{"id":11255,"date":"2022-01-20T09:22:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T17:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stagewww.aiasurety.com\/bail\/?p=11255"},"modified":"2022-01-20T09:22:01","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T17:22:01","slug":"paradise-lostcalifornia-on-the-brink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aiasurety.com\/bail\/paradise-lostcalifornia-on-the-brink\/","title":{"rendered":"Paradise Lost\u2026California on the Brink"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEHIND THE PAPER WITH ERIC GRANOF<\/p>\n

\n

Many of you already know this, but I am a native Californian, born and raised.\u00a0 I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and went to the same high school as my wife.\u00a0 We now live only a few miles away from where we both grew up and we are now trying to raise our children in the same way that we were raised with all the great benefits of living in the sunshine state.<\/p>\n

\"californiaThere has always been something about living in California.\u00a0 It has made me feel, for lack of a better word, lucky.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if it is the year-round perfect weather or the beautiful and diverse topography of mountains, forests, deserts, and oceans all coming together, but there is no other place like it on earth.\u00a0 You can be at the beach in the morning and surf and be in the mountains and ski in the afternoon.\u00a0 I have done it.\u00a0 And yes, seeing movie stars walking or driving by happens all the time here.\u00a0 It really has always been one of the most amazing places on the planet to live and raise a family.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today, and California is no longer the shining city on the hill.\u00a0 It has turned into a kingdom of homelessness, drug addiction and crime.\u00a0 No longer are the unsavory aspects of life (crime, drugs, lawlessness) taking place in the shadows in so called \u201cbad neighborhoods\u201d they are taking place right in front of our eyes in public\u2026in front of our children.\u00a0 It is hard to go anywhere in California without being aggressively harassed by someone asking for money outside the gas station or grocery store.\u00a0 It is hard to drive under a freeway overpass without seeing a tent city of homeless people.\u00a0 It is hard to keep your children from seeing people injecting themselves with needles and defecating on the public street.\u00a0 In my lifetime, I have seen California go from a veritable sunny paradise to a dark, dangerous out of control cesspool, where criminals have free reign to do whatever they want with little to no punishment.\u00a0 How has California fallen so far?\u00a0 How has California fallen so fast?\u00a0 It is truly heartbreaking and sad.<\/p>\n

As someone who has watched California\u2019s quick and senseless unwinding, the answer to these questions is simple and quite unfortunate. \u00a0The demise of California can be fully placed on the shoulders of its citizens. For years, Californians have placed the future of their state and their families in the hand of a single political party.\u00a0 This single one-sided ideological type of rule has been as effective as a single hand trying to clap.\u00a0 In other words, it has been a complete failure.\u00a0 California\u2019s leadership has more resources and tax revenue than any other state in the country, yet their ability to take care of our people and keep them safe has deteriorated year after year.\u00a0 While this has happened, California voters have done nothing except to continue to empower and re-elect the same ineffective leaders for no other reason than their political party affiliation.\u00a0 If they have a \u201cD\u201d after their name, they get re-elected despite their continuous failures.\u00a0 If they have a \u201cD\u201d after their name, they get re-elected despite their inability to govern.\u00a0 For example, look at what Gavin Newsom did to the city of San Francisco while he was mayor.\u00a0 San Francisco went from being one of the most beautiful cities in the world to being a city that has an app that tells you where there is human feces on the streets around you.\u00a0 San Francisco has to tell its citizens to remove all valuables from their cars and make it look trashy so no one will break into it.\u00a0 Think about that.\u00a0 I have to make my car look like it was already broken into so that it won\u2019t get broken into.\u00a0 That is insane.\u00a0 So, what did California voters do, they didn\u2019t fire Gavin Newsom for incompetence, they promoted him and elected him Governor.\u00a0 And now look at California\u2026it has become San Francisco on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

Now many of you might be saying that I am overreacting.\u00a0 There is nothing wrong with people living on the streets or committing minor property crimes.\u00a0 No one is being hurt by this.\u00a0 Well, I\u2019m sorry, that is where you are wrong.\u00a0 People are getting hurt\u2026shop owners are losing their ability to have customers visit their stores because streets are blocked with tents and human feces.\u00a0 Shoplifting crimes are up everywhere, because it is no longer considered a crime to shoplift items under a certain value and violent crime is up all over the state.<\/p>\n

As one might expect, the minor crimes that are being excused by our political leaders are evolving into bigger more serious crimes.\u00a0 You give a criminal an inch and they will take a mile.\u00a0 They will push the limits of any rule you create and cross the line if the punishment is not seen as a deterrent.\u00a0 California\u2019s leaders have created an environment where there is no longer any viable punishment for criminals.\u00a0 And for some reason, Californian voters agreed.\u00a0 They passed prop 47 which made a long list of felonies, only misdemeanors.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because the political party they belong to told them to.\u00a0 Did they read the bill before they voted?\u00a0 Did they understand the long-term impact of eliminating punishment for these types of crimes?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Instead, people were sold the \u201cSafe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.\u201d\u00a0 And now retail crime is out of control and violent crimes are increasing everywhere.\u00a0 Earlier this week, a young UCLA grad student was stabbed to death at work.\u00a0 This should have never happened.\u00a0 The accused had a long record of violent crime, yet he was out on a $1,000 bond.\u00a0 So, what did this empowered criminal do with the leniency provided to him by our soft on crime leadership?\u00a0 He senselessly murdered a young woman who had her entire life in front of her\u2026for no reason at all.\u00a0 It is sad, tragic, and infuriating and I blame the voters.<\/p>\n

By now you are probably asking, what does this have to do with bail?\u00a0 In my opinion, it has everything to do with bail.\u00a0 Our criminal justice system is a very unique and effective system.\u00a0 While robust and strong, it still requires the highest levels of sensitivity and fine tuning so that individual freedoms and rights of multiple parties are always acknowledged and considered. That is why multiple checks and balances have been placed into the system.\u00a0 Bail is one of those \u201cchecks and balances.\u201d\u00a0 It allows the accused to be free from incarceration while they prepare their defense for their trial, and it provides the appropriate level of accountability and protection to the community and the victim.\u00a0 Bail creates \u201cskin in the game\u201d and an appropriate incentive for defendants to show up for their court appearances.\u00a0 When that incentive is removed, chaos and lawlessness ensue.\u00a0 It happens every time, everywhere it is tried.\u00a0 If criminals know there is no punishment or balance, they will adjust their behavior to get away with whatever they can.\u00a0 If they know that there will be a punishment for their actions, they will more likely than not, behave.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t rocket science it is common sense and human nature.<\/p>\n

California is on the brink.\u00a0 Voters need to wake up quick and realize that voting for a political party is not the answer.\u00a0 Instead, voters must vote for leaders who want to protect our communities.\u00a0 Voters must educate themselves on the issues and vote for leaders that support policies that truly improve California for all the hard-working families that live there.\u00a0 Voters must wake up and realize that we can\u2019t keep doing what we have been doing any longer\u2026it is not working.\u00a0 Letting criminals out of jail for free is a bad idea.\u00a0 Ignoring crime is not a way to prevent crime.\u00a0 Voters need to hold elected officials accountable and clean house when they fail to do their job.\u00a0 We all must learn to look past political affiliation and educate ourselves on the issues.\u00a0 We must have thoughtful discussion and debate on these issues with our friends, families, and colleagues.\u00a0 And then we must vote based on our knowledge and understanding of the policy.\u00a0 When that happens, maybe, just maybe, California can regain its prowess and its beauty as the shining city on the hill.<\/p>\n

Eric Granof<\/a> is the Vice President of Corporate Communications for AIA Surety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEHIND THE PAPER WITH ERIC GRANOF Many of you already know this, but I am a native Californian, born and raised.\u00a0 I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and went to the same high school as my wife.\u00a0 We now live only a few… <\/p>\n

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