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Nevada County News & Analysis Articles


Image caption: After a historic drop in enrollments due to the pandemic, community colleges are pouring money into marketing campaigns to get students back.
Community Colleges Use Flashy Marketing to Get Students Back

After a historic drop in enrollment during the COVID-19 pandemic, California community colleges are ramping up marketing efforts, spending more than $40 million in state and federal dollars to lure students back. Is it working?

Image caption: After an extensive and costly treatment process, sewage may help ease the state’s water crisis.
Sewage Could Be Converted to Drinking Water, State Plans

Waste would undergo extensive treatment and testing before it’s piped directly to taps, providing a new, costly but renewable water supply. The state’s new draft rules are more than a decade in the making.

Image caption: Will voters be willing to keep borrowing money, even to address critical issues?
Voters Asked to OK $35 Billion Debt to Attack Housing Crisis

Three of the biggest housing bonds in state history are bound for the 2024 ballot. But with no shortage of crises facing the state, California can only borrow so much and voters may succumb to “bond fatigue.”

Image caption: Data shows that homelessness immediately decreased once renter protections were put in place.
Here's How California Policy Makes Homelessness Worse

Renter protections and eviction bans put in place for the COVID-19 pandemic have expired. By keeping them in place, California could slow the spread of homelessness. But that's not happening.

Image caption: Doctors and psychiatrists say they are the "linchpin" of California's prison medical system, but working conditions are driving away staff.
Despite Six-Figure Pay, CA Prison Doctors Authorize Strike

Almost half of the jobs for doctors and psychiatrists in California prisons are unfilled. Now, their union says it’s ready to strike over pay even as the state faces a steep budget deficit.

Image caption: School board meetings about educating children have deteriorated into battles over hot-button culture war issues in some districts.
State Moves to Stop Culture Wars Upending California School Boards

California grants school boards much local control, but recent events have pushed the state to take steps to stop local school board meetings from turning into potentially dangerous culture war battlegrounds.

Image caption: Women workers face an ongoing pay gap with men, but undocumented women earn the least of all.
Undocumented Women Face Widest Pay Gap of Any Workers

A new study shows women without legal residency face a lopsided pay gap. In California they take home 44 cents for every dollar that white, non-Latino men make and 87 cents for every dollar undocumented men make. Would raising the …

Image caption: It's a “complicated time for health care" in California, says the executive director of the state exchange,
Covered California Announces Steepest Premium Hike in 5 Years

California still offers generous subsidies, but the rate hike signals that runaway health care costs are back after five years of low premium increases.

Image caption: Even a small rise in temperature makes workers more likely suffer injuries on the job.
Extreme Heat Injures 20K California Workers Every Year

A workers comp study says one day above 100 degrees can cause 15 percent more accidents, costing workers and employers millions. A new advisory panel may help the state improve its work heat rules.

Image caption: Low transfers are also the fault of the UC and Cal State systems which rejected 30,000 applicants in 2020.
Community College Transfer Numbers Remain Far Below State’s Goal

Transfer to a four-year institution is a benchmark for success among community colleges, but the numbers are low and disparities across the system persist, especially between colleges in rural areas and those in wealthy suburbs.

Image caption: Gov. Gavin Newsom promised "universal" health coverage, but new Med-Cal purge takes California in the other direction.
More Than 220K Californians Lose Health Coverage in Medi-Cal Purge

Many of the people who lost Medi-Cal are likely still eligible for health care coverage if they can get their paperwork to county offices in the next 90 days. Otherwise, the program that provides health insurance to low-income Californians just …

Image caption: In Denmark, bi-directional charging reduces the cost of owning an EV by about 40 percent.
How Electric Cars Can Boost California's Power Grid

Through bidirectional charging, owners of electric cars can sell energy to the grid or use it to power their homes. But will the technology, which is costly, become widespread?

Image caption: Californians experiencing mental health issues are making frequent use of a new 988 crisis hotline.
California's 988 Mental Health Crisis Hotline Gets Surge in Calls

One California mental health crisis center grew its staff by almost 50 percent to handle that number of calls from people in need of counseling that it’s received since the state launched its 988 hotline a year ago.

Image caption: If policymakers accelerate efforts to slow climate change, California could get some relief from wildfires.
Rise in California Wildfires Caused by Human-Driven Climate Change, Study Finds

Climate change caused by human use of fossil fuels is the major reason California wildfires have burned 172 percent more land than they would have over the last five decades, according to new research.

Image caption: California smokers are kicking the habit, but that means lower tax revenues for child services under Prop 10.
Child Services Takes Hit as Tobacco Tax Revenue Drops Due to Quitting

A new ban on flavored tobacco products is accelerating a decline in nicotine tax revenue that funds California’s early childhood services. Some programs are already making cuts.

Image caption: A legislative analyst’s report is sharply critical of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s shifting priorities in mental health funding.
Newsom’s Mental Health Plan May Shift $720 Million to Housing

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to rethink how California spends its millionaires tax by directing more money toward housing. Some county-run mental health programs could lose out.

Image caption: Under the Inside Safe program homeless camps have been cleared, but where do the people go?
'Inside Safe' Homeless Plan Struggles to Get People into Housing

Los Angeles’ new homelessness solution is meant to quickly get people out of encampments and into housing—as the city grapples with the state’s largest population of unhoused residents. But the program is struggling to house people and connect them with …

Image caption: There won't be big changes to the way Californians vote, but expect some tinkering around the edges.
California Lawmakers Kill Bills to Make Big Election Reforms

The most sweeping bills to change California elections got shelved in the Legislature. Instead, lawmakers are focusing on ballot measure language, local redistricting, voting integrity and campaign finance tweaks before the 2024 election.

Image caption: "Housing First" prioritizes getting the homeless into housing before anything else.
Why Hasn't Housing First Policy Worked in California?

Housing First policy works to reduce homelessness, evidence shows. But in California the policy has proven ineffective. What is the state doing wrong?

Image caption: COVID pandemic measures requiring more sick leave and family days expired, but legislators want to make them permanent.
New Legislation Looks to Improve Work-Life Balance for Employees

Supporters say a series of bills before the Legislature would improve work-life balance by expanding sick days and family leave. But opponents say the proposals would hurt struggling small businesses.

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