A yes vote on Proposition 45 is a vote for jobs and innovation, and the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle supports it.

On Nov. 3, California voters will decide Proposition 45, which the Attorney General titled “Modifies Environmental Review for Certain Projects.” It gives certain essential projects a faster, optional path through the state’s environmental review law, known as CEQA.

The projects covered are housing; water systems, except Delta conveyance; clean energy, except nuclear; hospitals, clinics and medical offices; fire, police and sheriff stations; wildfire prevention; broadband; schools; and transportation, except high-speed rail. A builder can choose the new path or stay under current law.

On the new path, agencies and courts face firm deadlines for reviews, permits and lawsuits. The measure limits how many alternatives an agency has to study and caps public comment periods. If a court finds a problem, it can stop only the part of the project that is out of compliance while the agency fixes it, instead of halting the whole project. That description comes from the state’s official voter guide.

“Proposition 45 doesn’t eliminate a single environmental standard,” said Christopher South, co-owner of the Chronicle. “It ends the years of duplicative review and serial litigation that have made our state the hardest place in America to build anything.”

Long delays cost jobs. Contractors can’t hire for a project that is stuck in review, and companies that need a building on a set schedule will look at other states instead. Prop 45 gives these projects a deadline without dropping the environmental rules they still have to meet.

Opponents will say any change to CEQA opens the door to building anything anywhere. The ballot language says otherwise. The faster path covers only the listed categories, it is optional, and nuclear plants, Delta conveyance and high-speed rail are left out. Agencies still review projects, and people can still sue. The difference is that those steps have to finish on time.

“Every project that gets blocked in California gets built somewhere else,” South said. “Proposition 45 lets this state lead on the technology that will define the next twenty years instead of watching it happen from the sidelines.”

Vote yes on Proposition 45 on Nov. 3.

Source: California Secretary of State, Official Voter Information Guide, Proposition 45 title, summary and analysis: vig.cdn.sos.ca.gov/2026/general/pdf/prop45-title-summ-analysis.pdf

Media Contact:
Christopher South
clynn@hsjchronicle.com

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Today, I am incarcerated at San Quentin for a gun-related crime. I serve as the chairman of Arms Down, the first gun offender rehabilitation program of its kind, developed inside prison to address gun violence through accountability, education and healing. I also serve as a program co-lead for Back to the Start, a nonprofit organization that helps incarcerated participants to process their childhood experiences and advocate for upstream solutions to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma and incarceration.

Over years of facilitating these programs, I have found one truth impossible to ignore: Nearly every person I have worked with who committed a gun offense had first experienced firearm-related trauma. Many witnessed shootings as children. Some lost parents, siblings or friends to homicide. Others grew up in neighborhoods where hearing gunfire was normalized, without being old enough to comprehend the danger. Trauma created wounds that, left untreated, began to fester and developed into destructive behaviors and unhealthy coping strategies to survive — strategies that were amplified through pain and tragedy.

I am fully accountable for my actions. These decisions forever changed my life and harmed others. Looking back, I recognize that the untreated trauma I carried contributed to my impulsive decisions. I often wonder how different my path would have been if someone had offered me counseling and support as a youth.

This is why Assembly Bill 2247, the Trauma, Healing and Resilience Investment for Victimized and Exposed Youth Act, known as the Thrive Act, matters.

As part of my amends to victims, I have an obligation to break cycles of gun violence, and that is what AB 2247 would do. This legislation would expand access to trauma recovery and support services for young survivors of gun violence. Specifically, it would provide funding for youth survivors and witnesses of gun violence; they would receive free, timely mental health and counseling services.

Annually, around 44,000 people die because of firearm-related injuries across the United States, up from 35,000 since the 1990s. In Alameda County, gun violence is the leading cause of death for young Black males. Suicide rates by firearm have doubled for Latino youth between 2014 and 2023. On average, every day, seven people between the ages of 1 and 17 die because of firearms.

These are not just numbers. These are people whose deaths leave behind children, siblings and communities shattered by their loss. It’s about time we did more through policy to address this epidemic affecting our state and nation. AB 2247 reaches children before they become statistics, before they become defendants, before another family loses a loved one and before another community experiences another shooting.

Public safety requires prevention, not only punishment. Too often, California responds only after someone has become a victim or an offender. AB 2247 recognizes that there is another path. When children who survive gun violence receive timely trauma care, they can begin to heal rather than to carry unaddressed trauma into adulthood. That is not just victim services — it’s crime prevention.

I have seen the power of that healing firsthand through Arms Down and Back to the Start. I have watched men cry for the first time in decades as they wrote about childhood trauma they had buried. I have participated in healing conversations between people who once believed violence was their only way to communicate. There are ways to interrupt the cycle, and we do not have to wait until more lives are damaged before we act.

Assemblymember Sade Elhawary, author of the Thrive Act, is championing legislation that gets at the root of the problem. This is the kind of support I wish had been available to me as a young person — and to so many of the men I have worked alongside. We cannot change our past, but we can work together to change what happens to the next generation through prevention and healing. If we wait until after more shots are fired, it is too late.

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