Following years of local resistance, tech billionaires are turning to the state to fast-track their plan to build a new city in the Bay Area. They are lobbying for legislation to expedite environmental review of their project, enlisting political heavyweights to make their case.
CalMatters
Posted inPolitics & Policy
A $28 minimum age for California construction workers is dead — killed by construction workers
A plan to set a $28 minimum wage for certain California homebuilders died when the influential trades union protested that it could undermine prevailing wage pay rates.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Billionaire tax, affordable housing: See the measures on California’s November ballot
California voters will decide on 14 statewide policy proposals come November, including the high-stakes billionaire tax, an $11 billion affordable housing bond and voter ID requirements.
Posted inHousing & Development
California extended a lifeline to some of its aging mobile home parks. What happened next?
In 2023, the Manufactured Housing Opportunity and Revitalization was given a new name, a new focus and millions more to spend revitalizing California’s most overlooked source of affordable housing. Three years later, the results are starting to come in.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
HOA fees skyrocketing? A California bill could cap them, but Democrats are divided
Some Democrats are divided over a bill that would cap how much homeowners associations can raise fees each year.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Trump renews push to shift homelessness funding. What’s at stake
The Trump administration wants to shift more money to homeless shelters that require sobriety, a change that would disrupt California’s “housing first” policies and threaten to put nearly 15,000 Californians back on the street.
Posted inEducation
California gave every student in prison a laptop. How community colleges are using them
California prisons have given 30,000 laptops to incarcerated students. Inmates say using technology prepares them to enter the workforce. As community colleges start replacing correspondence courses by mail with online-only classes, students and professors debate whether this type of learning is any more effective.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
California is getting ready to increase a health insurance tax. Will it affect your premium?
A balance act: To help fund the safety net, lawmakers have voted through a health tax extension that could increase premium costs for Californians with private insurance.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
This lawmaker’s proposal could make California ‘the most secretive state in the country’
Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco’s legislation would allow public agencies to delay records requests it deems “improperly” filed, sue for “malicious” requests and charge nearly $90 an hour to produce government records. One good governance advocate calls it a “virtual horror show of governmental nontransparency.”
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Newsom promised to help Californians build new careers. Now, the money is running out
Gov. Gavin Newsom made job training and the creation of a master plan for career education part of his agenda. Now, key workforce initiatives might get no new funding.
