Guys. And girls. Do we have to talk to our electeds and Board representatives like children? Does this really have to be our job? Because it seems that our generally well-paid elected politicians have never heard of the concept of “the camel’s nose in the tent.” I grew up with this wise parable (which I now discover is not an Aesop’s fable, but some Victorian Englishman’s conceit … but nonetheless wise, commonly known, and applicable in spades in Orange County…)
One cold night, as an Arab sat in his tent, a camel gently thrust his nose under the flap and looked in. “Master,” he said, “let me put my nose in your tent. It’s cold and stormy out here.” “By all means,” said the Arab, “and welcome” as he turned over and went to sleep.
A little later the Arab awoke to find that the camel had not only put his nose in the tent but his head and neck also. The camel, who had been turning his head from side to side, said, “I will take but little more room if I place my forelegs within the tent. It is difficult standing out here.” “Yes, you may put your forelegs within,” said the Arab, moving a little to make room, for the tent was small.
Finally, the camel said, “May I not stand wholly inside? I keep the tent open by standing as I do.” “Yes, yes,” said the Arab. “Come wholly inside. Perhaps it will be better for both of us.” So the camel crowded in. The Arab with difficulty in the crowded quarters again went to sleep. When he woke up the next time, he was outside in the cold and the camel had the tent to himself.
Twice in this past month our Boards, the supposed guardians of our public interest, have very much let the camel’s nose in the tent, making it all the more likely that you and I will eventually be stuck with giant smelly camels crowding us out and breathing up all our precious AIR:
- In early July, when the vast majority of the OCTA Board, despite several of them expressing “grave misgivings” about the cost and fairness of the project, and its use of eminent domain, went ahead anyway and shoveled another $9 million toward studying the Disney streetcar some more;
- And in late July, when the OC Water District, again in spite of “serious scruples” on the part of some members, unanimously approved going ahead with a “confidentiality agreement” that’ll allow Poseidon to explain to them, without OUR irritating input, how their proposed HB desal plant won’t be anywhere as overpriced, unnecessary, and environmentally destructive as the rest of us say it is.
Our only two honest politicians (on these issues at least.)
Where are the leaders with the guts to just say NO to these camels’ noses from the outset? On the OCTA there was only Jeff Lalloway, John Moorlach, and (oddly) Matt Harper. (I say “oddly” because Harper is just about the most wild-eyed advocate Poseidon has, but kudos for being right on the streetcar at least.) On the Water District there was nobody.
Not a hero.
Fullerton’s Bruce Whitaker, who you would have thought was a conservative skeptical of taxpayer boondoggles and corporate welfare, went through the motions of fretting over 100 grand to assist with the confidentiality process or study or whatever, but then went along with everyone and approved it.
Not a hero.
It was reminiscent of a few months ago in Seal Beach, when Mayor and friend of the blog Gary Miller, along with other thoughtful council members, expressed a dozen good reservations about the Poseidon plant, but after being re-assured that they could always “back out later,” agreed to sign a “letter of intent,” thereby moving the insidious plant one step closer to final approval – by a couple of camel whiskers.
Not a hero.
Back at the OCTA streetcar hearing, Shawn Nelson – who I used to think of as a pretty honest conservative, until recently – railed against the excessive cost of the project, nearly twice as expensive per mile as Santa Ana’s proposed streetcar … before voting with the others to move ahead with it.
Not a hero.
Nice-guy “public member” Michael Hennessey expressed concern bordering on outrage that Disney, the main beneficiary of the streetcar and main cause of it being so ridiculously expensive, was covering ZERO of the cost. Then he voted to move it forward while insisting that Disney must pony SOMETHING up. Yeah, right, you AND WHAT ARMY will make Disney pay a cent more than they want, which is nothing? You ARE the army, Board members!
The people’s hero!
Then, when informed by Cynthia Ward that Disney’s streetcar plan would entail serious eminent domain takings from several local businesses and thousands of jobs – EMINENT DOMAIN, a conservative third rail, I’d thought! – several of them bitched and stammered that there better NOT be any eminent domain involved or they’d have to seriously re-think the whole thing… but then STILL VOTED 16-3 to shove this camel $9 million more and bring its head further into the tent.
Villainous.
The most crazy-making argument that morning, heard from representatives from all over the County, was that since this streetcar is what “Anaheim” wants, “Anaheim” should get it – and what they meant by “Anaheim” was nothing but the permanent three-member Pringle-installed council majority. Der Pringle watched contentedly from the back, rubbing his hands, while the inseparable pair Councilwoman Kris Murray and Disney lobbyist Carrie Nocella beamed from the audience.
Pathological.
And shortly after, the ill-spoken Gail Eastman, up on the dais, lied through her teeth claiming that the streetcar had passed last year on a 4-1 vote, when in truth both Mayor Tait and Lorri Galloway had opposed it for a 3-2 – the combo of honest right and honest left we see SO RARELY since Gus Ayer’s death.
.
.
And next you know, the “Sunk Cost Fallacy” will kick in…
…just wait for it. You know what that is, right? It’s the faulty or devious way of thinking that keeps us in pointless wars, losing lives and treasure, just so all the lives and treasure that have already been lost will not have been in vain. The way of thinking that keeps you throwing money at a problem so that the money you have already wasted on it somehow won’t have been a waste. This will translate down the road to final approval of these two horrendous boondoggles, just because … well, we have already put so much time and study and effort and money into both of them, it would just be a shame if nothing came of it, you know?
Not a hero.
As I remember, OCTA’s Todd Spitzer even expressed that concern, saying “I don’t want us to come back later and say, we’ve already spent so much, let’s just finish it off.” But hey, then he went and voted with the majority to keep moving this forward, why should we expect him to vote any different later?
All of these politicians I’m expressing disappointment in are self-described conservative Republicans, who are not being good conservatives. That’s because (I’m pretty sure) there are no Democrats on these Orange County boards, except for Miguel Pulido who’s a gravy-train politician with the worst of them.
Greatly missed.
WOULD Democrats or liberals be any better at stopping the endless bleeding of our public treasure to private corporations than these faux-conservatives are? Gus Ayer sure was, but he’s dead. It’s too bad Joe Shaw, Connie Boardman, Diana Carey or Jill Hardy, who follow in Gus’ footsteps, or even honest against-the-grain Republican Sandy Genis or Tom Tait, aren’t on any Boards.
But as we observed recently with great disappointment, our entire OC delegation to Sacramento – including our three Democrats, Correa, Daly, and Quirk-Silva, signed a unanimous letter in support of the Poseidon boondoggle. We expect so little of Correa and Daly that most of us only expressed disappointment in Sharon.
Step up!
I’ll be communicating with her on the issue today or tomorrow, and trying to urge her to rescind her support, but Diamond’s probably right – even when Democrats are relatively honest they have the added disadvantage of listening to the short-sighted (and corrupt? – VN) building trades unions, who back projects like these for the short-term job fix, with no regard to the interests of taxpayers or the environment.
And so the camel gets a shoulder in … and another one…
The phrase to be wary of is not “we have spent so much already” it is where staff assures them they can “always back out later”…let’s face it, if a leader does not have the stones to ask the tough questions NOW, what are the chances they will do it later?
The streetcar has been approved for the next level of spending, based on the promise Anaheim and OCTA can back out when the Enviro work is done. The Chamber contract for administering the Enterprise Zone was built with the promise we could cancel it if the State killed the EZ program, it goes on and on…and when it moves down the road they will have forgotten that answers were promised by staff in the “next phase” of study, while they demand more study dollars to come up with those answers, all the time enriching their buddies who collect big bucks running consulting firms to “study” the projects.
Vern, the term is “incrementalization”; it’s a sort of inertial force in corporate activity, and a gathering of momentum in which the implausible eventually becomes the inevitable.
Think High Speed Rail. Think ARTIC. Think Anaheim Streetcar.
The only projects that don’t go through are so fundamentally stupid not even a Chamber of Commerce could support them. But that doesn’t mean a thoroughly harebrained scheme can’t be milked by the lobbyists and bag men before it is eventually dropped and conveniently forgotten.
By the way — I don’t think that I’ve ever called the local building trades “corrupt.” I have no information to suggest that they’re anything other than honest in their pursuit of the best deals for the workers they represent or that they ever try to bribe politicians, etc.
I do think that in some cases they’re short-sighted. I don’t think that unions do well in the long run to put themselves in opposition to consumer issues, such as Poseidon, the 495 toll lanes, the Gardenwalk Giveaway, San Onofre, etc. But that’s mostly just them doing their job for oeople who do need help. Big developers and powerful corporations have no such good excuse for sometimes countering the public interest. There it’s just plain greed.
Yeah, I threw in the word “corrupt” at the last minute without noticing that I made it look like that was your word. I’ll adjust appropriately.
The jobs argument makes sense with Poseidon and the Streetcar (although temporary jobs that are balanced off by bigger public interests)
But there’ve been times where their jobs argument just didn’t make any sense, and caused observers to suspect some secret deal going on. For example, figthing hard for toll lanes on the 405 rather than Alternative 2 – there was not a notable difference in jobs to be had between those two options, and Alt 2 would have provided jobs SOONER because nobody would fight it in court. (Gus theorized that “Will Kempton must have promised the Teamster Chief Ed Kelly 10 new union busdriver jobs if he’d support toll lanes, something along those lines.” I’d call that corrupt.) Similarly there was no logical reason for the building trades to support the Gardenwalk Giveaway so strongly, when there’s nothing in the agreement to make O’Connell hire local union workers, so he won’t, he’ll save money by hiring Arizona scabs. We don’t know what the secret deal is there.
In the hypothetical example you cite, Will Kempton’s promising Teamster Chief Pat (not Ed) Kelly 10 new union bus drivers in exchange for his support might well be corrupt. Kelly’s accepting such a deal, though, is not corrupt. How, you may ask, can that be?
In that situation, Kelly would just be doing his job: getting more jobs for his union members. By contrast, it is not actually Kempton’s “job” to get the toll lanes approved and he is not empowered to give out bribes of presumably otherwise not high priority services, paid with public funds, to get them approved.
Part of Kempton’s job is to look out for the commonweal. It’s not part of Kelly’s job; his job is to take as much of it as he can get away with. It’s the job of others not to let him get away with more than he justly should.
I’ve been thinking about one of your sentences above, Greg, and maybe I’ve been hanging out with too many conservatives, but I think this is wrong:
“Big developers and powerful corporations have no such good excuse for sometimes countering the public interest.”
SURE they do – just as legitimate as unions – they have their shareholders to think of, not to mention their own desire for profit is legitimate in this capitalist country.
It’s our elected public officials who have no excuse.
Like I wrote here, I was going to call Sharon. But guess what, she called me first. She does read this blog now. It was a productive conversation. She does oppose Poseidon. We are discussing how to make “lemonade out of the lemon” of the letter, which she signed under a few misunderstandings, and immediately tried unsuccessfully to have her name removed from. More to come…
Glad to hear it. She’s in a strong negotiating position; Labor would get nothing out of Young Kim.
Sharon rescinds. http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2013/08/quirk-silva-rescinds-poseidon-support-will-hold-water-townhall-with-debbie-cook/
nice parable Vern. we need more religious analogies for OC Armageddon.
I’m not joking.
I KNOW you’re not, double-eye!
Don’t ignore Frank Ury who is a friend of Curt Pringle and Disney. In fact I think he received a campaign contribution from Disney and Curt’s partner. At the time I didn’t connect the dots. What business does Disney have in Mission Viejo? Wake up Larry. Frank is a voting member of the OCTA.
Not only does Ury stink the joint up with his fried Curt—-but look behind Poisdon and you will find the Slimy Roger Faubel.
The south county mafia is taking over.
Vern,
I was prepared to vote against the proposal to engage in more detailed discussions. The motion I reluctantly supported included no authorized expenditures. Agreeing to receive more information is not support.
An open discussion of the economic obstacles to large scale desalination, in my opinion will not lead to public acceptance or support. I welcome such discussion and a full airing of all alternatives.
Thanks for stopping by, Mayor. It must be difficult on that Board, being surrounded by folks who are totally in the bag for Poseidon, some of whom have been paid by them.
Keep in touch with me and/or Ryan Cantor, we’ll equip you with all the reasons you need to oppose it, some that you may not already have. Will you ever convince the majority of your colleagues? Who knows? But we know you’ll try.
You get my point, that each little okay to these guys moves them forward another inch, it would have been nice to have you cast the one brave NO vote. And we are very skeptical that they have a compelling reason to keep these discussions confidential, they just want to keep you guys away from us critics.