The Trump administration’s proposed changes to federal homelessness funding announced Nov. 13 represent a public safety emergency for Santa Clara County. Plans to slash Continuum of Care funding by two-thirds could push 1,800 stably housed vulnerable residents back onto our streets. The proposed cuts threaten to carelessly and cruelly discard years of progress and taxpayer...

Across the South, limited access to technology, advanced coursework and workforce pipelines continues to restrict opportunity. Students in rural and low-income areas are less likely to receive early exposure to science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM). In South Carolina, only 42% of third through eighth-grade students are performing in math at grade level. The...

For most people, walking across a stage in a cap and gown signals the start of adulthood. However, for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), it too often marks the end of formal education. Despite the Lanterman Act’s promise of lifelong learning, California stops offering equitable opportunities once students leave high school or vocational...

Two obscure, harmful provisions from San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s March budget message are coming back to City Council in the near future. Both will lead to unacceptable rent increases for tenants. Because these were minor points in a 35-page document, the community was unable to mobilize opposition to them at the time. One is...

San Jose’s residents have every right to demand integrity and accountability from those who hold public office. Recent revelations about allegedly racist messages in an online chat involving Councilmember Peter Ortiz, Councilmember Domingo Candelas, former Councilmember Omar Torres and political consultant Brenda Zendejas have shaken public confidence. For the sake of full transparency, while I do support San José Spotlight’s lawsuit against the city of...

As a fellow minority woman who has served in elected office for nearly a decade — including as mayor of a prominent city today— I found the recent portrayal of the assessor’s race as “a contest between two minority women” to be strikingly off the mark. This framing trivializes the issues at stake and overlooks...

Fiscal responsibility is about more than balancing a budget, it’s about making smart, strategic investments that protect our community for the long term. Here in Silicon Valley, we know being enterprising means leveraging every resource to its greatest potential. Your county government has embraced that ethos — stewarding limited public dollars to maximize returns, strengthening...

Santa Clara County voters are being asked to approve Measure A, a sales tax hike that would push the rate to a staggering 10% — with the potential to reach 11% when combined with the transit tax that the county opted into for next year’s election. This isn’t just a small bump in your tax...

The Santa Clara County assessor position, which was held by the same public official for 30 years prior to his retirement in July, is a showdown between two accomplished minority women. That much became clear during the Oct. 7 candidate forum hosted by the League of Women Voters at Cupertino’s Quinlan Community Center. All four...

In his recent San José Spotlight op-ed, HomeFirst CEO René Ramirez wrote, “Punishing people for being poor will not make tents disappear.” He’s right. But poverty isn’t only punished by cities or police. It’s punished inside the very systems that claim to be fighting it. I know because I used to work for HomeFirst. During...