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A Group Named BARF Is Calling Out "Build, Baby, Build" in the Bay Area

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Sonja Trauss is a great example of a California Groundbreaker. As founder of the Bay Area Renters Foundation (fondly known as BARF), she's got a motto of "Build, Baby, Build" in the Bay Area, advocating for any type of housing to be built, as long as it's built tall, high-density -- and soon. A former lawyer who makes BARF her full-time job, she recently hired a lawyer to sue the East Bay city of Lafayette for switching a high-density development to single-family homes instead.

Read this great New York Times profile of Trauss and BARF. And come to the Brickhouse Gallery on Wednesday to meet her -- after her court date in Lafayette, she's taking the Amtrak up here to be on our "Affordable Housing as Oxymoron in California" panel.

Podcast for "California's Crazy Housing Market" Part One Is Up

Our first panel was a 360-degree overview of the housing market (the other three, in February and March, are about Affordable Housing, Gentrification, and the love-it/hate-it effects of the California Environmental Quality Act). We focused on the Sacramento area's real estate and rental markets -- who and what are affecting the prices, what's the forecast for 2017, will anything change, and whether renters and potential buyers should still have hope.

Listen to the podcast, either all the way through or jump around to specific segments (use the "Podcast Timeframe" at the bottom of the page as a reference).

If you are time-strapped, then just go to the 1 hour, 2 minute mark, where a 30-year-old guy steps to the mic and asks, "I worry that I can never buy a house. Is there any hope for me?" What the panelists tell him reveal a lot about the current state of Sacramento's housing market, and where it's headed.

Listen to the whole thing, or refer to the "Podcast Timeframe" section at the bottom of the page to go to specific sections.

But there's plenty of highlights throughout the podcast -- listen and enjoy.

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The Podcast for "Innovation City" Is Up

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Mayor Steinberg kicked off the evening with his hopes, dreams and vision of innovation in Sacramento, followed by a lively two-hour discussion of tech, arts, food, government and innovation -- and how they can all tie together to boost the City's economy, culture and credibility.

Listen to the podcast, either all the way through or jump around to specific segments (use the "Podcast Timeframe" at the bottom of the page as a reference).

One highlight comes at the 2 hr, 10 min mark: How Sacramento can become the capital of "Gov Tech," and how the City, the state government and the private sector can work together to make this an innovation hub of civic technology.

But there's plenty of highlights throughout the podcast -- listen and enjoy.

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Housing Trends for 2017: More Creative Lending, Multiple Offers . . . and Marijuana

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Ryan Lundquist, who writes the Sacramento Appraisal Blog, is one of our panelists for Part One of our four-part panel series "California's Crazy Housing Market." He gives great opinions and in-depth analysis of Sacramento real estate and what drives it. His predictions for what will drive the local home rental/buying trends this year include more creative lending, more multiple offers, more newly-licensed agents and home-flipping courses -- and marijuana.

Ask him your questions this Tuesday evening in the Auditorium at CLARA - E. Claire Raley Studios for Performing Arts.

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By The Way, This Guy Is Coming To Our Event

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Yep, Sacramento's new Mayor, Darrell Steinberg, is going to join us this Monday evening, January 23, as we partner with Comstock's magazine for a panel on the future of innovation in Sacramento.

Mayor Steinberg will start things off by taking about his hopes and dreams for Sacramento as an "Innovation City," and his plans for making that happen. Then we'll ask six great Sacramento-based innovators about how they're going to help him out.

Free admission. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Get there early to grab a seat -- the Mayor kicks off the event at 6 pm.

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The Podcast for Our "Policy and a Pint" on Pot and Prop 64 Is Up

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More than 140 people came to Ruhstaller on January 11 for a standing-room-only discussion on the future of pot now that Propsition 64 has passed. Big thanks to the great panelists - Lori Ajax, Hezekiah Allen, Nate Bradley, Gabriel Garcia, Councilman Jay Schenirer and Andrea Unsworth -- and everyone who attended, especially those who stood for the entire 1 hour and 45 minutes.

You can sit down, kick back, relax and listen to our "Pot Is Legal . . Now What?" podcast on Soundcloud. Listen to the entire 1:45 hour podcast at once, or listen to segments you're most interested in -- we broke it down in the "Podcast Timeframe" section at the bottom of the page.

Pot Is Legal . . . Now What?

Join us for our first "Policy and a Pint" discussion of 2017 -- all about cannabis, California's biggest cash crop. Marijuana is newly legit, and that will soon will have a major impact -- economically, socially and politically -- all over our state.

California's "pot czar" is one of our panelists. Lori Ajax,  Chief of California's Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation, will talk about the differences and similarities of regulating medical marijuana and recreational cannabis, how the state plans to manageboth, and whether it can meet Proposition 64's timeline do so.

Here's an Q&A with Ajax in the Los Angeles Times -- come ask her your own questions on January 11 at Ruhstaller's Beer, starting at 6 p.m.

 

 

Robots, Drones and Dozer the Detector Dog: Our "Future of Food" Podcast

Listen to the great panelist discussion "The Future of Food: How Yolo County Is Shaping It," which we held last month at Sudwerk Brewery in Davis and find out more about the AgTech innovations, startups, people and yes, even canines, that are springing up in Yolo County. As panelist Kristy Levings from AgStart put it, "On a scale of 1 to 10, we're at a 1 for progress, but for potential, we're at an 11."

Go straight to the podcast (there's a timeline of discussion topics so you can jump to specific parts), and/or go to the List of Resources on the event page so you can read up more on the people, places and things that are creating the massive AgTech economy in Yolo County.