Special Agencies Serve a Purpose

The rise of special purpose agencies such as the South Coast Air Quality Management District is often cited by those who believe that Southern California has failed to comprehensively plan for its future.

As expressed in a recent “Speaking Out” column, (“Sound Growth Policies Casualty of Special Interests” by attorney Phillip R. Nicholson, March 11), such agencies fail to adequately balance the conflicting interests and needs of the greater community and result in waste and delay for property owners.

I believe this view fails to acknowledge the fundamental importance of special purpose agencies in our government, and ignores the difficulty of solving complex urban problems with a single decision.

A case from the planning files of my city, La Canada Flintridge, will serve as a useful example, offering important lessons for addressing the larger planning problems facing Southern California.

An oil company approached the city about installing cleanup equipment on a site formerly used as a gas station. The equipment would extract gasoline from the ground after 40 years of leakage from underground storage tanks.

A conditional-use permit was determined to be necessary, including a public hearing, in which the city informed the neighboring homeowners about the project and provided them the opportunity to question and comment on the installation.

The project was ultimately approved by the Planning Commission with conditions for noise abatement and visual screening of the machinery. However, these conditions were supplemented by several others:

The applicant was required to receive permits from the county Department of Public Works, county Fire Department, South Coast Air Quality Management District and, if necessary, the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Each agency would be waiting with its own tangle of approvals and procedures, and the oil company would deal with forms, clerks and inspectors from three or four separate entities. The company acknowledged the use-permit conditions and ventured forth.

This summary can only suggest how complex, and occasionally nightmarish, the experience must be for the applicant. Given the choice, however, I expect that the oil company and the public would have it no other way.

Let us assume that we could consolidate the process, making the city the sole agency reviewing the cleanup. The oil company would need only one decision and receive only one permit.

But before any approval could be given, the city would have to know a few things about the project:

Staff would have to learn about soil contamination, including soil analysis and the properties of gasoline, benzene, toluene and other toxic chemicals. They would also need the ability to analyze local ground water and the potential for water pollution.

The proposed extraction technology would require a knowledge of vacuum pumps, the rate of air flow and the effectiveness of absorbing toxic substance. The extracted vapors will be burned, rather than released in the air, requiring an understanding of gas burners.

With a staff of three planners and a secretary, the city would be hard-pressed to review much else for four or five years while it became expert on this project.

The city might try to use consultants. Unfortunately, it could not identify reliable geologists or engineers, because it could not accept their state licenses (remember only the city is responsible). Staff would still need to develop in-house expertise to evaluate the consultants.

From the perspective of the oil company, the picture goes from bad to worse. Each city and county would be solely responsible for evaluating, inspecting and permitting the entire clean-up operation for its own contaminated sites.

Each jurisdiction would have to develop its own review capacity. Each city and county could adopt unique standards for soil “cleanliness” and set its own terms for required technology and operation.

While the jurisdictions are getting their acts together, the oil company is on the hook for the cost of its sites lying idle. And, of course, each government will want to recover the cost of setting up its processes, so the oil company will be paying for a complete inspection program--from physics classes to forms--in each of up to 458 California cities and 58 counties.

Now, generalize the problem to the public at large. If all single purpose agencies are placed within the control of general government, we could achieve a consolidated and comprehensive approach to public policy. Sounds good?

First, we eliminate school, library and cemetery districts; they are among the oldest forms of special purpose districts in the state. Our city councils will set the priorities for educating our children, as they attempt to provide police, fire, and street maintenance services.

Next, we take in special agencies operating beyond the local level. For example, the Uniform Building Code is prepared by the International Conference of Building Officials--a private multistate agency that prepares model codes used throughout California. By eliminating them, each city could adopt its own building code.

Finally, we can eliminate the semi-autonomous California Highway Commission, allowing each city to decide the location of its own freeways. Freeway plans would probably be more sensitive to local neighborhoods than has always been the case, but we might find that there is more than one South Pasadena that doesn’t want to play “regional transportation.”

Clearly, one agency attempting to manage all public issues comprehensively would lead to gross inefficiencies, and to the failure to effectively address many of them. It should not surprise us that such consolidation is also contrary to our political heritage and our Constitution.

Political scientists agree that America’s greatest contribution to government is the federal system. The Founding Fathers gave us the power to create new governments at different levels, and in various forms, so that public issues could be dealt with effectively.

A rereading of “The Federalist” papers provides a glimpse of the genius of the framers of the Constitution. Their wisdom came from admitting that, in forming a government, one could not anticipate all the public issues that might arise. They also recognized that different issues required different economies of scale for devising a solution.

The advice has not been lost on us. In 1980, there were over 60,000 governmental agencies in the United States--one national government, 50 states, 3,139 counties, 19,097 cities and more than 37,000 special purpose agencies. The numbers have increased since then.

It appears special purpose agencies are part of our system--in many ways, they are our system. We made these agencies for ourselves, and we will want to create others if those we have aren’t satisfactory.

Of course, problems abound. Some agencies have served their usefulness, while others are created without a clear purpose. Both are unneeded drains on the public purse. We must be willing to review, update and purge.

Also, some agencies exist without our consent. Should the South Coast Air Quality Management District Board be directly elected? Their new-found power to alter our lifestyles makes this question worth debating.

In sum, single-purpose agencies are not a barrier to solving our growth problems. In fact, we will expect them to be a large part of the solution. Our search for answers to the planning issues crowding around us requires that we look in new directions.

We need to evaluate our expectations about local comprehensive planning. We need to recognize that new problems may not be adequately addressed by existing levels of government. We may also need to accept that the state of California must take a direct hand in land-use matters. And we must remember to review every agency’s performance.

Before we take aim at special purpose agencies, we should remember how we expect our government to work. Until then, we might contemplate the alternative: Is anyone willing to wait while a planner learns physics?