Free Republic

Voters in Los Angeles are expressing skepticism of Measure A, a ballot initiative that would raise sales taxes in the county to provide more services to the homeless, expanding Measure H, which was passed by referendum in 2017. Measure H raised sales taxes by a quarter of a percent — and the homeless population kept rising. That rise was driven by a variety of factors, but access to generous services — like hotel rooms — may have been one of them. While opinion polls suggest that support for Measure A is near 50%, that is far lower than the nearly...

Los Angeles County's homeless population is increasing faster than the supply of new housing, even with the addition of thousands of beds in the last two years and millions of dollars beginning to flow in from two ballot measures targeting the crisis, according to a long-awaited report by the region's homelessness agency. The report showed that officials two years ago far underestimated how much new housing would be needed when they asked city and county voters to approve the tax measures. ... Peter Lynn, executive director of the homeless authority, said Friday that new cost figures had not been calculated,...

Measure Meant to Raise Awareness About Bush's 'High Crimes'; Some Call It a Wasted Effort In the last six years, President George W. Bush has never set foot in Berkeley—his anemic 7 percent of the vote in Berkeley in 2004 places the city among the least Republican in the country. But come November, Berkeley voters may drive the final nail in the coffin of their relationship with the administration by supporting a ballot measure calling for the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The vote is purely advisory—only the U.S. House of Representatives has the power to impeach—but...