Water fees should launch revolution
It is time to throw some tea into the harbor again. The last time, we got a revolution and independence. The issue then was taxation without representation, a problem that still haunts us today in California.
Two weeks ago our region took a $1 billion hit. Not from the weather or a foreign invasion, but from new taxes ---- dressed up as fees and regulations. All imposed by people at the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board who never ---- not even once ---- have stood in front of their fellow citizens in an election and said we need to impose a billion dollars in new taxes to control stormwater runoff.
Best case, their treatment scheme promises only marginal benefits to the environment. It does nothing about the billions of gallons of raw and partially treated sewage that enter our waters every year from Tijuana and local sewage outfalls. Nor does it do anything about agricultural chemicals in stormwater because farmers and flower growers who build new nurseries are exempt. A local nursery executive who sits on the water board made sure of that.
But these minimonarchs don't care about that. In theory, these folks are supposed to work for the governor ---- after all, he appointed them ---- presumably because they believe in his program of no new taxes, economic growth and sanity in government. We just settled all that in an election. Perhaps they were too busy to pay attention.
They are not alone.
In Carlsbad, the California Coastal Commission turned a $10 million golf course into a $60 million white elephant ---- which will be subsidized forever by taxpayers.
North County is littered with other costly examples of roads, schools, homes and public facilities that cost two and three ---- even 10 ---- times what they should have cost because of Coastal Commission interference. Sara Wan, former Coastal Commission chair from Malibu, was once asked about this seemingly imperial process. The commission had to act that way, she said, because the Coastal Commission not only knew more about what was good, but local officials were also corrupt and could not be trusted.
But now the Regional Water Quality Control Board is raising the ante. They are not only foisting costly, ineffective new rules on us, they are forcing cities to hire an entire army of water cops to make at least 8,000 inspections every year. Without our consent. With no cost-benefit analysis. No environmental impact report. No proven benefits. Just the whims of five unelected, unknown political nominees. All appointed by someone who promised to do no such thing.
These regulations went into force after the water board scorned the pleas from citizens, business leaders and local politicians who have actually been voted into office. In a scene reminiscent of the 18th century, mayors and city council members begged the board not to proceed, not unless the water board could also come up with the money to pay for their scheme.
The board dismissed these pleas with imperial impunity ---- replacing our founders' hope for representative democracy with an even older political philosophy: It is better to be feared than loved.
-- Michael D. Pattinson, a freelance columnist for the North County Times, is president of Barratt American, a builder based in Carlsbad, and past president of the California Building Industry Association.