School Fees and Housing

I am a small businessman, a minority general contractor and a strong supporter of the American way.

There are times that I see things going wrong in our society and I usually voice my opinion loud and clear, although, I feel sometimes I’m not heard. Today is one of those days.

I am writing to express my disapproval of a new school fee that has, in my opinion, been sneaked through without the voice of the people. This fee requires a substantial penalty to those who currently have projects in the works, and may be prohibitive to developers of low-income housing.

In my particular situation, I have been trying, for the last two years, to develop a project of 26, two-bedroom, family-oriented, apartment houses in the City of Los Angeles. I am finally at the stage where I am ready to pull the building permits, but now I can’t because I find out that the city must collect a new school fee of $1.50 a square foot. In my case, that’s a mere $32,000 I will have to pay if I want to work. This fee was not in existence during the planning stages of the project.

The gist of this is that I’ll have to raise my rents to accommodate this new fee and by doing this will probably create a few more homeless people. I can’t see how low-income housing can be built while accommodating this new charge.

Gov. George Deukmejian signed this bill for two Republicans from the Orange County and San Diego areas. I think it was done in a very shortsighted manner. I am hoping by this letter that we can help change this situation.

By the way, I also am an embarrassed Republican.

CARL BERNAL

Whittier