Jon Coupal likes to say his hard-fighting organization, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, exists to beat back constant attacks on Proposition 13, the landmark 1978 initiative that limits property taxes in California. But in reality, […]

At this holiday season, we should observe that Santa Monica is a city blessed with gifts. A stable tax base maintains a high standard of city services. In a time of hardship everywhere, Santa Monica […]

The many negative stories represent aberrations, revealing nothing at all typical about public employees in California. Yet, they have turned public opinion against civil servants so severely that it will be difficult to pass any […]

It seems that last weekend I found myself involved in something like a play or perhaps more accurately a pageant. It appeared to present itself in three acts. Act one: While watching a football game […]

This past wonderfully rainy Monday, about 50 people from the Ocean Park community and City of Santa Monica came together at the Ocean Park Library to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Ocean Park Boulevard Green […]

One startling statistic from last fall’s municipal elections around California has not been lost on the state’s policymakers and would-be reformers: Fully 40 out of the 53 local tax or bond measures up for a […]

Your exploitation may not be my exploitation. I’ve written in this column about the action on the AMC TV series “The Walking Dead”, an often gruesome and arguably repulsive series that often centers on the […]

It’s a question commonly asked by schoolchildren: What is the President’s most important job? The answer plainly is not being commander-in-chief of the military or appointing a cabinet or negotiating a budget. Rather, the answer […]

Holiday season, thou shalt have your pound of fruitcake. That’s from Shakespeare’s lesser known “Merchant of Christmas Gifts.” If you have already been out and about Christmas shopping, then right about now you’ve likely invented […]