San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is giving Gov. Gavin Newsom’s California woeful marks on homelessness, medication and crime, saying the state has failed miserably on the problems voters care most about.
“Let’s simply grade authorities in California. It’s positively not an A — we’d be fortunate to get a C proper now,” Mahan advised Fox40’s Nikki Laurenzo. “We’ve obtained to do higher.”
The law-and-order Dem knocked Newsom for odd choices on public security and homelessness throughout an interview on Inside California Politics.
“We now have a reasonably large debate apparently on issues like Prop. 36 and restoration housing,” he stated.
The mayor, a frequent Newsom critic, knocked the governor for vetoing a invoice that would have made it simpler for native governments to make use of state housing funds for badly wanted sober dwelling houses.
The invoice, AB 255, would have tweaked California’s controversial “Housing First” coverage — which requires homeless folks to be granted everlasting housing no matter drug use or habit. Supporters say that addicts want housing first to kick unhealthy habits, however critics argue that the coverage has turned state-funded housing into drug dens and made it more durable for well-intentioned tenants to remain clear.
“I simply need to know, virtually, why that isn’t a good suggestion as a result of we’re funding a Salvation Military website right here that’s getting wonderful outcomes and I feel the state ought to assist us in providing that as an choice,” Mahan advised the outlet.
Newsom, in his veto message, claimed the sober housing invoice could be expensive and duplicative.
Mahan has flirted with a run for governor, telling Laurenzo he hasn’t “dominated it out” amid a lackluster Democratic discipline that features Rep. Eric Swalwell, Rep. Katie Porter, former lawyer common Xavier Becerra, ex-LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.
Requested if he and Newsom have “beef,” Mahan — who’s slammed Newsom previously for grandstanding social media antics — known as him a gifted political chief.
However the San Jose mayor additionally hit Newsom for initially refusing to fund Prop. 36, an anti-crime measure that handed with 68% of the vote in November 2024.
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The proposition offers prosecutors extra leeway to cost drug and theft-related crimes as felonies, however Newsom — who opposed Prop. 36 — didn’t embody any direct funding for it in his Might 2025 finances proposal.
State legislators pushed again and partial funding was included within the remaining invoice.
Newsom’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
