Tag: Newsom

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A ‘poison pill’ in California’s budget deal ties state spending to construction

By Alexei Koseff : calmatters – excerpt

IN SUMMARY: A state budget is headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature, but it won’t take effect unless the Legislature makes changes to housing and infrastructure development rules that he has demanded…

After days of confusion in which a deal with Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to unravel over his demand to include new housing and infrastructure regulations, the California Legislature passed an updated state budget on Friday.

With the start of a new fiscal year looming on July 1, budget negotiations — already challenged by a $12 billion and growing deficit — dragged on this week as Newsom and legislative leaders struggled to reach an agreement on waiving state environmental reviews for priority projects.

The details of that proposal were only made public Friday morning, hours before the budget vote, despite a poison pill that would invalidate the entire $321 billion spending plan if the Legislature does not also approve the infrastructure proposal, Senate Bill 131. Lawmakers are expected to take it up on Monday, alongside the housing measure Newsom sought, Assembly Bill 130, which was unveiled and then amended this week following fierce blowback from organized labor.

Officials involved in those negotiations have been loath to explain why the budget process staggered to such an odd and protracted conclusion this year, even as California is now set to adopt sweeping changes to how it builds without much public notice. Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas refused to speak with reporters after the vote…

The final budget relies on reserves and internal borrowing … (more)

Internal borrowing?

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California is embracing psychiatric hospitals again. Behind locked doors, a profit-driven system is destroying lives

By Cynthia Dizikes and Joaquin Palomino : sfchronicle – excerpt (audio)

California is embracing psychiatric hospitals again. Behind locked doors, a profit-driven system is destroying lives…

Soon after taking office in 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom vowed to finally fix a crisis that had come to define California. Emergency rooms were overflowing with people routed by depression, drug addiction and psychosis, many with unstable housing and nowhere to go except the streets.

“This is California’s original sin,” Newsom would say, pointing to decades of government mistakes and neglect that had left the state with a severe shortage of psychiatric treatment beds and narrow restrictions on who could be forced into them. “This is the manifestation of our failure.”

For the first time in a generation, California would pour billions of dollars into mental health facilities while making it easier to lock people in some of them. Those who had long been overlooked, Newsom pledged, would receive stabilizing medication and therapy to help them return to their communities, families, schools and careers.

 Yet a Chronicle investigation has found that the institutions Newsom’s administration is increasingly relying on are themselves a public health catastrophe…(more)

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Newsom announces new accountability measures for cities that receive homelessness aid

By Mollie Burke : sfchronicle – excerpt

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced new requirements Friday for cities and counties receiving state money to address homeless encampments.

Newsom, who has been cracking down on local governments that refuse to accommodate new housing projects or homeless shelters, said that the state will “claw back” funding for localities that fail to comply with their housing goals.

San Francisco became the first city to fall out of compliance with the housing element law, the California Department of Housing and Community Development ruled in July. San Francisco is required to plan for 82,000 new units between 2023 and 2031, but the city authorized just over 3,000 new units in 2023 and 831 units in the first half of this year, according to the city’s Planning Department. The state announced in August that San Francisco was back on track to return to compliance.

Under a law passed in 2023 by San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener, cities that fail to comply must streamline the approval of most projects.

Newsom also said Friday that cities must follow “all state housing and homelessness laws” to hold on to their millions in state aid from encampment resolution funds…(more)

How did we end up with an anti-San Francisco governor and an anti-San Francisco Senator? What is wrong with our city that no one who likes us runs for state office?