Introduction 

During the extended time of the attached presentation of our position, public editorials have blossomed. Editorial opinions in the L.A. Times (2-25-01) and the Daily News (3-9-01) reflect significant assents to our inspection and analysis of such aspects as housing, water, power, and transportation in our Southland.

Significantly, this question of the desirability of continued growth policies was put to 6 candidates for the 13th Councilmanic Office at the March 2nd meeting of the Hollywood Coordinating Council, and, was unaddressed by all candidates .

Quality of life 

Gang Graffiti and its immensely depraved effect on a citizenry was also a question put to the 6 candidates present.

We asked: "What repressive measures would you favor or suggest to end this rule of criminal thuggery where properties are massively and repeatedly defaced as many as three times in a 7-day period?"

Significantly, again, the question was unaddressed by all 6 candidates!

Not even a positive generalization such as advocating the fullest implementation of provisions extant within the California Penal Code. Pathetically, only support for 'cleanups.' Clearly, a criminal class is privileged in their eyes, certainly not the victimized citizenry. Los Angeles is unique in such 'representatives.' Surrounding communities devoid of massive graffiti, somehow value their citizenry above the criminal.

Conclusion

• Should public policy continue to serve population growth or resist it?

 
• Should public policy fully address questions relating to encouragement or discouragement of population growth in the Southland?

Background

Given that:

these resources have become increasingly remote, increasingly costly, increasingly circumscribed, increasingly tenuous; and as a result,

we now host a population which has become now massive beyond modern concepts of ecologic tolerance of human presence and activity.

We ask:

• Is it desirable today to promote further population growth and industry in the Southland?

 
• What are acceptable burdens ensuing from such Public Policies? To whom should those costs be assigned?

 
• What are unacceptable costs attendant to Public Policies promoting or accommodating a greater population?

 
• What alternatives are there to accommodating any population increase in the Southland?

 
• Should Public Policy rather encourage population growth in other regions with ample local water, power and infrastructure?

 
• Should housing permits be subject to an E.I.R. addressing and assigning increased burdens in water, sewer, power, traffic, school, governance, ecologic, et al?

 
• Should new commercial and industrial permits be so subject as well?

Popular resistance to such growth is burgeoning. NIMBY ['Not In My Back Yard'],  BANANA ['Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Not Around (Here)']. The Green Party et al., all resist further perceived degradations of their immediate environ and the general environ.

These have traditionally been held to be selfish special considerations, considerations unworthy of general adoption. However, today, they are not isolated niche expressions of an elite, but rather general perceptions and generally accepted beliefs thruout the region. Beliefs ratified evermore in local initiatives.

Conclusion

Analysis

Background

We should all be aware that their costs of constructing housing range between 3 to 6 times those experienced by unsubsidized builders. What would cost ordinarily say $50,000 per 2 bedroom 2 bath unit, costs non-profits anywhere upwards of $150,000 to $300,000. This is largely because they are required politically to bow to influential special interests, such as labor unions, the architectural and engineering professions, et al. The end product is, however, generally inferior quality versus comparative private quality.

Their costs of operation are lessened somewhat by their removal from the tax base thus freed of city and county taxes.

Their construction costs are donations from philanthropic and city, state and federal funds. Their income is similarly subsidized by tax payers. Renters need pay only a prescribed portion of their actual income. This too is ordinarily subsidized income. The balance of their rent comes from federal subsidies such as Section 8, and significantly, by mandated contributions from those who construct for the free market. Thus, inevitably, renters of new private construction must pay a portion of their monthly rent to subsidize the ongoing operations of 'non-profits.'

Analysis

There is clearly room for improvement if 'non-profit' corporations are to be seriously regarded as other than self serving political creatures and as an unwholesome burden on the public.

Section 8 subsidy funds are integral to the operation of these ruinously expensive projects. The expansion of federal funds for the impoverished is ever ongoing, the waiting list of those seeking such is year's long.

Conclusion

Traditional free market approaches to an ample supply of housing have been seriously eroded by (i) the encouragement of a massive demand vis-a-vis immigration policies; and (ii) a most hostile stance to needs of free market providers:

• Attention to the needs of free market suppliers, while not ideologically tolerable, would clearly be the most productive of ample housing supply, if not for want of votes.

 
• Attention to the managemental needs of all housing providers--public and private--would be the single greatest enhancement of the equality of life in the Southland. Management of multiple housing has become an 'ecologic' and 'civil rights' disaster wherein the aggressively uncivil have been allowed reign to the blight and ruin of entire neighborhoods in the city.

 
• Criminal and obnoxious behaviour is installed as a 'civil right' and a legal right, only ruinously contested. City housing projects are prominent victims. Absolutely superior housing projects are abandoned as ungovernable within this mad mindset of 'law'. Private managers, shun low income housings, given the lack of adequate lawful authority in the past two decades.

Rx:  Return to a condition of civil life once pleasant and not till of late:

We are now faced with requirements to conserve and constraints against consumption which have significantly altered our behaviour. What was once ample, is now scarce, everthemore expensive, and, a policy of the 'reuse' of water is now established as a given. We can only expect that this trend will increase.

We must address this condition to our best advantage if we wish other than acceptance of the once 'unacceptable', i.e., 'toilet to tap' and worse.

Firstly, we need to stop an increasing dependency, and an ever greater demand. Inevitably, this envisions a halt to an expansion of need, of population.

Given that halt to a greater need; nonetheless, we now need to invest in a dual supply system.

Our primary system using 'tap water quality' processes most needs cam be augmented by a second system, directing cleaned sewage system water to landscaping needs. Such a 'non tap' use needs much lower levels of acceptability. Indeed, valuable nutrients, nitrogens, etc. are present and are highly desirable for agricultural and landscape use.

There are a variety of directions which we may reasonably contemplate for the efficient direction of this enriched' and ample substance.

• It could be 'traded' to our agricultural neighbors, for their primary (unenriched) such. This would involve a capital outlay of the creation of a pipeline system.

 
• We can encourage the voluntary construction of dual supply lines, in the San Fernando Valley, to start. Residential districts adjacent to locations now engaging in injecting "cleaned" waste water into the aquifer could well be induced to invest in a local system which would serve their landscaping needs if it is financially attractive.

The duration of inducements such as unmetered uncharged supply would need calculation. Obviously, associated construction costs and bonds would have to have been long paid off.

The prospect of a financial advantage by the construction of such, if not enough to convince a commitment, additional lures could be added, i.e., such attractions perhaps as a civic commitment to their insulation from any future 'toilet to tap' proposals involving their 'district.' Given current revulsions to this concept..such could well carry the issue.

As an attraction to the City, water could be:

Expensively treated before injection into the aquifer, and could be treated to retain favorable nutrient characteristics rather than to counterproductively remove them.

Freely delivered to recipient systems without cost to the city, but, as well water; the volume of water delivered, reduces by the same amount that is now imported, lessening such demands by almost that much, in reality. However, landscape water, as an insignificant part, does naturally return to the aquifer. Naturally so, as contrasted to the extant artificial 'cleaning' and injection water from storm drains, etc. via nominal methodologies will likewise return to underground aquifers.

Rx: To achieve innovative use of water:

• Competent civic leadership

 
• An attentive and literate citizenry to support such civic leadership

Analysis