offered in our ‘Building to Win’ plan, which, in addition to identifying areas of investment, also provides multiple funding solutions.

“Manufacturers have also provided roadmaps on critical issues ranging from immigration to climate change. We’re ready to work with President Biden and members of any party to deliver bipartisan progress on these issues and more, all while ensuring we’re strengthening the manufacturing workforce, not jeopardizing manufacturing growth in the United States.

Read More [[link removed]] Disneyland Reopens After Year-Long Closure

Disneyland Resort in California officially reopened to the general public Friday after being closed for more than a year during the Covid-19 pandemic, bringing an end to a months-long saga over the park’s reopening that has taken a significant financial toll on Disney and the local economy.

Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park have been closed to theme park guests since March 2020, when the park shuttered in the early days of the pandemic.

The park will be open at 25% capacity for the time being based on California’s tiered Covid-19 restrictions, and is only open to California residents.

While California Adventure has had some shopping and dining options open during the closure and offered a ticketed dining event this spring, Disneyland has been completely closed and no rides in either park have been open.

Disneyland’s Downtown Disney shopping district has been open during the pandemic as well.

Read More [[link removed]] Truckers Fall Under California Gig Economy Law, Court Says

California's gig economy law applies to some 70,000 truck drivers who can be classified as employees of companies that hire them instead of independent contractors, giving them a right to overtime, sick pay or other benefits, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a ruling last year by a federal judge that said federal interstate transportation law pre-empted 2019's Assembly Bill 5.

In overturning that decision, the appellate court's 2-1 decision found that AB5 doesn't conflict with federal law because it is “a generally applicable labor law that affects a motor carrier’s relationship with its workforce and does not bind, compel, or otherwise freeze into place the prices, routes, or services."

The ruling is “a massive victory for California’s truck drivers, who for far too long have faced exploitation and misclassification at the hands of trucking companies that place corporate profit ahead of drivers’ safety and well-being,” the International Brotherhood of Teamsters said in a statement.

Read More [[link removed]] Progressive Bills Go Down In Flames

It isn’t even halfway through the legislative year, and three lofty progressive proposals have already been squashed — showcasing the sharp divide within California’s Democrat-dominated Legislature.

A bill to create single-payer health care? Tabled last week. A bill to ban corporations and “business entities” from contributing money to political candidates? Shot down Thursday in a rare Dem-on-Dem public takedown. And a proposal to create a wealth tax? It didn’t even get a hearing ahead of today’s deadline to progress out of its first committee.

The common denominator behind these proposals is their author Assemblymember Alex Lee, a 25-year-old Democratic socialist from San Jose who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders and lives with his mom. He became the state’s youngest lawmaker in more than 80 years when he was sworn into office in January. Lee, who connects with constituents via Minecraft livestreams and Instagram Live, told me he thought he would be “completely ostracized and alone” in the state Capitol for being “super young, super progressive.” Though he said his Democratic colleagues have been “very receptive” to his ideas, the evidence so far suggests otherwise.

Read More [[link removed]] The Case For California: Why Stories About The Golden State’s Demise Are Overblown

Paying $3,150 a month for a one-bedroom apartment is absurd — unless you’re living in San Francisco. For computer engineer David Berrios and his wife, it was worth it to live in this 49-square-mile technology paradise by the Bay. From their perch near Mount Olympus in the Corona Heights neighborhood, they could stroll down the hill to Haight-Ashbury or walk to a favorite jiu jitsu studio — or anywhere else in the city, for that matter.

That changed a year ago, when San Francisco became the first major city in the country to lock down in the pandemic. A former NASA computer scientist, Berrios, 40, had moved from the east coast to California because he wanted to be in a challenging environment — the start-up kind of challenging, he says, not the kind in which two people are trapped inside a small apartment with nothing to do. They also wanted to start a family.

So in November, Berrios and his wife packed their bags and became one of the 80,000 households who left San Francisco in 2020. But they didn’t go to Austin, Miami or Wyoming, as some reports might suggest. In fact, they didn’t leave the state of California. Instead, they bought and settled into a five-bedroom house in Yucca Valley, next to Joshua Tree National Park. “We thought about moving to other states,” Berrios says. “But California just checks all the boxes.”

Read More [[link removed]] Energy and Climate Change Big Oil Companies Recover As Prices Rebound

Big oil companies returned to profitability during the first quarter as they recovered from the unprecedented destruction of oil and gas demand wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM -2.75% reported $2.7 billion in net income Friday, its first quarterly profit since the pandemic erupted last spring, while Chevron Corp. CVX -3.62% reported $1.4 billion in first-quarter profit. The results were boosted by rising oil prices during the first months of 2021, as countries around the world soften coronavirus quarantines.

The largest European oil companies, BP BP -1.29% PLC, Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A -1.73% PLC and Total SE, TOT -1.95% all reported profits earlier in the week after enduring huge losses last year.

“That recovery, which we had anticipated happening at some point in time, is happening sooner than we anticipated,” Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods said in an interview Friday. “As economies are reopening and rebounding quicker, in some places, than expected, we are seeing a demand response.”

Read More [[link removed]] A Top Senate Democrat Wants U.S. Rules Banning Gas-Powered Cars By 2035

A top Senate Democrat is urging U.S. anti-pollution standards that would follow a deal brokered by California with five automakers and then set targets to end sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, a goal that reaches farther than President Joe Biden’s climate plan.

In a letter sent late Thursday to the Environmental Protection Agency, Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, says the administration must move forcefully in the auto sector to achieve Biden’s plan of slashing America’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

Carper notes that the industry is already moving in the direction of zero-emission electric vehicles and that it’s critical to lay markers now to ensure that the U.S. positions itself as a top player in auto manufacturing over foreign competitors such as China.

Read More [[link removed]] 1 In 5 Electric Vehicle Owners In California Switched Back To Gas Because Charging Their Cars Is A Hassle, New Research Shows

In roughly three minutes, you can fill the gas tank of a Ford Mustang and have enough range to go about 300 miles with its V8 engine.

But for the electric Mustang Mach-E, an hour plugged into a household outlet gave Bloomberg automotive analyst Kevin Tynan just three miles of range.

"Overnight, we're looking at 36 miles of range," he told Insider. "Before I gave it back to Ford, because I wanted to give it back full, I drove it to the office and plugged in at the charger we have there."

Standard home outlets generally put out about 120 volts of power at what electric vehicle aficionados call "Level 1" charging, while the high-powered specialty connections offer 240 volts of power and are known as "Level 2." By comparison, Tesla's "Superchargers," which can fully charge its cars in a little over an hour, offer 480 volts of direct current.

Read More [[link removed]] White House Says Clean Energy Standards Work. Is That True?

Members of the Biden administration said in recent weeks that clean electricity standards similar to what is being proposed nationally have a successful track record at the state level.

But timeline challenges with the standards and environmental pushback in some locations are raising questions whether the plans work as intended.

Broadly defined as a policy mandating that all or a portion of electricity come from carbon-free resources within a certain number of years, a clean electricity standard is a central part of the administration's climate agenda and a plank in President Biden's $2.2 trillion infrastructure package. The administration has said it backs a mandate that would incentivize not only renewables, but also nuclear power, carbon capture and other technologies.

"It's working very well in states that have utilized it," White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy told reporters earlier this month. "We think it's one of the best methods to actually get the [emissions] reductions we're looking for with a level of certainty."

Read More [[link removed]] California Just Hit 95% Renewable Energy. Will Other States Come Along For The Ride?

Something remarkable happened over the weekend: California hit nearly 95% renewable energy.

I’ll say it again: 95% renewables. For all the time we spend talking about how to reach 100% clean power, it sometimes seems like a faraway proposition, whether the timeframe is California’s 2045 target or President Biden’s more aggressive 2035 goal. But on Saturday just before 2:30 p.m., one of the world’s largest economies came within a stone’s throw of getting there.

There are several caveats. For one thing, Saturday’s 94.5% figure — a record, as confirmed to me by the California Independent System Operator — was fleeting, lasting just four seconds. It was specific to the state’s main power grid, which covers four-fifths of California but doesn’t include Los Angeles, Sacramento and several other regions. It came at a time of year defined by abundant sunshine and relatively cool weather, meaning it’s easier for renewable power to do the job traditionally done by fossil fuels.

Read More [[link removed]] Workforce Development In Face Of Anxieties, West Contra Costa Unified Commits To Full In-Person Instruction In Fall

After some parents expressed doubts that the district would in fact reopen fully this fall, the West Contra Costa Unified board voted to commit to “100%” in-person instruction this fall.

The district’s school board debated for hours on Wednesday night about an “action statement” to students, parents and faculty that it eventually adopted to reassure them of the commitment, even though district officials have said for months that they are planning on a full in-person return in the fall.

At the same time, the district is still planning on offering a distance learning option for families who prefer that.

The board wanted to send a message that come the fall, students wishing to attend in-person classes would be able to attend full time, not in a hybrid fashion in which some classes would be offered remotely and some in-person.

Read More [[link removed]] Poll: Most Californians Worry Schools Won't Reopen Fully Next Fall

More than 4 in 5 California adults, including public school parents, believe that the pandemic has caused children, especially low-income children and English learners, to fall academically behind.

Six in 10 Californians are concerned that schools in the fall will not be open for full-time, in-person instruction in the fall, according to a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California released on Wednesday.

The annual survey of Californians’ perspectives on education also found that a majority approved of the way Gov. Gavin Newsom has handled K-12 public schools, although opinions were split along partisan lines, with 22% of Republicans and 79% of Democrats supporting him on the issue.

Read More [[link removed]] Infrastructure and Housing Capitol Mum On Eviction Moratorium Extension As Renters Seek More Time

With two months to go before a statewide eviction moratorium expired in January, lawmakers, lobbyists and the governor’s staff were already deep into negotiations on an extension. They reached it just days before the deadline, providing six more months of a ban on eviction.

Now, with two months left before that extension itself expires on June 30, there is no proposed legislation on giving renters more time before the moratorium ends, and lawmakers expressed uncertainty that there would be.

“It remains to be seen if there’s appetite in Sacramento to extend the protections past June 30,” said David Chiu, a San Francisco Democrat who wrote the original eviction moratorium legislation. “But I don’t think any of my colleagues have an interest in seeing a wave of mass evictions.”

Read More [[link removed]] How Much Is Rent Relief Helping Californians?

When Blanca Esthela Trejo, 46, lies down to sleep, what feels like shards of glass stab her back and cut into her lungs — a lingering effect of COVID-19.

“I’d like to be crouched down, hunched over all the time, because the pain is too much,” she said.

But Trejo is foregoing medical treatment because she has put paying the rent on her Salinas apartment above all else — to keep a roof over her three children’s heads.

A state law passed in January extended eviction protections for tenants through June 30, as long as tenants show they lost their income due to COVID-19 and pay a quarter of what they owe.

The law also allocates a whopping $2.6 billion in federal money for rent relief.

Read More [[link removed]] LA Property Owner Says Eviction Moratorium Due To Pandemic Has Left Him Homeless

A Los Angeles property owner says the eviction moratorium currently in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic is preventing him from moving into one of his own rental units. Now, he's living out of his car.

"I was upset that the city of Los Angeles would suggest to me that I would go into a homeless shelter, when I own property in the city," said the man, who did not wish to disclose his identity.

He says he's going through a divorce, has been displaced and needs a place to live.

Despite owning a duplex in the West Adams District, he says he's forbidden from moving a tenant out of one of the units so he can move in.

Read More [[link removed]] Will California Spend $20 Billion On Homelessness?

Bay Area mayors on Thursday urged the state to do something unprecedented — spend $20 billion in a multi-year effort to combat California’s massive homelessness crisis.

Their proposal would dedicate $4 billion every year for five years to continue the historic efforts California has made to house and shelter people during the pandemic. That sum would be roughly half of the state’s projected 2021 budget surplus, when factoring in $26 billion California was allocated in federal stimulus money.

“This year’s budget presents California with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to dramatically reduce homelessness if we can muster the collective courage and will to stand up for our most vulnerable neighbors,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said, speaking with other members of the Big City Mayors coalition, which represents the state’s 13 largest cities.

Read More [[link removed]] Why Were The Bay Area's Biggest Cities Denied Key Housing Funds?

The mayors of the Bay Area’s three largest cities are pushing back after they were denied key affordable housing funds — a shutout they say could cost the region 3,000 desperately needed homes this year and jeopardize future efforts to fight the housing crisis.

For the first time in recent memory, no projects in San Jose, Oakland or San Francisco made the list when a little-known state committee that plays a crucial role in affordable housing financing revealed this year’s first round of funding allocations. As a result, four projects in San Jose, five in San Francisco and five in Oakland now are on hold — and possibly won’t get built at all.

That’s about 1,600 units for low-income and homeless residents that are stalled. Another 1,400 units, which will need funding later this year, are at risk if the state continues to neglect the Bay Area, local experts say.

“We need the state to meet us halfway,” San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said. “And to shut out three cities that have very aggressive affordable housing efforts underway suggests that there is something wrong with the allocation formula.”

Read More [[link removed]] City Councils Are Villains Of The Housing Crisis

On Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released a test for New York City Council candidates seeking her endorsement in this year’s elections. She calls the project, run through her political action committee, a “certification of sorts”—a checklist of progressive bona fides that multiple candidates in a given race could fulfill.

One question asks about the longstanding New York City custom known as “member deference,” in which the city council votes on the approval of, say, a big new affordable housing project according to the wishes of the council member in whose district it sits. “Will you vote in favor of zoning changes to include mixed-income housing developments in an affluent neighborhood if the local council member was opposed?” the questionnaire asks. In other words: Are you for member deference, or for doing something about New York’s housing crunch?

It’s not just her. On Wednesday, from the opposite side of the Democratic spectrum, mayoral candidate Andrew Yang said he would also support a policy of eliminating member deference.

Read More [[link removed]] California Law To Slow Down The Big Investor Housing Grab Passes First Test

ocelyn Foreman faced down a real estate giant, and won.

A mother of five and grandmother of three, Foreman’s victory was the first test of a new California law intended to give communities and tenants the chance to stem the massive tide of large real estate investors who’ve bought up hundreds of thousands of distressed single-family residential properties across the state over the past decade, flipping them for profit or turning them into market-rate rentals.

Local public radio station KQED first reported earlier this month on how the home Foreman had been renting ended up on the foreclosure auction block. Bidding started at $175,000. The winning bid was for $600,000, from Redondo Beach-based real estate firm Wedgewood.

The name was familiar to Foreman and many others in Oakland, as it owned the vacant house occupied last year by a group of Black homeless mothers — a property the mothers later acquired in partnership with Oakland Community Land Trust.

Read More [[link removed]] Berkeley Goes Big On Affordable Housing Investment

he city of Berkeley is investing big on affordable housing.

Berkeley's City Council unanimously voted to allocate $53 million to develop hundreds of new affordable homes at the Ashby and North Berkeley BART stations.

The funding commitment to affordable housing is the largest in city history.

"This vote is the culmination of years of community planning," Mayor Jesse Arreguin said in a statement.

"But it's the wisdom of Berkeley's voters that made this possible."

Tuesday night's vote culminates a process that began over three years ago with a series of community conversations.

The conversations led to Mayor Arreguin's introduction of Measure O, an affordable housing bond that passed with 77 percent of the vote.

Read More [[link removed]] California Court Of Appeal Decides Landmark Housing Case

The California Court of Appeal has delivered a victory clients Ruegg & Ellsworth and Frank Spenger Company, as well as to housing advocates across the state, in a landmark opinion on the state's new housing laws. In Ruegg & Ellsworth v. City of Berkeley (2021) ___ Cal.App.5th ____, the Court of Appeal agreed that state laws intended to limit local opposition to housing must be interpreted broadly, rather than interpreted to defer to city decisions to deny housing, and that the state may constitutionally limit cities' discretion in order to address the ongoing housing crisis. The result finally advances 260 homes in the case at issue – and delivers the first published opinion affirming the validity of the California State Legislature's 2017 housing package.

Ruegg & Ellsworth v. City of Berkeley is the first published opinion applying Senate Bill (SB) 35, which was passed in 2017 to encourage the development of housing by fast-tracking the permitting process for housing developments that meet an exhaustive list of qualifications. Qualifying projects that provide the required percentage of on-site affordable units need only to comply with the city or county's "objective" development standards, and can bypass time-consuming and costly discretionary review processes that the Legislature found to be a key contributor to the statewide housing supply crisis.

Read More [[link removed]] Editorial and Opinion The Post-Pandemic Boom

President Biden can hardly be blamed for trumpeting the U.S. economic resurgence in his address to Congress. But his claim that “America’s house was on fire” when he entered office? It was already extinguished, as Thursday’s first-quarter GDP report showed.

Real GDP rose 6.4% in the period as vaccines rolled out, state lockdowns eased and Americans spent December stimulus payments. Incredibly, real GDP was a mere 0.87% below the 2019 fourth-quarter business cycle peak and probably would have surpassed it if not for supply-chain problems and disincentives to work. Consumer spending contributed 7.02 percentage-points to growth—about 70% of that for goods, but spending on services also increased, especially on recreation, food and accommodation.

Housing chipped in 0.49 percentage-points as the surge in home building and renovations continued. Business investment added 1.29 percentage-points, mostly from software and IT equipment, despite a global semiconductor shortage and transportation bottlenecks that have snarled manufacturing. Net exports and reduced inventories subtracted 3.51 points.

Read More [[link removed]] Biden’s Cradle-To-Grave Government

The progressive hits keep coming from the Biden Administration, and the latest is the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan introduced in broad strokes on Wednesday. It’s more accurate to call this the plan to make the middle class dependent on government from cradle to grave. The government will tell you sometime later, after you’re hooked to the state, how it will force you to pay for it.

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We’d call the price tag breathtaking, but by now what’s another $2 trillion? Add $2 trillion or so each for the Covid and green energy (“infrastructure”) bills, and that’s $6 trillion of new spending in 100 days. That doesn’t include the regular federal budget of more than $4 trillion a year. No worries, mate, the Federal Reserve will monetize the debt.

But the cost, while staggering, isn’t the only or even the biggest problem. The destructive part is the way the plan seeks to insinuate government cash and the rules that go with it into all of the major decisions of family life. The goal is to expand the entitlement state to make Americans rely on government and the political class for everything they don’t already provide.

Read More [[link removed]] Californians Need State Public Banking Options, Here's Why

Banking is prohibitively costly for low-to-moderate income people. It’s one of the main culprits in the state’s widening financial wealth gap.

So, when Wall Street banks released quarterly reports last week, we were stunned – though not surprised – to see a report from The American Prospect that showed 12 of the 15 largest American banks raked in billions in overdraft fees largely from the pockets of vulnerable people already hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

These banks made billions of dollars over the last year, and are already on the road to recovery. Unfortunately, people who need financial support the most are not.

There’s never been a more critical time for California to prioritize inclusive financial growth and long-term wealth-building initiatives such as Assembly Bill 1177, the California Public Banking Option Act.

Read More [[link removed]] Biden's Tax Plan Could Hit California Hard

A cosmic convergence of events in Washington and Sacramento last week demonstrated how strongly federal and state tax systems are interconnected.

President Joe Biden, it was revealed, will ask Congress this week to nearly double taxes on capital gains of the highest-income taxpayers, on top of an increase in taxes on their ordinary incomes he had proposed earlier to pay for infrastructure improvements.

California’s budget is extraordinarily dependent on those same taxpayers, with the top 1% — about 150,000 tax filers in a state of nearly 40 million — accounting for nearly 50% of the state’s income tax revenues. Much of those revenues from the state’s wealthiest residents come from their capital gains, which have increased sharply in recent years.

Read More [[link removed]] A Deeper Dive Into California's Housing Crisis

hen it comes to California’s housing crisis, policy makers have often taken the narrow approach of throwing money at efforts to boost supply of sub-market rate units, with comparatively little focus on the dynamics that are driving demand for low income housing.

According to the California Budget and Policy Center, more than one in five Californians face “severe housing cost-burdens.” In other words, their incomes are too low to be able to afford market rate rents.

Over half of California’s annual low-income housing production is fueled by $3.5 billion in tax subsidies called Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTCs).

Based on Department of Housing and Urban Development standards, among those most likely to face this predicament are 370,000 California construction worker households — the very people we are depending on to build our way out of this crisis.

Recent Bay Area data shows housing cost burdens for carpenters and construction laborers are similar to that of janitors, and generally worse than it is for distribution center workers.

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