Bear Essentials February 6th: WHAT IF WE TRIED NOT BEING STUPID?
February 6, 2026
WHAT IF WE TRIED NOT BEING STUPID?
LET THERE BE (CANDLE)LIGHT! — San Francisco, global capital of personal freedom, has long been held hostage by a rulebook that treated driveway parking like visual pollution and candlelight like an arson plot. Enter Mayor Daniel Lurie, who has spent his first year doing the unthinkable in modern politics: fixing boring things. Lurie’s administration has quietly axed a pile of bureaucratic absurdities — no more fencing off your own driveway, no more City Hall flame tests for romance, no more months-long permitting kabuki just to put out a café chair. His pitch is aggressively unsexy but oddly effective: make daily life less stupid. Climbing approval ratings followed. While past mayors chased history-book moments, Lurie is chasing rationality. “We have to get rid of the nonsense and focus on common sense,” he said, sounding radical by San Francisco standards. The naysayers might call it small-ball, but we’re calling it a relief. In a city where a toilet can cost $1.7 million, efficiency is the most rebellious act left.
🤫 Everything you should know
🫡 - VET VOUCHERS NOW VALID — Los Angeles has corrected a policy failure so blatant it bordered on parody. Mayor Karen Bass eliminated a rule that treated veterans’ disability and health care benefits as “income,” disqualifying them from housing vouchers. The result: thousands of Section 8 vouchers sat unused while an estimated 3,000 veterans remained homeless across L.A. County. “That’s crazy,” Bass said. She’s not wrong! It is, in fact, crazy. The fix expands voucher eligibility, pushes landlords to accept them, and blasts outreach across Los Angeles Metro buses and stations. It’s not visionary — just a long-overdue admission that honoring veterans works better without trapping them in bureaucratic nonsense. It’s a policy her Mayor colleague to the north would probably approve of. — KTLA News
🫤 - GOLDEN STATE OF INERTIA — California’s job market spent 2025 doing what your car does in traffic: idling, burning fuel, going mostly nowhere. Statewide employment rose a microscopic 0.1% — about 10,000 jobs in an economy of nearly 20 million. That’s not a recession, but it’s not momentum either. Hiring has cooled across most sectors, with real growth confined to health care, government, and “other services.” Meanwhile, manufacturing, admin work, tech, and Hollywood-adjacent professional services all shrank by 2% or more. The Bay Area led the slide, shedding 15,300 jobs as tech losses piled up. Unemployment stayed parked at 5.5%, but that headline masks reality: roughly 10% of Californians are unemployed, underemployed, or have stopped looking altogether. Job seekers now face the most crowded market since the mid-2010s, pandemic excluded. Neutral beats collapse. But with costs rising, standing still increasingly feels like falling behind — especially in California, where expensive inertia is practically an art form. — PPIC
🚰 - PADILLA MAKES A SPLASH — California’s water crisis is getting the full federal treatment: acronyms, ambition, and (hopefully 🤞) a lot of money — if Congress cooperates. Sen. Alex Padilla has introduced two bills aimed at shoring up California’s increasingly fragile water supply as drought, climate change, and aging infrastructure collide. The MORE WATER Act targets the big stuff: funding large-scale water recycling projects, repairing leaky canals, restoring habitats, and speeding up approvals that currently add years to projects and millions to costs. State officials warn California could face a 6 million acre-foot annual drinking water deficit by 2040 — enough water for 36 million people — so “wait and see” is no longer a strategy. Padilla’s second proposal, the GROW SMART Act, goes smaller and scrappier, backing experimental, voluntary water-saving partnerships between farmers and cities. The idea is to test smarter ways to use less water without killing agriculture. Taken together, Padilla’s bills are a serious attempt to tackle an escalating crisis that can’t be drowned out by a few rainy years. California’s water system isn’t just strained. It’s outdated, expensive, and running out of time. — Senator Alex Padilla
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🎙️ 💬 🎧 - ON THE POD: TEA CON LIMÓN
So, it’s not technically a podcast, but we’re giving it a pass because the branding is so 🔥. “Tea con Limón” is California Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limon’s short video series used to provide policy updates, highlight community events, and share legislative accomplishments with her constituents and interested political nerds like us. It’s a great example of effective short-form video that’s several steps above the ubiquitous vertical selfie vids that proliferate on TikTok. Check it out. — Tea con Limón
👩⚖️ 🗺️ 👍 - THAT SETTLES THAT
In a dry, dissent-free, 21-word order, the United States Supreme Court rejected a Republican challenge to California’s redrawn congressional districts. The new maps, which are anticipated to net Democrats five additional congressional seats, effectively canceling out Texas’s partisan gerrymander, will be used for the 2026 election. - PBS News
🏃♂️ 💨 ✋ FAST FIVE
- ❄️ California’s snowpack is in rapid retreat. That’s bad. LA Times
- 🚉 State provides Bay Area transit agencies $590M funding lifeline. SF Chronicle
- 🏗️ CA Dems Fracture on Housing-Transit Law. CalMatters
- 📉 With apartment supply growing, San Diego rent prices fall. SD Union Tribune
🤔 How valuable is underused SF-owned land? Supe wants to know. SF Examiner
