.
.
.
From Mohammed Aly, of the OC Poverty Alleviation Coalition (OC PAC)
Orange County’s homelessness crisis is actually a product of California’s soaring economy.
When jobs are added to the economy faster than houses are added to the market, property values become inflated, mortgage and rent payments increase, and so do foreclosures. The state’s economy has surpassed all but five nations’ in size. Unemployment in the state hit a record low. Orange County’s housing market is not keeping pace with demand. As rents increase, tents increase.
The cost of homelessness in Orange County is nearly $300 million annually, and $120 million of this cost falls on local cities. For all of California’s growth, Orange County is returned six cents of every dollar in property taxes it sends to Sacramento. Homelessness, and homeless deaths, have not seen any decline in Orange County, despite regional efforts.
“Where’s There’s Will, There’s a Way,” an Orange County Grand Jury report released on May 31, 2018, recommends the following strategy to address the housing and homelessness crisis: “To streamline shelter and Permanent Supportive Housing development, the County and its cities should establish a decision-making body, such as a Joint Powers Authority, that is empowered to identify and allocate sites and pool funding associated with housing and supportive services for the homeless.”
Orange County’s entire delegation of state representatives agree with the Grand Jury. On the same of the report’s release, Assembly Bill 448 was introduced, with Assemblymembers Daly (D) and Quirk-Silva (D), and Senators Bates (R), Moorlach (R), and Nguyen (R) as co-authors or sponsors. As the Grand Jury recommends, this bill would: “create and operate a joint powers agency to fund housing to assist the homeless population and persons and families of extremely low, very low, and low income… create and operate a joint powers agency to fund housing to assist the homeless population and persons and families of extremely low, very low, and low income.”
As Assemblymember Daly explains, the bill would “allow Orange County cities, the County of Orange, local businesses and philanthropists to pool their resources” in the Orange County Housing Trust Fund, and leverage these local dollars for increased state funding. This would finance construction of 2,700 permanent supportive housing units proposed by the Association of California Cities, Orange County.
By leveraging local funds and becoming more competitive for state grants, Orange County can begin receiving the private investment and state funding that it needs to address its homelessness crisis.
To send a letter of support, request a template letter, or make any inquiry, please email alym@ocpoverty.com.
“For all of California’s growth, Orange County is returned six cents of every dollar in property taxes it sends to Sacramento.”
Curious: what’s the source for this number? I’d really like to see hard numbers that bear this out, much like those which show California is actually subsidizing a number of other states at the federal level. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-state-local-tax-subsidy-20171029-story.html (citing a Rockefeller Institute study, which in turn cites a number of other federal sources in its own analysis)
Norberto’s 2015 article (the Voice of OC source linked to here) omits that actual source.
Of course, as a follow on, one wonders if ousting a Democratic state senator (who actually got a fairly large chunk of money allocated to fixing the 57/60 interchange) will increase or reduce the portion of funds OC sends to Sacramento…
There are poor areas of California. We in OC have a $1 BILLION SURPLUS in 2017 so of course they send the money where it is needed that is how the system works.
As a follow up the OCTA has billions from measure M also that they could use to fix anything but they are spending hundreds of millions to build a Street car down Harbor Blvd!!!
Food for thought, another view from an experienced homeless advocate in California:
” I’ve been told, “Don’t go there,” when I suggest that homelessness is a symptom of an economic system struggling to stay alive. But if we can’t be honest about the systemic causes of homelessness, we are doomed to be the archetypal dog chasing its tail. It’s my opinion that homelessness has a symbiotic relationship with unchecked capitalism – both being a result of it and serving to sustain it. The “tell” in this game is the recent escalation of the criminalization of homelessness”
https://sandiegofreepress.org/2018/05/homelessness-and-capitalism-some-untold-truths/
*OH go there…..Ricardo….remember the words of Brother Dave Gardner: “When a good man’s down…kick him….it will give him the incentive to rise above it!”
Anyway, good analysis from our point of view as well. Can’t wait for those Black Buses shipping folks off to the Re-Education Centers!
Hey, de-criminalize drugs cause white people do drugs and criminalize those that can’t afford them! Nice concept!
“It’s my opinion that homelessness has a symbiotic relationship with unchecked capitalism…”
Homelessness is primarily a symptom of neo-feudalism usurping or corrupting capitalism. Local would-be lordlings always drove folks from their support networks, forcing ‘undesirables’ to create new urban communities. Capitalism was born by responding to the oppression of those lordlings.
Properly understood (or perhaps ‘duly checked’ depending on one’s view), capitalism creates far more homes than any other system. But a proper understanding of capitalism requires rejecting right wing cronyism that pretends to be capitalism.
Feudalism? Just wait until this bill passes and the land speculation and blockbusting cycle begins.
Given the makeup of the bulk of the powerbrokers in OC who would select the members comprising such a panel, that’s a very credible fear.
But usually, it’s the large entrenched powerbrokers who profit from setting the field a certain way (and getting others to till it on their behalf, one way or another). The small, productive folks actually doing and making stuff aren’t usually the problem.
The “tell” in this game is the recent escalation of the criminalization of homelessness”
Again, lordlings run rampant, not capitalists. The police probably prefer to target criminals, but respond to calls. But someone profits from prisons, and the budgets for their operation are often complex (and unlikely to fall upon local lordlings). The capitalist solution to homelessness generally finds ways to meet demand with supply – when it fails, it’s typically because someone profits through diversion, cheating, hidden or open subsidies, or a similar corruption. Homeless do far better dealing with capitalists than with lordlings, because capitalists strive to find ways to meet needs with available resources, while lordlings merely strive to dominate and control resources to retain privileges.
Actually –
8 years ago the county put together a commission, figured out what to do based on fact based studies from around the world.
Then never funded it.
Now we are simply $1 billion behind on the funding estimated per year in 2010
And they are going to throw $70 million at it. It will have a 7% effect on the homeless population on the streets based on the dollar numbers needed in 2010 over a 10 year period.
Can a joint power authority violate the State Constitution?
What laws constrain it at all?
Who makes the decisions about where homeless/shelters-to-be will be built?
Does the public have any say in the location of such shelters?
One clear winner here would be wealthy bond holders who want to invest in tax-free municipal bonds. Is anyone else necessarily a winner? Before you say “the homeless, of course” — what requirements will there be that the structures built will PERPETUALLY be dedicated to service the homeless? Or is the JPA to be the sole judge of its own compliance?
Who qualifies as “homeless” for these purposes — and who makes and enforces such rules?
How does this law prevent land speculation by JPAs, who can potentially bust up a neighborhood by announcing a new shelter in its midst, but the property from fleeing residents at a deep discount, and then CANCEL THE PROPOSAL, keep the houses, and move the proposed shelter to a different site?
I need to study this more, but at first blush: if I wanted to completely destroy OC and transfer gigantic amounts of its housing stock into the hands of wealthy land speculators, this is exactly the way I’d do it.
I’d suggest that Sen. Moorlach, Asmb. Quirk-Silva, and especially Judge Carter read up on the filings by Rutan & Tucker on behalf of the City of Anaheim in the two cases CATER and others filed to prevent a gigantic bond indenture to be taken on the part of the JOA between the City of Anaheim and (if I recall correctly) the Housing Agency of the City of Anaheim — literally an agreement between the City and itself, with the same five members governing both agencies and wearing different hats! — until and unless it got the approval of Anaheim voters, as required by both the state constitution and Anaheim’s own city charter.. They made some amazing claims there about immunity from ANY law — and got the courts to agree. Judge Carter, you have to thoroughly understand these cases asserting the plenipotent authority of JPAs before you bless anything like this.
I don’t think that Sen. Moorlach and Asmb. Quirk-Silva know much of anything about the legal morass behind this sort of proposal. (Asmb. Daly and Sen. Bates have likely been briefed already, as new State Senator Chang will be.) The only OC State Legislator sho could have been counted on to understand this and try to stop it just got recalled.
Mohammed Aly almost surely doesn’t understand it. It must be dazzling to think that one could step in and solve the homeless problem in a couple of years — without reakizing that one is simply being played.
Anyway, perhaps Ryan can get the Fullerton Library Board to create a JPA with, I don’t know, the City of Stanton?, to get grants to build nice big housing for the homeless in Newport Coast, Villa Park, Yorba Linda, and Anahein Hills. (You think that they can’t? Have you read the bill?). That will certainly make a splash!
By the way: the grant agency will pay for the capital borrowed — but who will pay for the interest? Anaheim’s general fund is on the hook for the Convention Center expansion — not by law, but the City agreed several times that it pull have no choice but to bail out bondholders if push came to shove — but who would be on the hook here?
So much to learn! Can JPAs declare bankruptcy? Will bondholders care (as they should)? Can this REALLY “end homelessness in Orange County,” given that we don’t have walls along the 605, Puente Hills, and Cleveland National Forest down to San Clemente.
I’ll have a piece expanding on this next week. All I’ll say for now is that the first three comments have seriously missed the point — and the gravity of the threat here — and that I hope that Mohammed will tell us what he knows about JPAs here. (Better yet, I’d like to know what he knew about them when he was helping create this plan — not knowing, at least I hope not knowing — that rich people with teams of lawyers with a thousand times his experiences were abusing his innocence and picking his pocket.
I told my wife when we first moved here that I didn’t want us to buy a home here in OC because our rich people would eventually find a way to destroy its value for their own benefit. I didn’t foresee EXACTLY this sort of trick, but it will certainly do. I look forward to your decanting your knowledge of JPAs here, Mohammed. Show us what you’ve got. (Sharon, you too.)
“One clear winner here would be wealthy bond holders who want to invest in tax-free municipal bonds.”
Actually, the clear winner would be the financiers/counsellors/promoters getting those munis to market; wealthy buyers would have to weigh them against other options – this could be a good investment or a waste. The largest buyers would probably be pension funds anyway.
“…if I wanted to completely destroy OC and transfer gigantic amounts of its housing stock into the hands of wealthy land speculators, this is exactly the way I’d do it.”
And here I thought I was being satirical when i injected that intention into Spitzer’s-Swift enriched Nimbyism? If it weren’t one of the classic maneuvers in the urban lordling’s playbook…
I am not sold on this idea, the logic behind it suggests ‘lobbyist facts’ are being sold as ‘actual facts.’ That makes me suspicious.
But in general, bonds CAN be an appropriate vehicle to solve current problems with future resources – or a trap to shift resources into other hands and make things worse. And before authorizing bonds, I’d want to know future liabilities in great detail (pensions? other unexpected costs?). Yet with debt so cheap, compared to where it was when the OC took on mountains of it, the calculations are very different today. But that alone never makes debt wise.
*All depends on the League of Cities and their input! They have Godlike Powers
and you can bet that in any JPA…….someone at League of Cities has their hands all over the body of work. By the way, Moorlach knows all about JPA’s!
*Forgot to mention that Mayor Genis also is very familiar with JPA’s…as well. We would certainly ask for her input if you are concerned.
Can a joint power authority violate the State Constitution?
–No.–
What laws constrain it at all?
–The law does not exempt the JPA from abiding to existing law.–
Who makes the decisions about where homeless/shelters-to-be will be built?
–The law does not concern shelters.–
Does the public have any say in the location of such shelters?
–The law does not concern shelters. The bill relates to housing development which will be subject to existing regulations which contain elements of citizen oversight.–
One clear winner here would be wealthy bond holders who want to invest in tax-free municipal bonds. Is anyone else necessarily a winner? Before you say “the homeless, of course” — what requirements will there be that the structures built will PERPETUALLY be dedicated to service the homeless? Or is the JPA to be the sole judge of its own compliance?
–Although the law grants the JPA the authority to issue bonds, the sale of debt instruments are not required by the bill. Nonetheless, the issuance of debt certificates are a commonplace form of financing for developments. An effective JPA dedicated to OC’s dire housing needs will benefit Orange Countanians that spend a disproportionate amount of money on housing costs.–
Who qualifies as “homeless” for these purposes — and who makes and enforces such rules?
–Unsure of your concern. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/11302 —
How does this law prevent land speculation by JPAs, who can potentially bust up a neighborhood by announcing a new shelter in its midst, but the property from fleeing residents at a deep discount, and then CANCEL THE PROPOSAL, keep the houses, and move the proposed shelter to a different site?
–The bill deals with housing and not shelters. Moreover: please see Section(e)(1) and Section(e)(2) of the bill which reads:
(e) Neither the Orange County Housing Trust nor the act authorizing the creation of the Orange County Housing Trust do either of the following:
(1) Regulate land use in cities or in the unincorporated area of the County of Orange.
(2) Authorize the Orange County Housing Trust to serve as an owner or operator of housing units.” —
I need to study this more, but at first blush: if I wanted to completely destroy OC and transfer gigantic amounts of its housing stock into the hands of wealthy land speculators, this is exactly the way I’d do it.
–Indeed, you should study this bill. I would start with reading it as your questions indicate you have not yet done so. I also advise you study other municipalities’s experiences with housing trust funds.–
I’d suggest that Sen. Moorlach, Asmb. Quirk-Silva, and especially Judge Carter read up on the filings by Rutan & Tucker on behalf of the City of Anaheim in the two cases CATER and others filed to prevent a gigantic bond indenture to be taken on the part of the JOA between the City of Anaheim and (if I recall correctly) the Housing Agency of the City of Anaheim — literally an agreement between the City and itself, with the same five members governing both agencies and wearing different hats! — until and unless it got the approval of Anaheim voters, as required by both the state constitution and Anaheim’s own city charter.. They made some amazing claims there about immunity from ANY law — and got the courts to agree. Judge Carter, you have to thoroughly understand these cases asserting the plenipotent authority of JPAs before you bless anything like this.
–The concerns of the taxpayer are always always paramount. However, and again, bonds are not required by the law. Another striking difference and a key point of distinction is that bonds here would be used for something that is undoubtedly more important than a convention center.–
I don’t think that Sen. Moorlach and Asmb. Quirk-Silva know much of anything about the legal morass behind this sort of proposal. (Asmb. Daly and Sen. Bates have likely been briefed already, as new State Senator Chang will be.) The only OC State Legislator sho could have been counted on to understand this and try to stop it just got recalled.
–The bill is simple. It creates a JPA to regionally respond to OC’s dire need for housing for low-income individuals.–
Mohammed Aly almost surely doesn’t understand it. It must be dazzling to think that one could step in and solve the homeless problem in a couple of years — without reakizing that one is simply being played.
–Your statement has no value and borders on jealousy.–
Anyway, perhaps Ryan can get the Fullerton Library Board to create a JPA with, I don’t know, the City of Stanton?, to get grants to build nice big housing for the homeless in Newport Coast, Villa Park, Yorba Linda, and Anahein Hills. (You think that they can’t? Have you read the bill?). That will certainly make a splash!
–I am not sure the relevance.–
By the way: the grant agency will pay for the capital borrowed — but who will pay for the interest? Anaheim’s general fund is on the hook for the Convention Center expansion — not by law, but the City agreed several times that it pull have no choice but to bail out bondholders if push came to shove — but who would be on the hook here?
–Your concern is unclear. If debt securities are decided to be offered, they would undoubtedly coordinate a team to develop a financing plan, draft offering documents, prepare for any rating agency, market the bond offering to investors, price the bonds and close transactions,etc.–
So much to learn! Can JPAs declare bankruptcy? Will bondholders care (as they should)? Can this REALLY “end homelessness in Orange County,” given that we don’t have walls along the 605, Puente Hills, and Cleveland National Forest down to San Clemente.
–Yes, you have much to learn. Counties and cities can petition for bankrupt relief. Bondholders will care about the underwriting and price of the securities. Yes, a Housing Trust can be an effective tool in addressing homelessness and housing insecurity in OC.–
I’ll have a piece expanding on this next week. All I’ll say for now is that the first three comments have seriously missed the point — and the gravity of the threat here — and that I hope that Mohammed will tell us what he knows about JPAs here. (Better yet, I’d like to know what he knew about them when he was helping create this plan — not knowing, at least I hope not knowing — that rich people with teams of lawyers with a thousand times his experiences were abusing his innocence and picking his pocket.
–I hope your piece is informed and avoids ad hominem attacks.–
I told my wife when we first moved here that I didn’t want us to buy a home here in OC because our rich people would eventually find a way to destroy its value for their own benefit. I didn’t foresee EXACTLY this sort of trick, but it will certainly do. I look forward to your decanting your knowledge of JPAs here, Mohammed. Show us what you’ve got. (Sharon, you too.)
–This theory border on conspiracy and paranoia.–
Just briefly, as I’m headed out for a bit:
(1) Have you read the proposed legislation, whoever the hell you are?
(2) Are you trained — as an attorney or otherwise — reading legislation?
(3) Are you familiar with the fight had about similar provisions that I (representing CATER) and my far more experienced co-counsel for another non-profit had against Anaheim over the JPA bonds that funded the Anaheim Convention Center expansion — without the vote required by the City Charter or the State Constitution — because of a Supreme Court opinion that read the phrase “notwithstanding any contrary law” expansively?
(4) Are you aware of *that same provision* being in this proposed legislation?
(5) You should realize that “ad hominem” (literally “at the person”) is used in two similar but importantly distinguishable ways. One is the “argumentum ad hominem” fallacy, in which one tries to win a logical argument by attacking some characteristic of the opponent, such as that he or she seems to be using the cane of a Mexican porn star as a pseudonym. I’m not doing that. The second — at hominem attack — isn’t really about winning an argument, it is, in essence, simply insulting people. You can fairly accuse me of insulting you, because you are a putrid idiot.
You accuse me of being a conspiracist. Well, pinhead, CONSPIRICIES HAPPEN! In this case, it’s not even particularly well hidden. People conspire to come up with plans, ones that they’d rather not have the public see, that will make them large amounts of money, largely at the public expense. Read the news sonetime, moron.
Now let me tell you what happens next. I am going to write to whatever email address you left when you posted. If you don’t answer that email, you’re not welcome to publish here again. You are ALWAYS welcome to publish by sending your comments to the author of this piece, if he wishes to provide you with an email address for that purpose, and then the arguments will be published at his discretion — HOWEVER, if you (as what will then be a presumed anonymous troll) include any personal attacks in your emails, those sections will be excised. Hope that that’s clear. Look for email from me, in your inbox or spam folder, and respond if you want to continue to participate in this or any other discussion.
I know Darren, he is a member of my People’s Homeless Task Force. Geez!
And yes he’s an attorney. From Orange. It’s the first Google result. http://en-law.com/darren-bio/
And I don’t see any results for Darren Veracruz Mexican porn star.
You also presumably were paying close enough attention during the Anaheim bonds issues to know that a JPA — at least in this county — is the weapon of choice for our local plunderers. Take out the ability to create JPAs — make it a set of agreed-upon projects widely dispersed throughout the county where the interest payments would be backed by county funds — and I’d probably support it (although the devil is in the details.) But if you took away JPAs, Daly and Correa wouldn’t want it anymore. Sharon probably still would, but Sharon’s not so much a tool of the jackanapes who run things around here.
I could structure something like this in ways that it would NOT ultimately end up helping the homeless — a bankruptcy here, a sale to the highest bidder without conditions there, et voila. We live in a county of avaricious and lawyered-up would-be feudal lords. Your friend Darren, like your friend Mr. Aly, may be very nice people — but they are still subject to being eaten by coyotes.
Any you, my friend, need a lot less sentimentality in your politics. A plan is not good because your well-meaning friends proposed it. It’s good if it works towards it intended ends and it’s bad if it doesn’t. And this has the potential to be very, very bad. Stay focused.
This makes me MAD.
I might start sleep blogging and begin deleting posts and comments.
Let me tell you what happens next. You can email me. If I don’t answer your email, you’re not welcome to publish here again.
Want me gone, Donna? Say the word.
I’m not playing your wife’s games here, Vern. Act like you’re in charge of something.
Donna, you have no idea of how spammers work here, but when I’m gone I hope that Vefn puts you in charge of dealing with them. Then you’ll find out what being mad is really like.
That was obviously her late-night lampoon of what you said to Darren.
She sees all the trashed comments. She & her family are the target of them almost as often as you or me.
All Darren and Mohammed were doing was disagreeing with you.
No they weren’t, Vern — but I’m not going to bother detailing it all for you now.
I threatened to blacklist someone until it was clear that they weren’t a troll. Donna threatened an “oops, look what I’ve done!” rampage of retribution. They are not in at all similar leagues. You should already know this.
“Although the law grants the JPA the authority to issue bonds, the sale of debt instruments are not required by the bill.”
But surely the issuance of debt is the primary purpose of this bill, no? Is there any other authority in OC considering such housing debt? Why would a JPA be better or worse?
“Nonetheless, the issuance of debt certificates are a commonplace form of financing for developments.”
Agreed. Often, this is the way to overcome NIMBYism and to pool regional needs in an effective manner to bypass entrenched local incentives that favor million dollar homes v. affordable homes…though I’d still expect most to start at $350k – 450k…still rather out of reach for the extremely poor…).
Most NIMBYs are happy with development favoring ‘investor homes’ rather than livable ones. They’ll block housing that worsens traffic, fills schools, etc. It’s a consistent theme in much of the OC. So that makes the anti-NIMBY possibilities both a virtue and defect.
There are a number of reasons it’s hard to get $200k – range housing built, and there are a few such housing zones already for retirees in the 55+ age range, it could be doable (I was quite recently in two such plots, one in Brea and the other in Placentia, both with over 200 units)…The harder approach is housing that will bring in young but not yet rich families…
Trust that the Judge, Silva and Moorlach are more concerned about their public persona, dinners and events than really really knowing any subject that come before them.
Their subordinates look it over report to them and they do nothing…
I don’t get the “rich people will destroy property values”?
“I don’t get the “rich people will destroy property values”
I believe Greg is alluding to something that has happened in many older, bigger cities. Wreck a neighborhood by building the ‘projects’ there, degrading it into slums, driving out families and pushing down values for adjacent properties to the point at which one can acquire it all cheap – then redevelop it. It’s harder to ‘short’ sell real estate than other equities, but there are ways…they just take longer and require compliant councils.
In the OC, I’d expect a variation on the standard tactics that would be backed by different cities (concentrate your homeless/poor in some other city, donate to services there to encourage indigent to relocate, then close your gates).
A series of $200k restricted developments for senior/retirees (like the two I visited in Brea and Placentia) are fairly self-contained, and each pays property tax – whereas doing the same in a community that kids may live in (e.g., high density apartments) raises costs dramatically (education, law enforcement, medical care, transit, etc. – all for the benefit of untaxed children). The main tool to lock out kids is to focus on million dollar housing (the children of millionaires will have all sorts of other advantages as well…).
Henry Huntington — though he was using something people wanted to be near (railroad depots) rather than far from (homeless housing) — was one of the historical masters of this. Decide to put a depot in a given area where he owned property and then sell the property at high prices to suckers who wanted in. Then announce that he’d changes his mind about the location of the depot — and buy it back from them at low prices. Then change his mind again and build the depot there after all. This has the earmarks — once we learn who will be the Henry Huntingtons behind choosing sites for homeless housing, and them changing their mind a few times — of that sort of maneuver. Except when you’re dealing with something that repels rather than attracts people — the same logic applies to short-term rentals and to group rehab homes, the intensity of citizen opposition to which hints at how much screaming there will be if these (reasonable, but still bound to be unpopular) structures slide into places without a vote — you don’t have to go back to the same place. First, you block-bust on State College, buy up some property cheap, then cancel that plan and move it to Harbor, cancel again and move it to Brookhurst, cancel agains and then move it to Beach…. Now as I recall, this is illegal — unless the “notwithstanding any other law” provision protects the JPA’s operators from prosecution — but in any event the prosecution would be done by the District Attorney. I can see Spitzer prosecuting some land speculators — because there might be glory in it — but can anyone imagine Rackauckas doing so, unless he had a grudge against them? I really don’t like the prospect of a good-hearted plan to serve the homeless instead being used to make rich land speculators richer — not least because of how it would discredit the very cause it seeks to promote.
We live in a county with some really bad, or at best amoral, people. Never lose sight of that.
For the love of God, IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT BONDS AREN’T REQUIRED BY THE BILL! The fact that this particularly insidious and readily abused kind of bond is being proposed IS THE ONLY REASON THAT THE NICE RICH PEOPLE ARE COOPERATING WITH YOU! Once the bill is passed, if left in its present form, THEY WILL FIGURE OUT WAYS TO ABUSE THE BILL FOR THEIR OWN PURPOSES, because their fundamental interest here IS NOT HELPING THE HOMELESS. As pretty much ever, they are interested IN MAKING EASY MONEY.
What you call “paranoia” I call “having fought in this ring a few times before.” I’m certainly not going to hang my hopes for decent housing policy for the homeless on your apparent understanding of the finance scheme used for these bonds — because there seems to be nothing to hang them on. Just TRY to propose a version of this without these bonds and see how quickly people’s motivations reveal themselves. Maybe that would blow open your eyes.
Silva, Moorlach and the judge seem to know little about the real subject even though this is supposed to be the #1 issue.
From my conversations with them and many hours of observation.
*Yeah, all of those folks are rather selective about who they tell the inner
working secrets of Government.
“We live in a county with some really bad, or at best amoral, people. Never lose sight of that.”
Not forgotten. But always, the experiment of democracy requires the good ones conceiving means of limiting the harm they do, while building something good enough for us all.
Bonds, like any debt, need to be approached with caution, but not fear. Like any debt, they can become a wasteful trap. But often, gambling on the success of families in housing pays off. The devil is in details which remain to be writ.
Donovan, bonds are NOT approached with caution here in this county, but with wild abandon and cocaine-eyed avarice. That is WHY I want to conceive of how to limit the harm they do prior to supporting any bill like this.
Not sure about the county but in Anaheim the bonds are just to support the resort industry because they own the process.
Mike, that’s my concern: unless we work to harness such devices, they will be used exclusively for the benefit of the largest, most powerful (and Disney’s power in the OC surely dwarfs any other billionaire’s). I do need to learn more about what happened with the resort bonds, and am curious what other plans are afoot to meet needs currently unmet.
Ah, well that just means we got our work to do, Greg. But your best work might just be a set of principles for when bonds are adequate from your view, either your own, or a tailored list for OC derived from another’s work.
I see risks, but the status quo is risky as well. Something must be done so families remain the focal point of life in OC, rather than a playground of elites, with our struggling ‘couldabeen’ residents transformed into commuters.
Donovan, if you want more info on the Resort bonds, please contact me. They have become my sick, obsessive hobby.
I am following up on the alarmed citizens who know my position on JPA-issued bonds. I will report if I find something frightening in the Housing Trust formation. You know I will.
So far what I can see is the Daly-Silva-Moorlach bill simply ALLOWS the JPA to be created and offers a wide menu of funding options they CAN use but does not dictate which of them they WILL use. The JPA itself will have to outline its own mechanisms for revenue. This leaves us very little to review for assurance of future responsiblity, but this is how government works.
For comparison, many of us are familiar with the “Mills Act,” the State program that lets local government entities contract with private property owners for historic property preservation agreements that keep heritage structures in preserved condition in exchange for a property tax reduction to offset (minimal amounts) of the enormous cost of preservation. The Mills Act does not outline the program itself, it simply provides permission or ability for local agencies to create their own programs, and each local agency has a separate process. If we tanked the Mills Act for not providing enough detail we would have lost an important tool for preserving our built environment.
Just as it is left to each local community to watch their own local government as they set up their own Mills Act program, it will be up to OC residents to see how the Housing Trust sets up their system and process for funding permanent supportive housing, after this State Law permits them to do so. We won’t get that assurance from this rather broad-reaching bill.
So everyone sit tight and let’s see what comes out in the wash when Sacramento permits the Housing Trust to become “a thing,” and then we will see what its leaders propose to do with the wide reaching authority granted by the State. But I am making calls and trying to determine where they INTEND to get the funding and how they intend to repay the funds. We all know that how we think something will work and what the end product looks like are often not alike, especially in government, but I am sure they have an outline to share, and I am trying to track it down. So far I am not meeting the usual brick wall of resistance that comes with those who don’t want to share, so no alarms are going off yet, but I wanted to report in that someone IS trying to get more info, so let’s keep the speculation to a minimum until we know more. And if anyone has docs they want to share, please send them to me.
Cynthia: “if you want more info on the Resort bonds, please contact me. They have become my sick, obsessive hobby.”
I just sent a note to a Cynthia Ward for Anaheim Mayor FB account; I hope that’s you, or reaches you eventually.
“We all know that how we think something will work and what the end product looks like are often not alike,”
Indeed. My sick hobby at this point is simply trying to understand, as a newcomer, matters that have a long history and exceptional complexity. I’m usually a pretty fast learner, and have done this before in significantly less friendly climates.