Free Republic

SACRAMENTO - Every property owner in California, no matter how big or small or valuable the parcel, faces paying a flat $50 tax to fund schools under a measure voters will be asked to approve in November. Although it's still early in the election season, the move already is generating criticism from taxpayer groups and property owners who say it's a regressive tax and adds to the burden on average citizens who are already overtaxed. Proponents of Proposition 88 - authored by EdVoice, a coalition that includes backing from such wealthy philanthropists as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Silicon Valley investor...

In California politics, Silicon Valley executives used to be considered newbies, nerds or simply multimillionaires with too much time and money on their hands. No longer. Emboldened over the past decade by some success passing ballot propositions, a handful of the valley's most influential power brokers are once again aiming to use the initiative process to put their stamp on public policy in California. Two of the boldest electoral initiatives yet to emerge from valley interests will be on November's ballot: NetFlix founder Reed Hastings and Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr are backing Proposition 88, an unprecedented statewide real...

Though more local school bonds are passing, voter support for these measures is in decline. This seeming contradiction can be understood by looking at the impact of Proposition 39 passed by voters in 2000. That year, a small group of multimillionaires and billionaires, most from the Silicon Valley, spent more than $60 million on a campaign to lower the vote threshold for the passage of local school bonds that only property owners are obligated to repay. The two-thirds vote for local bonds was established in the California Constitution of 1879 in recognition of the fact that not everyone who voted...

The Proposition 87 campaign is shaping up into a big bucks battle between big oil companies and "no oil" investors and environmentalists. Chevron and other major energy producers are fueling the drive to defeat the November ballot measure that would impose a severance tax on California oil production to pay for alternative energy. Venture capitalists with multimillion-dollar investments in "greentech," meanwhile, have joined forces with environmentalists to finance the campaign to create the $4 billion fund for alternative energy. Proposition 87 would impose a tax on California oil producers of 1.5 percent to 6 percent, depending on the per-barrel price...

** The "Clean Energy" initiative, Proposition 87, on California's November ballot is looking good. The support level for it in a private poll is over 60 percent. The measure would enact an oil extraction tax at the wellhead to generate some $400 million a year for research and development on alternative fuels. Among the nation's big oil producing states, California is the only one without an oil tax. Voter disdain for oil companies is high.

California voters will be asked whether they want to raise property taxes by $50 per parcel under an initiative that qualified Friday for the November ballot. The measure would generate about $500 million a year by taxing commercial and residential property. Elderly and disabled people would be exempt. The money could be used only for specific purposes, such as reducing class sizes, buying textbooks and improving school safety. The measure is being funded by two Silicon Valley executives. Reed Hastings, the Netflix founder who was once a member of the state board of education, has given nearly $7 million to...

Business and Labor Leaders Call on President to Halt Recall Effort Five prominent business and labor leaders called on President Bush to stop the Republican-led effort to recall Democratic Governor Gray Davis. The bipartisan group made the plea in an opinion piece published in Sunday's Los Angeles Times. The signers included Los Angeles developer and investor Eli Broad, Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, investment firm chairman Warren Hellman, California Federation of Labor head Art Pulaski and Arthur Rock, one of the founders of Intel. The Times piece contended that the recall effort threatens to plunge a state already...

SAN FRANCISCO - Venture capitalist John Doerr made his name and fortune with early investments in Netscape Communications Corp., Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc. and other pioneering tech firms that went from scrappy startups to household names. Now Doerr and his firm, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, are placing big bets on an emerging sector he calls "green technology," one he believes could become as lucrative as information technology and biotechnology. Menlo Park-based Kleiner Perkins plans to set aside $100 million of its latest $600 million fund for technologies that help provide cleaner energy, transportation, air and water. That's on top...

When it comes to global warming, making promises is easy. Keeping them is hard, California is learning. Six months ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made international news when he committed the state to meeting strict targets reducing greenhouse gases as a way to fight global warming. A closer look at California's emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists say cause global warming reveals that even under the best scenarios, California will miss Schwarzenegger's targets by a wide margin. According to a new report, the state will miss the goals by at least 21 percent by 2020 unless his administration...

Occidental College President Theodore R. Mitchell, a politically connected education expert credited with reinvigorating his Los Angeles campus over the past six years, said Tuesday that he would step down Sept. 1. Mitchell, 49, is leaving the private liberal arts college to become chief executive of NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco. NewSchools, founded in 1998 by a group including Silicon Valley venture capitalists John Doerr and Brook Byers, has invested $40 million in efforts to improve public education in urban areas. Mitchell said he decided to take the job at NewSchools because "there is a...