Have to help a friend [see UPDATE]
I’ve been dealing for a few hours with a friend’s medical problem, and I’m about to take that friend to the emergency room. Hopefully, all will be well and I’ll resume posting this evening.
Till then, here’s something to chew on, about California’s roadblocks to rebuilding Pacific Palisades after the fire.
UPDATE 9 PM:
I’m home now and the friend is still awaiting a couple of tests. It seems it was something not too serious but which needed quick attention, and of course it being Friday night the ER is pretty crowded. So I’m on call for when it’s time for the friend to go home; it’s not a long drive.
You knew would never see it again, for all the gargoyle grin assurances of the mayor who couldn’t be bothered to be there when the flames broke out.
Ha! Ain’t that the truth? I’ve never seen such a frozen plastic grin before.
“I’ve never seen such a frozen plastic grin before”
Obviously you have never followed politics in California.
I hope for the best for your friend, Neo.
Best wishes for your friend, and kudos to you for being a good friend.
It was extremely naive to think that California, and Los Angeles, would ever allow rebuilding of what was there before these fires.
FOAF,
Amusing, but I mean, have you watched that woman’s face? I don’t think anyone else comes close. It’s astonishingly unchanging, and there is this gargoyle quality to it.
All the best for your friend!
And if Karen Bass or Gavin Newsom were to run for office again, they would win.
The residents of Calif either have no clue that many of their problems are the result of poor govt. or they agree with the policies of Bass or Newsom.
Of course, those that agree with their policies more than likely are very wealthy and can afford living there and/or they live in areas that do not suffer the consequences of poor govt. policies.
A speaking of Newsom; he is clearly running for president in 2028 and the scary part is he has very good chance of winning. There are enough voters in the USA that are drawn to a politician’s personality and simply ignore the policies he will implement.
Yes, I third or fourth the good wishes for Friend!
As for the Californian matter, I invoke the inevitable quotation:
I think Bass and Newscum are derelict and deliberately so and in my opinion, culpable. Should hang the both of them.
Thank you, Neo for helping your friend. Blessings to you and best wishes for your friend.
California has become an anti-growth, anti-private property state. As has Washington state.
The Growth Management Act was passed in WA back in the 1990s. Its aim is to get people out of their cats and out of their houses on large lots. The model is to have people live above retail businesses and be able to walk or take public transit to their jobs.
Laws have been passed with these goals in mind. Every year it becomes more expensive and harder to get building permits. And the lots become smaller.
They really do hate the idea of people living on a decent sized piece of land and being free to do what you want on that land. Thay want a hive where it’s easier to control the plebes. No cars – they allow the plebes too much freedom. It’s really a vision of a tightly controlled state where everyone is under the thumb of Big Brother.
It makes me sick when I see how people have let his happen in these blue states.
I hope all turns out well, neo, that is tough to deal with:
With apologies to JS Bach: where sheep may safely graze, and Big Bro is the shepherd.
I’m home now and the friend is still awaiting a couple of tests. It seems it was something not too serious but which needed quick attention, and of course it being Friday night the ER is pretty crowded. So I’m on call for when it’s time for the friend to go home; it’s not a long drive.
Thanks for all the well wishes.
Very best wishes . . .
Yes,ditto all the good wishes for your friend’s health!
And bless you for being his/her transport angel!!
Medically speaking, I’m scratching my head on something not too serious but needing quick attention. A sprain might qualify. Or a broken wrist. But those are not illnesses. Plus, awaiting some test results suggests the diagnosis remains up for revision.
They really do hate the idea of people living on a decent sized piece of land and being free to do what you want on that land.
==
Snooze.
==
A. Do not erect greenbelts. If you want to set up a municipal or county park, prepare the land and open it to the public. Otherwise, do not restrict building for aught but health-and-safety considerations.
==
B. Do not permit local land use ordinances to include minimum lot sizes. Do not permit provisions which categorically prevent people from subdividing lots, putting rental cottages or garage apartments on their back lots, incorporating a rental within their main structure, cutting up single family homes into apartments, replacing single family homes with townhouses, or replacing single-family homes with small apartment buildings. As long as they respect height limits, adhere to the common setback on the street, take steps to mitigate the additional noise or eyesores, let them build. As long as they do not use their property for a boarding house, SRO hotel, flop house, hotbunking compound, emergency shelter, halfway house, or group home, let them be.
==
C. Have residential streets connect to commercial thoroughfares. These thoroughfares should have sidewalks, rear parking, and parking garages. You could have apartment buildings interspersed, apartments on upper floors with commerce on the ground floors, and blocks of townhouses or detached houses interspersed. These would have higher height limits than the residential streets connecting.
==
D. Be assiduous about building sidewalks, storm drains, water mains, and sewer hook-ups in suburban development, as well as planting street trees. Road shoulders, septic systems, and wells are for the countryside and should only be found on the suburban periphery.
==
E. Have height limits determined by a county ordinance which delineates concentric zones with lower limits as you move away from downtown.
==
F. Promote in state law ample staffing for the municipal courts and for the civil division of the sheriff’s department. You should not have backlogs in implementing foreclosures and evictions.
==
G. Remove procedural impediments to implementing evictions. Stem-to-stern, it should not take more than 70 days to remove a deadbeat tenant, a vandal tenant, or a public-heath-menace of a tenant from your property.
==
H. Eschew the erection of public housing or programs to subsidize housing. Housing provided by government agencies or government corporations should be a component of providing other services and should usually consist of berths in institutional group quarters – barracks, school dormitories, prisons and jails, miscellaneous long-term or custodial care arrangements, emergency shelters. In lieu of subsidies to housing, elaborate on the EITC and add small increments to Social Security benefits and unemployment compensation. Hold sealed-bid auctions to dispose of any extant public housing, and have no minimum value to bids. Accept bids of a negative value.
==
I. Allow property owners plenary discretion over to whom to sell or rent their property. That will require amendments to federal law, state law, and local ordinances.
==
J. Set in motion a program to dismantle any rent controls you have in effect. One element should be to allow landlords to make a registered purchase of a tenant’s right to a controlled rent through paying him a lump sum.
==
K. Identify the most impecunious block groups in any metropolitan settlement (in sum encompassing about 20% of the population of the whole settlement. These would constitute a set of zones. These will generally be in the core city. Have a special tax and regulatory regime in these zones binding the municipalities, school districts, and other special district authorities whose territory intersects with the zones. Allow liberal development of boarding houses, SRO hotels, flop houses, hotbunking compounds, emergency shelters, halfway houses, and group homes. Scrap low priority items in the building codes in these zones. Set levy rates on assessed valuation at 1/2 the rate outside the zone or at 0%. Allow authorities whose territory intersects with the zones to impose a value added tax (to be collected by the county government) to make up for the loss of property tax revenue. OTOH, have enhanced enforcement in the zones of ordinances which proscribe broken windows, graffiti, and trash on lots. Conjoin to this vigorous crime suppression efforts in this section of the metropolis.
==
L. Finance road maintenance via the proceeds from excises on motor fuels and vehicle registration fees. Every authority tasked with road maintenance has a dedicated fund which cannot be raided. The state is diligent about collecting data on the acres of macadam for which each authority has responsibility. Proceeds from state revenues are distributed to the dedicated fund of each authority per the share of the state’s macadam lies under its responsibility. Local authorities could conceivably add to that from their general revenue. The federal government can promote such a system by imposing a federal motor fuels excise but defining a merchant’s federal liability to be the stated federal excise less what they paid to the state government; that will induce state governments to raise the motor fuels excise to capture the revenue.
==
M. Update assessments on town property biennially, on country property at least once every six years. Partition country properties and assess residential and business portions according to resale values and arable land, pasture, and woodland according to a statewide formula which has statewide farm revenues and total inventories of such land as arguments.
==
N. Impose tolls on limited access highways. Some would be federal, some would be state, some would be local. Put the toll revenue in a dedicated fund to maintain that particular road.
==
O. Limit federal distributions to localities to (1) disaster relief and (2) payment-in-lieu-of-property-taxes on federal real estate. This last would be part of the locality’s general revenues and its use would be unregulated by the feds. Limit state distributions to formulaic unrestricted grants to county governments and to school districts. County governments can make like distributions to municipalities. Distributions to state governments would be limited to (1) disaster relief, (2) the finance of Medicaid, (3) finance of unemployment compensation, (4) toll revenue from long-haul Interstates, and (5) a formulaic general grant.
I hope they are doing better
Its a wonderful life is set before levittown when suburbia really set in, you think of gavin like mr potters grandson he wants people miserable in California except his ‘new class’ associates
He reminds me of the lefty pol in the allen drury series who leads to surrender in the cold war
Tolls, fares, and fees charged by government should be of the following sorts:
==
A. For providing a service the subject might purchase on the market from a private producer or vendor. If the service provider is not an autonomous government corporation with it’s own revenue, balance sheet, and income statement, the proceeds should go into a dedicated fund devoted solely to financing the service provided. Services which carry such charges might include water provision, gas and electric provision, parking spots, memberships in a municipal athletic center, renting the war memorial or park bandstand. traveling on a limited-access highway, &c.
==
B. For adjudicating a dispute. The court system should be financed via filing fees. Prosecutors would have to pay fees, public defender’s offices would have to pay them to appeal a case, private attorney’s would have to pay them to file a civil case or appeal a judgment &c.
==
C. For delineating a property right. Federal offices devoted to patents, trademarks, and copyrights would be an example. Fees to the county clerk at a real estate closing would be an example. Motor vehicle registrations would be an example. Posit these fees go into a dedicated fund which supports the agency which delineates the right.
==
Other offices might charge deposits to reduce congestion, but you’d be due a full refund of such deposits.
Cicero:
Turns out it was a UTI causing multiple problems.
It’s amazing how often it comes down to an asymptomatic UTI. I’ve taken to assuming that’s the culprit with anyone my age. We got so used to expecting them only in women, and only with unmistakeable symptoms, but it’s different now.
If they go unnecessarily to the other you would never forgive yourself.
What is UTI?