If there is one thing I agree with Bob Dunning on, it is that everyone regardless of the side that they are on, will be happy when Measure P is over. I have said numerous times, that there are far more important issues facing us here in the city than the disposition of 191 units. However, embedded within this issue are in fact other serious issues that residents need to follow long after the glare of the spotlight is off this project.
It is these issues that I wish to discuss in my closing remarks. Tomorrow at this time, we will know the outcome of this election. I have written two pieces in advance, one of them will be published while the other will never see the light of day. Which one you read will depend on what happens today at the polls.
Process
Opponents will rightly point out that the meeting was held at the last possible minute, that the discussion went well past the point at which the public could participate or the council could think clearly.
The fact of the matter is that both sides are right, and more importantly this is no isolated incident. This is standard operating procedure for the city council and the city staff. Meetings are regularly overstacked with items forcing critical discussions to be rushed and placed late in the meeting. We can easily cite several cases, one of the worst was discussion of the independent investigation of the Grand Jury report looking into the fire department, a discussion that began after midnight at a point at which the council could not adequately focus on the issues at hand.
Moreover, it is routine in this city for key documents, many of them lengthy to come forward without the council having a chance to review them adequately. So we saw in June, when the council did not receive the budget until a few hours before the meeting. The same day, the council only received a critical fire staffing report a few hours before the meeting. The council could not adequately go through hundreds of pages to be prepared under such conditions.
In the case of this project, we saw that the Planning Commission only saw the final EIR for this project, a document that was well over 200 pages, two days before the meeting was held. This was inexcusable and it harmed the process and it harmed everyone involved.
The truth is the city has to change the way it does business on this front and many others as we have discussed during the three-and-a-half years this blog has been in existence. The public that is paying close attention here is seeing what those of us who have been paying full attention for years have been seeing. Unfortunately, while Bob Dunning will focus on an issue like this and report on process, he does not follow the council closely enough to do so on a regular basis. Therefore, I implore people regardless of what side they are on to watch the way the city does business on all future issues and scrutinize it as closely as they have scrutinized the process for this project and subsequent ballot measure.
Growth
“The Yes on P side has stated that the Wildhorse Ranch project will set a new standard. Unfortunately, the standard they are setting is one in deceptive politics.”
The truth is in a political campaign, both side prevaricate and overplay their hand, trying to simplify complex issues into black and white. The 2000 homes argument is but one example that we will focus on.
The idea that there are 2000 homes is misleading at best and flat out untrue at worst.
Do not take my word for it, the Davis Enterprise which endorsed the No position on the measure agrees.
“We take issue with this 2,000 figure – after all, the 1,486 homes, townhouses and apartment units planned at West Village will be sold only to UCD faculty, staff and students.”
The Sacramento Bee which endorsed the project also takes issue with the figure:
“They say the Davis region already has more than 2,000 new housing units approved through 2013, including enough low-income units to satisfy state affordable housing targets. But those calculations include West Village, a housing development set to be built on university-owned land in Yolo County, not in the city of Davis. Moreover, the bulk of the new housing in West Village, more than 1,000 units, will be for students. The rest, 475 houses, will be available to university employees only.”
There are two problems with the figure. First, more than half of those 2000 units are student housing and another quarter is for university employees only. That leaves around 500 units in the city and available to non-university affiliated individuals.
But the Enterprise still makes a valid point:
“But that still leaves 541 homes approved but unbuilt in Davis, including the biggest project – 108 homes on Chiles Ranch near the Davis Cemetery – and others scattered throughout Mace Ranch, North Davis (Grande Avenue) and South Davis.”
That’s true, but the No on P side here clearly overstates the amount of growth.
I agree with the No on P side that in general we have enough housing. And so if there were housing for the sake of more housing, this would be DOA as far as I would be concerned.
The critical question comes down to a judgment call, at least from my perspective.
I’ll let the Davis Enterprise make the case:
THIS PROJECT in Northeast Davis proposed by developer Masud Monfared of Parlin Wildhorse follows in the hallowed footsteps of developer Mike Corbett’s Village Homes in West Davis.
Its 191 units would feature passive solar design and an innovative ‘Night Breeze’ cooling system developed by the Davis Energy Group. Smart meters would allow homeowners to monitor their energy usage 24/7. And each unit would have its own photovoltaic system, averaging 2.4 kW.
Pavement would be minimized, with narrow streets running through the compact development. Stormwater runoff would be cleaned by bioswales in greenbelts. More than 5 of the project’s 25 acres would be reserved for community gardens and an orchard where trees can reduce temperatures, capture and sequester carbon.
In short, it’s a well-thought-out, innovative project that would make Davis proud.
In the end of course, the Enterprise chose to decide that right now the market is not right for housing. It’s a curious argument to say the least.
I think Rich Rifkin makes the crucial point here against that view in his posted email to Debbie Davis, Editor of the Enterprise, regarding their editorial.
“I think [the analysis in the Editorial] ignores an important factor: the profit motive of developers. Just because Parlin or the other home-builders have been green-lighted does not mean that any of them will build a single unit. They will only construct a house if they believe there is a buyer for it at a price which will maximize their profits. If there are no buyers, the banks they depend on won’t lend to them, and the developers will wait for better market conditions.”
Bottom line, if there were simply another sprawl development, then approving this project now would make zero sense. The question for voters is whether the other features of the project–the sustainability, the relatively small project, and the accessibility features–make this a project that will enhance Davis. We will find out the answer to that tomorrow from the voter’s perspective.
Fiscal Impact
Proponents argue that the project pencils out on paper according to existing city models. Opponents argue that it is an artifact of a developer-friendly model and it only looks at a 15 year time horizon. I wish more people would have gone to subsequent Finance and Budget meetings where the model was discussed. It could obviously be improved.
Fact is that while I think there are legitimate points to be made on both sides, the fiscal impact of this project is largely irrelevant for one very simple reason–the fiscal impact of the city trumps by a very large margin.
The model, like most models, is sensitive to the assumptions. Opponents argue that the assumptions are unrealistic and overstate the fiscal benefits.
However, those assumptions are trumped by the fact that 71% of all costs are personnel costs–the cost it takes to employ city workers. Its impact trumps all others and the city assumes a 5% annual increase in personnel costs. Given the past performance, that is a realistic assumption. However, change that number to 4%, as they did in the sensitivity analysis and suddenly the outputs change drastically and the project goes from fiscally neutral over 15 years and a slight deficit after 15 years, to a healthy net positive.
Here’s the rub. According to my analysis, if the city of Davis does not fix its personnel costs to a far lower rate of increase the city will not be fiscally solvent. And we won’t be talking on the order of $67,000 per year, we’ll be talking in the millions per year. So the truth is that if this project does not pencil out fiscally in 15 years, it will be the least of our concerns.
Let us put this another way. From the analysis from Finance Director Paul Navazio, a 5% increase in personnel costs does lead to a deficit in 15 years for this project. A 4% increase however shifts that to a positive in 15 years for this project. However, a 5% increase in personnel costs across the city will lead to fiscal collapse in 15 years regardless of this project.
The biggest issue facing the city of Davis right now is not growth, it is fiscal. If we do not take strong measures to reduce the increase of personnel costs, including fixing the unfunded liabilities of retiree health care and the looming crisis of pensions along with increases to salary and benefits, we will have a fiscal calamity on our hands that rivals that of Vallejo.
The public is paying scant attention to this issue. The bottom line for the purposes of Wildhorse Ranch is that if we fix the city’s finances WHR will pan out fiscally beyond the 15 year time horizon. If we do not fix the city’s finances, it does not really matter, because the we will be adding the equivalent of a dripping pipe to raging floodwaters.
Conclusion
These are all issues that extend beyond the purview of this project and they must be addressed on November 4 and beyond regardless of what happens with this project. It is my hope that all of those people who have been involved in this particular campaign–whether they are on the Yes or the No side, remain engaged. If these issues are the ones that are important to you, then you cannot stop just because this project is no longer facing the voters.
My fear though is that people get heavily involved in these issues when there is a specific project facing them, but they ignore them when they are in the background. And that is why the city continues to operate as it does. Complacency serves no one’s purpose here. When citizens are asleep at the wheel and the bus is about to go over the cliff, as has been the case in council meetings over the last year, waking up to realize that the city is insolvent due to unfunded liabilities will be like trying to wake up from a nightmare.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“THIS PROJECT in Northeast Davis proposed by developer Masud Monfared of Parlin Wildhorse follows in the hallowed footsteps of developer Mike Corbett’s Village Homes in West Davis…”
Mike Corbett stopped by to chat with us at the NO on P station at last Saturday’s Farmer’s Market. He spontaneously offered the fact that he was AFFRONTED by the Yes on P proponent’s suggestion that the WHR project was somehow similar in development principles to his Village Homes.
That’s funny. He didn’t seem to have a problem when Covell Village was compared to Village Homes. For a smart guy, you can be naive, the Whitcombe-Souza segment of the development community is opposing this project because they are afraid it will raise the bar too high and it will preclude Covell Village from coming forward. That you would buy into what Corbett told you without scrutiny or questioning his motives, speaks toward your own narrow perspective.
The biggest issue facing the city of Davis right now is not growth, it is fiscal. If we do not take strong measures to reduce the increase of personnel costs, including fixing the unfunded liabilities of retiree health care and the looming crisis of pensions along with increases to salary and benefits, we will have a fiscal calamity on our hands that rivals that of Vallejo.
Bingo. As a related aside, I think we should all contact Congress about the same for Cap and Trade, and Obamacare. Sometimes we cannot afford the glorious change being proposed.
I wish it were a different fiscal time, because there are plenty of things to like about this project (regardless of Mike Corbett’s rejection to the comparison to Village Homes). Also, I hate the growing label that Davis is just a bunch of greedy and stingy NIMBYs (“don’t touch my property values and maintain my limited shopping alternatives!”). It is a tyranny of the majority at some level.
However, I agree with David’s point that we cannot accept any project that costs the city, or even puts upward fiscal pressure on our unbalanced balance sheet. We need to get our fiscal house in order before we order more houses. I also think that the Covell Village development, combined with the state fiscal malaise, makes it just bad timing in general.
“I think we should all contact Congress about the same for Cap and Trade, and Obamacare.”
Healthcare comment is a red herring unless you oppose doing anything to change the current healthcare system. There are several ideas floating around Congress. It isn’t clear what the final outcome will be, but it does seem likely that something will pass.
Cap & trade seems to be about the most palatable remedy that conservatives would accept to limit the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
I’ve never gotten an answer to how much Obama’s healthcare plan would save the city, but it would not be trivial. It would wipe out a good portion of that $42 million unfunded liability.
You quote the Davis Enterprise as saying “”We take issue with this 2,000 figure – after all, the 1,486 homes, townhouses and apartment units planned at West Village will be sold only to UCD faculty, staff and students.”
But that’s a terribly naive analysis. People connected to the university, students and faculty, will reside in those 1,486 units. In many cases, these are people who would otherwise be seeking housing in Davis proper. It adds to the area’s housing stock and certainly ought to be counted in any assessment of housing needs in our areas. And it represents growth–it will certainly have an impact on city parking, traffic and pollution.
I disagree Paul. I can see the point with regards to the faculty housing, but on-campus student housing? If anything it will decrease traffic and pollution because people will be able to walk or bike to class and work rather than have to drive to campus from out of town.
I have been advocating for a long time that the university add 5000 student houses on campus, I don’t see that in any way, shape or form, equivalent to adding 5000 homes in the city of Davis. I just don’t.
I’ve never gotten an answer to how much Obama’s healthcare plan would save the city, but it would not be trivial. It would wipe out a good portion of that $42 million unfunded liability.
That is a very large unknown, and offset by the risks that Obamacare will increase healthcare costs in the long run, and also increase states’ share of federal taxation to fund it. CA outflows to the fed exceed fed inflows to the state. Therefore, any increase in overall fed taxation will cause a disproportionate drain on CA tax dollars. Obamacare might serve Davis well, but it would just shift costs to the state or federal budgets which are also in dire straits.
Cap and Trade is a job-killer at a time when we need jobs more than we need less greenhouse gas. Besides, teaching cows better table manners would likely have a greater impact. More seriously, the free market will do more to reduce greenhouse emissions because of the high cost of conventional energy and technological advances for alternative energy. We do not need Cap and Trade… it is another unnecessary feel-good tax at a time when we cannot afford it.
David,
It’s good to see you’re putting your spin on things all the way up to the end. The first thing I noticed was that the Yes on P closing argument still appears under “Today’s Headlines,” but not the No on P closing argument.
Second, I find it interesting that you say the “2000 homes is misleading at best and flat untrue at worst.” In our ballot statements, op-ed pieces, brochures, and closing argument, we have consistently said that this includes both the City of Davis and UC Davis’ West Village. We have also given the exact breakdowns of where these units are. Bob Dunning wrote that “it’s pretty much indisputable that 2,000 homes have been approved, but not yet built, in the Davis market.” There’s nothing “flat untrue” about this. The Sacramento Area Council of Governments includes UC Davis and West Village in the “Davis Planning Area.” Bob Dunning also correctly concludes that since “a substantial number of the folks living in Davis are UCD faculty, staff or students, to say these 1,500 homes [at West Village] won’t considerably soften the local housing market is folly.”
Also, the biggest lie in this campaign is the $4 million net fiscal benefit claim by Parlin. The is “flat untrue,” but not once during this entire campaign did you say this on your blog.
Finally, I don’t know why you’re only focusing on the personnel costs assumption of the model. There is also a revenue side of the model that makes even more suspect assumptions than on the cost side. If costs are increasing at 5 percent per year, or 4 percent per year, then revenues have to be increasing by the same amount for “fiscal neutrality.” The model assumes that 14.3 percent of houses sell each year. This has never happened, not even the boom years. This is important because housing needs to turn over rapidly to have it reassessed at market rates. If houses don’t turnover rapidly, then property taxes increase at 2 percent per year (because of Prop 13), yet costs increase much faster.
Sure, the students who live on campus represent less pollution and congestion than if they lived in town. But surely they will have a net impact on city services and it’s fair to include the university project in an analysis of the city’s need for growth. And is the university going to keep the students from having cars? I’d argue further that all that housing along Pole Line in Woodland ought to be considered as well–many of those folks are going to be driving into Davis for work and entertainment.
[quote] the free market will do more to reduce greenhouse emissions because of the high cost of conventional energy and technological advances for alternative energy.[/quote]This is not true, today (and won’t be true for decades, if ever). The internal costs of generating electricity from gas or coal are on the order of 1/3rd as much as solar. Wind is cost-competitive, but wind is very limited and problematic*.
However, burning fossil fuels creates [i]external[/i] costs, and hence involves what economists call a market failure. As such, “the free market” won’t solve this problem without an external actor, government, forcing private concerns to internalize the costs they are imposing on third parties. The best and most efficient economic answer to this is probably a tax on CO2 emissions. Except in the case of small producers and small consumers, it works better than a cap-and-trade system and produces the results (i.e., internalizing the costs) you want.
Also, an effluent tax has another much bigger advantage: it gives producers of effluents an strong incentive to devise technologies which capture the pollution they are creating. For the next 50 years or more, coal will likely be the world’s leading source of power generation. If it were taxed properly, coal companies would have a great incentive to figure out how all of the carbon they are dumping into the atmosphere could be sequestered.
*From Wiki: “Wind farms are highly subject to lightning strikes, have high mechanical fatigue failure, are limited in size by hub stress, do not function well, if at all, under conditions of heavy rain, icing conditions or very cold climates, and are noisy and cannot be insulated for sound reduction due to their size and subsequent loss of wind velocity and power.” The other big problem with wind farms is that they tend to be quite remote, and the transportation of the electricity they generate ends up losing a lot of the power.
“the free market will do more to reduce greenhouse emissions because of the high cost of conventional energy and technological advances for alternative energy.”
The free market helped to get us to this point; in this case I don’t think the free market will necessarily provide the solution to this issue, because free markets respond more readily on the short term. This is more of a long term, slow-increment problem.
What happens if Exxon or some other oil company devises a cheap way to extract petroleum from shale before we develop sources of “green” energy that are even cheaper? Then the free market would dictate going to the cheaper carbon-based energy source and add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Paul: “But surely they will have a net impact on city services and it’s fair to include the university project in an analysis of the city’s need for growth.”
The university’s development is taking place outside of city limits, so I think that the City of Davis is not responsible for providing city services to those residents; the university is.
David wrote:
“Bottom line, if there were simply another sprawl development, then approving this project now would make zero sense. The question for voters is whether the other features of the project–the sustainability, the relatively small project, and the accessibility features–make this a project that will enhance Davis. We will find out the answer to that tomorrow from the voter’s perspective.”
That we will..if P loses (as many are predicting it will), the voters will clearly have said that more housing is unnecessary now, and no matter how “green” or how “affordable” the claims were, it is still MORE HOUSING!
If P wins, then voters will have agreed with your point of view regarding a “small project with features” makes sense for future growth.
However, the interesting thing to watch is your spin cycle tomorrow and in the coming days regarding the outcome of the election…
If P loses, will the blames be on the developer for wanting a Nov election instead of a later election (in June), [although we saw in earlier blogs that this was not “rushed” as the developer has been waiting since CV defeat for his “chance”]
OR if P wins, will we hear how brilliant Yes on P campaign was run by Bill Ritter, including the amazing job he did in securing the Sierra Club’s endorsement?
And will the feuds with Dunning and you cease? If we win, I can tell you that Dunning’s pieces attacking the Yes on P campaign were fueled in no small part by your stories about him (so if we win today, I say THANK YOU VERY MUCH David for attacking Dunning, it was FREE PRESS for us!)
Lastly, if we win, it shows that grass roots politics can still win in Davis, despite being outspent almost 50:1! with paid local camapign politicos hired by the developer,and countless full page ads and color brochures, and daily ads on your site, Enterprise web site. Isn’t this what Measure J is all about? It gives political novices like us the chance to fight well-heeled developers!
After the election, we will all take much needed rest, but look forward to your political punditry of the outcome…
David Greenwald: I agree with Mark Siegler’s comment above. You have continually spun your articles in favor of not just this development, but of development in general.
You dismiss the huge housing subdivision built by the University, our largest employer, for University employees and students. David, all housing in Davis excludes many people, but we still count it. We count affordable housing that excludes higher income people, we count expensive housing, which excludes low income people, we count fraternity and sorority houses which excludes those who aren’t voted to be able to join.
If anything, the University housing should count MORE, not less, because it will serve internally generated needs, while housing built on the periphery tends to serve commuters.
It is understandable that the developer camp will try to under count approved housing.
It is also understandable that the developer camp will say that the fiscal impact of new development doesn’t count because other factors have an even worse impact on our structural deficit.
Your arguments have a familiar ring to anyone who has worked on a campaign against a development.
Greg:
I find your comments amusing. Please don’t take it the wrong way when I say amusing, it is not meant as a put down.
If you read this article carefully I have already mapped out what will be written tomorrow win or lose. If you believe it will be written about the campaigns, you will be disappointed.
What you need to remember is that this is not the end of story for me. The outcome tonight is but one piece, one move on the chessboard. And I will be thinking ahead to the next moves in the coming six months which are far more important to me than this election.
What you should have taken out of this piece is that I laid out my agenda for the next six months focusing on process (city staff and council), growth, and the city budget.
I find it interesting that Sue sees in my arguments, the arguments for growth. She didn’t read between the lines nearly enough.
What happens if Exxon or some other oil company devises a cheap way to extract petroleum from shale before we develop sources of “green” energy that are even cheaper? Then the free market would dictate going to the cheaper carbon-based energy source and add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere
Good question, and there is that chance since the US has very large reserves of oil shale and scientists are working to develop an efficient way to mine it and extract the oil from it. However, from what I read the best-case scenario (given the mining costs) require a $150 per barrel oil cost… with a future that may allow it to break even at $100 per barrel. At this level, alternative energy is still competitive and growing more competitive every day. You also need to factor in other consumer buying habits and demands… hybrid cars and solar panels are all the rage.
For me, this is a classic carrot and stick argument. Cap and Trade is a government-wielded stick (tax) to punish higher energy users as a way to incentivize energy-saving behavior. Make rules and people are incentivized to break them… or find ways around them. All controlling entities are better served finding ways to leverage the nature of consumers/customers. Fund programs to provide financial assistance to companies and universities working to develop new energy-saving technologies. These are temporary funding projects that will have a return. Provide tax credits as a “carrot” to help spur the consumer interest and acceptance. With a little indirect help, the market will do a much better job solving this problem than government can do with a direct approach. Also, Cap and Trade will cause job loss at a time when we cannot afford it. It looks like it is going down for this reason.
However, burning fossil fuels creates external costs, and hence involves what economists call a market failure. As such, “the free market” won’t solve this problem without an external actor, government, forcing private concerns to internalize the costs they are imposing on third parties. The best and most efficient economic answer to this is probably a tax on CO2 emissions. Except in the case of small producers and small consumers, it works better than a cap-and-trade system and produces the results (i.e., internalizing the costs) you want.
Don’t you have concerns about job loss resulting from this approach? You about the costs imposed on third parties resulting from the unemployed?
It reminds me of a scenario where the ehaust from the farmer’s tractor is bothering the neighbor, so he complains and government steps in and tells the farmer he has to pay an extra tax as a negative incentive to get him to reduce the tractor exhaust. So, the farmer sells half his land and fires half his workforce so he doesn’t have to pay the tax. The neighbor is happy until his tax is increased to pay for all unemployed farm workers.
In this case, wouldn’t it be nice if the farmer could purchase a hybrid tractor and keep all his land and his employees?
Lets all go out and vote and work for a better Davis in the future.
And David: Not counting UC Davis housing is silly…and as has been pointed out again and again all of our literature makes it clear that we count university housing so that those who are inclined not to count it can disagree…can the other side say the same thing?
And if UC Davis is not part of our “workforce,” who is? And who pushes up the price of all those rental units making them more expensive so that low income families cannot afford to rent in Davis. (Econ 101 answer–students push the demand up and therefore the price.)
[i]It reminds me of a scenario where the exhaust from the farmer’s tractor is bothering the neighbor[/i]
There are some things that simply bother the “neighbors” a little too much. Hydraulic mining in California, leaded gasoline, selling napalm without a permit, going to school with measles, etc. It would be nice if kerfuffles like these could be solved without the big bad government. Or if the government has to get involved, strictly with carrots and no sticks. Unfortunately, no one has figured out a way to do that.
And you can add to that list of issues, stripping the Arctic ice cap and permanently changing the Earth’s albedo.
David: [i]If there is one thing I agree with Bob Dunning on, it is that everyone regardless of the side that they are on, will be happy when Measure P is over.[/i]
It’s a relief that you agree with him on something! I don’t really have much opinion about Bob Dunning one way or the other. But after reading the Davis Vanguard, I started wonder whether he is the worst man in Davis.
Phil: [i]Lets all go out and vote and work for a better Davis in the future.[/i]
Better how? I thought that the goal was to keep Davis the same. That’s what the bumper stickers say.
2cowherd to Phil –
This has been the most vicious and nasty campaign that I can remember.
And you think it is going to cause us to all go out and work for a better Davis?
[quote]Don’t you have concerns about job loss resulting from this approach? You about the costs imposed on third parties resulting from the unemployed? [/quote] No, the far greater losses to an economy are created by an inefficient allocation of resources. That is just what happens when first and second party actors fail to internalize the costs they generate. In the case of effluents, it leads to overconsumption and overproduction. I am not suggesting that you want to have a CO2 tax which is designed to bring ruin to all carbon-based fuels. You want to have a tax which makes effluent producers (or consumers of that production) make rational choices based on real costs.
And you can add to that list of issues, stripping the Arctic ice cap and permanently changing the Earth’s albedo.
I think I read that the seasons of the sun cause increased atmospheric water vapor and this also contributes to the greenhouse effect. Maybe we should tax the sun too!
Hydraulic mining in California, leaded gasoline, selling napalm without a permit, going to school with measles, etc.
I know. Damn Darwinism… humans should have never formed from that primordial ooze and developed opposable thumbs and ambition. Left in our more ape-like form, we would have not been able to destroy the planet. Also, we would have remained more political correct as all animals except the human animal are beyond reproach.
[i]Maybe we should tax the sun too![/i]
We’ve been here before. Hydraulic mining in California (without sediment retention) was banned because it caused flooding. It is also true that rain causes flooding, but we can’t ban or tax rain. Life is just a paradox that way.
[i]Left in our more ape-like form, we would have not been able to destroy the planet.[/i]
In the physical sense, we still can’t destroy the planet. The planet will still be around in some form. There will still even be life on the planet no matter what we do, of some kind.
What we might do is damage our interests. If we change the earth’s albedo and eventually melt Greenland and Antarctica, we’re not going to be very happy with ourselves at all.
Opposable thumbs don’t have anything to do with it. There are many animals who harm their own interests; the difference is that humans sometimes realize it and take corrective action.
No, the far greater losses to an economy are created by an inefficient allocation of resources.
So if I understand your thinking here, it is unfair that some industries or some companies within industries emit more carbon and do not have to pay for the damage it costs. Three problems: One – we don’t know what the damage costs… we can only wild-ass-guess. Two – about half the population now disagrees with the Al Gore theory of human-caused global warming. Three – there is absolutely no example you can provide that proves taxing an activity makes anything more efficient except government spending.
Really, this “inefficient allocation of resources” is a half-baked argument, because it fails to consider ALL cost-benefits derived. Two factories making shoes… one emits more carbon. You say tax the one emitting more carbon should be taxed more. What about efficiency per shoe, per employee, per stockholder equity, per ???? What about the fact that the higher-carbon emitting factory employs more workers (maybe accepting less efficiency for moral and altruistic reasons to providing jobs.) What about the fact that one makes better shoes, therefore lasting longer, and therefore reducing consumption which reduces the energy required to keep the population in shoes?
Technocrats think they are smart enough to solve all the difficult problems with direct controls. All they seem to do is cause unintended consequences that guarantees their job security for the next smarty-pants solution.
It is the fear of this legislation impacting jobs that appears to be causing it to crash and burn.
“I thought that the goal was to keep Davis the same. That’s what the bumper stickers say.”
I prefer the bumper stickers that say, “Keep Davis Boring”
“That’s funny. He didn’t seem to have a problem when Covell Village was compared to Village Homes. For a smart guy, you can be naive…”
Mike Corbett had publicly stated( in the Enterprise before he signed his contract to work for Whitecombe) that he had serious reservations about the traffic issues that Covell Village would present. He obviously set these reservations aside for self-interest, not a terribly unusual phenomenon for mere mortals. Since there is no reason to assume that he will be hired again as the cheerleader for Whitcombe’s sun-city project(it certainly didn’t work the first time), I take his statement as much more credible.
Re: Process – if Parlin had not agreed to pay the full costs of the election would the City Council have put this item on the Nov. ballot? Now elections are a commodity to be bought by the highest bidder. Certainly no local community group could afford to do so.
D2: The point wasn’t about whether Covell Village had traffic impacts, the point was very specific to your comment about him being taken aback by claims about WHR and its sustainability features when he was perfectly content to allow such claims to be made about Covell Village.
Nancy: Isn’t that just another fiscal impact that needed to be mitigated?
[quote]So if I understand your thinking here, it is unfair that some industries or some companies within industries emit more carbon and do not have to pay for the damage it costs.[/quote]No. You don’t understand. The problem is not what some companies do vis-a-vis other companies. The problem is that the market doesn’t price in effluents, and thus effluent producers don’t internalize these costs that they are generating. (This is not in the least bit a controversial notion among microeconomists. I learned it from Milton Friedman, not exactly a left-winger.) By not internalizing their costs, they consume resources inefficiently. [quote] Three problems: One – we don’t know what the damage costs… we can only wild-ass-guess. [/quote] That is a problem in dollar terms. However, we know from climatology that this externality is not costless. So saying (as you are) that the effluent tax should be zero because it’s hard to know what the exact price should be is inherently wrong. The price must be something greater than zero. But setting the price is not really the hard problem in this matter. The hard problem is efficiently and universally collecting the tax. It’s obviously not desirable to create black markets in carbon tax avoidance. And when there are literally millions of producers (as there are with car drivers) the cost of collecting a tax on CO2 emissions can be higher than the benefit of doing so. (That is one of the reasons why we require catalytic converters on cars. Measuring actual amounts of pollution per vehicle would be far too costly.) [quote] Two – about half the population now disagrees with the Al Gore theory of human-caused global warming. [/quote] About half of all Americans likewise think the Earth is roughly 6,000 years old and that, poof, humans just appeared one day when a magic fairy man they call god invented Adam out of whole cloth. Believing in fairy tales does not make them true. We live in a relatively scientifically literate community in Davis. I would hope no one would be so dumb as to appeal to the popularity of stupid opinions not based on science to justify their beliefs about carbon build-up in our atsmosphere. [quote] Three – there is absolutely no example you can provide that proves taxing an activity makes anything more efficient except government spending. [/quote] You are starting from the mistaken premise that when an industry externalizes its costs the industry is acting efficiently. You just have no idea how wrong you are. And you are ignorant, apparently, with effective effluent tax schemes. See for example, Barde and Smith (1997) regarding a Dutch tax used to control water and industrial pollution. I don’t know of any recent academic analyses of them, but Chile (guided by University of Chicago economists) also is well known for using effluent taxes. [quote] [quote] It is the fear of this legislation impacting jobs that appears to be causing it to crash and burn. [/quote] More likely it has to do with who is funding the campaigns of those who will vote. Money talks, bull[s]shit[/] walks.
Rich, I understand a little about effluent taxes. I think the theory was invented by environmentalists as a pseudo market-based scheme to primarily to back government command and control over water pollution, and to generate tax revenue for water infrastructure projects. Before I get into why I think this has not and does not work, please note that I am as demanding as most sane environmentalists about keeping our planet as pristine as possible. I spend much of my free time up around Lassen National Park precisely because I can breathe fresh air and enjoy the majesty of nature.
However, the timber industry was once a big deal up in that area until the environmentalists decided that logging was a bad thing. The consequence has been much more economically-depressed mountain communities (and more fuel for fires that now consume more acreage). There is a need for balance. Mining, logging, manufacturing all make scars on mother earth, but until we replace the jobs that are lost by these industries, we unfairly burden (e.g., tax) the people reliant on them with more tax and regulation.
I think you and others need to dig deeper into yourself to understand the anger projected at corporate America and the damage it causes us as a society. The business regulatory burden is already extremely high. Taxes are already extremely high. We do not have enough jobs. Every additional regulation and tax results in more lost jobs. I really don’t know what a modern-day environmentalist’s end game looks like. Is it a vision of people living in tents, growing their own food with natural fertilizer on communal land? Or, it is a vision of more and more public-sector jobs needed to administer all the new programs and regulations and funded by the increased taxes. The problem with the second vision is that government cannot fund itself. The problem with the first vision is that it is stupid.
Here is a quote from an article “Water Pollution Taxes: A Good Idea Doomed to Failure?” by James Boyd:
[quote]Depending on the type of system imposed, taxes do not guarantee more efficient outcomes than more standard forms of regulation. And, leaving politics aside, it can be institutionally demanding to put in place a system of effluent fees guaranteed to produce markedly better outcomes than more conventional systems of regulation.[/quote]
Another quote:
[quote]In the words of Bohm and Russell, “the polluter’s ability to choose how to react to a charge, the heart of the economist’s efficiency case, is also the heart of the environmentalist’s opposition.”[/quote]
These are my points: there are too many variables and too many moving pieces and businesses will not usually act as the technocrats expect them to act. They will find ways to minimize their taxes without actually lowering their pollution footprint. Or, lacking any magic bullet, or investment capital to improve or retrofit their plant and equipment, they will shrink their operation until the business model pencils out again… or they will go out of business all together.
Cap and Trade is the complete opposite of what we need right now. We should be reducing taxes and regulations to get more people working so tax revenues increase and we can undertake big infrastructure projects, and invest in technologies that can be exploited to lessen the impact on mother earth.
[quote]I understand a little about effluent taxes. I think the theory was invented by environmentalists as a pseudo market-based scheme to primarily to back government command and control over water pollution, and to generate tax revenue for water infrastructure projects. [/quote] I’m not sure who was the first to think of employing an externality tax to internalize the costs of polluting, but I would presume it was economists, not “environmentalists” of the Sierra Club or Ralph Nader type.
Given the choice between a regulatory scheme — say one where it says, “Mr. Smoke Producer, you must install this piece of equipment on your smokestack or we will fine you and take away your license to operate” and one which says, “Mr. Smoke Producer, you can use whatever equipment you like or no equipment at all to capture your pollution. However, the more pollution you exaust, the higher your tax payments to the commonweal will be” — any market-oriented economist* would choose the latter.
The former strategy — the one commonly used in the U.S. — is the regulatory approach. It has some benefits, in that, once the regulatory equipment is installed, the costs of managing pollution are quite low.
The latter strategy, however, has much greater potential long-term efficiency gains. Economists understand that enterprises of all sorts are always trying to reduce unnecessary costs. And paying a pollution tax is a cost no one wants to pay. So businesses in a market-based scheme (which is what an effluent tax is) will have a strong incentive to invent or purchase new technologies that capture pollutants.
The regulatory approach does not have this advantage. It tends to be stagnant. Enterprises just do what they have to do to meet the legal requirements. They have no dynamic incentive to put out less pollution. [quote]I think [b]you and others need to dig deeper into yourself[/b] to understand the anger projected at corporate America and the damage it causes us as a society. [/quote] When have I ever projected anger at corporate America, Jeff? You must have me confused with someone else. [quote]Taxes are already extremely high. [/quote] You can have a revenue neutral effluent tax, then.[quote]Cap and Trade is the complete opposite of what we need right now. [/quote] I have never advocated cap and trade.
———
*Maybe 90-95% of American professional economists are market-oriented, free trade advocates. Some of them are on the left in various respects, but not when it comes to using a price mechanism to let markets clear. The other 5-10% (all academics) fall into the socialist/neo-Marxist realm, but they have no influence at all on orthodox thinking, other than asking good and tough questions regarding the presumptions of the classical liberal theory.
Yolo Elections Office has Measure P losing by almost 3 to 1. With this vote, I think that slow growth in Davis has become hell-no growth.
But with 0% precincts reporting? Huh?
Just got back from the County Elections office, only the mail-in ballots were counted, but the guy there estimated there were only 4000 votes cast today versus the 6100 that were mailed in. So this one is over, and it’s a blow out.
[i]My comments reflect the early returns. If by some miracle this thing turns around, I’ll eat my hat (which is made out of popcorn):[/i]
If a campaign were judged by its marginal effectiveness, where it got points for adding extra votes to its side above and beyond a base it started out with, it looks like the Yes on P campaign could be among the worst in the history of Davis*. It got no points at all. That’s not a smart way to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I don’t think Parlin would have had one vote less had it never sent out a single mailer. It might have even had more votes, had it not spent a penny (beyond the costs the county charged it for the special election). Whoever managed that campaign does not understand a thing about how to win a vote in Davis.
Does anyone think at this point the decision to lie in the ballot statement about the $4 million was a good one?
While I voted yes, I don’t know anyone who changed from no to yes, not voting to voting yes, or unsure to voting yes upon reading the vast number of mailers, seeing the TV commercials, getting phone calls from paid staff or listening to the hype from the Paid Porch Pals.
The entire effect of that campaign, starting with the decision to have the vote today (when even their construction calendar would have allowed it to take place 6 months or a year or longer from now), repelled voters. I spoke with maybe 10 or so strangers and another 10 friends over the past two weeks who told me they were “disgusted” by the extravagant spending on this election. (A lot of people thought the taxpayers were putting up the money for the election expense.)
The biggest factor working against Parlin is the dreary state of our housing market. Voters in general don’t want to add more homes in a down economy. They were voting what they believed was their self-interest.
But Parlin should have understood that when they rushed this vote onto the ballot a few months ago. Did any of their highly paid consultants not understand how stupid that decision was?
Moreover, how stupid do you have to be to hold an election with nothing else on the ballot, so the vast majority of voters are the ones who have a passionate position on the question? All of the passion was on the No side, drawing from the neighbors and from the large anti-growth faction in town.
*Yes on X (Covell Village) would have to be rated even worse, considering how much money they spent in order to lose by 20%.
[url]http://www.yoloelections.org/returns/davis.html[/url]
Wow!
No same-sex marriage in Maine.
I think you and others need to dig deeper into yourself to understand the anger projected at corporate America and the damage it causes us as a society.
When have I ever projected anger at corporate America, Jeff? You must have me confused with someone else.
Rich, sorry. That was an unintended harsh statement I made. I get a bit passionate about the loss of jobs in this state and country, and think too many liberal policy-makers kowtow to environmentalists at the expense of too many people losing jobs. These are generally people that lack alternative means of employment. We destroy lives by taking away the opportunity for people to earn a living. The environmentalist’s focus (and a lot of it looks like anger to me) is on the corporations which have been Demonized by the left and the press beyond any rational sense. These people, I think, actually hate capitalism and believe we are better off with socialism. The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
Cap and Trade, effluent taxes… or any other additional government mandated cost to business results in fewer jobs. We are a society that only functions well with robust economic activity. You want to see the environment go to hell… continue to put more US citizens out of work. Poor people generally do not give a shit about the environment since it so far up their hierarchy of needs.
Mark siegler shouldn’t talk about spin, isn’t he the one that wrote the no on p closing argument? there was a blatant lie in that article that claimed that the low income units were going to cost the city of davis 80k per unit….lies lies lies.
sue green wald. if you believe in low income housing so much, how much did you buy your rental unit for, and how much do you rent it out for?
Melanie,
You’ve completely misunderstood our closing argument. I never said that the affordable apartments were going to cost the city $80K. What we wrote was:
[quote]We agree that if the City had to pay $85,000 per low-income rental apartment in Wildhorse Ranch, then the project would have an additional deficit of $3.2 million (38 low-income units * $85,000 per unit). Since the City doesn’t have to pay this subsidy, there is no $3.2 million deficit, but to include this “savings” on the positive side of the ledger is double-counting at the very least. The City doesn’t have to pay any subsidies whether the project is built or not. [/quote]