CALIFORNIA NEWS
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Political and legal conflicts over the water supply are
highly likely in seven of the West's biggest cities by 2025, a federal study
found.
The Interior Department identified Las Vegas; Reno, Nev.; Albuquerque, N.M.;
Denver; Houston; Salt Lake City; and Flagstaff, Ariz., as cities where
conflict is most likely over the next two decades. Two major waterways, the
Rio Grande and the Colorado River, also were named ``highly likely'' sources
of conflict.
``It may simply be a situation where people want to water their lawns or
irrigate their fields and there simply is not enough water available,''
Interior Secretary Gale Norton said.
A department initiative would focus money and technology to develop ways to
conserve water, improve structures such as dams and reservoirs and stretch
water resources to last in those critical areas.
The department said a lesser, but still ``substantial'' possibility of water
wars exists in other Western cities, including Los Angeles, Sacramento,
Calif., San Diego, Phoenix and San Antonio. A third level of cities had a
``moderate'' chance of future conflict, including Seattle; Dallas; Casper,
Wyo.; Boise, Idaho and Salem, Ore.
The study was based on population trends, rainfall records, water capacity
and storage and habitats of endangered species, said Assistant Interior
Secretary Bennett Raley.
Overtapped water supplies could in the worst-case scenario spark a repeat of
2001 turmoil over the Klamath River, Norton said.
Armed federal officers were called in after farmers along the Oregon
waterway pried open irrigation gates in anger when the government shut off
their water to help endangered fish. Environmentalists and tribal leaders
say Norton's subsequent decision to divert water to 1,400 farms killed
33,000 salmon in the river last year.
The department study said the basin had a ``substantial'' possibility for
sparking conflict again by 2025.
Population of State Increases to 35,591,000
For the fourth year in a row, growth exceeds 500,000 people. Demographers
see little effect from California's economic downturn.
Copyright LATIMES
By Monte Morin, Times Staff Writer
California grew by almost 600,000 people last year, the fourth year in a row
that annual population growth has exceeded the half-million mark, according
to state demographers.
In an annual head count conducted by the state Department of Finance and
scheduled for release today, officials cited natural births and immigration
as significant factors in the state's robust growth. Already the most
populous state in the nation, California grew by 591,000 people in 2002,
bringing its total population to 35,591,000, the report said. Also, in
keeping with past counts, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties led
the population increase.
The report, experts said, is notable because it suggests that a state
economic downturn did little to dampen population growth. Although this
year's report noted a slight decrease in the rate of growth, compared with
the previous year's figure of 633,000 new residents, experts said the
difference was not significant.
Author and planning expert Bill Fulton cited births of new Californians as
the main reason for continued growth statewide.
"Up until the 1970s or '80s, growth was mostly from migration from other
states," he said. "But now there's much more natural increase, and that
means you can't shut the door on population growth. The fact is, most new
residents arrive at the hospital now."
Last year's annual report by the Department of Finance was the first to note
that an economic slowdown tied to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had failed
to keep annual population growth below 500,000. Since then, some
demographers have said the slowdown would be much more apparent if it had
hit Los Angeles as hard as it had the Bay Area.
"The big picture here is that the Bay Area is feeling the recession more
strongly than the rest of the state," said Hans Johnson, a demographer with
the Public Policy Institute of California.
According to the report, Los Angeles County posted the highest annual
numerical population gain in the state, adding 162,200 people in 2002 for a
total of 9,979,600. Next was Riverside County, which added 60,200 people for
a total of 1,705,500. San Diego County ranked third in population gain,
posting an increase of 53,100 for a total population of 2,961,600.
Growth figures, the report said, were determined by changes in housing stock
in urban areas, birth and death counts, address changes recorded by the
Department of Motor Vehicles, employment data, school enrollment figures,
federal income tax summaries, data from the immigration officials and
Medicare and Medicaid sources.
Among other highlights, the report noted that South Gate grew to 100,300 to
become the 59th city in the state to exceed a total population of 100,000.
Two counties lost population: Modoc and Plumas each declined by less than
one-third of 1%.
Farmers Unite to Preserve Their Field
In Calif., 8 Join Pact to Put Developers on Hold
By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 18, 2003
MADERA, Calif. -- The only way of life that Denis Prosperi and his ancestors
here have ever known is disappearing. He hears the same unsettling news all
the time. Another farmer gives up and cashes out. And more rooftops start
rising up in place of the great multitude of crops that have long swept
across and sustained this land.
Prosperi figured that might be his fate, too. But he is busy this spring
tending to fields of almonds and grapes, same as ever. So are all of his
neighbors. No one is budging from his farm -- for good.
"We couldn't stop what's happening unless we acted collectively," Prosperi
said one recent afternoon as he looked out past his crops at a landscape
lined with newly built neighborhoods. "And we had a chance to do it now, or
never."
The rare and momentous stand they all are making against development in this
dusty farm town is not just rippling across California's vast San Joaquin
Valley, which is one of the world's largest and most productive agricultural
regions. It is catching the attention of farmers nationwide who are fighting
losing battles against urban sprawl.
The "Madera Eight," as Prosperi and his neighbors are commonly known these
days, are fast becoming farming folk heroes.
What they did after nearly three years of agonizing debate and compromise
over each other's dinner tables is unique in the West, agricultural
officials say, and has been tried only a few times elsewhere.
When developers came knocking with the promise of fat checks, they all
refused the offers at the same time, then permanently relinquished any right
they had to convert the farmland to any other use. They even sacrificed some
of their land's value to help each other out. And the 440 acres that they
chose to preserve -- which they are calling the nation's first "farmland
security perimeter" -- will effectively block development on about 40,000
other acres nearby that also are coveted by home builders.
"They have drawn a line in the dirt," said Robyn Miller, a spokeswoman for
the American Farmland Trust, a national group that works to conserve
agricultural land.
Closing the deal felt like a race against time. Across the country, at an
accelerating pace, highly valued fields where crops have been sown for
generations are being stripped and paved to make way for suburbs and
shopping malls. About 6 million acres of farmland have been developed over
the past decade, federal agricultural officials say, far more than in the
1980s.
States such as Texas, Ohio and Georgia each have had more than 150,000 acres
of agricultural land consumed in recent years by development that is being
stoked both by population growth and the fervent desire that many homeowners
now have for more space -- average property lot sizes nationally have
doubled in the past two decades.
Some states that see no end to the trend are scrambling to counter it. In
Virginia, which expects ownership of nearly 70 percent of its farms to
change hands over the next 15 years, a growing number of counties are
creating their first farmland conservation programs. Maryland is considered
one of the nation's leaders in preserving open space.
Few places are more threatened by the loss of farmland than California's San
Joaquin Valley, a 300-mile corridor between Sacramento and Bakersfield that
is home to about 38,000 farms and six of the nation's 10 most productive
agricultural counties.
The valley also is one of the fastest-growing regions in the West. It has
added nearly a half-million residents over the past decade and is bracing
for the arrival of twice as many more in the coming years because so many
people can no longer afford to live near the California coast.
Madera, which is about 20 miles north of Fresno, is a magnet in the
migration. Open land here is cheap and plentiful. Nearly half of the
county's acreage is now being used for agriculture, and developers are
swarming over it. Permits to build single-family homes in the area have
doubled in the past five years. And that may be only an early sign of the
looming transformation. Demographers are projecting that over the next 15
years about 80,000 new residents will settle in or near Madera, where the
population is now about 46,000.
Some farmers in the pastoral valley towns along Highway 99 can hardly
believe the changes they see coming to the land. But others have no
illusions anymore.
"It's going to be very difficult to stop this influx of people," said Gary
Svanda, a city council member in Madera. "But we have to be smarter about
how we deal with it."
Even before the population boom here, conservation groups had been fighting
to protect agricultural land. Their most common tactic has been to purchase
farmers' rights to develop their property. But nearly all of those deals
have been with an individual landowner. In many cases, the strategy has had
limited value because other farmers nearby soon decided to sell their land
to developers -- which then put more pressure on the acreage still being
used for agriculture.
California also has been spending about $40 million annually to give farmers
property tax breaks to continue cultivating their crops. But that program is
imperiled by the state's severe budget crisis. Some state officials say the
incentives had not been doing much to slow development anyway. About 50,000
acres of farmland in California are vanishing every year.
Prosperi's grandparents bought the land he farms here a century ago. At 48,
he has known no other livelihood, and the fields still beckon him. In a
baseball cap and cowboy boots, he tends crops with great care. But when new
homes began creeping close to his property, and builders began offering him
$22,000 an acre, he decided that he had no choice but to sell a few dozen
acres before they were engulfed by development.
His neighbors were furious. Some of them had been resisting similar
overtures from developers. "I ran every one of 'em off my property," said
Dorothy Campbell, 73. She and other farmers stopped speaking to Prosperi for
a while. They also circulated a petition against him.
He began having second thoughts about selling. Once he and Campbell were on
better terms, they began looking into other options and found willing
partners in both the American Farmland Trust and California conservation
officials. Six other local farmers took an interest, too.
What emerged from marathon talks was a pact in which each of them sold their
rights to ever have their land used for housing or businesses.
They got to keep their farms, but made less money than they would have from
selling to developers, and the restrictions will outlast the current owners'
life spans. The deal initially was struck last fall but is being extended
now to cover more acres.
The farmers say they are not stifling growth, just redirecting it to less
productive land in other parts of Madera. Their agreement won approval from
the city.
"We're not saying this area has to be held down economically and focus only
on agriculture," said Chuck Tyson, program manager of California's farmland
conservancy program. "But until someone really says that the population
growth is slowing down, this is the best thing we can do to protect
irreplaceable, high-quality farmland."
Farmers around the valley are now busy trying to create similar compacts.
But that will not be easy.
Conservation groups say that getting them to cast their economic lot
together often requires a profound change of attitude. Many farmers consider
property rights too sacred to surrender. And some have no financial plan for
retirement other than to sell their land to developers.
But Prosperi and his neighbors say they are farming their land these days
with lasting peace of mind.
"I wasn't ever going to sell," Campbell said. "Without this, I just would
have sat here surrounded by houses until I died."
"The way things usually go," Prosperi said, "is if a developer just picks
off one farmer, then everyone else around them has to sell, too. But we
stood together."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
Californians raise roof over new housing
The two biggest developments in the West, just north of L.A., revive an
enduring debate over growth.
By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
SANTA CLARITA, CALIF. – They are two of the largest housing developments in
the history of the American West. They may be, because of dwindling open
space, the last two projects of their size (60,000 and 70,000 residents) in
California.
Slated for construction alongside the state's most important north-south
artery, the already traffic-choked Golden State Freeway (I-5), are causing
the most heated debate in years over the quality of life here and the
Pandora's box of issues that surround it: population increase, immigration,
environmental protection, air quality, job creation.
To boosters, the initiatives represent a new kind of housing development -
one with elegant greenbelts, local jobs to prevent commutes, and a "village"
ethos. But critics see it as just another form of sprawl, tarted up with
nice labels, that will further transform southern California into the
world's biggest stucco-scape.
The outcome here in the land that has been the nation's premier laboratory
for creative and controversial housing experiments may set the tone for
other major development battles across the country.
"California is battling with the American ideal of whether or not every
family can have its dream of a house with a yard, and if so at what cost to
the environment," says Bill Hudnut, senior fellow for public policy at the
Urban Land Institute in Washington D.C.
Given the pressures for housing across the country - 18 million more units
in California alone by 2025 - experts say the state is learning the hard way
how to cope. "People are against sprawl and density," says Mr. Hudnut. "They
want natural vistas and jobs near where they live. California is trying to
do both and is colliding with its own passionate and contrary points of
view."
Exhibit A is Newhall Ranch, which after a decade of controversy was given
the green light this month by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors,
as the county's largest-ever subdivision (20,885 homes). Planned on
chaparral-covered rolling hills stretching from the I-5 to the Ventura
County line, the 12,000-acre project will add an estimated 60,000 residents,
with construction beginning in 2006.
Caught in a classic fight between developers who want to provide homes and
environmentalists who want to retain open space, Newhall Ranch is presenting
itself as an enlightened compromise. It is a planned community organized
around five village "nodes" to provide shopping, schools, industrial parks,
and green belts. Over half of the project (6,100 acres) is being retained as
open space.
"We had the choice or rushing in helter-skelter or master-planning for the
long term, and we chose the latter," says Newhall Land and Farming Co.
spokeswoman Marlee Lauffer. The site will mimic the development of the town
of Valencia, just miles away, which has 48,000 residents and claims to have
created roughly the same number of jobs over the past two decades. "We have
built in a permanent funding mechanism so homebuyers will pay for the
maintenance of open space, and are creating business opportunities so that
the residents will not add to severe traffic problems commuting into Los
Angeles," says Ms. Lauffer.
Old sprawl in new clothing
Critics say such motives are laudable in theory and laughable in practice.
"In spite of county officials who are trying to make this look like another
project that has some semblance of 'new urbanism' and mixed use, this is
pretty much just the same sprawl that has been going on in California for a
long time and is wrecking the state," says Ron Bottorff, chair of Friends of
the Santa Clara River.
He decries the "urban edge effects" produced by paving over landscape,
increasing runoff, introducing pets and plants. He says the project will
reinforce the river's banks in some areas, which speeds the water flow and
stirs up silt, altering habitats of endangered species such as the unarmored
threespine stickleback fish. "This is turning one of the last great open
spaces near the California coast into a human-affected rather than natural
area," he says.
Another major concern is traffic in a Southern California car culture that
is notoriously short on public transportation. The two major freeways
connecting to Los Angeles just south of Newhall (I 405 and US 101) are
already two of the most heavily used corridors in the world.
Related to that is how much local employment can be generated. Planners
estimate that only 10 percent of residents will have to leave the area for
work, but one county supervisor, Zev Yaroslavsky, says that is "laughable."
Environmentalists, too, find that assertion dubious. They say they heard
similar contentions when the so-called Inland Empire of San Bernardino and
Riverside, 40 miles east of Los Angeles, was being heavily developed. The
much-chronicled story there over the past decade has been the influx of
residents pouring in for cheaper homes, but who are also clogging freeways
to work in Orange County to the south.
"California developers are building further and further out, creating longer
and longer commutes because they are not providing enough jobs in these
areas," says Bill Corcoran, regional director of the Sierra Club. He laments
a recent proposal to tunnel under the Cleveland National Forest to relieve
congestion in the San Bernardino/Orange County corridor.
"We sink billions into new housing infrastructure without thinking of the
fundamental problems of where these people are going to work and how they
will get there," Corcoran says. "Then we come up with ridiculous and bizarre
solutions that remind me of the guys who wanted to blow the smog out of L.A.
by using giant fans."
An overnight city
Exhibit B is Tejon Ranch, just 40 miles north of Newhall. It is a
development of 23,000 homes slated to begin building in 2007, but not yet
formally approved. Developers there also intend well-planned shopping
centers, industrial parks, schools, and libraries. And between Tejon and
Newhall, which would provide bookends to several smaller subdivisions,
another 70,000 residents are expected by 2030, according to the Los Angeles
County Department of Public Works.
For all the polemics over the developments, some analysts take a more
moderate view. They say that for all their weaknesses, the larger planned
communities do, at least, try to consider the longer-term perspective and
avoid even worse problems generated by hosts of smaller developments that do
not, or cannot, consider regional perspectives.
"No one wants to see the last great open spaces of the state and country
disappear under a carpet of development," says Carol Whiteside, of Great
Valley Center, a private nonpartisan group that tries to unite diverse
interests for sustainable growth. "For all their perceived faults, these
developments are trying to come up a coherent, regional, and long-term plans
that integrate the concerns of all sides. The alternative is piecemeal
development that doesn't fit together at all and can make people more
frustrated than they are now."
Observers say the California example is reflective of similar disputes in
Phoenix, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, and Florida, which has built to the edge of
the Everglades. In search of cheaper homes, buyers create the demand that
helps consume open land, often luring businesses and residents from already
struggling inner-cities and suburbs. What's often lacking, they say, are
forums that bring people together with divergent viewpoints to resolve
issues dispassionately.
ADAM WEISKIND - STAFF
Copyright 2003 Christian Science Monitor
WaMu may bail out on $2 billion project
By Bradley Meacham
Seattle Times business reporter
Washington Mutual said for the first time this week it might abandon plans
to develop some of the last open space near Los Angeles, opening the
possibility of a victory for conservationists.
WaMu confirmed it is in talks with California officials about possibly
selling the 2,800-acre site, known as Ahmanson Ranch, a stretch of rolling
land that is home to rare frogs and wildflowers.
The $2 billion project, which would include 3,050 residences, office
buildings and a golf course, has been beset by a decade of litigation,
environmental studies and protests.
"We're involved in some very loose discussions with the state of
California," Adrian Rodriguez, a WaMu spokesman, said yesterday. "There is
no agreement at this point."
California officials started the discussions several weeks ago. "It seemed
like time for an overture to see if WaMu is interested," said Stanley Young,
spokesman for California's Resources Agency. Voters have approved $300
million to purchase open space in the area.
But WaMu warned no deal is imminent. "We still believe the best use of the
property is for much-needed housing in Southern California," Rodriguez said.
He declined to estimate the land's value. A Los Angeles Times report said
the land could be worth more than $600 million, less than one-sixth of the
$3.9 billion profit the bank made last year, but others said the value is
much lower due to legal challenges.
Resolving the dispute would end a public-relations battle pitting the
Seattle-based bank against high-profile Hollywood conservationists and
anti-sprawl activists. Opponents say the project would add more traffic,
increase pollution, and disturb rare animal and plant habitat.
WaMu, which inherited the project through a 1998 acquisition, earlier said
it has no plans to stop the project or sell the property. But opponents have
stepped up their campaign even as WaMu expands its business nationwide.
A letter signed by Rob Reiner, Martin Sheen, Leonardo DiCaprio and others
was sent to New York City Council member protesting the company's business
practices. WaMu is expanding in New York after an acquisition there last
year.
"It's in WaMu's best interest to sell this land to a conservancy and
preserve it as open space," said Chad Griffin, campaign manager of Rally to
Save Ahmanson Ranch. "We applaud Washington Mutual for coming to the table,"
he said, adding that no deal has been made.
In December the Ventura County Board of Supervisors endorsed WaMu's revised
environmental-impact report and plans for the first phase of the project,
which is set to start in 2004. Several other governments in Los Angeles have
filed suit to stall the project.
Bradley Meacham: 206-515-5066 or at bmeacham@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company
1,733 acres bought for park
Acquisition near Valley blocks urban sprawl
By Kerry Cavanaugh
Los Angeles Daily News
Conservation groups announced Tuesday they've purchased the 1,733-acre
Joughin Ranch, which will become the centerpiece of a regional park just a
few minutes' drive from the San Fernando Valley.
The preservation of the $7.2 million cattle ranch essentially stops San
Fernando Valley sprawl from creeping farther into the Santa Susana
Mountains, environmentalists said, and guarantees public access to some of
the range's highest and most scenic viewpoints.
"It's really the heart of probably the best natural area surrounding the San
Fernando Valley," said Paul Edelman, deputy director of planning and natural
resources for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. "It's really like a
whole world unto itself. It gives you a sense of big wilderness right at the
edge of the city."
The conservancy's sister agency, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation
Authority, will own and manage the property.
The land was bought with $5 million from the state Wildlife Conservation
Board, $3 million from the Los Angeles County Safe Neighborhood Parks Act of
1996 and $500,000 from the Nature Conservancy.
Money left over from the purchase will be used for restoration and repairs,
Edelman said.
The buy was a bargain, considering the size of the ranch and its proximity
to a dense, urban area, said Jim Park, county Parks and Recreation
Department assistant director for special projects. The county has about 600
acres of open space, but aims to eventually preserve 4,000 acres.
Earlier this year, the conservancy bought 404 acres in Browns Canyon, just
north of DeSoto Avenue and the Ronald Reagan Freeway, which will serve as
the parking lot and entryway into the regional park.
The conservancy expects to add a few more 40-acre parcels of open space from
the Porter Ranch development. An additional 160 acres would be added if the
424-house Deerlake Ranch project is approved by the county.
People will be able to use Joughin Ranch as soon as September, when the
property is dedicated, Edelman said. The lower part of the regional park
will be ideal for picnicking, dog-walking and short hikes. The extensive
system of ranch roads provides access to equestrians, hikers and mountain
bikers.
The ranch includes nine miles of streambed and contains biologically
critical components of the eastern Santa Susana Mountain ecosystem, said
E.J. Remson, manager of The Nature Conservancy's Los Angeles-Ventura
project.
Black bears, mountain lions and bobcats make their home on the ranch, and
it's preservation secures the last major piece of a wildlife corridor,
providing a guaranteed pass over the Santa Susana Mountains for wildlife
traveling between Los Padres National Forest and the Santa Monica Mountains,
Remson said.
Across the Valley, the Conservancy voted Monday night to make an offer on a
55-acre parcel off La Tuna Canyon Road near the 210 Freeway. A developer has
proposed building a 10-unit subdivision on site, Edelman said, but the
seller decided to give the conservancy once last chance to buy it. He would
not disclose the asking price.
Kerry Cavanaugh, (818) 723-3746 kerry.cavanaugh@dailynews.com
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Daily News
101 'Nightmare' Plan
By Lisa Mascaro, Staff Writer
LA Daily News
High-rises along an expanded Ventura Freeway, another half-cent sales tax
and tolls on some roads count among key long-term strategies for handling
the Southern California population boom -- and resulting smog and traffic
congestion -- expected by 2030.
The Southern California Association of Government's draft Regional
Transportation Plan proposes $120 billion in transportation spending in the
region and major changes in development strategies, including what critics
call "Manhattanization" of the 101 Freeway corridor.
"People don't realize that we have a traffic crisis and a congestion crisis
and we have to do something bold," said SCAG's executive director, Mark A.
Pisano. "It's serious enough now we need to do something new and different."
The stakes are particularly high this year because the six-county region --
Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Imperial --
stands to lose $37 billion in federal dollars if it fails to meet its
air-quality goals, as is feared.
Six million more people are expected to live in the region by 2030, and smog
levels are already on the rise this year for the first time in a generation.
Key among the new recommendations in the Destination 2030 report is the push
for land-use changes that would consolidate homes and transportation in
heavy-traffic corridors like the Ventura Freeway.
In the San Fernando Valley, for example, the plan revives the dreaded 101
Freeway expansion, which calls for widening the freeway with two toll lanes
and making room for public transit in the median.
And it calls for denser land use along the freeway with high-rise
residential complexes and shops in a mixed-use setting that would allow
residents to live, work and entertain with fewer car trips.
"This is the most important initiative -- the most sweeping and,
potentially, the most controversial," said Pisano. "The concepts, when we
flush them out, will show we'll make not just modest gains but substantial
gains in the corridor."
The draft is being circulated for public comment, with a meeting Tuesday in
the West Valley and next month in Sherman Oaks.
Some Valley residents have opposed the so-called Manhattanization of the
Valley, and longtime civic leader Bob Scott doesn't think that will change
now.
While the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley promoted a 20-year
planning document in 2000 that supports the concept of urban villages, Scott
said even that blueprint keeps residential density down -- more like
suburban villages.
"I don't think you've got the buy-in for an actually urban-style village
with high-rises," said Scott, the founding chairman and current vice
chairman of the Economic Alliance.
For the 20 percent population increase expected in the Valley by 2030, Scott
anticipates that families will simply move to suburbs that are farther away.
"We've already hit the wall," he said. "It doesn't make sense to densify the
sprawl."
Planners project that the populations will double in Palmdale and Lancaster,
and that Santa Clarita will grow by more than 60 percent, with more seniors,
immigrants and lower-income households creating a demand for increased
urban-living settings.
"You can still have choices. I think that's one of the games people play
when they look at Manhattan -- even if you double the density of the Valley,
you're still not a dense place," said James Kushner of Glendale, a professor
who specializes in land use at Southwestern University School of Law in Los
Angeles and is the author of the forthcoming "The Post-Automobile City."
He says cities need to develop viable public-transit systems and other
attributes to give residents alternatives to the American dream of a
single-family home in the suburbs.
"People aren't going to come live in densified areas unless they're more
attractive."
The plan starts small, calling for no major changes through 2010, during
which time planners hope to work with local cities and counties to encourage
the new land-use policies.
In Los Angeles, for example, the general plan would need to be changed to
allow more residential dwellings in the Valley.
Pisano envisions more moderate-size mixed-use complexes along the freeway,
rather than the large, 20-story towers.
"This does not mean we change the nature of our single-family
neighborhoods," said Pisano. "We're only talking 1 (percent) to 2 percent of
the land is going to be affected by the changed policies. The rest of the
region is left alone."
But the plan is bullish on its promotion of new revenue to help pay for the
transportation improvements.
It supports Senate Bill 314, a law just passed in the Legislature that
allows the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to put an additional
half-cent sales tax before voters this year. The MTA has not yet decided to
do so.
It also calls for increasing the 18-cent-a-gallon state tax on gasoline,
charging tolls on some roads and going into debt to pay for new
transportation projects.
In San Bernardino County, local governments are considering a development
fee on builders to help pay for freeway improvements.
Already a host of elected officials and policy watchers have lined up
against SB314.
Scott, the Valley leader, doubts that voters would approve a third sales tax
in Los Angeles County, where residents already pay 1 cent on the dollar to
transportation.
Pisano, and other officials, concur a new transportation tax would be
hard-won, especially if a two-thirds majority is needed.
But he believes that as the 1.6 million hours a year residents waste in
traffic congestion starts to grow to the 3.6 million hours projected by
2030, support will grow.
"We're not saying all these financing things are going to be done tomorrow.
The needs are so great, the level of congestion so severe, the delays and
inconveniences so enormous over the next 5 (to) 10 years, the political
climate will enable us to move these forward," he said.
"When people can't move around, they're going to want solutions."
Lisa Mascaro, (818) 713-3761 lisa.mascaro@dailynews.com If you go:
Destination 2030, the Southern California Association of Governments' draft
regional transportation plan, will be discussed from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at
the Calabasas/Agoura Hills Community Center, 27040 Malibu Hills Road,
Calabasas; and Dec. 8 in the community room of the Sherman Oaks Galleria,
15301 Ventura Blvd. Written comments will accepted through Jan. 16. For
information, call (213) 236-1869 or visit
www.scag.ca.gov
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Daily News
Driver's license law repeal clears Senate
By Aurelio Rojas -- Bee Staff Writer
2003 Sacramento Bee
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appears headed for his first legislative victory
after the state Senate voted 33-0 Monday to repeal a law that would allow
illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.
The Assembly is expected to follow suit, beginning with its Transportation
Committee today. In the face of widespread public opposition, the measure's
author, Sen. Gil Cedillo, has urged his Democratic colleagues who pushed
through SB 60 to withdraw their support.
So barring unforeseen developments, the law will not take effect Jan. 1 as
scheduled. But Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, said Schwarzenegger assured him
during a meeting last week that he was open to supporting similar
legislation next year if it includes more safeguards, including background
checks on applicants.
"I'm placing my faith and confidence in the governor that we will work to
resolve this," Cedillo said during a hearing of the Senate Transportation
Committee, which preceded a vote by the full Senate. "I believe his
commitment is sincere."
Schwarzenegger spokesman Vince Sollitto did not dispute Cedillo's
characterization of his meeting with the GOP governor.
"The governor would be open to reviewing legislation as long as it addresses
security issues," Sollitto said, declining to be more specific.
Schwarzenegger pledged during the gubernatorial recall campaign that he
would move to repeal SB 60, which was signed by former Gov. Gray Davis -- in
an effort, critics contend, to attract Latino voters.
The new governor called the Legislature into special session to overturn the
law within hours of his taking office last week.
Cedillo speculated Schwarzenegger would be willing to support a measure
similar to one Davis vetoed in 2002. That bill would have allowed illegal
immigrants in the process of obtaining legal status in the United States to
qualify for a license once they had completed a criminal background check
and submitted proof of employment.
Repeal of SB 60 would allow Schwarzenegger to follow through on one of his
major campaign promises. By declining to put up a fight, Cedillo will get
another opportunity to obtain driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.
Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, who abstained from voting last summer when the
Senate overwhelmingly approved SB 60, said he was troubled by the process.
"When this governor got elected, I assumed that we were going to end the
horse trading," Florez said before the Transportation Committee voted 9-2 to
repeal SB 60. "(But) I have to say for the record, there seems to be a lot
of horse trading going on."
Florez cited the withdrawal of Cedillo's support as well as a reversal by
the leader of a signature-gathering effort to qualify a referendum for the
March 2004 ballot that would repeal SB 60.
"Should the Legislature repeal this measure on a urgency basis with the
two-thirds vote requirement, then we will not submit the signatures
necessary for a referendum," Mike Spence, president of the California
Republican Assembly, a conservative GOP group, assured the committee.
Cedillo told reporters he did not think it would be wise to continue
supporting a measure that would likely be overturned by voters. The Pacific
Legal Foundation has also filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of SB 60.
"I think the reality is that this is not popular legislation, but it's the
right thing to do," Cedillo said, arguing that licensing illegal immigrants
will make California's highways safer.
Cedillo added he did not want to be in a position of asking members of the
Legislature to support a bill similar to one overturned by voters. He
predicted Schwarzenegger's support for a future measure will make it more
difficult for opponents to mount a ballot challenge.
Sen. Kevin Murray, committee chairman, said the governor assured him during
a meeting Monday that he was receptive to such legislation.
"I got a personal assurance from the governor that he would continue working
on a good-faith manner on this issue," said Murray, D-Culver City.
Opponents of SB 60 charge it would reward people who entered the United
States illegally and increase the possibility of terrorism.
"SB 60 is a threat to public safety," Sen. Rico Oller, R-San Andreas, told
the committee. "It rewards illegal conduct. It undermines immigration laws
and it diminishes the value of a California driver's license for all."
Oller wrote one of the legislative vehicles for the repeal of SB 60 -- SB
1XX. Assemblyman John Benoit, R-Bermuda Dunes, has introduced an identical
measure in the lower house, AB 1xxx.
Thirteen other states allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.
Immigrant rights supporters, labor unions and Los Angeles Police Chief
William Bratton told the committee that driver's licenses will spur more
motorists to take the state driving test and become insured.
Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farmworkers Union, also cited the
contributions of illegal immigrants to California's economy.
"When you sit down to eat those vegetables and that turkey, remember that
many undocumented people are working on those farms and those poultry
places," Huerta said. "These are the people we're talking about."
Copyright 2003 Sacramento Bee
Experts call for drastic changes
SoCal's quality of life in decline Report: Drastic changes required
By Lisa Mascaro , Staff Writer
Always alluring, Southern California has turned into a smog-choked,
gridlocked, unaffordable place for many of those trying to make a decent
life.
Roads are not being built, jobs are not being created and housing is not
growing fast enough to meet demand.
An annual report released Thursday by the Southern California Association of
Governments said the six-county region gets low marks in nearly every basic
measure of the quality of life.
Economic recession and the state's fiscal crisis have compounded the
region's problems, but experts say the report will end up gathering dust on
a shelf, and the problems will remain, unless some drastic changes are made.
The decline in the quality of life will continue, they say, unless the
leaders of the six counties Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura, Riverside,
Orange and Imperial and cities across the sprawling area start to coordinate
their efforts to solve a long list of problems and get funding from local
taxes and state and federal governments.
"One of the great difficulties in this region, which is nothing new, is that
it is very difficult to deal with the regional questions that have to be
dealt with because it's a region that's very fragmented with local
governments, with parochial governments,' said William Fulton, a senior
scholar at the USC School of Planning, Policy and Development.
"That remains the most difficult question: How to govern effectively, both
locally and regionally? Until we come to terms with that, we're not going to
be able to tackle these big questions.
"Southern California is smoggy, crowded, congested, expensive. It's also a
place that people still come to for opportunity and 16 million people chose
to stay in,' he said. "Even though we may be short-term and parochial in our
policy view, we're all going to probably live here for rest of our lives.'
Mobility continued to get the worst grade on the annual report a D-minus
with traffic jammed across the region as residents move farther out in
search of affordable housing and transportation infrastructure fails to keep
pace with enough new roads and mass- transit options.
Commuters waste days each year just sitting in idle traffic. Those from the
eastern counties, a Mecca of new, single- family homes, saw a 70-percent
increase in traffic delays over the last decade.
All that stagnant traffic contributes to bad air, and ways of improving air
quality have become harder to implement, which is partly why there were more
smoggy days in 2002 and 2003.
More new residents called the six-county region home over the past two years
than at any time since the 1950s and 6 million more are on the way, thanks
to childbearing, immigration and the enduring promise of the sun-kissed
region.
About half the population growth has been from people having children, and
most of the other half comes from foreign immigration.
Of the 330,000 new residents from the past two years, 280,000 are Latino and
41,000 are Asian, while the white and African- American populations
declined.
But far from the dreamy land of opportunity of days past, residents find an
area hit with a recession that resulted in its first job losses in a decade,
per capita income declines and housing prices out of reach.
Gone are good-paying manufacturing jobs that propel the middle class along
with information-sector jobs, only to be replaced by lower-level retail and
service-industry work.
At the same time, housing affordability always far below the rest of the
nation in popular Southern California has grown to the point that fewer than
one-third of the region's households in 2002 could afford a median-priced
home.
While the region was not hit with as many job losses as during the early
1990s recession or the recent dot-com bust in San Francisco, the downturn
still hits home.
Despite the high cost of big-city living, Southern California remains one of
the nation's only metropolitan regions with per capita income levels below
the national average.
Payroll incomes continued to be at the bottom for the big metropolitan
regions at $38,692, compared with other areas like Dallas at $40,457 or New
York at $50,529.
The downward income slide is likely to continue with the loss of good-paying
jobs and a growing adult population that does not have the educational level
to compete Southern California has more adults without high school diplomas
than any other metro area, the report said.
Despite the enormous challenges to the good life, residents flock to
Southern California the flow of outward migration is on the downswing again,
after residents fled with the '90s recession, one expert said.
"People want to come to California because there's wonderful things here
shoot, we elect an actor as our governor,' said SCAG President Bev Perry, a
councilwoman in the Orange County city of Brea.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Daily News
It was a typical year: California grew by another 600,000 souls
by Dan Walters
The Sacramento Bee
The most remarkable aspect of California's demographic patterns is their
consistency. Beginning about a quarter-century ago, the state began
experiencing a new wave of immigration from other nations and with that
wave - roughly 300,000 people a year - has come a new spurt of population
growth.
This is what typically happens in California every year:
As 300,000 foreign immigrants - legal and illegal - arrive in California,
another 500,000-plus babies are born (60 percent of them to immigrant
mothers, incidentally), and 200,000 or so Californians die. The state's net
population growth is 600,000.
Adding 600,000 new souls a year translates into 6 million each decade.
That's exactly how much the state expanded in the 1980s and how much it
would have expanded in the 1990s except that a million-plus Californians
packed up and left the state as the economy dipped into a very severe
recession, so our growth was more like 5 million. But we're right on track
to add another 6 million in this decade.
The state Department of Finance last week produced its most recent
population survey and found that California grew by 598,000 during the
2002-03 fiscal year, almost exactly what it had grown during the preceding
year. If this trend continues, we should top 40 million by 2010.
This massive movement of human beings and an equally impressive production
of babies does not fall evenly on California. While immigrants tend to
concentrate in urban areas - also the locale of most births - there's an
offsetting shift of population from those urban centers into suburban and
even rural areas. Thus, the state's fastest-growing regions are on the urban
periphery, especially counties in the interior valleys north and south.
Riverside was the state's fastest-growing county at 4.53 percent - nearly
three times the statewide rate - in the latest Department of Finance study,
followed by Placer County at 4.43 percent.
These two trends mean that the fundamental impacts of growth - such as
traffic and school crowding - are being felt most heavily in the suburbs,
but the urban centers are undergoing a demographic transformation as
immigrants settle in and others pack up for the suburbs. There's an obvious
ethnic component to that exchange, with the cities becoming dominated by
non-white residents and the suburbs taking on mostly white newcomers from
cities. And there's even a political aspect: the urban areas and older
suburbs becoming more Democratic and the fast-growing suburbs more
Republican.
The politics of growth are daunting. Most of the major political issues
facing the state - water distribution, housing, economic development,
traffic congestion, health-care access, etc. - directly stem from the fact
that we have a high, immigration-driven rate of growth. Our needs for
200,000 new housing units and a quarter-million new jobs a year, the growth
of K-12 and college enrollment, the impacts of 1,000 new cars each day and
so forth are growth-related.
We and the politicians we elect, however, tend to avoid talking about
fundamental growth issues even as we heatedly debate its impacts. Both of
the major factors in California's growth, immigration and births, are
political third rails, burning anyone who touches them, as a current
struggle within the Sierra Club attests.
While the Sierra Club beats the drums constantly about restricting
development to serve growth, whether it be new housing, commercial buildings
or transportation, it has adopted a policy of never talking about
immigration, the major driver of growth.
Why? The Sierra Club, like most environmental organizations, is
overwhelmingly white and upper middle class and it wants to maintain
political relations with Latino organizations, which oppose curbs on
immigration.
An anti-immigration faction within the Sierra Club, however, is mounting a
new drive to gain control of the club's board and change its immigration
policies. The battle is heated; last week, the dissidents filed a lawsuit
accusing the club's leadership of illegally using club funds to campaign
against them through mailers.
It's a microcosm of California's reluctance to seriously debate growth in
its most fundamental terms even as we cope with its massive impacts.
Copyright 2004 The Sacramento Bee
Collisions increase along with population
The streets weren't designed to handle growing load, CHP notes.
By Gabriel Baird -- Bee Staff Writer
The Sacramento Bee
Here's something else you can chalk up to the region's surging population:
More car crashes are injuring people in some of the area's fast growing
cities.
According to the most recent data available from law enforcement agencies,
the number of accidents with injuries last year increased by about 5 percent
in Roseville, 11 percent in Folsom and nearly 25 percent in Elk Grove
compared to 2002. During the same 12-month period, the population of each of
those cities grew by more than 5 percent, according to figures from the
California Department of Finance.
Traffic experts blame the increase in accidents on new homes being built
far faster than new roads.
"It's a result of growth in areas where the streets are not designed to
handle that much traffic," said California Highway Patrol Officer Max
Hartley.
Though Hartley and other traffic experts say aggressive policing and some
changes in street design can help, they warn that drivers shouldn't expect
the roads to get better anytime soon.
That's because it's a sure bet that more cars, trucks and SUVs are on the
way. The Roseville City Council recently approved a plan for 8,000 new homes
and apartments. Elk Grove is considering a proposal to build another 7,700
homes. And don't forget the Sunrise-Douglas development in Rancho Cordova,
just south of Highway 50. Total number of homes: 22,000.
All those dwellings - as many as 37,700 in all - will no doubt strain
roadways already packed with an ever-escalating number of drivers and
vehicles. According to Department of Motor Vehicle data, the number of
licensed drivers in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties
increased 14 percent between 1998 and 2002, to 1,298,269. With so many
drivers owning more than one car, the number of cars registered in the area
rose even more - by 21 percent, to 1,750,979.
Accidents with injuries declined in Sacramento and Citrus Heights, two
cities whose population growth does not approach that of their neighbors.
"We keep polling the top locations for traffic accidents, then we send our
guys out there," said Lt. Dan Schiele with the Sacramento Police Department,
explaining the reduction in the number of injury accidents.
Ask Elk Grove residents their biggest complaint about the city and the cry
is nearly universal: "Traffic." It takes forever to drive across town.
Drivers are likely to idle bumper-to-bumper even when stoplights are green,
and the fire chief recently warned that congestion was slowing emergency
vehicles. And then there are all the wrecks.
Last year, drivers in Elk Grove were involved in 673 collisions causing
property damage, a 48 percent increase from 2002. That led the city, whose
population now tops 100,000, to report the area's highest spike in injury
accidents. Elk Grove had 391 such crashes in 2003, 77 more than the year
before. City officials tied the increase to the growth of a city that last
year alone issued nearly 4,000 building permits for new homes.
"The chances of accidents are higher because there's more people to run
into," said Ed Kelly, Elk Grove's assistant police chief.
Elk Grove officials and residents often blame Sacramento County, which
managed the area before the city incorporated in July 2000, for not building
enough roads to handle the steady stream of residents moving in. This has
left city officials playing catch up, they say.
Kelly and City Engineer Bob Lee see the city of Roseville, whose increase in
accidents with injuries was much smaller than Elk Grove's, as a model for
coping with the growth. As a result, Elk Grove has adopted a plan similar to
Roseville's that requires developers to fund and build roadways before
selling houses.
But Roseville Police Chief Joel Neves doesn't think his city's accident
statistics are anything to brag about. "I think our accident rates are
extremely high," Neves said. Last year, Roseville's accidents with injuries
increased by 29 from the year before, to 591.
Neves says he has "done quite a bit of studying," examining the statistics
his department tracks to figure out what's causing the accidents and how to
prevent them.
"What we have done as an organization is increase our enforcement efforts,"
Neves said.
Along with the ticketing of more drivers, he and Rob Jensen, the city's
public works director, are pressing the city to narrow some of its wide
streets because they believe the open space encourages drivers to speed.
"If (Neves) had his way, we would slow speeds down on all our roads," Jensen
said.
Like Elk Grove, Folsom has seen a double-digit percentage boost in accidents
with injuries.
"Growth definitely has created some of our increase in traffic statistics,"
said Folsom Police Sgt. Don Lee.
But Lee blamed a problem peculiar to Folsom for making matters much worse:
the closure of Folsom Dam Road because of heightened fears of terrorist
activity near Folsom Dam.
The closure has forced an even higher number of vehicles to share the too
few roads that cross the American River, he said.
"It's creating a lot of gridlock and a lot of congestion," Lee said.
Congestion, contended the CHP's Hartley, breeds frustration and goads
motorists to drive more aggressively.
"When people's frustration levels rise, people circumvent the law," he said.
Traffic is "kind of like water. When you pour water out, if it hits a dam,
it's going to find another way around."
When traffic slows, motorists cut through parking lots, drive on the road's
shoulder and race through stoplights, he said.
Elizabeth Deakin, director of the University of California Transportation
Center in Berkeley, agrees that growing cities face aggressive driving. But
she encourages city engineers and police to take a closer look at where cars
are colliding and why.
Reducing speed limits, changing turn lanes or the timing of traffic lights
can often improve traffic flow, she said.
CHP's Hartley sees the solution as good police work.
"Plain old traffic enforcement" can help people realize they are "just going
to have to leave earlier for work in the morning," he said.
"They just need to know that at night it's going to take them longer to get
home."
Copyright 2004 The Sacramento Bee
Ecologist says humans overdrawing nature's account
By ROGER H. AYLWORTH - Staff Writer
A Swiss-born ecologist told Chico State University audiences the world is
like a checking account and the human population is seriously overdrawn.
Mathis Wackernagel, executive director of the Global Footprint Network of
Oakland, was on campus this week for a series of lectures and workshops
about the concept of the "ecological footprint."
During a break in one of the Friday workshops, Wackernagel explained the
"footprint' is an audit tool, used to define how much impact people are
having on "nature."
By about 1980, according to Wackernagel, the human population went past the
point where consumption equaled the "life regenerating capacity of the
planet."
Now the humans are consuming, says his figures, about 20 percent more than
the world can sustain.
The theoretical footprint he espouses is designed to track resource
consumption.
"It is not a speculative measure about the future," he explained, but a
picture of where the world is at present.
He said there is a formula, involving the total population, the rate of
consumption of resources, and the efficiency of producing and using the
resources, that establishes the footprint.
During a workshop, called a "sustainability boot camp," he told the
participants there are about 30 billion acres of "biologically productive"
land on planet Earth, and with about 6.3 billion people on the planet, that
comes down to about 4.5 acres of "bio-capacity" for each human.
However, the earth also houses about 1 million other species, explained
Wackernagel, and one of the questions humanity must ask is what portion of
the world is going to be reserved for these other creatures.
Planning for the future requires deciding how much can "nature" be made more
productive to meet the increasing demand, and is it good to make it more
productive.
Also, an option could be to slow population growth, which he predicted could
be between 9 billion and 24 billion by the turn of the next century.
Finally what can be done to increase the efficiency in using the resource so
more demand can be met with a smaller withdrawal from nature's account.
Since the footprint is a changing snapshot of what is happening at the
moment, changes in technology could have a major impact on the equation.
He said, for example, a breakthrough in nuclear fusion power could change
the world overnight.
Wackernagel was in Chico as part of the campus "Earth Month" celebration.
Copyright 2004 Chico Enterprise Record
City, county continue torrid growth pace
They're among the state's fastest-growing areas, bringing elation and alarm
By VIC POLLARD, Californian Sacramento Bureau
SACRAMENTO -- Bakersfield and Kern County were among the fastest-growing
areas in California during 2003, according to new state population estimates
that added fuel to the debate over population growth versus quality of life
in the valley.
Environmentalists greeted the news with dismay. They are battling city and
county officials over development plans.
But builders and business owners welcomed the growth.
The annual estimates issued by the state Department of Finance show that
California's population as a whole grew by more than half a million people
for the fifth year in a row. As of Jan. 1, 2004, the state had 36,144,000
residents, an increase of 532,000, or 1.5 percent, during the previous 12
months, the department reported.
Kern County's population rose from an estimated 708,400 to 724,900, a spurt
of 2.3 percent during the year.
That placed it seventh among the 10 fastest-growing counties based on
percentage of growth and eighth among the 10 fastest-growing by population
change.
Riverside County had the largest percentage increase, 3.4 percent, while Los
Angeles County, as usual, gathered the largest number of new residents,
136,800.
Kern County's 2.3 percent growth was slightly less than its 2.8 percent
increase in 2002, but the county has grown by more than 2 percent for the
last four years.
Bakersfield, which grew from 268,900 to 279,700 last year, or 4 percent, was
listed as number two among the 10 fastest-growing cities under 300,000 based
on numerical growth.
The growth numbers got a mixed reception in Bakersfield.
Debbie Moreno, president of the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce, was
enthusiastic.
"New growth means new need for products and services, which means potential
growth for the business community to keep up with the growth in population,"
she said.
"It's both good and not so good," said Pauline Larwood, executive director
of the Smart Growth Coalition of Kern County.
"It's more jobs for the building industry," she said. "We're building like
gangbusters in metropolitan Bakersfield. Of course, low interest rates
helped with that.
"On the down side, we're out of compliance on air quality," she said. "Sixty
percent of that problem is people moving around, so that growth makes it
harder to deal with that issue."
Increased car and truck travel is considered a major factor in the valley's
air pollution, which is among the worst in the nation.
Kern County had the third worst ozone pollution in the country in three of
the last four years, and it was second in 2002, according to an American
Lung Association survey.
A recent opinion poll by the Pacific Policy Institute of California showed
that growth and air pollution are viewed by valley residents as some of the
most serious problems, especially those in the southern end of the valley.
Nevertheless, most residents said they like the communities where they live
and are optimistic about the valley's future.
But their loyalty may be tested if projections of future growth by the
Department of Finance prove reliable.
The department's demographers expect Kern's population to approach 1 million
by 2015.
Copyright 2004 The Bakersfield Californian
Governor's gaze extends over the population horizon
By Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist
California's official demographers projected last week that the state's
population, now 36 million, could reach nearly 55 million by midcentury.
Their latest estimates of California's inexorable growth are markedly lower
than previous exercises, based on assumptions of lower levels of immigration
and births than California is experiencing now, as well as a massive die-off
of baby boomers. Were the trends of the past two decades to carry forward,
California could easily be home to more than 60 million people by
midcentury.
Let's assume for the moment, however, that the Department of Finance's
current projections are accurate and California does add just 19 million
human beings to its population by 2050. Even that relatively modest number
would have an enormous impact, to wit:
Can we cope with 19 million more people? If the recent past is any guide,
the answer is "not very well." California now has 50 percent more people
than it had in 1980, and the traffic congestion, housing shortages, smog,
water conflicts, dilapidated schools and crowded colleges that have evolved
during the past quarter-century attest to our poor management of that
growth. We and the men and women we've elected to public office have tended
to ignore impacts of population expansion, or confront them only when they
reach critical stages.
To its credit, however, the still-young administration of Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger is taking the impacts of population growth seriously.
Schwarzenegger has created an interagency task force to work on what one of
its leaders, Business, Transportation and Housing Secretary Sunne McPeak,
terms "a thoughtful initiative to fight what we call 'dumb growth.' "
A hint of the embryonic policy approach is found in Schwarzenegger's new
budget, which would give local governments about $4 billion a year more from
the property tax pot, as a replacement for state "backfill" to offset cuts
in car taxes. That, McPeak and others argue, would be an incentive for local
governments, which have become dependent on sales taxes, to foster more
housing development and not concentrate so much on auto malls and shopping
centers. She terms it "a very big carrot."
McPeak, in an interview, said the task force is also exploring other
incentives and disincentives aimed at pushing local governments toward not
only authorizing more housing, but also clustering the housing near jobs and
mass transit to dampen traffic congestion. The state, for instance, might
make its grants for transportation, water plants, sewage facilities and even
schools contingent on meeting state goals.
"We need to provide consumers with more choices," McPeak said, citing
California's low rate of home ownership and rapidly escalating home prices
that block most families from the market. She says that changing the
dynamics of housing and transportation is "entirely doable."
Academicians and politicians have talked about "smart growth" for years but
have been unable to cut through the tangled web of local land use authority,
transportation planning, local government financing and other factors. It's
unusual to see a self-described conservative Republican such as
Schwarzenegger engaged in such an effort, which would intrude on some
jealously guarded prerogatives of local officials, but his advisers believe
that city and county leaders might accept state intrusion in land use as a
tradeoff for gaining more financial independence and stability.
It's way too early to see whether the Schwarzenegger initiative will bear
fruit, but after years of official indifference, it's refreshing to see a
governor looking beyond the next election.
Copyright 2004 The Sacramento Bee
Making room for growing cities
School districts brace for spike in students
By LISA B. McPHERON, Staff Writer
If things go as planned, there will soon be four comprehensive high schools
a chalk's throw away from each other in north Fontana and northeast Rancho
Cucamonga.
With thousands of homes in the planning stages in the area, schools are
sprouting up quickly to make sure there is enough classroom space for the
cities' youngest citizens.
Two elementary schools and two intermediate schools will open next month,
and there are projections for at least 16 additional schools before the
housing explosion fills in the remaining open space.
"It's been a continuous growth of about a 1,000 students (each year) over
the last five years and we expect it to continue,' said Doug Claflin,
assistant superintendent of business services for the Etiwanda School
District.
A typical elementary school would burst at the seams with 1,000 students, so
the district must grow simultaneously with the population.
Chaffey Joint Union High, Fontana Unified and Etiwanda school districts are
in the heart of San Bernardino County's housing boom.
Fontana city planners expect 1,100 single-family homes and 600 to 800
condominium or apartment units to be built this year. Naturally, as
blueprints are rolled out for the new dwellings, so are plans for new
schools.
"We are talking to (school planners) all the time about new schools,' said
Fontana Community Development Director Debbie Brazill.
In Rancho Cucamonga, roughly 2,000 new homes have been built each year for
the past three years, said city planner Larry Henderson.
Chaffey Joint Union enrollment is growing so rapidly, district planners are
scouting land in north Fontana, on the eastern edge of the district, for a
new high school even though its two newest schools haven't even produced a
graduating class yet.
Colony High School in Ontario and Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga
each opened in fall 2002. They helped reduce overcrowding in the district,
but only for so long.
"We've pretty much filled out the new high schools,' said Lynn Murphy,
Chaffey Joint Union's assistant superintendent of business. "We need another
(high school) in the north part of our district to facilitate our population
growth.'
Fontana Unified faces the same type of growth and is building Summit High in
north Fontana.
School construction is commonly paid for in large part by homeowners, who
pay special facilities taxes on their new homes. The fees have been passed
on by developers who are charged fees by school districts.
For smaller districts like Etiwanda, developer fees pay for about 60percent
of their school construction, with 40percent coming from the the state,
Claflin said. Idealistically, the state matches half of the price to build a
school, but that is rarely the case, he said.
Chaffey Joint Union pays for its new schools with state money and developer
fees, but it also has bond money from a $128million 1998 tax measure.
The bond was intended for the construction of Colony and Los Osos high
schools, but the district has money left over for a ninth high school and
possibly the start of a 10th school, Murphy said.
Construction of a new high school on 60 acres costs between $55million and
$60million, and it typically takes four years to build. The district tends
to spend two years designing the school and acquiring property and
construction takes two years, Murphy said. The high school district is about
three years away from opening its ninth school, she said.
In addition to Day Creek Intermediate School, which cost about $16million to
build, Etiwanda also will open Etiwanda Colony Elementary School, which cost
about $13million, on Aug. 30, Claflin said.
Nicholas Vitale, 8, and Noah Vitale, 6, moved into a new home in May with
their parents that is within walking distance from the new elementary
school.
"I'm excited because it has new kids and we get to make new friends and
there is new school equipment,' Nicholas said while taking a break from his
slip-and-slide on Friday.
Fontana Unified will open Grant Elementary and Ruble Middle School this
fall.
Grant Elementary was supposed to open July 29, but construction has been
slower than projected, said Patricia Peoples, associate superintendent of
administrative services. The school will open Sept. 2 and follow the
traditional school year, but there will be a week's vacation for
Thanksgiving rather than two days off.
Ruble Middle School construction has also been delayed. Students will have
to attend classes at A.B. Miller High School until their school is ready for
them Oct. 4.
Copyright © 2004 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Traffic measure seen as 'essential'
By David Schwartz
Staff Writer
The county is stuck in a traffic nightmare.
Freeways look like parking lots. The country's cargo travels through our
front yards. An ever-increasing number of houses spring up with three-car
garages.
From the pothole-plagued streets of Hesperia to congested freeways through
Fontana, the transportation system is sick. Measure I, the half-cent sales
tax in effect since 1990, has already pumped more than $1 billion into local
transportation. But it hasn't contained the problem.
Its extension is up for renewal in November and is hailed by officials as
the most important local vote.
"It's essential. Absolutely essential for our transportation future," said
Norm King, executive director of San Bernardino Associated Governments, the
county transportation agency.
Every City Council and the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors
support Measure I. And, in many ways, it has contributed to the local
streets, freeways and public transportation in San Bernardino County.
The current measure has raised $1.013 billion and is projected to raise
another $800 million before it expires in 2010.
If two-thirds of county voters approve it, the half-cent per dollar tacked
on to all taxable purchases will extend through 2040. That would be another
$6 billion raised for transportation projects from freeway interchanges to
local street repaving.
Riverside County extended its half-cent sales tax in 2002, so it will run
through 2039. Los Angeles County has a full-cent sales tax for
transportation.
In some ways, though, Measure I has fallen short a thumb against the torrent
of traffic pouring over our roads. Commute times from 1990 to today have
risen faster than the state average, even while miles between homes and jobs
have decreased. More and more, state and federal gas tax money is sent
toward maintenance rather than new freeways and roads. And relief is nowhere
in sight.
"Measure I might at least be the aspirin, but it's not the cure,"said Jim
Mulvihill, a Cal State San Bernardino professor.
A half-cent on every dollar doesn't come close to covering all the
transportation needs, and it was never thought that it would.
"Measure I was one leg on a stool," said Darren Kettle, director of freeway
construction for SANBAG.
The other two legs were state and federal gas tax money 18 cents per gallon
for each that's supposed to help pay for transportation projects. Yet that
money is falling off.
"Over time (Measure I), because of the decline in gas tax resources, has
become more than supplementary," King said. "Unfortunately, it is the most
important source of funds for new transportation facilities."
The 1989 measure promised a list of projects and improvements. Some were
general "increase public safety, improve air quality."
The nuts and bolts that voters looked at, though, is a list of projects in
the San Bernardino Valley, into the mountains and through the desert. While
many of the projects have been completed, many remain incomplete. For a few
projects, years will pass before significant improvement happens.
"Given the tremendous cuts (for local projects) that occurred in the State
Transportation Improvement Program, we did extremely well," King said.
Between 1990 and the end of 2003, Measure I has helped pay, in part, for:
* 3,112 local street projects, including repaving, road construction and
intersection improvements.
* Building or improving 35 freeway interchanges.
* 43 new freeway bridges.
* 39 miles of Metrolink tract in San Bernardino County.
* 332 miles of new freeway lanes.
Out of the promises on the 1989 ballot, many have been fulfilled. Others
will be completed by 2010.
Route 71, through Chino and Chino Hills, has been built. Route 210, through
Upland, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, is completed, and construction on the
rest is expected to be finished by 2007. Many parts of Interstate 10 have
been widened. Metrolink's San Bernardino Line opened in 1992, and the Inland
Empire-Orange County Line began operating in 1995.
In some cases, the original plans have been expanded. Interstate 10 is, in
parts, wider than the eight lanes that were envisioned. In other areas, the
project remains six lanes.
Interstate 215 has been the most high-profile failure of Measure I. While
the northern stretch should be widened by 2010, the last leg between
Riverside County and Interstate 10 will not.
Originally, an extra lane each way was going to be shoehorned into the
existing footprint. Demand outstripped that plan.
On top of that, environmental approval was delayed as the widening of a
stretch of I-215 in Riverside County got top billing. For the stretch that
runs through the city of San Bernardino, construction is expected to start
next year.
Results aside, those pushing for renewal will have to try to convince voters
that their money has been well spent.
To get that message across, the campaign is a who's who of local power. They
include construction companies that have some of the largest road contracts;
politicians who face their own budget troubles and want to be re-elected;
Las Vegas casinos who equate less driving time to more gambling time.
To get the required two-thirds approval, proponents must convince voters
Measure I has been, and will be, effective.
In San Bernardino County, the average travel time to work is 31 minutes each
way. In 1990, when the tax went into effect, it was 27 minutes, the Southern
California Associated Governments reports.
Compare that to 29 minutes for a Southern California average trip to work,
while in 1990, it was 26.4 minutes.
A national study released in September by the Texas Transportation Institute
shows that San Bernardino and Riverside counties now have the seventh worst
traffic.
Rush-hour travelers in the Inland Empire spent an average of 57 hours stuck
in traffic in 2002 48 hours more than the nine-hour average delay in 1982.
The disparity between more money being spent on construction and a longer
commute can be blamed mainly on population growth and an increase in the
amount of cargo coming in from Los Angeles. The 18-wheelers and trains
spread out to the rest of the country, through our roads, and rarely pay a
dime to offset wear and tear.
Critics, though, say Measure I focuses on the wrong solutions. The local
chapter of the Sierra Club has sued over the Measure I extension, in part
because it says SANBAG has not followed environmental regulations.
The thrust of the group's complaint is that Measure I hasn't helped current
transportation and won't relieve future congestion.
"We know the results," said Allen Bartleman, chairman of the San Gorgonio
Chapter of the Sierra Club. "There's tons of pollution in the air, our
freeways are jammed up. I won't vote for the tax the way they want it."
Instead, Bartleman wants more money in the future used for mass transit.
The problem can be helped, Bartleman concedes, if San Bernardino County
residents change their thoughts on travel. That brings in everything from
Southern California car culture to the environmental and funding hurdles.
Whatever success Measure I proponents can claim over the past 15 years
depends on how traffic would look if Measure I hadn't passed.
"We are doing some things to make it better. We are doing some things so
that traffic doesn't get as bad as it would've been," King said.
A long-term solution to traffic woes is beyond the realm of even the
best-funded public agency. Get people to carpool more; take the bus or
train. Get jobs to continue moving out to San Bernardino County so commute
distances are reduced even further.
As King puts it: "Ultimately, we all are going to have to use the system
more efficiently, one way or the other."
Copyright 2004 The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - Just sitting in traffic jams poses serious
health risks to drivers breathing diesel exhaust and particulates, according
to a UCLA report being released today.
The seventh annual Southern California Environmental Report Card takes stock
of the region's environment, giving mixed grades for air and water quality
and illegal trash dumping. But traffic congestion emerged as the key source
of many environmental woes in Los Angeles, which mirror Southern
California's.
Southern California's population has grown 44 percent in the past 20 years,
and the vehicle miles traveled have doubled, the report said.
But road and highway capacity grew just 20 percent during that time, and the
resulting traffic jams led to the most bad-air days in the nation.
``As a region, we have yet to come to grips with the immense impacts our
transportation system is having on the environment and public health,'' Mary
D. Nichols, director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment, wrote in the
report.
The report stresses the need for bus service rather than costly train lines.
Researchers also pointed to the need for more roads and singled out toll
roads or rush-hour fees as a quick solution that, though initially
unpopular, would provide drivers with relief.
They said ``smart growth'' - building homes near jobs and services - could
help minimize car trips, but isn't a catch-all solution.
Ultimately, they said, there needs to be greater education about the high
costs of driving, creating a public awareness that can help politicians make
the decisions needed to bring about improvements.
Transportation leaders concurred with most of the findings and said the
report summarizes tasks they face in trying to ease gridlock.
Transit advocate Bart Reed said it's only a matter of time before the public
comes to grips with the wide-ranging effects of gridlock - much like the
shift against smoking.
``Years ago, people said smoking's bad for you, then finally after five to
10 years it dawned on everybody,'' said Reed, executive director of The
Transit Coalition and also a member of the Sierra Club, which put out a
study this year detailing highway health hazards.
The UCLA report found adult Angelenos get the bulk of their exposure to
diesel pollution in cars, and children get a dose of black carbon in school
buses.
Researchers found diesel particulate levels were 18 times higher behind a
diesel bus behind a gas-powered car.
Diesel exhaust is believed to be the leading source of cancer risk in
Southern California.
``I never drive behind a diesel vehicle if I can avoid it,'' said report
author Arthur M. Winer, a professor of environmental health sciences at the
UCLA School of Public Health.
The report also recounts research about the dangers of ultrafine particles
formed by exhaust. Because they are so small, they can penetrate lung
tissue, cells and cross the blood barrier into the brain.
Researchers have linked high levels of these microscopic particles to
increased illness and death.
The report gave researchers a B-plus for their cutting-edge research -
driving cars and buses filled with sampling equipment and enlisting
volunteers to wear backpacks with portable air-sampling systems to measure
pollution around the nose and mouth.
But fixing the traffic problem requires strong leadership and more roads,
more transit and better land-use decisions, the report said.
``It took us a long time to create the problem we have, so there's no quick
and immediate solution,'' said professor Paul Ong, director of UCLA's Ralph
and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, who contributed to the
report.
Copyright 2004 San Bernardino County Sun
Effects of sprawl told
Current growth trend takes 25% of Valley's farmland out of production, study says.
By E.J. Schultz / The Fresno Bee
Sprawling urban growth will swallow more than a quarter of the farmland in
the San Joaquin Valley in the next four decades if current trends persist,
according to a study made public today.
With population expected to double to more than 7 million people in the next
40 years, the eight-county region stands at the brink of its greatest
transformation since the advent of large-scale farming in the 19th century,
according to the Public Policy Institute of California study.
"It's basically large-scale urbanization," said Michael Teitz, a study
co-author and senior fellow at the institute.
The study paints different pictures of urban growth based on four possible
public policy strategies: protection of prime farmland, intensive highway
construction, development of a light-rail system or, basically, doing
nothing.
Three of the four scenarios result in a tripling of urbanized land to
accommodate a doubling of population. And every scenario depicts the
inevitable — that agriculture, the once-unstoppable force that gave rise to
Fresno, Stockton and other Valley cities, will now bend to accommodate urban
growth.
"When you drive [Highway] 99 in 40 years' time, unless policies change, you
won't see much agriculture," Teitz said.
He is careful not to predict the demise of ag, which in the 19th century
transformed the Central Valley from a barren frontier to a farming empire.
Instead, Teitz said, growers will become more adaptable.
"I don't see a collapse of ag," he said. "I see pressure on agriculture and
transformation that will be a terrific challenge for agriculture."
Specifically, farmers may grow more on less space. Or, under economic
pressure to sell land for urban uses, growers may simply move to the
remaining open spaces in the Valley, Teitz said.
The study predicts nothing new. The Central Valley, which includes the
smaller San Joaquin Valley, has been losing farmland for years — about 2.5
acres per hour, according to one recent state estimate.
But the study projects a faster decline. From 1998 to 2000, close to 10,000
acres of farmland were lost every year in the San Joaquin Valley, according
to data from the state Department of Conservation. Using the study's most
radical projection — that no steps are taken to control growth or protect
farmland — the loss rate would almost quadruple to nearly 38,000 farmland
acres lost every year.
It's a prospect that has Nat DiBuduo worried.
His family has been growing grapes and tree fruit in Fresno and Madera
counties since emigrating from Italy in the early 1900s. DiBuduo grew up
working in the fields of Copper River Ranch in north Fresno — now the site
of a planned 2,800-unit housing development.
DiBuduo, president of Allied Grape Growers, misses walking into a restaurant
and knowing just about everyone there. He longs for the days of strolling
down a country road.
"We're losing some of that way of life," he said.
But he understands the economic pressure on growers: "When you're approached
with an opportunity to sell land at high values, the temptation's there."
Here is a look at the four urbanization scenarios envisioned by the study:
The prime farmland conservation scenario assumes that 3.2 million acres of
the 5.7million acres of farmland in the Valley would be protected from
growth. But urbanization trends are so overwhelming that even if prime
farmland is protected, urban land would increase by 134% by 2040, according
to the study. This scenario would scatter development across the Valley,
preserving much of the farmland that straddles cities and towns along
Highway 99.
To environmentalists, the do-nothing scenario is the most daunting.
If policies aren't put in place to direct or restrict growth, urbanized land
in the Valley would increase more than fourfold, from about 589,000 acres to
nearly 2.5 million acres, according to the study. At the same time, the
Valley would lose 1.5 million, or 26%, of existing farmland.
The urban growth would be sprawling, meaning fewer people would live on each
acre compared with today. In Fresno County, for instance, 2.8 people would
occupy each acre, instead of the current 6.8 people, according to the study.
Such a pattern could lead to more traffic congestion and worsen Valley air,
already deemed some of the dirtiest air in the nation.
"The basic question we all need to ask ourselves is if we want to live in
Los Angeles, because that's what we're building," said Sierra Club member
Kevin Hall. "It's not a pleasant picture."
Two scenarios focus on transportation planning.
One assumes a proposed high-speed rail line through the Valley. Of all the
scenarios, this one would result in the greatest urbanization in the north
Valley. That's because four of the proposed seven rail stops would be in
Stockton, Modesto, Los Banos and Merced.
Overall, the rail scenario would spur development along the Highway 99
corridor and result in the loss of 1.09 million acres of farmland.
The final scenario envisions major highway improvements, including upgrades
to most east-west routes and extension of Highway 65, a north-south route
that now runs mostly through Tulare and Kern counties near the Sierra
foothills.
This scenario, considered the most likely, would create "linear cities,"
connecting Stockton with Lodi, for instance. Tulare County would see the
greatest amount of urbanization, with acreage increasing by 327%, according
to the study.
The chances are slim that any one of the scenarios will become a reality in
its purest form, researchers say. And the nonpartisan institute does not
advocate for one over another.
What the study could provoke, though, is an urgency to further the
relatively new push for regional planning efforts. In the Valley, where land
is cheap, flat and mostly privately owned, there hasn't been an incentive to
plan on a regional scale.
"The Valley as a whole has never politically, institutionally felt that it
is necessary to grapple with the larger growth issues," Teitz said.
Indeed, as the study points out, "most land-use power still lies in the
hands of the region's cities and counties. Thus, true regional coordination
remains elusive."
"It does not exist," Hall said. But regional planning is necessary, said
Hall, a former member of the Fresno County Planning Commission.
He points to the rapid development along roads that lead into what is known
as the "Fresno eddy," a wind that swirls gently southeast around Fresno and
carries pollution to Clovis.
"We are building into the dirtiest air pockets in the nation," Hall said.
Carol Whiteside, president of the Great Valley Center in Modesto, agrees
that regionalism has been slow in coming, but said it is gaining momentum.
"In the last 10 or five years, people are beginning to understand they have
a common interest in what's going on," Whiteside said.
The urbanization study, she said, is "another piece of information that
ought to move us to doing the right thing."
The research comes on the heels of a Great Valley Center study showing that
the population boom has done little to lift the economy of the Valley. The
labor force in the region grew by 11.1% from 1998 to 2003, but job growth
only increased by 10.5%, according to the study released last month.
The imbalance has kept the Valley as one of the most economically depressed
areas in the nation, with jobless rates routinely stuck in double digits.
Because job growth in farming is not keeping up with population increases,
the report recommends economic diversification. But the study cautioned
against abandoning agriculture altogether.
"It provides 20% of the jobs in our counties, and you just can't wipe that
out," Whiteside said. The question is, "How do we manage to grow and not
destroy agriculture?"
Copyright 2005 - The Fresno Bee