Part II:
In spite of the increasing global misery to come, few experts on the factors involved envision a sudden die-off and environmental Armageddon. (None believe religious myth or cornucopian magic will rescue us, either.) Localities and governments with long-term views have a much better chance of providing livability through it all, no matter the details and timing.
Where there is local control, there is greater chance for survival and success, as people with their living situation in common can agree and adapt for success even as larger, more abstract regions and institutions become more desperately nonsensical. This means communities designed for energy and resource efficiency and with ensured supplies of those things and food.
In thinking about stable, livable communities, many anthropologists, sociologists, and urban designers are coming up with something a lot like older European towns centered on a commercial and employment core and ending abruptly at their outer boundaries. Walking and bicycling distances are short and doable for almost all, and vehicles, while present, are secondary and mostly out of sight. (In other words, the towns emphasize the activities of people and not cars.) Though such small cities have more people per unit area than urban areas built for the sake of vehicles, they usually seem less crowded and frantic.
For our local populations, HMB, with its haphazard checkerboard of subdivisions laid out in grids, some miles from city center and with car-serving shopping malls being the main form of commercial activity, is obviously farthest from hope. And that city is so determined to keep with the pattern (witness Beachwood/Glencree) that peak fossil fuel and other crunches will be upon it before it can change course and redesign.
But El Granada, with its arcing and radiating street pattern and room for walking and biking paths, offers a more hopeful challenge. And Montara and Moss Beach, with room for more people-serving commercial development in their small cores are not beyond the pale; their badly laid out grids involve short enough distances to be bearable with some people amenities.
As bad a mess as Beachwood is, and as bad a precedent for the state as AB 1991 is, in context this is just an example of destructive urban sprawl proceding in mindless fashion in only one of the many growth-addled cities in the state. We will see a lot more of this in the rest of HMB and on the unincorporated midcoast, especially if legislative chicanery like AB 1991 is successful in helping to clear the way around obstacles.
No one needs to punish the wrongdoers in places like HMB. In the not so long term, thoughtless growth is its own punishment. HMB, and probably the midcoast communities under the county’s misguidance, have already begun to suffer the effects of declining livability and the social and economic ill health that goes with that. Those with money will be able to deny it and insulate themselves from the worst effects for a few years longer than those living more from day to day. More and more scientists, demographers, economists, sociologists, and others looking at contemporary problems on a global scale are concluding it is too late to avoid dire global consequences due to population overshoot and multiple, interacting problems with misuse of natural resources and declining natural systems. Here is just one recent attempt to communicate what can be said about our state of affairs to a lay audience: http://www.npg.org/Forum-rev2%203-10-08.pdf
There is no answer to peak fossil fuels this century. Those who theorize nuclear energy is going to bail out the planet have not calculated how long it would take to get the energy supply flowing and how intractable the political problems are worldwide to even allow this approach to be tried.(U.S. position on Iran, anyone?) Cleanup of nuclear waste is actually sliding backward as our government tries to promote more of what it cannot handle: http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17668
“For example, if the existing fire department has enough apparatus and staffing to cover these new homes, it would benefit from around $200,000 more a year to cover existing expenses and salaries.”
Net result in such a case, current taxpayers in the now-combined fire district would subsidize the developer. Gee, thanks, former Point Montara directors for possibly consolidating us MMBers into yet another bad deal. But don’t worry about us citizens, we’re used to having our interests thrown away without having a chance to vote on it.
Carl May
I’ve decided I really don’t care what sanctity of life, including the necessary life support systems provided by nature, means to other people. Who are they to decide what is vital to them, to have their representatives vote protections for those things into law (or to vote the laws into being directly in initiatives), and then to impose that law on me? Their self-serving laws are just their opinion of what they want. In other words, debatable.
What brings on this outburst is my decision to investigate the position of hit man. Short hours and good pay, I hear. We even had a famous hit man living in Moss Beach at one time, and people can remember how good it was then. None of the endless namby-pamby concern about civil and ethical rights we have now. No pretending you were going to live forever if someone did not kill you. No trying to take away a person’s chosen profession just because life-extremists managed to gang up and force through a bunch of capricious, over-the-top laws about murder.
We need to go step-by-step through our law enforcement system, rescind laws against killing others, and begin to dismantle the portion of the overzealous law enforcement community working on homicides. Put them to work defending “property rights” or something else that does some good for the wealthy few to whom this country owes everything. That will free me to do what I might want to do, and I have a right to freedom as much as anyone else. Admit it; that part of the Declaration of Independence that said everyone has a right to life never said how long that life had to be, now did it?
You have your silly values and I have my superior ones. Stop dreaming the kind of life you want counts for something and get out of my way.
Carl May
The Beachwood mess began 25 years ago, not ten years ago.
Whatever it costs now that the millions are piling up quickly, the current City Council bought into it. Now the myopic fools want to extend the negative effects of their missteps far beyond the city limits and have even been so crass in their arguments as to suggest outsiders who object to AB 1991 should help pay for the alternative.
The piss-ant city is boring to me. I happily forget the place when it is not forcing itself into my business. I wouldn’t be commenting and don’t really care what happens to it as a result of its Beachwood bumbling except for the burden on the rest of us on the midcoast and throughout California--worse traffic, weakening of already inadequate environmental protections, more overpopulation, etc. Our distinctly separate unincorporated communities to the north have long endured the foibles of over-reaching HMB government and its pet property exploiters. Let the citizens of HMB suffer for the people they put into office. Maybe they’ll wake up and do better next time (yes, I’m joking).
Carl May
“I have observed over the years how well organized these groups are in championing their positions. Whether or not they have tons of money, they do seem to have the ears of many legislators.”
This so soon after you said they were “well funded”?
Of course they are organized. What citizens have in opposition to wealthy special interests are votes. What their groups have in addition to staff paid for with piddling (in most cases) budgets are volunteers.
So this is how the battle over AB 1991 in Sacramento will continue to shape up--wealthy special interest vs. public interest. The HMB City Council caused this with premature capitulation to their developer buddy in the terms of the settlement. They forced the issue statewide with AB 1991; and any surprise at the growing opposition is either naive or disingenuous. With the high-priced legal team they bought for the cause, one would have to guess disingenuous.
Carl May
Beachwood is part of the ongoing urban sprawl process set into motion in the City of HMB many decades ago. As such, it and all future sprawl activities will make the city less sustainable and less liveable. Nothing about sprawl improves liveability.
It is probably too late for HMB and its classic leapfrog sprawl to redesign itself into anything better. Who is going to tear down those outlying subdivisions? But the same is not true for the several unincorporated communities if they can figure out how to block such bad plans for damaging development as those embodied in the proposed LCP revision prepared by the county and involve the principles of liveability well known to community architects.
“I realize this land is not overlooking the bluff on Fitzgerald Reserve (truly the type of parcels that the CCC/Act were designed for). It’s pretty much farm land, with converted farm land on each side, on the east side of a major arterial.”
A reading of Proposition 20 and the weaker Coastal Act of 1976 it spawned will show the above quote to be grossly false on a number of fronts. All kinds of coastal property and enterprise in the coastal zone are involved. Trying to create revisionist history won’t cut it until all of us who can read, who know the locations and issues that inspired Prop. 20, and who know some of those who drafted Prop. 20 are gone.
AB 1991 is just the latest in a long series of assaults on the Coastal Act. But it achieves a higher rank on the disgust scale than most of the others because it also tries to trash almost all other areas of regulation and environmental laws in the state in the sweeping exemptions it requests. (Nope, not falling for the crudely contrived spin that implies the bill is not a model for getting around environmental laws. Asking people to be naive, gullible, and ignorant of how the game is played in Sacramento and the rest of California only shows disrespect.)
What the AB 1991 dustup shows, once again, is the need for a new set of strong, clear, objective environmental regulations in California, including a new Coastal Act. The old ones had too many compromising weaknesses to begin with, are out of date for the current California and with its much reduced natural environment and its bloated population, are too full of the legal loopholes that have been blown in them, and (as AB 1991 demonstrates with a local situation) are too subject to capricious political gameplaying and the influence of big money.
Carl May
“But its too early to start popping the champagne cork yet because the opposition is so well funded and organized.”
Most of the opposition to AB 1991 is not even allowed to spend more than a small amount on trying to influence legislation.
The opposition to AB 1991, as shown in the listed groups for and against the bill, is very poorly funded compared to the rich interests in favor of it. A person simply cannot make such a statement and know anything about the groups and constituencies involved. I haven’t done it, but it would be an interesting exercise to add up the paid lobbyists for those in favor and those against.
What is more, the few bigger environmental groups listed against the bill are spread thin over multiple issue areas nationally, whereas the groups favoring it are mostly concentrated on making money out of real property. The money is on the side of the developers, and they are the side that favors AB 1991. One wonders if people making statements about “well-funded” environemntalists have the first clue what the budgets of such organizations are like. For those not familiar with where to look for such information, Guidestar is a start.
In their fervor for obtaining wealth, anti-environment people seldom bother to reflect on the fact that those trying to prevent the trashing of our surroundings have nothing to gain financially, whereas those who favor environmental degradation alost always do it for the money to be made.
Carl May
Will you Democrats be asking them how they stand on AB 1991, and why? Do they understand the nature of the precedent for the rest of us who do not live in HMB?
Will you be asking them how they stand on consolidation of special districts on the coastside,and why?
Do they believe communities of all kinds should be sustainable? If so, how would the unincorporated communities that would result from the revised LCP (which Hill has had a part in creating) be sustained in terms of basic resources and the physical and social infrastructure needed for support?
Carl May
“I don’t think I was directing at you, given I have no clue whom you are.”
Ken Johnson,
Pardon me for asking about something that may be nothing more than a construct of a bad memory, but weren’t you involved in some of the first attempts to create an LCP for HMB? Can you offer a bit of perspective on the time and the several attempts to draft an LCP that were rejected? It’s a leading question, but was the city government of HMB of the time anxious to fulfill its obligations under the new Coastal Act?
HMB dragged its feet on creating an LCP and was years and years late in sending one to the Coastal Commissions and finally getting it certified. During this time, in the early 80’s through 1990 is when the initial mistakes (which determined much of what was to come) were made on Beachwood by the staff and City Council. But why HMB was recalcitrant, why it failed to behave as it was required to do in managing its coastal environment, is seldom heard. That “why” has a great deal to do with the City Council’s current attitude and would be well worth exposing to the many citizens of the city who were not here or were not paying attention at the time.
“’Why did the HMB City Council agree to such a large expenditure of $18 million without seeking voter consent?’ Probably because the arrogant HMB City Council believed they could avoid paying $18 million by trampling over every state environmental law on the books.”
Wouldn’t the more simple answer be, “Because they could”?
I thought Pete Price and Sarah Christie were particularly concise and well-spoken--clear on the matter of precedent for all of California. Christie was especially impressive in her direct, factual answers and points in the back and forth questioning. She had obviously done her homework. It’s a shame it’s more about politics than anything else in Sacramento.
Carl May
“If this bill passes, we will know there is some serious corruption going on in Sacramento. AB 1991 is simply nuts.”
Kevin,
Allow me to remind you this is California. Anything can happen, and does. Best to express oneself vigorously and not be too certain of any outcome before it happens.
Anyone who objects to the destructive potential of AB1991 should e-mail or phone the members of the Assembly committee to weigh in. You can be sure the other side is doing so to the best of its ability.
We already know there is some serious corruption in Sacramento.
Carl May
“And I’d be willing to give them a huge discount on my commission should they list their properties with me. You see, not all pro-grow people are evil and greedy.”
Of course they are not. One would not want to think altruistic realtors in HMB would try to make an opportunistic buck selling off the city’s property assets.
Maybe the discount real estate sales office in Montara could be consulted on how to structure a real savings on sales commissions?
Carl May
Always speculative to count a silent majority before it has been heard from. When the citizens of HMB recognize how they were prematurely sold out, how they might be taxed to pay for the sellout, and how the settlement attempts to abandon major categtories of environmental protections for the city and load on more effects of unmanageable overpopulation, many of them may well have feelings very different from the vocal, developer-friendly, environment-disdaining, “property rights” minority.
The above nascent attempts to use Beachwood as a wedge issue, a stalking horse for avoidance of state and national environmental regulations elsewhere in the city, and an inhibition on future enforcement of environmental regulations were predicted. It was so obvious this would be a tactic by overdevelopment interests in that long-misguided city.
Leonard:
A bunch of messages above I wrote:
“Essentially, all uses must have been stripped from a property for a true takings to have taken place. Yet the City of HMB eventually allowed for 19 dwellings on the property in question, conforming to the presence of the ‘wetlands’ as it did so.”
That was based on the same very well known Supreme Court decision that you refer to. Was this argued in HMB’s appearance before Judge Walker? Amazing legal incompetence if it was not brought up. And amazing ignorance on the part of HMB government if they do not know about the current operating definition of a “taking.” If it was argued, the judge’s ruling was obviously contrary to a prior Supreme Court decision, which should have made an appeal on this matter alone a slam dunk. But I’m not an attorney and don’t understand any legal manuevering that may have nullified this matter.
The whole business of possible takings and coastal wetlands under the Coastal Act has been litigated ad nauseum in several prominent cases in Southern California. It has not escaped notice that HMB government its real estate greedseeds ("greedseed" = a hayseed more interested in the final crop than agricultural products) is behaving very much like SoCal coastal towns and counties dominated by right-wingers and real estate profiteers.
Which gets to another matter, which is that the Beachwood decision by Walker may be used to peck away at the current definition of a “taking.” This is constantly a pursuit of “property rights” law firms. So the City Council of HMB and its law firms might be responsible for a precedent that will have ramifications even beyond California. And they wonder why people outside HMB are slamming the sleazy settlement?
Carl May
AB1991 was a huge mistake. Suddenly the settlement became the problem of all Californians, as the city got Mullin to carry foul water for it in the state legislature. People who previously did not give a damn about how HMB handled its problem suddenly did because their ox was now being gored.
One can only guess at the reasons something so stupid is being tried. Ignorance of the many elsewhere in California who would be drawn in? Inherent disdain for coastal regulations in general? Arrogance, thinking they could lay off any failure of such legislation to go through on “obstructionists” who would forget history and abandon principles? Hope that the stupidity would succeed in spite of all, as other stupidities sometimes do in politicized California. The possibilities go on...but not on to one good reason why this bill should not be aborted for the good of all.
Carl May
Francis,
Don’t be disuaded by the self-interested spinners who refuse to take off the feedbag and admit how HMB has blundered in a manner that will have ramifications up and down the state. Do you live in Mendocino County? Doesn’t matter, but if you do, there are those of us who realize some of what your supervisors inland in Ukiah have done to try to weaken the Coastal Act over the years. There is reason for concern no matter where private attacks on the public interest are launched.
Unfortunately, the entire California coastline is a commons, and that subjects it to the sort of potential tragedies Garrett Hardin wrote about in his famous editorial.
You wrote: “Regarding private property rights: Owners that have been denied any access or any use of their land by the commission must be compensated for their land. However, such “takings” are rarely the case.”
And are not the case here, though the City of Half Moon Bay decided not to press the issue. Essentially, all uses must have been stripped from a property for a true takings to have taken place. Yet the City of HMB eventually allowed for 19 dwellings on the property in question, conforming to the presence of the “wetlands” as it did so. That was less than the poor little multi-millionaire developer wanted out of his relatively small, speculative, initial investment; and he figured the chances for a greater profit through lawyering up were more attractive. He was right about that, luckily getting a far-right judge on “property rights.”
It’s all about the money, and the City of HMB, now with a city council that itches to appease developers (some of this has to do with “Old Guard” agricultural landowners wanting to be free to sell off for the “final crop") had no stomach for sticking up for government’s regulatory powers. (Perhaps they were a bit afraid they might actually succeed on appeal, but I have no way of knowing that.) They took the first deal their attorneys could drum up to create a payoff for the developer. They got out of the effort a well-pursued appeal would have required; and they managed to throw in another property they want developed. They probably also figured the $18 million that the city might have to pay could be absorbed without bankrupting the city and could be offset partially by selling off that portion the land on which development could be allowed. Any simpleton could scheme that out. And it becomes more plausible if your have lived around here for a few decades and see how the factions (predictably) work.
Don’t imagine for a moment that the four council people in HMB cared a whit about the possible effects of their oddball legislative manuever involving Assemblyman Mullin on the rest of the state’s heavily pressured coastline. As you can see by the messages, people going for the money locally care only about the here and now.
Hang in there with your to-the-point, logical, and objective messages. Daylight drives our local coastal vampires crazy.
Carl May
Yup. AB 1991 would go into the developer’s primer on how to get around Coastal Act regulations--where it would join past such circumventions. People like Wan on the Coastal Commission clearly understand this. One is left to wonder if this law firm has any experience at all with California coastal controversies or if they just used a boilerplate snow job in the message trying to justify the naive required legislation.
Love the justification for Glencree: “Regarding the inclusion of the 12-acre Glencree parcel that is adjacent to Beachwood, the developer required the inclusion of that parcel in the settlement agreement.” Looks more and more like the mandate to the attorneys was: “get a fast settlement, any settlement.” People outside HMB should remember this kind of repeated incompetent screwup when the calls to annex to the city come up.
Carl May
Carl May
Pacifica opening? Remember, some of us shop up there, and last year’s location at Rockaway was convenient.
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Ken Johnson: APPROPRIATIONS Committee HEARING DATE : 05/14/2008 Ken Johnson Posted 05/09 at 7:16am in Local Government Committee passes AB1991 -- next stop: Appropriations Committee
Scott_Boyd: Steven Hyman wrote: “Really don’t know enough about the City’s expenditure on Police to voice… Posted 05/08 at 3:51pm in Local Government Committee passes AB1991 -- next stop: Appropriations Committee
Karen Rosenstein: I highly encourage people interested in leadership, especially environmentally oriented to check this program out. … Posted 05/07 at 10:05pm in Are you ready to Be the Change?
Kay Lindquist: Not to worry. With any attempts to deal with quality of life and environmental problems… Posted 05/07 at 1:32pm in HMB's Q&A about AB1991 translated from spin into plain English
Steven Hyman: Really don’t know enough about the City’s expenditure on Police to voice an opinion other… Posted 05/07 at 10:09am in Local Government Committee passes AB1991 -- next stop: Appropriations Committee
Kevin Barron: Carl, ... Jerry Bruckheimer needs a new doomsday script, and I think you’ve got a… Posted 05/07 at 9:11am in HMB's Q&A about AB1991 translated from spin into plain English
Ken Johnson: Kevin Lansing, Vallejo will file for Chapter 9 protection. They voted last night. HMB next?… Posted 05/07 at 6:59am in Local Government Committee passes AB1991 -- next stop: Appropriations Committee
Carl May: Part II: In spite of the increasing global misery to come, few experts on the… Posted 05/06 at 8:54pm in HMB's Q&A about AB1991 translated from spin into plain English
Carl May: As bad a mess as Beachwood is, and as bad a precedent for the state… Posted 05/06 at 8:50pm in HMB's Q&A about AB1991 translated from spin into plain English
Kevin J. Lansing: Steve Hyman wrote: “If the bill fails, we’ll see where the City finds the $18… Posted 05/06 at 6:20pm in Local Government Committee passes AB1991 -- next stop: Appropriations Committee
