Liam Dillon

I went to the front lines of new American tax revolt — the largest flea market in northeast Ohio — to write about how a meme that paying property taxes means you never own your house has taken over the country. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

“I’m old. I’ve paid my home off,” said Ray Warner, a 72-year-old Akron resident. “Why would I pay property tax?” Across the country, homeowners are asking the same question and revolting against property taxes at a scale not seen in a half century.

lol power broker. And Ben affleck is a CEQA lawyer? What a movie

Took a tour of the Stahl House a couple years ago and it was absolutely spectacular. Also, even though it was a normal day, the wind got so noisy as night fell that it was barely possible to have a conversation.

Years ago I interviewed Houston Mayor Annise Parker who told me one of the main reasons the city was able to cut homelessness by so much is she forced all the governments and nonprofits into a room and made them use the same data system. Meanwhile in LA www.latimes.com/california/s...

Fascinating new @ppicnotes.bsky.social study found 2014's Proposition 47, which reclassified some drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, increased California's street homeless population by 10 percent in the years following the initiative's passage www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Gov. @gavinnewsom.bsky.social says home construction is up 59% in California It’s not! www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

NEW: Asm. @buffywicks.bsky.social is jumping into an affordable housing fight in Los Angeles using last-minute legislation to boost a controversial development a block from the beach in Venice that's opposed by @karenbassla.bsky.social subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026...

Homelessness pendulum shifting back from temporary housing in individual rooms to congregate shelters. LA Mayor Bass told @latimes.com the city will need to move away from expensive hotels and motels and toward high-quality homeless shelters. www.latimes.com/california/s...

Some rubber meeting road in Left-YIMBY world. Mamdani's pick for a key housing position facing pushback from city council members for blaming lack of affordable housing on "wealthy homeowner cartels" and dumping on community benefit agreements www.politico.com/newsletters/...

“The whole point of preservation is to maintain the historic look,” Cowan said. “Don’t buy a house next to an airport and complain about the noise.” Great piece on historic preservation battles in Hollywood in @latimes.com www.latimes.com/california/s...

Fantastic reporting here by Libby Rainey that confirms what we've been hearing about the "clean zones" around LA28 venues: "Carter Hewgley, chief strategy officer for L.A. County’s Department of Homeless Services and Housing, said his office had been told to plan for perimeters as wide as a mile"

Two Los Angeles businessmen told Pacific Palisades residents this week that they’re planning a $250 million investment in rebuilding the community and that state Sen. @benallenca.bsky.social was on their board. But Allen said that’s not true. www.politico.com/news/2026/07...

Fascinating debate in LA wildfire recovery areas where a decade's worth of state laws aiming to increase density in single-family home neighborhoods is clashing with stiff anti-developer sentiment among rebuilding residents www.politico.com/news/2026/07...

Absolute dismal satisfaction rates for federal, state, local government among LA wildfire survivors in survey released today static1.squarespace.com/static/6792c...

New owner of LA's downtown "Graffiti Towers" will remove the graffiti immediately but plans to memorialize it in a coffee table book. www.latimes.com/business/sto...

Rebuilding in Pacific Palisades and Altadena from the 2025 LA wildfires is close or at to some milestones, per @politico.com tracker: * 148 completed homes * Almost half of the 9,900 properties with destroyed homes have filed permits to rebuild

A big issue to the ROAD to Housing Act is that much of it asks HUD to do things, which it will struggle with since staffing is down 30% in the DOGE cuts www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Am I wrong that this is Teddy Roosevelt for some reason??

AP just called the LA mayor's race. It's Bass-Raman.

With @nithyaforthecity.bsky.social in line to make the mayoral runoff in Los Angeles, take a look at how she and NYC Mayor @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social are attempting to end the left's civil war over housing — the most important affordability issue in both cities. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Nithya Raman surges past Spencer Pratt in L.A. mayor's race, closing in on runoff with Karen Bass

Obviously the Raman-Pratt battle is the headline but it’s also quite significant that Bass’ high-water mark appears to have been the first drop of results where she was over 38%. Now she’s below 35%. Especially interesting compared to what happened four years ago

NEW: There was NOT a batch of L.A. mayor votes with zero votes for Pratt. But there was a "lag in an automated update" to @apnews.com vote tallies that split the batch and updated Bass & Raman's votes about a minute before updating Pratt's. Read me @latimes.com: www.latimes.com/politics/sto...

Today's press release from @governor.ca.gov's office on homelessness is pretty congratulatory but leaves out some, uh, context.

Bass did stronger than expected and Becerra is almost certain to advance following yesterday's California primary. Lots of votes left to count, and takes to warm up but our first is the anti-establishment current coursing through the state has its limits www.politico.com/news/2026/06...

There are lots of things that have gone wrong for the news media in the 21st century, but the feature they have in common is the destruction of incentives to produce accurate information. www.niemanlab.org/2026/05/you-...

The newest estimate of California's homeless population is 182,000, DOWN 2.8% from 2024 to 25, according to long-awaited official figures released by HUD. California's decrease mirrors a national 3% decrease over the same period. www.huduser.gov/portal/sites...

LA Council Committee reviewing the city's mansion tax/Measure ULA decides NOT to recommend a November ballot measure to make changes. Chair Ysabel Jurado says it's too early to evaluate the tax's long-term effects.

The city of Los Angeles lost a lawsuit over a megacontroversial affordable housing project its been trying to block in Venice this week. Last fall, the state threatened to pull the city's zoning authority if it didn't approve the development. subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026...

State worker unions threatening lawsuit under California Environmental Quality Act over the governor's return-to-office mandate: “Putting 90,000 people on the road and pumping that much carbon into the air has an environmental impact." www.sacbee.com/news/politic...

New LA transfer tax ballot measure proposal supported by Council President Harris-Dawson calls for cutting rate for multi-family projects to between 2% and 3.5% lacity.primegov.com/viewer/previ...

Voters: We want infrastructure faster and cheaper. Abundance Politicians: Us too. Let's strip away regulations to make it happen. Voters: No. Because you can't build infrastructure we don't trust what you'll do with weakened regulations. www.politico.com/news/2026/05...