Tale of Two Cities
Long before our lights went out, the housing crisis was prologue to today’s energy disaster.
Though you may be surprised to hear it: After all, just about every housing catastrophe over the last 30 years in California has been reported as an environmental “victory.”
But two contrasting cities tell the tale especially well.
One rich, one poor.
One coastal, one inland.
Both examples of the irrational way people stop new housing, as well as power plants, roads, water facilities and other important infrastructures.
In Huntington Beach, plans for 5,000 homes at Bolsa Chica were stopped because, we were told, the homes were too big. In Perris, plans for 1,400 homes in this Riverside community were opposed because the homes were not big enough.
In Huntington Beach, the homes were too far apart. In Perris, too close together.
In Huntington Beach, the recreation areas would attract too many people. In Perris, not enough.
In Huntington Beach, the water was too scarce. In Perris, too plentiful.
At Bolsa Chica, the wetlands were too delicate. In Perris, so were the dry lands.
At Bolsa Chica, the homes were too expensive. In Perris, not expensive enough.
Huntington Beach and Perris are California in microcosm: New homes in outer areas are seen as sprawl. New homes in inner cities are gentrification. The deserts are too dry for new homes; the wetlands too wet. The highlands too high; the valleys too low. The mesas are too flat; the hillsides are too hilly. The suburbs too new; inner cities too historic.
The condos are too dense, the suburbs too spread out.
We can’t build new roads because they encourage growth.
We can’t grow because we don’t have the roads.
This is the intellectual foppery that has masqueraded as public policy for 30 years. And few are connecting the dots: So-called environmental victories are celebrated even as lack of affordable housing is lamented.
Wonder no more about how people can shut down power facilities one day, and complain about energy shortages the next. What environmentalists practiced on housing, they perfected on energy.
Tracey Vackar
(Vackar was born and raised in Orange County. She is now a schoolteacher and planning commissioner in Moreno Valley, in Riverside County.)
Health Insurance
A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust reported that the percent of California employers offering health insurance rose from 48% in 1999 to 60% in 2000. As with most things, there are two ways to view this news.
On one hand, a double-digit increase in just one year should be applauded.
But on the other hand, this report reminds us that a full 40% of employers are failing to offer their employees any health insurance at all.
California continues to lag behind the national average and if the state’s economy continues its slowdown, the Kaiser report warns that employers may “stop giving insurance benefits just as quickly as they started giving it.”
Virtually all big businesses offer health insurance. The fate of small employers is quite another story.
For small employers with tight margins, health insurance is a luxury they often don’t feel they can afford.
And with premiums rising in excess of 10% for the first time in years, even those offering insurance are seriously reconsidering the financial viability of offering such coverage.
There are others reasons, too, for small employers’ decisions. These range from complications in trying to select a single health plan right for all of their employees, to the difficulty in administering a plan.
Add to that dealing with employees who complain “my doctor isn’t included” or “they don’t cover the drug I need” or “you’re not giving me enough choice,” and small employers end up feeling that they are loosing out in the “value equation.”
Fortunately, as of late, new “health purchasing alliances” have emerged to help small employers.
Under such programs, the employer sets a budget and defines the contribution they will make toward their employees’ health coverage.
With a minimum employer financial contribution level of 50%, employees then select from a wide range of competing health plans and varying benefit levels to find the one that best meets their individual family needs.
Employers have embraced this approach because it provides cost predictability, removes the burden of choosing a single health plan, produces a more satisfied workforce and creates an effective recruitment and retention tool.
Employees win because it puts the decision making power where it should have been all along,squarely with them.
John M. Word III
Managing partner
CaliforniaChoice
Orange
El Toro, Cont’d
Which has the more misleading title? The Central Park and Nature Preserve Initiative or Orange County/El Toro Economic Stimulus Initiative? The latter was the title for the 1994 Measure A which changed the zoning of El Toro Marine Base to a commercial airport by a 51-49% vote.
Do the three pro-airport supervisors want us to believe that everything the county publishes on the proposed airport at El Toro is fact and everything put out by the Airport Alternative Group or Central Park group is misinformation?
Andrew May
Lake Forest
