Saturday, June 24, 2017

The Pension Fund That Ate California

CalPERS’s corruption, insider dealing, and politicized investments have overwhelmed taxpayers with debt.

Steven Malanga Winter 2013
California
Economy, finance, and budgets

After spending years dogged by unpaid debts, California labor leader Charles Valdes filed for bankruptcy in the 1990s—twice. At the same time, he held one of the most influential positions in the American financial system: chair of the investment committee for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, the nation’s largest pension fund for government workers. Valdes left the board in 2010 and now faces scrutiny for accepting gifts from another former board member, Alfred Villalobos—who, the state alleges, spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to influence how the fund invested its assets. Questioned by investigators about his dealings with Villalobos, Valdes invoked the Fifth Amendment 126 times.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY SEAN DELONAS

California taxpayers help fund CalPERS’s pensions and ultimately guarantee them, so they might wonder: How could a financially troubled former union leader occupy such a powerful position at the giant retirement system, which manages roughly $230 billion in assets? The answer lies in CalPERS’s three-decade-long transformation from a prudently managed steward of workers’ pensions into a highly politicized advocate for special interests. Unlike most government pension funds, CalPERS has become an outright lobbyist for higher member benefits, including a huge pension increase that is now consuming California state and local budgets. CalPERS’s members, who elect representatives to the fund’s board of directors, ignored concerns over Valdes’s suitability because they liked how he fought for those plusher benefits.

CalPERS has also steered billions of dollars into politically connected firms. And it has ventured into “socially responsible” investment strategies, making bad bets that have lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Such dubious practices have piled up a crushing amount of pension debt, which California residents—and their children—will somehow have to repay.

When California’s government-employee pension system was established in 1932, it was a model of restraint. Private-sector pensions were still rare back then, but California lawmakers had a particular reason for wanting a public-sector pension system: without one, unproductive older workers had an incentive to stay on the job and just “go through the motions” to get a paycheck, as a 1929 state commission put it. Pensions would encourage those workers to retire. The commission cautioned, however, against setting a retirement age so low that it would “encourage or permit the granting of any retirement allowance to an able-bodied person in middle life.”

Accordingly, California set its initial retirement age for state workers (and, beginning in 1939, for local-government employees) at 65, at a time when the average 20-year-old entering the workforce could expect to live for another 46 years, until 66. The system’s first pensions were modest, though far from miserly. An employee’s pension equaled 1.43 percent of his average salary over his last five years on the job, multiplied by the total number of years he had worked. That formula typically provided workers with pensions equal to half or more of their final salaries, noted California’s Little Hoover Commission, a government agency, in a 2010 study. For example, a state worker who retired at 65 after 40 years on the job would qualify for a pension equal to 57.2 percent of his average final salary (that’s 40 times 1.43). If that salary was $50,000, his pension would be nearly $29,000.

The pensions were funded by three sources: contributions from employers (that is, state and local governments); contributions from employees (though some governments opted to cover that expense); and money that the pension fund would gain by investing those contributions. With the 1929 stock-market crash in mind, California opted for a cautious investment approach, allowing the fund to buy only safe federal Treasury bonds and state municipal bonds. “An unsound system,” the 1929 commission warned, would be “worse than none.” The employees’ contributions were fixed, so if investment returns weren’t sufficient to fund the promised pensions, the employers’ contributions would have to increase to make up the difference.

In 1961, California enhanced non-public-safety state workers’ retirement packages by enrolling them in federal Social Security, a program that’s optional for state and local government employees. But the state made few other changes to the pension system over its first 30 years.

Then came the late sixties, a time of rapidly growing public-sector union power. In 1968, the California state legislature added one of the most expensive of all retirement perks, annual cost-of-living adjustments, to CalPERS pensions. Other enhancements followed quickly, including, in 1970, a far more generous pension formula: a worker’s pension was calculated from 2 percent, not 1.43 percent, of his average final salary, and he could start getting his pension at 60, rather than 65. Thus, an employee who worked for 40 years and retired at 60 with an average final salary of $50,000 could collect an annual pension equal to 80 percent of that sum, or $40,000; if he kept working for another five years, his pension fattened to 90 percent of his final average. In 1983, public-safety workers got an even better pension formula: 2.5 percent of average final salary for every year worked, which could be taken starting at 55. A police officer or firefighter who began work at 20 and retired 35 years later with a final average salary of $50,000 now qualified for a yearly pension of almost $44,000.

As benefits increased, so did pressure to pay for them by boosting CalPERS’s investment returns. The shift started in 1966 when voters approved Proposition 1, a measure, promoted by CalPERS, that let it invest up to 25 percent See Full Article HERE

Friday, June 23, 2017

ONE BAY AREA: The "Open Space" debate (Back-off)!

Will this Tech Company help builders destroy neighborhoods in Marinwood?

Owners of the seven properties outlined in red are selling together for a premium. (CityBldr Photo)

In November, Jane and Andy Freeman received an unexpected letter in the mail.

CityBldr CEO Bryan Copley wants to ‘build smarter cities.’ (Photo by Business Rockstars)

A company called CityBldr reached out to notify them that their Shoreline, Wash., home might be worth a lot more than they thought. Intrigued, they gave the Seattle startup a call. They learned that CityBldr software flagged their property as one of a handful that could be sold together for a much higher price than individually. In other words, the whole could sell for considerably more than the sum of its parts.

Working with CityBldr, the Freemans and two other neighbors agreed to sell their properties collectively. With three committed, four additional homeowners signed on, too. This week, all seven homes will go on the market as one unit, targeting developers eager to build more housing inventory for the region’s booming population.

CityBldr zeroed in on the properties for a few key reasons. Combined, they would make plenty of space for a large housing development, they’re located across the street from the Light Rail station going in at 145th St., and the properties fall within a region that was rezoned from single-family to mixed-use residential housing last year.

According to Jane Freeman, her property has the potential to sell for $100-140 per square foot when purchased as part of the assemblage of homeowners. Individually, her 7,000-square-foot lot is currently estimated to be worth about $497,381. Sold on its own, the house would have gone for about $71 per square foot.

“At the lowest, we would be getting for our part of the assemblage a minimum of $700,000,” she said.

The Freemans’ Shoreline home. (Photo by Jane Freeman)

CityBldr has been working with about 50 groups of homeowners, like the Freemans and their neighbors, to help them sell their properties collectively. The Seattle startup charges a 6 percent fee for its services, comparable to what a traditional broker would charge. Homeowners can use the website to find out if their property is undervalued for free.

“We tell them what the best and highest use of their property is and what the value is to a builder or developer if their property is underutilized,” he said. “To builders and developers, their core competencies, we learned, weren’t sales and acquisition, they were actually building. They wanted to take these sites and improve them and build them and develop them to best and highest use. They didn’t want to have a tool built for them, to help them go find sites.”

Instead of doing their own scouting, CityBldr is providing that tool for developers and homeowners in the Seattle area and, as of last week, Los Angeles. Copley says the service will expand to 10 markets in the next six months.

To fuel that growth, CityBldr has raised a $1.6 million investment round, led by real estate developer SRM, which is known for building the Seattle Google Campus. A long list of additional investors participated in the over-subscribed round, including Start It Labs, Millenium Global, PWR Financial, Realogics Sotheby’s, and TUNE CEO Peter Hamilton.

Copley hopes CityBldr’s software can eventually be used to help address Seattle’s homelessness and housing affordability issues. CityBldr is working with a handful of Seattle non-profits to advance that agenda.

As for the Shoreline homeowners, CityBldr’s software predicts their parcel will be used to develop 220 units of multifamily housing. “CallisonRTKL is the architect that has drawn up the plans for the site and corroborated that the software’s yield study is accurate,” Copley said. “The site will attract both local and regional developers and builders as well as foreign investors.”

CityBldr, which launched in May of last year, has broader ambitions than helping homeowners upsell their properties. The company aims to help cities identify and understand underutilized land to make more efficient urban planning choices.

“CityBldr’s goal is to create smart cities,” Copley said when the startup launched. “We can use artificial intelligence paired with empathy and create happy, functional, sustainable communities.”

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Marin and Silveiras reach 10-year deal on San Rafael ranch

The Silveira Ranch along Highway 101 in San Rafael will remain agricultural for another 10 years under a deal with the county announced Tuesday. At rear is the St. Vincent’s School for Boys. IJ file photo

By Richard Halstead, Marin Independent Journal

POSTED: 06/20/17, 7:04 PM PDT | UPDATED: 39 SECS AGO

8 COMMENTS

One of the largest parcels of undeveloped land left in Marin will be off limits to commercial development for at least the next 10 years following an agreement between Marin County and the Silveira family.

Marin County Counsel Brian Washington announced Tuesday that the day before the county and the Silveiras reached a settlement agreement “whereby the Silveiras will release any claims against the county arising from the 2007 Countywide Plan and will enter into a Williamson Act contract on their San Rafael ranch parcel to preserve their land for agricultural uses for at least 10 years.

“In return for this,” Washington said, “the county will pay approximately $2.6 million in unpaid property taxes and related penalties and interest for their San Rafael ranch property.”

“We appreciate the Silveiras coming to the table to find a win-win solution,” said Supervisor Damon Connolly, who worked on a committee with former supervisor Steve Kinsey to hammer out the agreement.

“It was something I felt was important to get some kind of resolution to,” Connolly said. “The community benefits from at least another 10 years of agricultural use on the property and entering into a Williamson Act contract on the property will allow the Silveiras to pay lower taxes going forward.”

The Williamson Act is a state law that provides relief of property tax to owners of farmland and open space in exchange for a 10-year agreement that the land will not be developed.

“In the meantime, I don’t view my work as being done,” Connolly said. “I would ultimately like to see a permanent conservation or preservation of this land working with the Silveiras and community stakeholders.”

Richard Bowles, the ranchers’ Walnut Creek-based attorney, said, “The Silveiras feel it’s appropriate that they are now back to a situation where they’re being taxed as agricultural property as they were way back in 1974 and should have been all the way along.”

Veteran Marin County Planning Commissioner Don Dickenson said, “I think it is a very positive move. It’s not an acquisition so it’s not a permanent preservation, but it does maintain the status quo for a period of time.”

Barbara Salzman, president of the Marin Audubon Society, said, “I think it is great agreement. It will hopefully lead to some protection for the important resource lands on their property and enables it to stay undeveloped for some time.” See Full Story HERE

Editors Note: Why does everyone think they own the Silveira Ranches and have a right to force development or take away rights from them? It is nearly 100 year old family business which has provided us healthy locally grown food and dairy. They deserve the right to guide their own future, just like you do with your property. The so called "settlement" was the county relinquishing its questionable claim for back taxes that it imposed in violation of the Williamson Act. Of course, the county had unlimited legal resources and the Silveiras had to defend themselves for over 40 years. They are good neighbors and deserve our support.

Will China Be a World Leader on Climate Change?

With America's exit from the Paris Agreement, many are looking to China to lead global climate change initiatives. But not even China's state media is buying it.

What housing crisis? Last-minute bill would let wealthy Marin County limit home building

Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael), right, discusses legislation in 2016. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Liam Dillon Contact Reporter

One of California’s wealthiest counties may continue to get a pass under the state’s affordable housing laws.

Lawmakers are considering a measure that would allow parts of Marin County to limit growth more tightly than other regions of California. The provision, inserted last week into a bill connected to the state budget, lets Marin County’s largest cities and unincorporated areas maintain extra restrictions on how many homes developers can build.

Housing advocates say the carve-out runs counter to the push by Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers for more development as a way to combat the state’s housing affordability problems.

Since the changes are tied to last week’s passage of the state budget, which Brown has yet to sign, the measure does not have to go through the regular committee process. It’s had just one public hearing and lawmakers could vote on the bill as early as Thursday.

The measure, Assembly Bill 121, is the latest salvo in a lengthy debate about low-income housing in the Northern California county, which has one of the state’s largest gaps between rich and poor.

Following a 2009 investigation by federal housing officials, Marin County supervisors agreed to boost affordable development as a way to desegregate the mostly white region. But neighborhood opposition to low-income housing continued, including a long-stalled 2013 proposal from “Star Wars” creator George Lucas to build hundreds of affordable units on a former dairy farm.

Today, the county’s per capita income of $60,236 is the highest of any county in the state, according to U.S. census figures. But the average renter in Marin County makes just $19.21 an hour and would need to work 77 hours a week to afford a studio apartment at the $1,915-a-month market rate, according to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

The bill came at the request of Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael). Levine said his proposal reflects Marin County’s character: Communities there should have buildings that look like those in Santa Rosa and Petaluma rather than those in the larger cities of Oakland and San Francisco.

“If you're standing on the ground there, it's a suburban county and then if you were to hike a couple of miles west, you would see that it is a rural county,” Levine said.

Brown and legislators have been working on a package of bills that aim to increase funding for low-income housing as well as wipe away some of the restrictions local governments put on development. But no significant measure has passed in recent years, frustrating housing advocates.

“In a year where the Legislature has been talking endlessly about the housing crisis in this state and trying to make it easier to build affordable housing and higher-density housing, the one and only thing that comes out of the budget process is a deeply flawed measure that only adds barriers to development in one of the most exclusionary counties in the state,” said Anya Lawler, policy advocate at the Western Center on Law & Poverty.

Levine agrees Marin County has an affordable housing crisis, and argued the bill would actually help make it easier to build.

We have an affordable housing crisis in #Marin and #Sonoma. Solutions are complicated, but Dr Sweeney @HomewrdBndMarin is helping to solve.

The budget-related legislation extends a law written by Levine in 2014. The original law allowed the cities of Novato and San Rafael, as well as unincorporated Marin County, to shrink the size of projects they’d allow developers to build to below roughly three stories high. That would be more generous than what other areas of California are allowed under state housing law.

Generally, affordable housing developers need to build larger projects for them to be financially viable. But some affordable housing groups in the region supported Levine’s initial effort because they believed smaller sizes might limit some community opposition.

Beyond that, Levine said, land in the county is very expensive and smaller projects can avoid costs often associated with larger buildings, such as steel construction and underground parking.

Levine’s original law was supposed to expire at the end of 2023. But under AB 121, the lower-density rules would continue for five years after that.

Housing advocates who are against his bill don’t understand how affordable housing can get done in his district, Levine said.

“There are ideologues in housing,” he said. “What I'm most interested in is pragmatic approaches that result in more housing for the people that need it.”

Some who supported Levine’s initial approach now are against AB 121. Michael Lane, policy director for the Non-Profit Housing Assn. of Northern California, said Levine’s new bill doesn’t make sense.

The original law required Novato, San Rafael and Marin County to analyze its effects on affordable construction by 2019. Lane said there is no reason to extend the law’s provisions before knowing whether it has worked.

“It’s way too early,” Lane said. “We don’t understand why this became a priority and why all the other housing issues didn’t.”

At the measure’s hearing before legislators Tuesday, Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber) criticized the bill, calling out what he said were “hypocritical” communities that don't want to do their part in solving the housing problem. “They love their lifestyles, but don’t bother us with the low-income housing,” Nielsen said of those local residents.

Brown and the legislative leadership typically agree on budget-related bills before they’re introduced. Levine said he was able to get his housing provision into such a bill because “that’s just the way it evolved.”

Spokespeople for Brown, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) either declined to comment or gave no substantive response to the bill.

“It got put in,” said Kevin Liao, a Rendon spokesman. “It’s the nature of the budget negotiations.”

Editor's Note: While this LA Times writer is bashing Marc Levine and Marin County unfairly and failed to identify WHY the bill was submitted, at least they are reporting it. (Where is the Marin IJ?) George Lucas stopped development of his projects because of environmental restrictions not just local opposition. Had he promoted a site that was closer to 101 freeway and did not negatively impact Miller Creek, it is likely that he would have a project today.

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Recall effort stymied by Sacramento

June 20, 2017 By Jon Coupal 18 Comments

Members of the California Legislature apparently believe they have the power to change outcomes they don’t like. This is like awarding the NBA Championship to Cleveland by retroactively mandating that all of Golden State’s three point baskets be counted as only two.

While basketball is not on the minds of lawmakers, they are working to interfere with something of much greater value to average Californians, their constitutional right to recall elected officials. The Sacramento politicians think they have found a way to derail what appears to be a successful grassroots effort to recall state Sen. Josh Newman, who cast a key vote imposing a new $5.2 billion annual gas and car tax on already overburdened taxpayers.

The power of recall is a powerful tool of direct democracy. The secretary of state’s website says, “Recall is the power of the voters to remove elected officials before their terms expire. It has been a fundamental part of our governmental system since 1911 and has been used by voters to express their dissatisfaction with their elected representatives.”

In the 29th Senate District, covering parts of Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, voters have been busy exercising their right to recall their tax-raising representative Josh Newman. Much to the surprise of Sacramento insiders, it looks like the campaign will succeed in gathering enough signatures to force the senator to be held accountable in a special election — already the secretary of state has instructed county registrars to begin counting the signatures. The chance that the recall of one of their own will be successful has lawmakers panicking. Their solution is to surreptitiously change the recall rules that have been in place for over a century.

With little notice, the Legislature amended Senate Bill 96, as it was about to pass in connection with the state budget on June 15, for the purpose of changing the rules governing the current recall effort. The purpose of the bill is shamelessly transparent: “It is the Legislature’s intent that the changes made by this act in the Elections Code apply retroactively to recalls that are pending at any stage at the time of the act’s enactment… .”

Their end game is delay. They want to delay the ultimate vote on ousting Newman for as long as possible, despite the constitutional guarantee to have the vote as quickly as possible — between 60 days and 180 days from the recall petitions having been certified.

Here’s how they do it: First, they try to delay the petition review process by requiring the county Registrars of Voters to check the validity of every signature submitted. Normally, the registrars are permitted to check a random sample of the signatures, saving both time and money.

Second, and more disturbing, is the provision buried deep in the text that states, “Notwithstanding any other law, the Secretary of State shall not certify the sufficiency of the signatures [on the recall petitions] until the Legislative Joint Budget Committee has 30 days to review and comment on the estimate [of recall costs] submitted by the Department of Finance.”

Here’s the kicker. The Department of Finance is part of the governor’s office and the bill does not require the governor’s office to prepare that analysis under any time limit. Gov. Brown, who has already come out against the recall, can simply delay that report indefinitely, which, in turn, would hold up certification of the recall effort and the ultimate election.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that those in power in Sacramento will stop at nothing to retain their power and influence, putting their own interests ahead of those of average Californians. But lawmakers who disrespect voters should be wary. Polls show that nearly 60 percent of Californians oppose the new gas tax. The higher taxes will kick in just before the beginning of next year’s election season. Voters are very likely to remember who is responsible and choose to retire multiple representatives, not just a single senator, in the regularly scheduled 2018 election.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Getting Hassled for Taking Pictures in San Francisco (Marinwood CSD wants to do this in Marinwood Park too)

A few years ago, the Marinwood CSD directors voted to require permits for photographing in Marinwood Park. It was voted in unanimously by the Bruce Anderson, (now NextDoor chief censor and moderator) and Leah Kleinman-Green (current CSD board member), Cyane Dandridge (promoter and consultant for the SolEd Solar project), Tarey Read and Bill Hansel.

I was the only person to object at the time, citing the county requirements for large film productions were more than adequate, but the Marinwood CSD board wanted the requirement for all photographers.

Of course, the ordinance is overly broad and virtually unenforceable. It may also be a violation of First Amendment rights. When petty politicians are in charge, no violation of common sense and decency is off limits.

At least Bruce Anderson still has NextDoor to give him a feeling of power.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Know Your Rights When Stopped by Police

Most people don’t know how to handle themselves during a police encounter. They know they have constitutional rights, but they also know that they can get into trouble by disobeying an officer. Not knowing where the lines are drawn, the vast majority of people capitulate to whatever the police want from them.

Some officers get so accustomed to such behavior that they react angrily when someone has the temerity to invoke his rights. In a case last month in Texas, Lionel Alexander sued officer Marciano Garza for roughing him up in a hotel parking lot. Alexander said he was parking his car when Garza activated his emergency lights. When the officer asked for his license and registration, Alexander turned over his papers, but when Garza asked him about what he had been doing before the stop, Alexander declined to answer. That made Garza radio for backup.

After more officers arrived, they asked Alexander to exit his vehicle. Alexander said he did not believe he was legally required to exit, at which point the police lost all patience and got physical, pulling him out of his car and pinning him down on the pavement to put on the handcuffs. Alexander was arrested on “resisting a search,” but he was released the next day, and the charge was then dropped.

Even lawyers sometimes fare no better. In 2015, Philadelphia attorney Rebecca Musarrawas pulled over by New Jersey state troopers on suspicion of speeding. Musarra turned over her license and registration upon the trooper’s request, but declined to answer his question, “Do you know why you’re being pulled over?” Flustered by Musarra’s calm assertion of her right to remain silent, troopers yelled at her and then pulled her from her car and arrested her for “obstruction.” The charge was dropped, but she suffered the indignity of an arrest and a brief stay in jail.

The Constitution is the law of the land, yet people can get arrested for invoking their legal rights.

These cases are disturbing. The Constitution is supposed to be the “law of the land,” yet people can get arrested for invoking their legal rights. If such incidents happen with some frequency — and they do — it exposes a serious flaw in our legal system. Out on the streets, the police have all the power and we’re at their mercy.

Even the most professional officers use tactics to get around constitutional rights. For example, they might say, “We can get a warrant to search your purse, or you can save us both some time by allowing us to search it right now.” Most people are unaware that the police can exert pressure with bluffs and lies, so they will often cave. If the matter gets into court, the judge will say they “consented” to the search by not objecting and asserting their rights.

Yet as the Alexander and Musarra cases show, asserting rights is no guarantee against arrest. Some officers make false arrests and conduct illegal searches. Our rights can be vindicated only in court, meaning that when criminal charges are dropped, any associated constitutional violations will typically never be addressed by judges or juries.

Individuals with similar experiences to those of Alexander and Musarra may file civil lawsuits when there are physical injuries or serious property damage. But government lawyers typically settle such lawsuits with money from the treasury, and the officers involved rarely face discipline or other adverse consequences.

Don’t be fooled by police
One way that policymakers can improve existing law and prevent this abuse of power is by requiring the police to use written consent forms. By requiring a signature before a search, there will be far less trickery because people will be reminded that they have a choice in the matter.

Some jurisdictions have had such a policy in place, but it should be in place all around the country.

Just because law enforcement have us at a serious disadvantage does not mean we should let them walk all over us. The wise course to take during police encounters is to obey commands, but to also politely and calmly decline requests. Here’s the key point: Law enforcement are trained to blur that distinction. For example, they may knock on your door and say, “Let’s talk.” In such cases, individuals have to seek the clarification by asking, “Are you ordering me to open my door and allow a search?”

If it isn’t an order, the choice is ours to make. If you give the police permission to search your home without a warrant, that’s your prerogative. If you decline to give your permission, that’s your prerogative also.

Our Constitution is incapable of enforcing itself. It is just words on paper unless we calmly but firmly assert our rights. Use them or lose them.

Tim Lynch directs the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice

and serves on the Board of Advisers for Flex Your Rights.

Banana Republic Tactics Corrupt Elections in California.

Vote fraud is rampant in California. San Fran has 108% of the eligible voters registered to vote. San Diego has 115% of those eligible to vote registered. L.A. delivered 83 absentee ballots to one apartment address in San Pedro in 2016. Illegal aliens are voting, all they have to do is get a drivers license—oh, and you can register your dog to vote, by going online to the Secretary of State’s web site. We have no idea how much fraud exists—the Democrats refuse to audit the voting rolls, kick off the dead and those illegally registered.

Easy to vote, legally or not. California elections are corrupted by State law. That was the goal—we are a Banana Republic. Register ten new voters that just became 18, the other side can create 100 voters that do not exist and get them registered—and voting. Think elections are honest in California? Stop smoking pot.

Time to fix cracks in election system

By Colleen Britton, Daily Republic, 6/16/17

Our current laws have created cracks within the election system. These cracks invite fraud; yet there is little interest on the part of legislators to fix them. “Nothing to see here,” we’re told.

Citizens have a constitutional right to vote. We have laws on how to conduct elections, with dedicated officials and citizens to manage them; yet recent election laws, federal and state, have weakened the integrity of elections. Here’s a quick look.
1993: National Voter Registration Act. To register more voters and make the process easier, multiple government agencies were allowed to register people to vote. Claiming citizenship became simply checking a box. The National Voter Registration Act also required voter registration rolls to be maintained and updated. Many states don’t.
1998: California eliminated voter ID at the polls.
2002: Help America Vote Act. The goal was to encourage more people to vote. One modification authorized the use of provisional ballots. Provisional ballots enable almost anyone to go to the polls and vote, with their eligibility determined later. The Help America Vote Act also required statewide voter registration databases. California’s database did not comply with the law for 14 years. It was finally certified in 2016 by the state, not an independent third party.

Provisions of the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, and their California equivalents, allow the names of inactive voters to remain on the rolls for years. In Solano County, recent data shows that the total of active and inactive voters equals 111 percent of eligible voters. Bloated rolls embolden unscrupulous people to simply check the roster at a polling station, find the name of a person who has not yet voted, and, since voter ID is not required, cast that vote.

2011: Senate Bill 397 initiated online voter registration in California. It required the Department of Motor Vehicles to send an electronic copy of a voter’s signature to the Secretary of State’s office. Anyone with a driver’s license can check a box affirming they are eligible to vote, without any verification of citizenship, and be registered.2014: Assembly Bill 60 authorized issuing driver’s licenses to noncitizens.2015: Assembly Bill 1461, the California Motor Voter Law, changes voter registration from an “opt-in” to an “opt-out” choice. Noncitizens can register to vote either because they think it’s legal or they know there are no consequences for them. Yes, it’s in the law.

Since passage, more than 700,000 noncitizens have taken advantage of the new DMV licensing privileges. The door is wide open for fraud.

Supposedly, the DMV labels AB 60 licenses in its internal database; but that information is not available to Secretary of State’s office or other agencies. At this time, no law requires coordination between the Secretary of State’s office and the DMV if an AB 60 license holder tries to register to vote online.

This year the Secretary of State’s office proposed administrative changes to the California Motor Voter Law. Oddly, one proposal removes the requirement to retain records of AB 60 registrations that are canceled – hiding uncomfortable facts.

We have gone from protecting the “right of citizens to vote” to making it easier for anyone to vote. In the process, citizens have had their votes diluted by fraudulent voters.

More than 5,500 noncitizens registered to vote in Virginia. In 11 states there were more than 100 counties with more registered voters than the number of citizens of voting age. Attention must turn to California, which holds one-fifth of the nation’s Electoral College votes.

It’s time to update federal and state laws to assure citizens that elections are fair, and only those eligible are voting. Changes must include: (1) Require proof of citizenship to register to vote; (2) Require Photo ID to vote; (3) Standardize voter rolls between states with the ability to check voter registration across state lines.

We applaud the President’s Commission on Election Integrity. It’s long overdue. We must demand from our legislators, fair and honest elections.

Colleen Britton is a resident of Vacaville and a member of the Tax Watchers Committee

Monday, June 19, 2017

California’s Descent to Socialism or How the ‘Nerd Estate’ Controls the Rest of Us

Tom Steyer, billionaire political activist and sponsor of Josh Fryday's political ambitions in Novato.

NEW GEOGRAPHY--California is widely celebrated as the fount of technical, cultural and political innovation. Now we seem primed to outdo even ourselves, creating a new kind of socialism that, in the end, more resembles feudalism than social democracy.

The new consensus is being pushed by, among others, hedge-fund-billionaire-turned-green-patriarch Tom Steyer (photo above). The financier now insists that, to reverse our worsening inequality, we must double down on environmental and land-use regulation, and make up for it by boosting subsidies for the struggling poor and middle class. This new progressive synthesis promises not upward mobility and independence, but rather the prospect of turning most Californians into either tax slaves or dependent serfs.

California’s progressive regime of severe land-use controls has helped to make the state among the most unaffordable in the nation, driving homeownership rates to the lowest levels since the 1940s. It has also spurred a steady hegira of middle-aged, middle-class families — the kind of tax-burdened people Gov. Jerry Brown now denounces as “freeloaders” — from the state. They may have access to smartphones and virtual reality, but the increasingly propertyless masses seem destined to live in the kind of cramped conditions that their parents and grandparents had escaped decades earlier.

A green people’s republic?

There is some irony in a new kind of socialism blessed by some of the world’s richest people. The new policy framework is driven, in large part, by a desire to assume world leadership on climate-related issues. The biggest losers will be manufacturing, energy and homebuilding workers, who will see their jobs headed to other states and countries.

Under the new socialism, expect more controls over the agribusiness sector, notably the cattle industry, California’s original boom industry, which will be punished for its cows’ flatulence. Limits on building in the periphery of cities also threaten future growth in construction employment, once the new regulations are fully in place.

Sadly, these steps don’t actually do anything for the climate, given the state’s already low carbon footprint and the fact that the people and firms driven out of the state tend to simply expand their carbon footprints elsewhere in their new homes. But effectiveness is not the motivation here. Instead, “combating climate change” has become an opportunity for Brown, Steyer and the Sacramento bureaucracy to perform a passion play, where they preen as saviors of the planet, with the unlikable President Donald Trump playing his role as the devil incarnate. In following with this line of reasoning, Bay Area officials and environmental activists are even proposing a campaign to promote meatless meals. It’s Gaia meets Lent.

A different kind of socialism

The oligarchs of the Bay Area have a problem: They must square their progressive worldview with their enormous wealth. They certainly are not socialists in the traditional sense. They see their riches not as a result of class advantages, but rather as reflective of their meritocratic superiority. As former TechCrunch reporter Gregory Ferenstein has observed, they embrace massive inequality as both a given and a logical outcome of the new economy.

The nerd estate is definitely not stupid, and like rulers everywhere, they worry about a revolt of the masses, and even the unionization of their companies. Their gambit is to expand the welfare state to keep the hoi polloi in line. Many, including Mark Zuckerberg, now favor an income stipend that could prevent mass homelessness and malnutrition.

How socialism morphs into feudalism

Unlike its failed predecessor, this new, greener socialism seeks not to weaken, but rather to preserve, the emerging class structure. Brown and his acolytes have slowed upward mobility by environment restrictions that have cramped home production of all kinds, particularly the building of moderate-cost single-family homes on the periphery. All of this, at a time when millennials nationwide, contrary to the assertion of Brown’s “smart growth” allies, are beginning to buy cars, homes and move to the suburbs.

In contrast, many in Sacramento appear to have disdain for expanding the “California dream” of property ownership. The state’s planners are creating policies that will ultimately lead to the effective socialization of the regulated housing market, as more people are unable to afford housing without subsidies. Increasingly, these efforts are being imposed with little or no public input by increasingly opaque regional agencies.

To these burdens, there are now growing calls for a single-payer health care system — which, in principle, is not a terrible idea, but it will include the undocumented, essentially inviting the poor to bring their sick relatives here. The state Senate passed the bill without identifying a funding source to pay the estimated $400 billion annual cost, leading even former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to describe it as “snake oil.” It may be more like hemlock for California’s middle-income earners, who, even with the cost of private health care removed, would have to fork over an estimated $50 billion to $100 billion a year in new taxes to pay for it.

In the end, we are witnessing the continuation of an evolving class war, pitting the oligarchs and their political allies against the state’s diminished middle and working classes. It might work politically, as the California electorate itself becomes more dependent on government largesse, but it’s hard to see how the state makes ends meet in the longer run without confiscating the billions now held by the ruling tech oligarchs.

(Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com. He is the Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. His newest book, The Human City: Urbanism for the rest of us, was published in April by Agate. He is also author of The New Class Conflict, The City: A Global History, and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. He lives in Orange County, CA.Prepped for City Watch by Linda Abrams.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Hamburg, Germany to Ban Cars in 2034

By Ronan Glon

Sunday, Jan 19th, 2014 @ 11:02 am

Hamburg, Germany, to ban cars in 2034

The government of Hamburg, Germany, has announced it will ban all cars from driving in the city center by 2034 in a bid to significantly reduce greenhouse emissions.

The second-largest city in Germany is in the early stages of implementing an ambitious development plan called Grüne Netz (Green Network). It aims to replace several major roads with green spaces that will give residents a chance to engage in outdoors activities such as hiking, swimming and having a picnic right in the middle of the city. The green spaces will all be connected and they will stretch from downtown to the outskirts of the city, covering roughly 17,000 acres and 40-percent of Hamburg's total area.

With cars banned, residents will move around by riding a bike, taking various forms of eco-friendly public transportation or simply walking. The plan is controversial, but politicians suggest that a majority of residents support the project.

"Our residents are quite progressive. Many Hamburgers are willing to give up their cars, which is very unusual in Germany," said Jens Kerstan, the leader of the city's Green Party.

30 planners are working around the clock to turn the plan into a reality.

Officials hope the Green Network will significantly reduce the effects of global warming. The city is located right on the North Sea and it has witnessed the sea level rise by nearly eight inches over the past sixty years, making it a high-risk area for flooding.

Photo by Ronan Glon.read more: http://www.leftlanenews.com/hamburg-germany-to-ban-cars-in-2034.html#ixzz2rGdUubwy

[Editor's Note: How will elderly and mobility-impaired people move about the city?]

Will you still love your "walkable city" when you are frail?

Five Clichés Used to Attack Free Speech (Are you listening Marinwood CSD and NextDoor?)

Failed Smart Growth promises in Portland's Suburbs.(Lesson for Marin)

The lost vision for east Portland's Gateway

Broken Promises: A failed vision for GatewayOver the past two decades, planners and economic developers have crafted multiple visions for remaking Gateway into a true regional center. All of them called of the district to become denser, more walkable and generally more urban in feel. That hasn't happened.Editor's Note: Be certain to watch the three minute video above. I imagine many of us in Marin will be frustrated like the residents of East Portland, ten years from now, with a county ruined from overdevelopment and failed promises. Like Portland, Marin is not considering basic services, like water, sewer, school capacity, road widening and other problems of rapid urbanization. We can do better in Marin. In the sixties we led the nation in conservation when we saved West Marin. We will lead the nation again and push back against these latest hyperdevelopment schemes . We will Save Marin (again).

By Anna Griffin | agriffin@oregonian.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on July 12, 2013 at 11:14 AM, updated August 23, 2013 at 3:21 PM

Gateway was going to be something special.
Two decades ago, when planners, elected officials and economic developers looked at this collection of working-class neighborhoods and worn-down commercial strips, they predicted big, bold things.
Gateway would be a "regional center," a bustling hub of high-tech jobs and educational institutions on Portland's eastern edge. Gateway would be a "second downtown," with all the parks, bike lanes, coffee shops and density to go with it.

Despite years of planning, Gateway remains largely suburban in feel.Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

Instead, Gateway is underdeveloped, underutilized and under-served. Rather than the best of urban life in a more suburban setting, residents and business owners have usually received the worst of both.Taxpayers have spent millions to remake this literal doorway to east Portland. Yet Gateway remains a place where public services cost more, cars trump mass transit, property values lag - and residents expect people in power to let them down.
Built by Fred Meyer
A half century ago, Gateway wasn't even a place. That was its appeal.
Grocery store owner Fred Meyer, looking to expand, was tired of Portland regulations. He picked a spot amid the orchards of unincorporated midcounty, the no man's land between Portland and Gresham, and in 1954 built one of the region's first car-centric, suburban-style shopping centers.

Fred Meyer, here celebrating the second anniversary of Gateway Shopping Center with his wife, chose to build in midcounty to avoid city regulations.The Oregonian

He named the place Gateway, and erected a tall concrete arch signifying the entry to a new kind of community."People looked to Gateway as the answer to urban decay: You don't want to live in the city but you don't want to be that far out," said Fred Sanchez, a real-estate broker and a leadingbooster of Gateway since the late 1960s. "This was the new frontier: 'Go east, young man!'"
Orchards gave way to subdivisions. A 1953 Oregonian advertisement for homes in Lorene Park boasted of "modern ranch homes" built with sidewalks, "ornamental streetlights" and paved streets.
"Yes, for living at its best, for real luxury living, Lorene Park is your answer," the ad said.
The boom didn't last long. Portland successfully revitalized closer-in streetcar neighborhoods, slowing outward migration. Those who did ditch the city for suburbia instead chose newer subdivisions in Clark, Clackamas and Washington counties, lands of lower taxes and more services.
Portland annexed most of the neighborhoods around Gateway in the 1980s, to the chagrin of many residents who chose their homes specifically because they weren't inside city limits. Parallel to annexation, Portland built the Mid County Sewer Project. The city charged property owners to upgrade from septic tanks and cesspools to new sewer lines.
"They promised us all these services, then the first thing they did was send us a bill," said Linda Robinson, who grew up in Gresham and bought a home in Gateway in 1986. "That sort of set a mood."

Broken Promises

Follow The Oregonian's series on the future of east Portland, looking closely at promises not kept.
But we need your help. Do you live, work, study or own property east of 82nd Avenue? Tell us your story.

In 1992 mayoral candidate Vera Katz and her young campaign manager, Sam Adams, seized on east Portland's anger. Her opponent, then-City Commissioner Earl Blumenauer, ran the city sewer department. So Katz kicked off her campaign at an east Portland diner and made improvements in the neighborhoods beyond 82nd Avenue a key election promise:
"People in that community feel that the door has shut on them," she said at one business association meeting. "They're absolutely right."
Among political types, the sense was that a critical mass of voters was coming to the city's newest neighborhoods, particularly to those adjacent to Gateway. Metro planners looked at2040 growth projections and declared the area one of eight "regional centers."
City leaders, including future Mayor Charlie Hales, pushed for its inclusion: "We want it to be urban, but quieter and greener than downtown Portland," said Hales, who ran the city's planning department at the time.
In reports and studies, planners promised huge changes, including construction of a network of connector streets, an education center, a government center, parks galore, wider sidewalks, a performing arts space and bike lanes. The district's main drag, 102nd Avenue, would become a "boulevard with landscaped walkways, storefront windows, benches and fountains." Residents would eat outside at cafes and coffee shops and gather at a new "Gateway Station Plaza."
A 2000 study summed up the promise of Gateway: "More than anything else, it is expected to become a place to be proud of - an embodiment of the values and aspirations of the east Portland community."

1 / 28

PORTLAND, OREGON - June 19, 2013 - No one can question the mix and diversity of businesses along NE Halsey Street. Over the past two decades, planners and economic developers predicted that Gateway, because of its proximity to Portland, its location at the intersection of two highways, the placement of the transit center and the MAX, would become a regional center second to downtown Portland. Although the area has grown, that vision hasn't become reality. Many feel Gateway could be much more and that its attributes have been squandered by inattention of leaders. Even so, the area is primed for new development and interest from home buyers and businesses. Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

Big plans never became realityFew of those envisioned improvements happened.
Gateway remains decidedly suburban, with wide streets carrying traffic at speeds that preclude walking and biking. 102nd Avenue has new trees and banners yet remains a fast-moving four-lane mishmash of aging strip malls, car lots and fast-food outlets, with the occasional 1950s house nodding to the district's curious and inconsistent zoning history.
There is no public square or plaza. The city owns land for a park at Northeast Halsey and 106th Avenue but lacks the money to build or operate it, and neighbors say drug dealers and homeless people plague the property.
Though his concrete arch was razed in 1991, Fred Meyer would have no trouble recognizing the place.
"There's been a lot of talk, but very little has actually happened," said Jerry Koike, a longtime neighborhood activist. "Everybody talks about wanting to do things out here, but the execution is always about helping downtown."
The recessions of 2001 and 2008 slowed development. Residents also blame government for years of benign neglect and poor prioritizing.
City leaders created a Gateway urban-renewal district in 2001, meaning that the city can borrow money to make public improvements, then use the ensuing property tax rise to repay debt. Elsewhere in Portland, urban renewal has paid for game-changing projects, transforming South Waterfront, the Pearl District and theNortheast Portland commercial strips of Alberta Street and Mississippi Avenue, for example.
Gateway's list of completed projects is very different and less impressive.
Planners who took part in the creation of the Gateway district recommended that the first projects built with urban renewal money generate new tax revenue. Instead, the district began with a compromise. In exchange for City Council support to create the area, members of a citizens advisory committee agreed to spend their initial $682,000 on the "children's receiving center," a temporary home at 102nd and Burnside for children declared wards of the court.
"We were told that we needed to do this or we would face a much harder time getting the district approved. We were told, 'You guys aren't against children, are you?'" said Arlene Kimura, president of the Hazelwood Neighborhood Association. "In hindsight, it set a bad precedent."
Gateway's urban renewal money contributed $3 million toward extending light rail to Clackamas County, built a $9 million parking garage at the transit center and covered half the cost of buying the future park site at 106th and Halsey.

Glisan Commons, an affordable housing project built with urban-renewal money, is an example of the taller, denser development envisioned for Gateway.Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

The district's latest high-dollar urban renewal project is another that doesn't put new property tax dollars back into Gateway: The Glisan Commons affordable housing development will feature 127 apartments on top of a new home for Ride Connection, a nonprofit that helps senior citizens and people with disabilities find transit options.Even the district's one clear economic success raises eyebrows.
The three-story, $3 million Oregon Clinic complex, paid for with New Market tax credits earned with city help, is the first thing riders see when they arrive at the transit center. It brought more than 300 new jobs to Gateway and was the first Class A office building erected in the district in 20 years. Yet it's also a nondescript box with none of the street-level charm or retail needed to key transit-friendly development - or called for repeatedly in all those plans for turning Gateway into a second downtown.
"I don't think anyone in charge was thinking long-term about why urban renewal was created here," said Colleen Gifford, who runs the Growing Gateway EcoDistrict, a nonprofit that promotes environmentally friendly development. "They've consistently taken money to do what people downtown wanted."
Hamstrung by infrastructure and financial realities
City leaders say it's unfair to compare urban renewal in east Portland with more central locations.
"I don't think what's happened in Gateway is in any way a result of the projects we've chosen to invest in," said Patrick Quinton, the Portland Development Commission's executive director. "By no means do I consider Gateway a success, but I think the broader market has a bigger impact than we do."

The view from east Portland

"We get ripped off by paying a disproportionate share of taxes for services that we don't even get."
— Carrie A., Montavilla"The best thing about east Portland is the diversity. There is so much variety in lifestyle and experiences with diversity."
—Lauren Ashley J., Powellhurst-Gilbert

See more

Gateway has a number of factors working against dramatic, quick change. It contains few large parcels of land owned by one or two developers, and thus has few properties ripe for projects that can change the course of a street or commercial strip seemingly overnight. Gateway is also a much smaller urban-renewal district - 658 acres compared with 2,800 in Lents and 3,990 in Interstate - meaning it has a much smaller tax base to generate redevelopment money.
City planners and economic developers are hamstrung by the realities of underlying infrastructure established when Multnomah County, with its far more hands-off approach to development, ran the area. Gateway has those wide, pedestrian-deterring streets, few east-west connectors and a hodgepodge of large and small plots that make orderly, grid-style development difficult. Removing even one parking spot from Gateway Shopping Center, let alone the hundreds required to create a plaza or movie theater, would require every tenant's approval.
Another, less tangible obstacle: City leaders and the people who live and work in Gateway haven't shared the same vision for what this neck of Portland should become.

Early on in the process of creating the new urban-renewal district, neighbors balked at giving the city powers to condemn property in the name of blight removal. Early rezoning efforts allowed 14-story buildings in Gateway, until residents objected. Early plans for urban renewal would have spread tax-increment financing over twice as many acres, but the district shrank to avoid residential neighborhoods.Planners say their vision for Gateway may have been, in hindsight, unsophisticated and overly ambitious.
Growth is still coming
Metro still predicts enormous growth for Gateway over the next three decades. Computer models project the area from I-205 to the Gresham line will grow by up to 60 percent by 2035, with many of those newcomers landing here.
For one thing, the district remains uniquely situated: It is the single most accessible spot in the entire area, within easy reach of two highways, a dozen bus lines and light rail in four directions. For another, neighborhoods closer to the central city can only take so many more residents. "Go east, young man" still applies.
The question is whether that growth will improve quality of life and city budgets or add to east Portland's existing woes.
"Sixty-five million people go through Gateway by car or MAX each year. If we can get something that makes people stop and look at what we have, everything changes," said Ted Gilbert, a developer who owns the equivalent of eight city blocks near the transit center.
He says that's Gateway Green, a grass-roots effort to turn 35 acres along I-205 into a public park for hiking and biking. Other advocates suggest building an international market, appropriate in a community with 70 languages spoken or an educational center to serve David Douglas and Parkrose school districts and local colleges.
All the ideas center on the same theme: giving people a reason to stop in Gateway.
"We have no signature place," Kimura said.

Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian

Small tweaks could help. The Transit Center is a small hub of activity surrounded by an ocean of concrete. There's a small concession stand, but no place away from the din of arriving buses and trains to talk with friends or enjoy the view of Rocky Butte over coffee.Consultants who looked at the station last year pointed out "a notable prevalence of negative signage such as no parking and no smoking ... which generally creates an atmosphere of mistrust and hostility." No signs direct new arrivals to any local landmarks. When the shopping center was rebuilt in the late
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