By Darrell Steinberg
Sacramento Bee

As the reality of the state Supreme Court's decision on redevelopment settles in, the overarching question looms – what now? The court's controversial judgment may actually provide the single biggest opportunity in decades to remake, for the better, the difficult relationship between the state and city governments.

By Darrell Steinberg

The run by cities and redevelopment agencies to freeze "their" funding is disappointing but not surprising. For decades, our city partners have successfully used the popular canard, "The state is balancing its budget on our backs." This finger-pointing ignores the truth that we are all part of a broken finance structure and portends one of the biggest obstacles to Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to put California's fiscal crisis behind us.

By Darrell Steinberg

An interesting thing happened on June 8: Some 75% of the local measures on ballots around California passed. Throughout the state, voters said loudly and clearly that they are willing to pay for quality public investments in such things as education, healthcare and transportation - as long as they know how the money will be spent and who is accountable.

What does that tell us as we struggle to balance our state budget? Plenty.

By Darrell Steinberg

Once upon a time, an American president challenged our country to put a man on the moon in a decade and we achieved it. With enough public pressure and strategic resources, California can solve a simpler challenge, though one that threatens our well being far more than any space race ever did: the dropout crisis. Let us resolve to cut it in half, or better, in 10 years.