It’s a Long, Long Way to Sacramento : Federal quake help promised; where’s state aid?

James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, had it right. “We do not want to see a situation here like what they had in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew,” he said this week in referring to the parts of Florida’s Dade County that became abandoned after that disaster. The development of the “ghost towns” slowed recovery to a crawl in Florida; that must not be allowed to happen in Los Angeles.

Recently this page published specific suggestions in regard to the 13 earthquake ghost towns that have appeared in the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and the Mid-City area. Now the federal government has promised to act. If Washington follows through on its promises, there indeed will be cause for a rousing cheer.

We wanted the Small Business Administration to give priority to loan applications from building owners in the ghost towns. SBA Administrator Erskine Bowles says he will do that, and more. Also, he says 17,000 loan requests that previously were turned down will be reviewed and that his employees will revive 11,000 requests that were withdrawn by applicants, often in frustration over the slowness of the process. The promised “fast-track” treatment is crucial because some owners cannot proceed with even the most basic steps of rebuilding unless they receive federal loans. Without such help, Los Angeles city officials had made clear, building owners were going to have to foot some of the bill for securing and patrolling their quake-damaged properties. Because many buildings have been damaged further by trespassers, that might have been too much for some owners to bear.

Unfortunately, Art Agnos, San Francisco mayor when the 1989 Loma Prieta quake occurred and now regional administrator for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, had it right, too: “What’s really absent is the state’s checkbook. Without it, we’ll still be short in terms of completing the recovery.” That is not only sadly true, it’s downright infuriating.

Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature could have handled the ghost-town and other earthquake problems through prompt implementation of a temporary quarter-cent sales tax increase dedicated to recovery. Instead, they relied on a proposed earthquake bond issue (1A)--which failed at the polls last month. Now, the governor and the Legislature are bogged down in state budget matters, and earthquake recovery remains unaddressed. Maybe that’s why it seems that Washington is just up the road a piece these days, while Sacramento seems a continent away.