Wireless Towers
Re your March 27 story, “Cingular Plans to Spend $43M on OC Network,” I say good luck.
Cities are passing ever more restrictive ordinances on the placement of wireless towers and residents are resorting to making ever more wild claims in their attempts to thwart new wireless facilities,no matter how unobtrusive,in their neighborhoods.
While other “utilities” like Southern California Edison and AT & T; spend millions of dollars to operate strong public affairs departments that work closely with elected and appointed officials and do community outreach, the wireless carriers such as Cingular and Verizon have no such operations.
Without a long-term approach to advocacy and community outreach, wireless carriers are certain to be rebuffed at the planning commission and city council level more and more in the months to come.
Worse, consumers will be subjected to dropped calls, dead zones and the lack of opportunity to use the newest digital services the carriers are beginning to offer.
Adam D. Probolsky
Planning Commissioner
Irvine
Editor’s note: When Probolsky called from his cell phone to the editor’s cell phone to confirm receipt of this letter, the call was dropped.
OCTA Funding
Our city got blindsided on April 3 by county Supervisor Chris Norby, who questioned publicly why Laguna Beach,and not his cities,might receive funding from OCTA.
The reason I am so upset with Norby is that he had to denigrate Laguna Beach to make the case for his cities.
Laguna is not eligible for as much OCTA funding as most other cities because we don’t have major arterial highways and intersections. We only qualify in a few categories. Two of those categories, under the Transportation Efficiency Act, are “Sidewalks and Bikeways” and “Landscaping.” We’re asking for $1 million in this cycle and would match it with $1 million for enhancements in South Laguna.
A perfect example of how Laguna stacks up against Norby’s cities for OCTA funding is the Measure M “Competitive Grant Program.”
La Habra has received $483 per capita or $30 million total; Anaheim, $374 per capita or $128 million total; Buena Park, $334 per capita or $27 million; Fullerton, $80 per capita or $11 million; and Placentia, $71 per capita or $3 million total.
Laguna Beach has received $28 per capita, or $700,000 total.
I have no doubt that Mr. Norby’s cities deserve the funding they receive and none of us in Laguna begrudges them.
Nor am I saying that Mr. Norby’s cities should not receive beautification funding. However, I would like to request that others consider the fact that Laguna Beach needs to maintain its roads and streetscapes,not just for the residents, but also for the hundreds of thousands of people who come to the city for R & R; from all over Orange County.
Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider
Mayor
Laguna Beach
Prop 82
Proposition 82, Rob Reiner’s June ballot measure for government-run preschool, is an expensive measure that will rake in $2.4 billion per year by raising the state income-tax rate for high earners. Before approving such an expensive system, Californians should consider quality alternatives that are more cost-effective.
Reiner and his allies contend that his proposal is worth the high cost, citing a Rand study that claims that for every $1 expended on preschool, society will receive $2.62 in long-term benefits such as better student performance and less criminal activity. Rand, however, admits that the Chicago preschool program for low-income children on which it bases its estimates is unlike Reiner’s initiative in many key ways, such as the level of parental involvement and the provision of services.
Further, there is no long-term evidence that middle- and upper-income children are helped by preschool, a fact that undercuts the basis for a preschool program aimed at all children. Recent studies by researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara have also questioned the beneficial impact of the initiative’s teacher-quality requirements and the lasting effect of preschool on student achievement gains.
With so much uncertainty over the real benefits of a massive, bureaucratic and costly statewide universal preschool program, is it wise to entrench Reiner’s scheme in the state constitution? To do so would seem especially wrong-headed since there are examples in California of preschool models much less expensive but very promising.
For instance, unlike Reiner’s plan, which requires a year of preschool, the Ready to Start program is a five-week session held during the summer before children start kindergarten. As opposed to the upward of $8,000 per child spent under the Reiner plan, Ready to Start carries a price tag of only $350 per child.
The program, which has operated for two years in the Greenfield and Rosedale school districts in Kern County, is a partnership among local businesses, education agencies and colleges. It uses existing school facilities, and provides a structured academic experience for children.
Californians need better answers to the questions about the long-term effectiveness of preschool for all children, the cost-effectiveness of different types of preschool, and the wisdom of entrusting government with ever-younger children.
Until we have those fiscal and educational answers, Californians should view the Reiner plan as a risky proposition.
Lance Izumi
Director of Education Studies
Pacific Research Institute
San Francisco
Nothing is more fun than voting to tax someone else to buy services for oneself. Under Proposition 82, 99.4% of taxpayers would pay nothing. That’s what Lord Acton called “the tyranny of the majority.”
Taxes should be fair. This one isn’t, and that’s reason enough to vote against it. On the other hand, if you like the politics of envy, and think it’s just fine to sock it to the rich, here are a few more of the many reasons to oppose Proposition 82:
Revenue from a small cadre of affluent taxpayers is unstable, requiring additional money from all taxpayers to support Proposition 82 in “down market” years. Costs of a similar program in Quebec ballooned to 33 times the original estimate.
A study by former legislative analyst William Hamm reveals that Proposition 82 would erode state general fund revenue by $4 billion in its first five years.
Under Proposition 82, the top income tax rate would be 11%. In the early 1990s, Pete Wilson raised the top rate to 11%, triggering a fiscal crisis as high earners fled the state.
Because small businesses record profits on personal income tax returns, the Tax Foundation says small businesses would sacrifice new equipment and new hires to pay Proposition 82 taxes.
Rand and the legislative analyst say 65% of eligible children already attend preschool. Proposition 82 would spend $2.6 billion to raise this to only 70%,just 22,000 new students enrolling at a cost of $109,000 each, according to the Reason Foundation.
Millions of taxpayer dollars from Rob Reiner’s Proposition 10 (tobacco taxes) now are being used to promote his Proposition 82, a clear violation of the spirit of state law.
Reed L. Royalty
President
Orange County Taxpayers Association
San Juan Capistrano
