Going green, from the valleys to the sea

Today, Spence and Cole discuss the role of regional politics in the Great Jerry Brown Debate. Yesterday, they debated the proper role of the attorney general. Tuesday, it was citywide general plans. Monday, they dissected how Brown became the flash point in this year’s budget impasse. Tomorrow, they’ll chew on cities’ roles in fighting climate change.

Laboratories of environmentalism
By Rick Cole

Mike,

Think globally. Act locally.

I think the old slogan still works for Californians across the political spectrum. As previously noted, California is too big and diverse to have a “one size fits all” approach - especially one dictated from Sacramento.

Here in Ventura, our community’s vision of sustainability embraces smart growth. We oppose sprawling out onto our hillside open spaces and habitats and paving over prime farmland. We’re promoting infill development in the older parts of our community and encouraging more housing along our city’s key transit corridors. We provide incentives to green building to reduce energy consumption, and design new neighborhoods to promote safe biking and convenient walking.

That doesn’t mean that we want to impose that approach on every other town in California - any more than we’d want Sacramento to dictate rigid mandates on us.

Varying climates, demographics and community values all shape solutions that will work better in some places than in others. In our community, we find there are big differences between how we approach projects in our historic downtown from those on undeveloped land near the city’s suburban edge. That’s even more important in huge cities like Los Angeles.

The best way to get us all working together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to set reasonable targets and give localities a toolbox of alternatives and incentives for achieving them. In the last two decades, Sacramento has been more bent on passing rules and imposing solutions than offering assistance and rewarding results.

For example, the slammed-together $42-billion bond package passed by voters last year. It included a hodgepodge of specific earmarks and vague categories that emerged out of Sacramento deal-making. Why not require cities and counties to work together on regional water, transportation and flood control plans and projects, instead of giving the governor and Legislature control over billions of dollars in pork? What if there was also a clear scoring system to ensure that regions that successfully focus on results would get bonus funding?

Requiring localities to cooperate with their neighbors to be eligible for statewide funding would be a great way to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. Today cities typically compete for sales tax revenue by subsidizing new retail development. That comes not only at the expense of their neighbors (and local taxpayers), it produces longer shopping trips and more congestion. If sales tax dollars were instead apportioned regionally and cities were given incentives for reducing vehicle-miles traveled, wouldn’t they be more likely to promote shopping and workplaces closer to home?

Although some think that our political and geographic differences make California “ungovernable,” the problem is how we define the term. If successful governing depends on Sacramento’s liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans reaching consensus on how to tackle a complex issue like global warming, gridlock is inevitable - even as the planet gets hotter and the 2020 deadline gets closer. If instead, we empower regions and communities to find their own ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - with accountability for actually delivering results - we can set the example for rest of the planet.

Rick Cole is the city manager of Ventura and a member of the Sustainability Advisory Committee of the International City/County Management Assn. In 2006, he was listed as one of Governing magazine’s “Public Officials of the Year,” the only Californian among the nine honorees. His views are his own.

It takes more than a ‘transit village’
By Mike Spence

Rick,

You are an articulate voice for the values currently represented by the Ventura City Council. I hope you can tolerate this Republican agreeing with you that some of the very difficult issues you raise about how projects and cities are funded need to be explored and reformed.

I suspect that Republicans and Democrats, with the exception of some leaders in Sacramento, are frustrated by voter-approved bond indebtedness that gets diverted away from badly needed projects to some other use.

There is no doubt that there are state and local roles in providing sensible infrastructure to accommodate and protect citizens. That is why all cities and counties have general plans.

Unfortunately, your discussion about wonderful Ventura represents an interesting distraction from the question at hand. The question deals with values and the state’s diversity.

Rick, you wrote that the “one-size-fits-all” approach doesn’t work. I agree with you wholeheartedly and support your efforts for more local control.

California is, however, headed in a one-size-fits-all direction that micromanages communities, regardless of what they want. After the settlement with San Bernardino County, Jerry Brown remarked that the county needs “elegant density, with people living closer to where they work.”

Wow. That’s great, but people have bought homes there because they were less expensive than the ones by work. The “elegant density” of lofts and high-rise condos you find in some areas doesn’t represent the values of San Bernardino County.

In a seeming contradiction, Brown cites Marin County as a model county for growth. And why not? It hardly grows. Million-dollar estates, stringent zoning requirements and opposition to growth have resulted in a density of fewer than 500 people per square mile. That is a density seven times less than Orange County.

Brown may have won his election, but that doesn’t mean his values are correct.

See, Rick, this is the reality that many do not want to face. We have over 35 million people in California. More people are being born. Life expectancy is increasing. More are immigrating here. Millions more. Tens of millions more. What do you do with all the people?

Marin County won’t take more people. They don’t fit its collective value system. There is a limit to how many “transit villages” can be built and sustained.

And this brings me to an issue no one raises in this “state versus local communities” debate. That is individual rights. It is just not the state that is micromanaging local agencies, it is government limiting the opportunities for families and individuals in their pursuit of happiness.

While I was in Idaho on vacation, I read about a 20,000-home development that will about double the size of the city it’s in. I doubt all those homes will be sold to Idahoans.

Californians will find their place to pursue happiness. Most won’t find it in Marin County or in “elegant density.” They will find it. The shame is that it may not be in California.

Mike Spence is president of the California Republican Assembly, California’s oldest and largest Republican volunteer organization. He is a member of the West Covina School Board and a partner in Citadel Campaigns LLC.