The City of L.A. is holding off on the move that would give the Department of Public Works more money besides the $500 million that was approved by voters in 2004 for storm water clean up. Was the reason maybe that it's too much for an already heavily taxed population of property owners? Of course not.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's appointees on the Board of Public Works voted last week to move ahead with the mail-in ballot plan, which would have asked property owners to hike their storm-water fees from $23 per year for the average parcel to $99 per year in 2013.
The idea was scrapped because it was considered to have a weak chance of passing. The idea came to light last week, and the story provides more details. Board President Cynthia Ruiz will work on the P.R. and it's going to come up again. From the story, it looks like Ruiz was looking for some more money to avoid the layoffs that the Mayor's budget reduction would require. This is one of the more simple examples of the never-ending need for tax dollars that politicians look to property owners for to satisfy the budget shortfalls.
Maybe the spending has been too high over the past years. Maybe the expenses chosen to be made were done without much thought to necessity of the expense or to the most economically beneficial supplier used. A lot of reasons to how the deficits arose can be found, but the politician is over that and they simply need the money ASAP to plug the financial hole in their dike. All the P.R. in this case is with that in mind. They just are regrouping their troops. It's really a war of the spenders versus the property owners- who they apparently and mistakenly view as all being rich.
You need to remember that the politicians, when they "brag" about California or Los Angeles being a leader in this or that, they will leave out the part about how much of an additional load that they cause to be placed financially on the citizens by the trailblazing ways toward a "green" society or to some other progressive goal. One other example of the trend: The state passed a measure for a change in the gasoline that will be used in the future and that is going to make the already expensive California gasoline cost us even more. But, to them, that's o.k. since it's a cleaner environment that's being produced. I dare say that it's at a big cost for that result, and at a cost that the public has not any choice at all in so choosing. Why do we HAVE to be FIRST all the time? Has anyone considered what efforts CHINA is making along with us? THEY should be the ones to act, having the largest impact and having the most damaging methods employed in industry. No one mentions those things.
More of the "revenue" generation moves will be forthcoming by our politicians, something that they do well, second only to their ability to burn up tax dollars with all due haste. When you see the Mayor and others say L.A. is going "green" and all the steps that cost us have to be endured, remember that they are working to continue development of the city, not in the sense of evolving the quality of life to an improved state, but quite the opposite. They continue actions that boost building to put more people in less spaces- "densification" as I and others call it. And as they cram more into smaller spaces, the quality of life is sliding downhill just as fast.
You in Lincoln Heights see that honeycomb construction of housing off I-5 just south of the Pasadena Freeway as a big example of this. All that was done with changes in the parking spaces for the units changed to a lesser number. That's why you have so many cars all over the residential streets where there was ample parking before. As well as the increasing practice of not including parking spaces with residential units but charging like a separate property, you have already made conditions deteriorate, and that falls out to the neighbors of these projects and will continue to be seen as more happens.
If you live near a bus route or rail line- like the Gold Line for the Lincoln Heights example- you can see relaxed treatment of codes to enhance the payday for developers while the rest see the quality of life disappear more with each structure built, no matter how "green" they make it. Remember that "run off rain water" is happening because the ground is disappearing and replaced by concrete and steel, and that doesn't allow the earth to soak up the water.
At the bottom of it all are the Council members who facilitate this movement and do nothing to put the brakes on the strain to our city by their actions. They will get their campaign contributions and they will get to go to dinners and be congratulated as people with vision. All that will be done by the people who really see the awarding of contracts as builders and, as Ed Reyes, CD-1, constantly says, these are jobs for our people. Any job gets him excited, I've noticed. The consequences of deals made or the costs spent to get that job don't much matter to him. Jobs are what count for stats, and any jobs will do.
We have a water shortage. OK, so city council makes regulations cutting down the water that can be used or you pay penalties. If they did not push development, there would be less demand for water. The same in the demand for police and the need for fire department services, both already strained past any financially reasonable limit. Remember the Fire Department overtime story? That's overtime more and more because there's a need that's not going away, and development strains it even more, wouldn't you say? Then WHY don't Council Members and the Mayor see it? Actually, they must, but they can't stop the gravy train now.
Sewers, streets, traffc congestion and the crime that denser living generates instead of a traditional style where more people know their neighbors.
Read the story to see what you have been spared for now, and I will leave things at that for the moment. People have said that politicians are able to talk out of both sides of their mouths at the same time- and you have the example of that in City politics.
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