Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the March 12, 2017, Santa Cruz Sentinel. Sometimes it takes a worst-case example to show that pension reforms in California remain elusive. For years, critics have railed about spiraling public employee pensions, which dwarf retirement benefits for most private sector workers — those few who are fortunate to have […]
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By Daniel Borenstein, Bay Area News Group Last month, I wrote that Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2012 attempt at pension reform has failed. CalPERS, the nation’s largest pension system, immediately responded on its website declaring that “Pension Reform Has Made a Difference,” and claiming that my column “greatly oversimplifies and needlessly discounts the real impact” of […]
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By The Economist When owning one home seems like a struggle, resenting those with two comes easily. Second-home ownership is uncommon: in 2010 around 4 percent of houses in America were second homes; 1 percent of English homes are second properties of people living in England. But they still arouse passions. Norway and Denmark limit […]
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By Marcos Breton, Sacramento Bee Barbara Smith never set to become anyone’s definition of an “anarchist.” How subversive can one be when living in the bucolic community of Auburn? The county seat of Placer isn’t where one goes to bring the down the government. Auburn is where one goes to retire, which is what Smith […]
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By Jerry Nickelsburg Every American knows that if you want to spend more than you earn, you either must liquidate some assets or you must borrow. And if you have been borrowing a lot, stopping will result in much less consumption. Which is why it boggles the mind that experts in Washington, D.C., including the […]
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By Larry Weitzman El Dorado County has two main priorities. No. 1 is public safety and No. 2 is maintaining the 1,000 or so miles of county roads. Everything else is a distant third. For several recent years, the county would put about $2 million a year from the General Fund to road maintenance. In […]
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By Joanne Marchetta As a national treasure offering world-class recreation opportunities, Lake Tahoe is one of the most popular outdoor destinations in Northern California and Nevada. And sometimes, being popular has its challenges. Tahoe’s limited roadways become congested during times of peak visitation, when thousands of people who live in nearby metropolitan areas get in […]
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To the community, Tahoe Coalition for the Homeless hosted over 100 people at the second South Lake Tahoe warm room open house event on Feb. 22. We were proud to honor City Councilwoman Wendy David for her participation in the establishment of the warm room. David was facilitator of the Lake Tahoe Collaborative when a […]
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By James R. Pomerantz and Daniel Oppenheimer How do we know how much we learn in college? If you search for an answer to this question, prepare to be disappointed. Popular college rankings such as U.S. News &World Report’s are based on subjective judgments of schools’ reputations and on the difficulty of gaining admission. Rarely, […]
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By Jay Famiglietti and Michelle Miro, Los Angeles Times Over the last 18 months, California has experienced one of the driest, wettest and wildest rides in its recorded water history. As the 2015-16 water year opened in October 2015, drought had driven the state’s reservoir and groundwater levels to all-time lows. Entire towns were […]
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