Did you know that 57 percent of California voters want a third party alternative?  While the idea may seem pie-in-the-sky, it's not.  Just like the dot-com and housing bubbles that suddenly popped without warning, it can be difficult to grasp where we are at our current point in history. I'm here to tell you that there's a revolution coming, but it's not going to be of the Arab Spring sort.  Instead, it's going to come from people like you who decide that even though they have a viewpoint, collaboration is better than competition.  Our political system - whether in Congress or the State Capitol - has simply lost the capacity to solve problems.  And it's no coincidence that it seems like t

Over the past several weeks, the Save Sunny's Market Campaign attempted to obtain a change in the law so that we could decide as a neighborhood whether or not new owners Josh and Monica Patel ought to possess an alcohol license.  As the leader of this campaign, you might imagine that I became emotionally invested in the effort. It is with regret that I found out yesterday that we will not be able to get the change in law that Sunny's Market needs.  People just want government to work and as someone who has been in and around government, I hoped to be able to navigate around the some of the complexity.  Unfortunately, the bureaucracy proved to be too large of a barrier. So it is with even

Anyone who's been following the Save Sunny's Market campaign, might wonder how we got to this point.  In short, state law allows the negligent actions of a previous business owner to impact the potential success of a new owner.  After researching the legislative history, the answer to why this is the case is somewhat mysterious. The legislation in question is AB 1042 (Chapter 538, Statutes of 1996), authored by Assemblywoman Dede Alpert, and came about to "reduce the number of applications for liquor licenses by premises who have continually been denied a license and thus reducing the impact that these 'unwarranted' applications have on communities." Specifically, residents of the Linda

Thanks to the support of so many Marshall School/New Era Park (MSNEP) residents, the Save Sunny's Market campaign was able to deliver eleven pages of petition signatures to the offices of Assemblymember Roger Dickinson and Senator Darrell Steinberg yesterday. The 165 signatures demonstrate broad-based neighborhood support for the new operators of Sunny’s Market to acquire a beer and wine license. If you are just hearing about this issue for the first time, Josh and Monica Patel – the new owners of Sunny’s, are at risk of closing their doors due to the negligent actions of the previous owner who violated the law several times by selling alcoholic beverages to underage decoys. Under curren

This week, members of the Marshall School/New Era Park Neighborhood Association helped launch a campaign to save Sunny's Market.  A corner store at 28th and G Streets, Sunny's was acquired four months ago by new owners Josh and Monica Patel. Because of mutiple alcohol sales violations by the previous owner, a one-year moratorium on a new license has been placed on the site, notwithstanding the change in ownership.  At a time when Midtown residents have sought to further restrict the availability of alcohol in the central city, it's ironic that neighbors of Sunny's have come together in support of the Patels acquiring a license.  However, options appear limited at the moment because the r