Wrecking L.A.’s residential class
Yes it’s bad and it will get worse!
I’ve been writing, charting and trending about this going on two years now and frankly there have been a number of people that have dismissed me. Until now.
Now all that I have been writing about is coming to reality.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – With a recent flurry of winter storms doing little to dampen California’s latest drought, the nation’s biggest public utility voted on Tuesday to impose water rationing in Los Angeles for the first time in nearly two decades.
Under the plan adopted in principle by the governing board of the L.A. Department of Water and Power, homes and businesses would pay a penalty rate — nearly double normal prices — for any water they use in excess of a reduced monthly allowance.
The five-member board plans to formally vote on details of the measure next month.
The rationing scheme is expected to take effect in May unless the City Council acts before then to reject it — a move seen as unlikely since Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called for the measure under a water-shortage plan last week.
We are running out of water and it is because our elected officials have choosen to insert their heads-in-the-sand while believing in a few select city officials such as Villaraigosa, Garcetti, Reyes, Perry and Gruel that they can continue to build and build more housing without any consideration for infrastructure. With these penalties there is NO excuse for this anymore.
It’s bad enough that residents will see penalty rates that will nearly double their water bills when, not if, they exceed their reduced monthly “allowances”.
Imposing penalties on residents is bad policy given that the drought was created by ill-managed housing policies throughtout Southern California and not mother nature alone.
The problem is.. our elected officials “build at all opportunities” housing policy. As if there are no other Southern California regions participating in the larger equation. Participants such as the other five counties including Imperial, Orange, Riverside, Orange and San Bernadino counties who all have similar myopic goals to meet California’s populaton projections. This is classic “silo mentality” thinking at the county and city level.
Even worse are the city’s “reduced allowances” and penalties that are not based on household sizes but on comparable lot size and housing square footage of nearby residential properties. These penalties will wreck the middle class.
If you live in an area of neighborhoods like LADWP General Manager H. David Nahia you will be less affected by the drought than if you live in the middle of Mar Vista or if you have a family larger than Nahai’s.
The real culprit is the failure of the L.A. City Water and Power Commission to advocate for today’s ratepayer (residents) and advise the city council and the Mayor to press for a moratorium on new housing projects.
Because the entire Water and Power Commission is appointed by the mayor, they are answerable -only- to the Mayor. Not the residents that pay for water, power and trash that amounts to hundreds of dollars a month.
While current economic conditions appear to be having an effect on depressing housing investment by developers, a moratorium is still necessary both on its real impact and on reducing additional burdens on a limited water supply. Just as important it sends a messege to Sacramento that there are real limits to growth in Southern California.
Mayor Villaraigosa and many of the city’s planning staffers believe that the city can -buy its way out- of a city budget crisis by allowing developers to build more and in turn the city can collect more property tax. Property taxes however will not magically increase the amount of water that mother nature will provide.
It’s wrecked. And it just keeps getting worse.
The LOCAL, STATE and most of the FEDERAL governments are run by a flock of fools.
They increased the sales tax today. They increased the state income tax. They doubled the vehicle registration fees. And to really drive us nuts, they added a per-gallon gasoline excise tax by 12 cents. So very soon, we will paying a combined state and federal tax of .72 cents. That’s seventy-two cents per gallon, folks.
U.S. Federal & State Gasoline Taxes
Gasoline Sales & Excise Tax by State
Highest Tax to Lowest
January, 2007
State ¢ PG State ¢ PG Fed. Total State &
Fed. ¢ PG
New York 44.5 18.4 62.9
Hawaii 41.7 18.4 60.1
California 41.6 18.4 60.0
Illnois 36.1 18.4 54.5
Connecticut 35.5 18.4 53.9
PLUS .12
And this is before we get SLAMMED by the FED”S with the increased income taxes.
Didn’t we fight a war when another government: The British Government, continually taxed the 13 Colonies? Maybe they would take us back?
Where is our “Representation” today?
David,
Thank you for writing this article for City Watch.
As a person who has tenants for whom I pay the water, how can I be held responsible for their water use? I have harped at them about the cost several times, but with little success.
Additionally, I have two A2 properties with two acres each and I am presently compared to the average half acre for second tier water. I have done all humanly possible to cut my water usage to the bone, but I have orchards and livestock. The cost of water is already more than five times what it was when I bought my home in 1985.
I am about to be brought to my knees through not only the economy, but now through the Mayor’s actions.
I am mad as Hell, but I am also scared to death. My husband’s business is lousy. We cannot sell any of our real estate in order to pull through and we are rescuers with 31 animals in our care if you don’t count the turtles and the chickens.
Do you have any suggestions as to what can be done to turn these mandates around? I am prepared to do everything possible to keep my animals alive and my orchards green.
Another year, another “water crisis”. I don’t care, I water the crap outta my lawn.