Libertarian Party of San Francisco News

Did you read about AB 119, signed into law by Governor Brown on June 27? Probably not, even though California voters clearly voiced their preference for transparency when they overwhelmingly approved Prop 54 last year, which was supposed to give the public a 72-hour notice before a bill became law. AB 119 was one of those goodies that legislators throw in at the 11th hour of final budget approval that the public hears little about.

When is your property not really your property? If you don’t pay your property taxes, you’ll soon discover a lien has been placed on your property by the county assessor, so in a sense, your property is only yours if you pay your property taxes. Now, what if you decide to rent out your property? By becoming a housing provider, a whole new nightmarish world is created whereby control over your property is severely limited by law: who you must rent to, the amount you charge, when you can change the amount of rent, how many roommates the renter can bring in, and most important when you can terminate the agreement and get the renter to vacate.

Is the college algebra requirement a “civil rights issue”? Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Chancellor of California Community Colleges, thinks so. He wants to eliminate the requirement for non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) majors to get an AA degree or transfer to a four-year college in California. He said, “If you think about all the underemployed or unemployed Americans in this country who cannot connect to a job in this economy—which is unforgiving of those students who don’t have a credential—the biggest barrier for them is this algebra requirement. It’s what has kept them from achieving a credential.” Currently intermediate algebra is the lowest level of math needed at community colleges to graduate or transfer.

As usual, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors feels the need to act like our mothers and fathers. Recently they voted unanimously to ban the sale of flavored nicotine-based liquid used in e-cigarettes and flavored tobacco products in San Francisco. The justification of the ban is that nicotine masked in fruity flavors like cotton candy, banana cream, mint, and other flavors entices children into the sordid life of nicotine addiction. Another "Save The Children" law. Supervisor Malia Cohen, who represents the historically black Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, also doesn’t think too highly of the intelligence of adults in black neighborhoods and the LGBT community since she said, "Big Tobacco loves vulnerable populations.