PROMISES, PROMISES: FEDS FAILING VICTIMS OF WINTER FIRESTORMS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“PROMISES, PROMISES: FEDS FAILING VICTIMS OF WINTER FIRESTORMS”

 

So far, the federal government is in large part failing the victims of the firestorms that swept through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas of Los Angeles County last January.

 

Things are not the way President Trump said things would be. “We’re going to have you go very quickly,” he promised the fire victims at a press conference staged with Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass while the ashes of the Palisades fire still smoked nearby.

 

That’s in part because Trump and other Republicans have linked any substantial aid package to political preconditions, an unprecedented attempt to leverage a major disaster against ideological opponents. Among those goals, thus far resisted by state officials, are changes in water management policies to disregard most endangered species and adopting voter ID laws, a longtime Republican goal.

 

So much for the American tradition of non-partisan disaster relief.

 

There’s also Trump’s concerted attempt to downsize and virtually eliminate FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has taken charge of disaster aftermath measures in virtually all wildfire or hurricane disasters of the last several decades.

 

Trump wants to farm out FEMA’s work to the states and provide far less disaster relief funding than in previous episodes.

 

That’s not the spoken reason FEMA refuses to perform analyses of toxic substances in the topsoil remaining on burned-out lots in both the Palisades and Eaton fire footprints, saying only that the scraping of top layers of each lot by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gives sufficient protection from toxics. Recent soil testing by Los Angeles County officials found elevated lead and arsenic levels at destroyed homes already cleared by Army crews in Altadena, but FEMA officials maintain removing wildfire debris and up to six inches of topsoil is good enough to eliminate immediate public health risks.

 

But what about burned-out homeowners, virtually none of whom is getting toxics-testing funding as part of their homeowner insurance settlements? They have little or no money for testing, one reason only about 200 rebuilding permits had been taken out in the Palisades fire area as of late May.

 

The most common suggestion among researchers and fire victims is for the state to step in where FEMA refuses. But Newsom faces a $12 billion state budget deficit. Every dollar spent on toxics testing for homeowners could be a dollar taken from everything from public schools to state parks to sewer and highway maintenance. So state aid is not likely, especially since the Palisades fire area was previously among the state’s wealthiest enclaves, with an abundance of $3 million-plus home valuations.

 

And yet, who’s going to pull a building permit and stand by while framing of their future home rises from the ashes if they have reason to believe those ashes might somehow poison them?

 

Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University professor and researcher on post-wildfire contamination, told a reporter that comprehensive soil testing is critical for the affected areas’ future health and safety.

 

Newsom at one point asked FEMA to perform detailed tests, but said his request was nixed less than a day after it was posed.

 

It’s been similar for him on Capitol Hill forays to seek $40 billion in general disaster relief for the winter fires. So far, not a penny has cleared the Republican-led Congress.

 

Los Angeles County, meanwhile, did step up in unincorporated Altadena, providing $3 million for soil testing for homeowners downwind of the Eaton fire. But Whelton said that effort – with homeowners submitting one sample to a commercial lab and then having to interpret data on their own – will not provide reliable risk analysis even for people wanting to return to homes that did not burn.

 

Even that effort has not been matched by the city of Los Angeles, of which Pacific Palisades is part. The city now is battling a billion-dollar-plus budget deficit of its own.

 

It adds up to colossal disappointment for all but the wealthiest, who can fund their own testing and analysis, and suggests recovery from the winter fires might not only be far slower than Trump promised, but also slower than after previous major California wildfires, with even worse performances likely after fires yet to come.

 

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

 

THE KEY QUESTION FOR KAMALA HARRIS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“THE KEY QUESTION FOR KAMALA HARRIS”

 

The polls show Kamala Harris holds the approval of about 50 percent of California voters as she heads into a self-assigned summer of decision making about her political future.

 

Does the former vice president who lost last year’s election by just 1.6 percent of the popular vote want to give up on the possibility of succeeding Donald Trump as president? Is she ready to deal with all the detailed and complex issues that constantly confront any California governor? Can she raise the $100 million or so minimum needed to be a credible candidate for governor?

 

These are just some of the items on Harris’ mind as she disapprovingly watches Trump run the government in a confrontational manner completely foreign to her.

 

But she knows that if she does not run for president in 2028, she will forfeit any advantage she would possess as a barely beaten candidate last time out, one whose defeat now has many 2024 Trump voters feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse.

 

She also knows that if she goes for governor, she will have to promise to serve out a full term in that office should she win. Reneging on that pledge would likely doom her in any presidential primary election, tagging her as a non-promise keeper. But keeping such a pledge also takes her out of the 2028 presidential running.

 

It's a rare quandary no previous California Democrat has faced. The huge question for Harris: Does she care enough about the details of California issues from electric vehicle mandates to Medi-Cal for the undocumented to give up on her national ambitions, at least for most of her 60s? (Harris will be 63 on Election Day 2026.)

 

For sure, Harris bears the image of a surfacy politician. Rivals also blame her for failing to disclose just how disabled ex-President Joe Biden became. Few can name salient achievements of either her six years as state attorney general or her four years as Biden’s No. 2.

 

Some of those are substantial: During the fiscal crisis of 2009-2012, when many thousands of mortgages were threatened with foreclosure, she leveraged California’s sheer size to jump the state’s share of a 2012 national mortgage settlement up from an initial top offer of $4 billion to $18 billion, helping an unknown but large number of Californians evade foreclosure.

 

Between 2013 and 2015, her office recouped more than $1 billion for the state’s major public employee retirement funds after banks and rating agencies lied to greatly overvalue mortgage-backed securities.

 

She also secured a 2012 agreement with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and HP to require all apps they sell to display clear new privacy policies – and then she created a state privacy enforcement unit to seal that deal.

 

Her record was less noteworthy as vice president, partly because Biden assigned her impossible tasks, like fixing conditions in Latin America that encourage illegal immigration. That assignment did not come with the power to make any improvements.

 

So the Harris image as a lightweight, promoted in part by her cackling responses in some interviews, can be misleading and other candidates for governor would be wise not to underestimate her.

 

But there remains that key question: How interested is Harris in pursuing the state’s problems all the way to solutions, from the fate of the partially-built bullet train to the pesky and expensive issue of caring for indigent immigrants?

 

No one really knows, perhaps not even Harris. That’s what makes this question so vital in a campaign where other candidates like former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former state Atty. Gen. and federal Health Secretary Xavier Becerra are known for their strong interest in taking on major issues. Candidates like former state Senate President Toni Atkins and former state Controller Betty Yee are similarly known for strong focus.

 

If Harris runs and debates them all, plus Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, they will surely be trying to paint her as the lightweight of her reputation and not the accomplished politician of her reality.

 

Which makes running a big risk for Harris, who could lose out as a major national player if she enters this race, regardless of whether she wins or loses.

 

  

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

ETHICAL ISSUE DOGS ‘$8 PER GALLON’ GASOLINE STUDY

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“ETHICAL ISSUE DOGS ‘$8 PER GALLON’ GASOLINE STUDY”

 

Academics have known for many years the potential for conflicts of interest when they conduct studies or write reports on products or companies for which they have consulted. That’s why they almost always disclose conflicts.

 

There is also no doubt of the strong link between the Saudi Aramco oil company and California’s biggest oil refiner, Chevron, known as Standard Oil of California when it co-founded (with Texaco and two others) just plain Aramco, the Saudi Arabian company’s name when the Americans got it going in the 1930s.

 

Fast forward to mid-April, when television networks like ABC, CBS and Fox, plus Forbes magazine covered a study by Michael Mische, an associate professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business, that predicted $8 per gallon gasoline in this state very soon.

 

There is no such thing as gas price gouging in California, Mische contended. As the New Jersey-based Forbes reported, “the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded (gasoline) in California was $4.67 – more than 55 percent above the national average.”

 

Forbes quoted from Mische’s report, titled “Ensuring California’s Gasoline Security for the 21^st Century.” It “lays out a clear and compelling case for why California fuel costs are so high,” the reasons being structural, state policy driven and “deeply embedded in how the state regulates, produces and distributes gasoline.” It doesn’t help that California refineries ship large amounts to neighbor states.

 

Mische blamed environmental regulations, the state’s cap-and-trade program and seasonal gas blends as big causes of California prices, along with high taxes and fees, frequent refinery closures, declining in-state oil production and the fact there are no pipelines bringing gas here from other states. Other studies have indicated such factors account for about one-third of the price differential.

 

Mische denies oil companies collude to raise prices, despite phenomena like the huge price hikes of February 2023, when a single refinery outage shot pump prices up about $2.50 per gallon overnight – not just for the refiner with the outage, but for every brand of gas.

 

The state then passed new laws aiming to punish such gouging and there have been no new incidents since.

 

Forbes said Mische included a disclaimer saying he “has not received any special compensation and has no promise or anticipation of future compensation for the work presented...” That was vague about the recent past.

 

The upshot of Mische’s report is the new state laws are pointless because there is no gouging. This may surprise the more than 1 million Californians who received $21.65 apiece from the state in mid-May after a settlement reached by state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta with three gasoline trading firms that allegedly manipulated gas prices in 2016, during another refinery outage.

 

Now comes Jamie Court, president of the Consumer Watchdog advocacy group, which has documented how oil company profits set records whenever California gas prices spike.

 

Court obtained a copy of Mische’s resume and discovered the professor’s private consulting firm listed Saudi Aramco as a major client. That company and Chevron still have strong ties even though the Saudi government took ownership of Aramco decades ago.

 

The two companies also partner on advanced refinery technology. So there’s a direct link between California’s largest oil refiner and a major Mische client.

 

This, of course, debunks Mische’s disclaimer about impartiality. Wrote Court in a letter to USC officials, “There is no question that the policies Mische advocates (to the Legislature) will…benefit his client.”

 

Mische responded to an emailed query asking why he failed to disclose his tie to Saudi Aramco in the recent paper, saying he would shortly provide answers to the emailed questions. The answers did not arrive.

 

Policies he recommends include tax subsidies and other giveaways to both oil refiners and drillers. Said Court, “Sacramento lawmakers (were) unaware of Mische’s ties because of his failure to disclose them.

 

“There is no question Mische’s work would be looked at differently if people knew… In failing to (disclose), he dishonors USC and its tradition of ethics.”

 

The bottom line: The decades-long pattern of industry-wide price hikes when only one refinery has an outage makes it clear some kind of collusion and price gouging has long been at work.

 

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

REPARATIONS UNLIKELY TO ADVANCE FAR THIS YEAR

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“REPARATIONS UNLIKELY TO ADVANCE FAR THIS YEAR”

 

As this year’s budget negotiations approached their crunch time in late May and early June, it was fast becoming clear that little would get done toward giving reparations to the unknown number of Californians who are descended from slaves.

 

The number is unknown, for one thing, because California was never a formal slave state and no one knows exactly how many of the enslaved were brought here from the Deep South in the years leading up to, during and immediately after the Civil War.

 

For sure, some towns, especially in the Central Valley, saw former Confederate soldiers play prominent roles in the late 1860s and through the 1870s. But how many of their onetime slaves did they bring along to help in their new endeavors? And should we count descendants of a difficult-to-document number of Native Americans killed or enslaved by white Californians during that same period and through the 1880s when totting up the number of persons whose futures were blighted by an ancestry filled with slavery and persecution?

 

Some other states have been inventive in trying to get around these questions. With a racial history not extremely different from California’s, Washington state, for one, has not yet tried to quantify just how many descendants of slaves are among its 7.95 million residents.

 

Rather, Washington officials have tried to take quick action, realizing that slavery and subsequent racism and restrictive real estate covenants did huge harm to families that would have liked to establish generational wealth. In the last year, that state lent $16 million to help with down payments on real estate by people of color whose families were prevented from buying homes by now-outlawed restrictive covenant laws.

 

But Washington state has not recently encountered nearly as severe a state budget shortfall as the last two years have seen in California.

 

Those deficits, papered over in part with stopgap methods that some believe may not be legal, were one reason for last year’s frustrations among the Black Caucus in California’s Legislature.

 

With difficulty finding the funds to cover even required spending, who was going to get serious about setting up the permanently staffed reparations agency called for by a nine-member reparations task force set up under an earlier state law? Not the legislative Black Caucus, which last year killed some reparations proposals before they came to a vote.

 

That engendered substantial bad feeling among Black voters – who pushed for cash payments to all slavery descendants  while legislators were considering whether to set up that task force.

 

This year, a Black Caucus bill seeks to create a permanent Bureau for the Descendants of American Slavery. It may get some impetus from the fact that state legislators seem bent on setting up several unrelated state agencies to take on at least some tasks previously done by the many federal workers and scientists fired by President Trump and his appointees.

 

The new bureau, should it become reality, would try to create a list of descendants of the enslaved. But as with membership in Native American tribes, disputes appear inevitable over how high a percentage of a person’s bloodline would have to stem from the enslaved in order for them to qualify for possible benefits like eased college admissions.

 

Another bill would give California State University $6 million to develop ways to verify genealogy. It’s unclear how that funding might be divided among the 23 Cal State campuses.

 

All of which leaves the reparations question in a state of confusion and disappointment with some Black voters dissatisfied their demands for cash payments have never gotten serious consideration.

 

With weeks of budget compromises and slashes seeming inevitable in the next month, it’s hard to see how the reparations cause can fare much better than it did last year. Which puts it in obvious danger of becoming passe if its various provisions and possibilities fail repeatedly without ever being taken seriously.

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

ANTI-SEMITISM SPREADING EVEN IN SMALL CORNERS OF CALIFORNIA

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“ANTI-SEMITISM SPREADING EVEN IN SMALL CORNERS OF CALIFORNIA”

 

As a group, Californians have never been known as a significantly bigoted bunch. But world events may be changing that.

 

Yes, openly expressed prejudice against blacks, Latinos and most other minority groups is not tolerated on any public school or university campus in the state.

 

Without prompting, administrators clamp down on such incidents, whenever and wherever they pop up.

 

Few attending classes on any public campus would dare openly employ the N-word against black fellow students or use other derogatory terms like “wetbacks” or “gooks.” At the very least, suspensions would result.

 

But things have been very different with open anti-Semitism, or Jew hatred, the world’s oldest form of racist discrimination.

 

Elite public campuses with top admission standards from UC Irvine to Berkeley, UCLA and Davis have seen incidents where Nazi symbology like swastikas were openly painted on walls, with few or no consequences. Top private colleges, too, including Stanford University, have seen similar incidents. Until the current academic year and a concerted Trump administration campaign against it, little or nothing was done to fight such open displays of racial/religious hatred.

 

Now, however, the Justice Department has a task force examining whether some new anti-bias rules are effective. The approximately $400 million in federal funding withdrawn this spring from New York’s Columbia University served as a stern first warning to officials of other schools.

 

Legal actions by the Washington, D.C.-based Louis Brandeis Center first called federal attention to unsafe conditions for Jewish students on some large California campuses.

 

Now the newest filings from the Brandeis center and a few associated groups indicate anti-Semitism in California extends to even some obscure corners of the state.

 

Dramatic stories of harassment, insults and threats from some little-watched locales show this is far from isolated on large campuses, as it often is portrayed.

 

No one blinked very hard when allegedly anti-Semitic behavior and lack of significant administrative responses to it were charged at Berkeley’s public schools in a Brandeis center complaint, down to the junior high level.

 

That was Berkeley, after all, long celebrated for extreme behavior. What, then, about the Etiwanda school district in a corner of San Bernardino County including parts of Rancho Cucamonga?

 

Here’s what a federally filed claim from the Brandeis center says happened there to a 12-year-old girl subjected to repeated anti-Semitic bullying and harassment who allegedly got no help from her school leaders and teachers. “Outdoors on school grounds,” says the document filed with the Department of Education, “a student struck her repeatedly with a stick and then with bare hands.” When the victim called out for help, she was allegedly told to “shut her stupid Jewish ass up.” Then she was pinned against an outdoor table and choked until she escaped, red-faced and coughing. 

 

The same girl later allegedly endured more insults in her classroom based on her Jewish identity. Bullying by other students, says the complaint, lasted weeks and one student told the Jewish girl “This wouldn’t be an issue if you weren’t Jewish.”

 

This stuff had nothing to do with Israel or Zionism, two causes often reviled on many campuses. It was pure Jew hatred.

 

The Brandeis complaints also take up anti-Jewish harassment at Cal Poly Humboldt, the former Humboldt State University outside Eureka. Instead of addressing openly anti-Semitic talk and behavior there, the document charges, administrators encouraged Jewish students to hide their Jewish identity to avoid being targeted.

 

Brandeis also details anti-Semitic activity at the private Scripps College, part of the Claremont College consortium near Pomona.

 

There, the complaint says, Pomona College, another consortium member, banned Scripps students who had vandalized buildings and disrupted classes during a demonstration idealizing the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacres, but “Scripps bent over backward to ensure Pomona’s bans would have as limited an impact on (those students) as possible.”

 

The complaint also notes that a student-run coffee house on campus closed for a day "in memory of a Hezbollah terrorist.” It adds that the coffee house refuses to hire "Zionist" students and refuses to let Jewish groups hold meetings there. Meanwhile, pro-Hamas groups are reported to meet there weekly.

 

All these events occurred in relatively less prominent academic environments than those recounted in previous complaints. Taken separately, they would be isolated events, but together they suggest that anti-Semitism has somehow embedded itself in many parts of California.

 

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

MANY CALIFORNIA COLLEGES WELL SET TO RESIST TRUMP’S PUSH

CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MAY 27, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“MANY CALIFORNIA COLLEGES WELL SET TO RESIST TRUMP’S PUSH”

 

Harvard made itself the unquestioned leader among American colleges and universities when its president announced it would not knuckle under to President Trump’s attempts to dictate what can and cannot happen or be discussed on its campus.

 

The Crimson risked an immediate $2.2 billion in federal grants for everything from research on dementia to development of new forms of artificial intelligence.

 

Harvard then followed up with a lawsuit aimed at clawing back those previously authorized and awarded grants, plus another $7 billion or so in other research funds Trump’s appointees have threatened to cut off.

 

Never mind the legalities of what the government can cancel and when. When Harvard acted, other colleges that at first bent the knee (Columbia University is Example A of this) suddenly became braver and changed their minds, saying no to many Trump demands. 

 

So far, the action has not centered on California. But it has before, and it might again at any moment. After all, the move against Harvard came via a letter that was sent out before it was fully authorized, but Trump stuck by it despite the error in timing.

 

In an effort to stave off some Trump ire, several California universities had already made moves. The University of California, for example, set new rules virtually banning encampments like those that took hold during the winter of 2023-24, in the wake of the Hamas terror group’s attack on Israel, which saw about 1,450 persons killed or kidnapped into hostage status. Another move by UC banned campus chapters of the group Students for Justice in Palestine.

 

No one doubts it was Harvard’s $53 billion endowment (think of this as a savings account or ‘rainy day fund” that can be deployed in emergencies) that enabled its President Alan Garber’s defiance and his stand for protection of academic independence and freedom of expression in classrooms.

 

But what would happen if California colleges were suddenly targeted seriously? UC Berkeley, for one example, gets just over $1 billion in federal grants for research on subjects from wildfires to public health. It gets another $1.5 billion each year to operate the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory elsewhere in the East Bay. UCLA gets $1.1 billion in federal research money.

 

Amounts flowing to California State University campuses are far smaller. And none of the state universities has an endowment that could let it carry on much research or many other activities without federal funds.

 

But there are several California schools that could carry on quite well. That list is led by Stanford University’s $36.49 billion or $38 billion endowment, which ranks in the top four of American universities. (Its exact value carries varying estimates.)

 

Given that Stanford gets only about 12 percent of its operating revenue from federal funds and grants, that means The Farm could run just fine for years without help from the feds. Inconvenient, yes. Fatal, no. Especially since wealthy alumni would likely step up to contribute if Stanford felt threatened.

 

The last time Stanford previously flashed its bankroll was when it accepted reduced TV revenues for awhile when joining the Atlantic Coast Conference after the old Pac-12 folded.

 

A surprising number of other California schools could also do just fine. Pomona College, with an endowment of about $2.8 billion, according to Forbes Magazine, uses federal funds for a mere 1.4 percent of its operations. At CalTech, with an endowment Forbes places at $3.8 billion, about 9 percent of operating revenue is federal dollars. But that’s because CalTech runs the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and all its space exploration programs for NASA. Trump is not likely to interfere with that and risk becoming “the man who lost the moon.”

 

Other California colleges that might do just fine include Claremont McKenna College and Santa Clara University.

 

Yes, much of the endowment money held by all those schools was donated for specific purposes. But if any of them felt threatened, they would likely appeal to donors or their heirs to loosen those conditions.

 

So no, other than the big public universities, Trump probably can't threaten the independence of California colleges. And that will come as a relief to some.

 

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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

SB 10 FAILS, SO DENSITY ADVOCATES TRY NEW MEASURE

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MAY 23, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“SB 10 FAILS, SO DENSITY ADVOCATES TRY NEW MEASURE”

 

Make no mistake, the newly proposed law commonly known as SB 79 is purely a result of the failure of the 2021 SB 10, which aimed to make housing in areas around transit stops (both bus and train) far more dense.

 

Said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a 2021 signing statement for SB 10, which allowed local governments to upzone land near transit stops for as many as ten units per parcel even in areas previously zoned single family:

 

“This bill has the potential to increase housing development at a time when the state is experiencing a significant shortage of the units needed to meet the needs of Californians.”

 

It did not. Exact figures for how many units have been built under SB 10 are hard to find, but the number is not high.

 

He does not say so, but that’s why SB 10 author Scott Wiener, the Democratic San Francisco state senator who has spearheaded many recent housing density bills, is back with the new measure, SB 79.

 

Where it was up to local government to upzone in transit zones under SB 10, the new measure would create automatic upzoning to multifamily uses near “major transit stops” on any site already zoned for residential, mixed use, commercial or light industrial development, up to specific heights of 45, 55, 65 and 75 feet.

 

Early versions of the bill also contained no prohibition on applying it in known fire zones. Other laws, however, can be used to regulate that.

 

Depending on things like ceiling heights, this bill potentially could make seven-story structures routine, since buildings average between 10 and 14 feet per floor.

 

Upzoned areas might often overlap, too, with the long-term outcome possibly becoming long strips of high-rise development, regardless of any neighborhood’s previous character.

Unlike under SB 10, such upzoning would be automatic, eliminating most local government authority over high-rise development.

 

Density bonuses already in use in many California developments would also apply to these new buildings.

 

No one yet knows whether builders would be any more receptive to putting up new SB 79 projects than they have been to using the existing SB 10.

 

One background document from Wiener’s office claims that “Building more homes near transit reduces transportation and housing costs for families and promotes environmental sustainability and economic growth, and reduces traffic density.”

 

This may be the first time anyone has tried to claim that erecting an unknown, unlimited number of four, five, six and seven-story apartment buildings and condominiums might somehow cut traffic.

 

Wiener also says his measure should making permitting fast for such projects, calling the new process “ministerial;” essentially not subject to things like public hearings, city council votes or local ballot questions.

 

The Livable California organization, a frequent Wiener opponent, points out a few other realities: One is that upzoning has not been shown to increase either housing supply or affordability, but often raises land values, thus making existing housing more expensive.

 

The group also notes that public transit now is mostly used by lower income persons, casting doubt on the assumption that new buildings in transit-thick areas would necessarily raise ridership significantly.

 

And it says this would be yet another nail in the coffin of local government authority.

 

One letter to a newspaper recently claimed the new plan would also harm housing affordability, claiming some sites it covers currently are occupied by low-income units, sometimes defined as being for persons with income below 81 percent of the median level for any area.

 

“There would be zero net gain in affordable housing from this,” said the letter writer.

 

Despite these flaws, current prospects for Wiener’s latest effort look good, with Newsom virtually certain to sign it if it passes the Legislature. It’s difficult to find a single housing density measure he has vetoed, the lone possible exception being one that would have made undocumented immigrants eligible for state down payment assistance.

 

So there’s a solid chance SB 79, passed 6-2 by the Senate Housing Committee, also becomes law soon. If this bill should fail to produce more density – and fast – it will be clear that even developers realize most Californians want to be surrounded by open space, no matter what their politicians might believe.

 

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Elias is author of the current book The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It, now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com

 

Suggested pullout quote: “There’s a very good chance SB 79…becomes law soon.”