WLL TRUMP MOVES BOOST CALIFORNIA SECESSION SENTIMENT?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“WLL TRUMP MOVES BOOST CALIFORNIA SECESSION SENTIMENT?”

 

For every action, says one principle of both physics and politics, there is a reaction. So when President Donald Trump threatened to put conditions on disaster aid in the wake of California’s unprecedented January firestorms, there was a reaction.

 

Many Californians, according to a poll taken during those Southern California blazes, the most devastating in American history in dollars’ worth of damages, appear more favorable than before to the idea of divorce, or at least some form of separation, from the rest of the nation.

 

The question could even be on the November ballot next year, as an initiative that would essentially be a straw poll has been authorized to start seeking voter signatures. It would need signatures from 546,651 voters to qualify for an advisory vote. The sponsor is a group called Cal Exit Now, whose leader, Fresno-based Marcus Ruiz Evans, has spent years promoting secession.

 

Secession, of course, is not a new idea. It has been around at least 15 years without drawing much support. Most Californians agreed with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said in a 2018 interview that “I’m not interested in secession, ever.”

 

He's certainly not in favor of it now, when the only political future he can anticipate after being termed out in late 2026 is a possible run for president.

 

But an unprecedented number of Californians like some form of the idea. The recent survey was conducted while fires were still active between Jan. 6 and Jan. 14 by the YouGov firm for another secession outfit, the Independent California Institute, based in north San Diego County. The poll of 500 persons found 61 percent believe most Californians would be better off if the state peacefully secedes. The survey had a margin of error of about 5.6 percent.

 

But a slightly larger majority, 62 percent, did not believe California can secede peacefully. Never mind that Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a close Trump ally, has called for a split.

 

“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states,” Greene tweeted. “Everyone I talk to says this.”

 

Her notion suggests that states like Oregon and Washington would readily follow if California leaves the Union peacefully. It also implies Republican-led states might be glad to kiss California good-bye.

 

But a more popular idea, according to the January survey, is for California to try for some kind of autonomous status within the USA. The state has long had special rights when it comes to environmental law, the 1970 Clean Air Act granting authority that led to things like catalytic converters and electric vehicles.

 

 

Fully 66 percent backed the idea of California creating its own permanent government commission charged with helping the state gain more autonomy. And slightly more than half of state residents said they feel more Californian than American. Plus, 73 percent in the poll said it is accurate to call California a “nation-state.”

 

Consistent with this, 62 percent said Californians would be better off if all public lands in the state were under control of California government, reversing today’s scene where 97 percent of public lands are federal.

 

And a large majority (77 percent) of those polled thought California’s largest-in-the-nation House delegation should unite across party lines and refuse to OK new budgets unless the Trump administration gives California added autonomy. One tactic favored by that large majority is letting California control its borders like a country rather than merely checking for forbidden fruit at its network of existing checkpoints.

 

All this may surprise Trump, but it should not. A survey taken about one year earlier showed similar findings, but not quite so strong as this year’s, which came in as Trump threatened to withhold disaster aid.

 

Californians’ sense of identifying more with the state than the nation, however, is brand new, contradicting the 2024 finding on that question.

 

So far, no significant California politician has made autonomy a central cause, nor even hinted at this. But if Trump continues what some call his “war on California,” no one can predict what might follow, except that there will be a reaction of some kind, its exact nature and outcome yet to be determined.

 

   -30-

    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

SHOULD BUILDING PERMITS BE LOOSENED IN FIRE ZONES?

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“SHOULD BUILDING PERMITS BE LOOSENED IN FIRE ZONES?”

 

It was almost like a contest to see who could promise the quickest rebuilding when President Trump and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass sat down together barely two weeks after the hugely damaging Palisades fire, possibly the most expensive natural disaster in American history.

 

With more than 6,000 Pacific Palisades homes in ashes and most of the area’s business district destroyed, all this odd couple wanted was to make survivors feel they could soon be back in their homes, just as before.

 

They ignored issues that affect not only California, but Texas, Idaho, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest, where homes are often built on the edges of wild lands that can ignite almost as soon as underbrush has time to regrow after the last fire.

 

They also paid no heed to questions of fire insurance, where property owners in areas that will never be threatened by wildfires are about to be dunned hugely to subsidize payments for burned out mansion owners who had every reason to know ahead of time their homes were at risk.

 

Similar rushed rebuilding followed every significant recent wildfire, going back far beyond the 2018 Camp fire in Paradise, which destroyed almost as many homes as the January firestorms in Los Angeles County.

 

Perhaps someone should have acquainted Trump and Bass with local history. For example, the 1978 Mandeville Canyon fire destroyed 30 homes in the some of the same areas as January’s Palisades flames, all plush residences in suburbanized canyons that were quickly rebuilt. Everyone in those gullies and the surrounding areas was on notice they were vulnerable to wildfires.

 

There was also the 1961 Bel Air fire, which decimated 484 homes in the largest previous blaze affecting hundreds of spectacular mansions. Its footprint lies less than five miles from the ashes of the Palisades business district and is even closer to the eastern edge of the fire area visited by Trump.

 

The aftermaths of both those fires saw a similar rush to rebuild, just like local and national leaders are now encouraging. As today, no politicians wanted to discuss the possibility of leaving the land vacant because it will inevitably burn again.

 

Just as in January, the storied Sunset Boulevard was the main 1961 escape route and became congested far beyond the routinely stifling traffic jams that afflicted it daily both this year and 60 years ago. No one bothered to add traffic lanes or new routes as population increased.

 

With all this warning, Trump nevertheless ordered all federal regulations on building in affected areas suspended. Bass did much the same with local regulations, giving architectural firms huge authority to approve plans they themselves draw for rebuilding homeowners.

 

Trump even wanted the rebuild to begin before local agencies and the Army Corps of Engineers could clear toxic material from burned-out homesites. He wanted owners allowed to return immediately, not worrying about possible danger to them.

 

With the burned areas largely decimated and depopulated, maybe it should be time for some rethinking, rather than the same knee-jerk response that’s led to repeat disasters.

 

Instead of loosening permits, perhaps they should be tightened. Here are a few questions authorities ought to consider: Should laws require all new building materials to be fire resistant? 

 

Should new ordinances require heavier fines for failure to clear brush a respectable distance from each home? Should water systems in fire-prone areas be updated to assure water pressure stays up and hydrants keep operating in crises, which they did not at higher elevations in both the Bel Air fire and the two big January ones?

 

Should insurance settlements now being negotiated include added money for such improvements to homes, while new city and county budgets provide for more reliable water pressure?

 

It all depends on the priorities of politicians. If safety and survival tops that list, along with ultimate financial savings to both homeowners and their insurance companies, the answers will be yes to all these questions. Any other response would be an admission of politically expedient priorities to ease things in the short run, but surely expose residents and businesses to far greater long-term danger.

 

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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

TRUMP MAKES NICE, BUT ‘WAR ON CALIFORNIA’ PERSISTS

 CALIFORNIA FOCUS

FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

 “TRUMP MAKES NICE, BUT ‘WAR ON CALIFORNIA’ PERSISTS”

 

President Trump made nice during a three-hour stopover at the Palisades fire in Los Angeles, possibly the most costly natural disaster in American history, but his longstanding political “War on California” did not abate.

 

 

He declaimed that “We want to get the problems fixed,” and even embraced Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom he usually calls “New-scum.”

 

 

But he did not walk back demands to condition federal crisis aid on California adopting a voter ID system like Republicans have used to cement power in states they control, or his demand that much more Northern California water be moved south – even though there are no shortages anywhere in California today. Trump also talked about water from the Pacific Northwest, from which California gets none.

 

 

Never mind that there is also no mechanism to move much more water south than gets sent today. Newsom has spent years pursuing a putative tunnel to bring more water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, but no shovels will be turned soon. 

 

 

When Trump sees political rivals in the flesh, he plainly has less appetite to insult them. But that didn’t change any policy he set up via executive order within hours of being sworn in for a new White House term.

 

 

Yes, the futures of tens of thousands of fire victims are at stake just now. But a lot more than that is also involved, even if Trump did pause his stream of victim-blaming to express wonder at the scope of damage.

 

 

One key area is agriculture, where Trump threatens disaster for California farms, 41 percent of whose workers are undocumented. He ordered a new set of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, without revealing time and place. Deport those workers and crops from pistachios to peaches, from rice to apricots, could rot on the tree or vine.

 

 

He also threatened to prosecute local officials who don’t aid his planned deportations of undocumented immigrants. Several dared him to try.

 

 

Trump also immediately ordered offshore oil drilling to resume in federal waters. That could produce conflicts between state and federal officials, since California owns all waterfront property from the average mean high tide line out for about three nautical miles. It’s impossible to get offshore oil to trucks, pipelines and refineries without crossing state property, and the state Lands Commission – controlled by Democrats – has long been hostile to offshore drilling. 

 

 

So Trump’s frequent calls to “drill, baby, drill,” may lead to long legal battles before a drop of offshore oil arrives.

 

 

Trump also signaled he will try again to nix California’s authority to lessen automotive and industrial smog production here. That authority derives from the federal Clean Air Act. It has led to far cleaner air in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay area and the Central Valley even as population and traffic increased greatly over the law’s 54-plus years. 

 

 

The renewed president also said he wants to end federal price supports and incentives for buying electric vehicles. Newsom responded that the state would likely reinstate its own incentives if federal ones disappear.

 

 

One Trump tactic: He cancelled subsidies for buying zero emission cars, trucks and other equipment under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

 

State Attorney General Rob Bonta, a likely candidate to succeed Newsom when he’s termed out after next year, promised early on to revive the state’s leadership in resisting Trump proposals affecting climate, immigration and other areas. State legislators quickly voted $25 million to help with this.

 

 

Bonta’s first effort was a lawsuit to throw out Trump’s executive order ending “birthright citizenship,” the 14^th Amendment guarantee that almost anyone born in this country will be a citizen. The provision has been affirmed by at least two Supreme Court decisions; Bonta maintains it can only be changed via another constitutional amendment. Trump demurs.

 

So far, this is merely a legal war, with Trump issuing orders and California resisting some. But even California Republicans are calling on Trump to forget about conditions on disaster relief. As they noted, the fires did not discriminate between members of the two major parties. 

 

The open question: How long will this “war,” which really began almost eight years ago, drag on and how much will it damage Californians?

 

    -30-

    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

WILDFIRE FUND MAY FALL SHORT IF UTILITIES FOUND AT FAULT

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS5
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WILDFIRE FUND MAY FALL SHORT IF UTILITIES FOUND AT FAULT”

 

When Gov. Gavin Newsom and his political donor cronies at Pacific Gas & Electric Co. cooked up the $13 billion California Wildfire Fund in 2019, they never conceived of wildfire damages on the scale of either the Palisades or Eaton blazes that together have been the most expensive in state history. The latest credible estimate of total replacement cost came in at $250 billion.

 

As it was, the fund was plenty controversial, arriving just after PG&E equipment was officially blamed for starting the Paradise fire, which leveled the Butte County town and its surroundings in 2018, and others. As one result, many consumers advocated breaking up PG&E or having the state take it over while it struggled in bankruptcy.

 

But Newsom pushed a law known as AB 1054 through the Legislature, creating the fund that was supposed to cover liabilities for damage caused by utility equipment starting future wildfires. Electric companies kicked in $7 billion toward this, while every customer of privately owned firms like PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric will be paying $2.50 a month for it until 2036.

 

So far, PG&E is the only utility that’s made use of this pot of cash, drawing out a reported $150 million for some damages from the 2021 Dixie fire, which struck the Plumas County town of Greenville and parts of four other counties.

 

Now lawsuits from homeowners hit by the Eaton fire in and around Altadena, which burned more than 14,000 acres in eastern Los Angeles County during January’s massive suite of firestorms, charges Edison with failure to turn off power to the transmission tower just above the spot where that fire began. The suit claims Edison had ample warning of extremely fire prone conditions, but did not shut down the juice.

 

Said one lawyer involved, “Everything we’ve seen points to Edison’s power lines being the cause.”

 

The Eaton fire covered more than 14,000 acres and burned 1,000-plus homes and businesses.

 

Some also charge Edison equipment caused the much smaller Hurst fire in the Sylmar portion of Los Angeles on the same day, with no definite ruling rendered yet.

 

Final damage figures from the Los Angeles area fires are not certain. If any claims against it stick, Edison may wind up drawing far more from the state Wildfire Fund than PG&E has done so far. It might even exhaust the fund.

 

This again raises a question that dogged the legislation creating the fund: Why should most California electricity customers pay for damages caused by negligence or malfeasance from the state’s monopoly investor-owned utilities?

 

At the same time, because they did not contribute to the fund and their ratepayers don’t pay into it, publicly owned utilities like the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) cannot draw from the fund.

 

This means that if DWP equipment is found to have started the even more widespread and damaging Palisades fire, Los Angeles taxpayers could wind up with expanded tax bills. That blaze, said to have begun on or near a remote trail in hills behind the area, destroyed about half the homes in the Pacific Palisades district of Los Angeles, plus many beachfront homes in Malibu.

 

There were initial reports of fireworks-like noises in the vicinity of the ignition point about the time flames began.

 

The upshot here appears to be that the swiftly and crudely drawn legislation passed at the behest of Newsom and his longtime benefactor PG&E could prove both unfair to most consumers and inadequate to cover damages if one or two of the state’s utilities are found at fault.

 

Meanwhile, insurance companies will complain nonstop for years to come about the gigantic sums they will have to pay out to cover affected policy holders. But much of the money they dispense will likely be refunded by the utilities (or their customers) if the wildfires are officially blamed on those outfits, as happened in several Northern California wildfires where insurance companies still gripe about alleged large losses they never really incurred.

 

It's a confused scene bound to end up unfair to millions of Californians, coming on top of huge damages already suffered by many thousands of burned-out residents.

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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

STATE AGAIN GIVES FARMERS AN ABSURD WATER ALLOCATION

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

"STATE AGAIN GIVES FARMERS AN ABSURD WATER ALLOCATION”

 

The thousands of drivers traversing Interstate 5 on any given day this winter can see for themselves: nothing even remotely like a water shortage currently plagues the State Water Project.

 

This is completely obvious from the major viewpoint off the east side of the interstate between Justine and Patterson, from which it’s clear that all major canals of the project just south of the Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers are full to capacity, or nearly so.

 

It's much the same a few dozen miles to the southwest where the water project’s largest man-made lake, the San Luis Reservoir, is chock full. Sand-colored margins that grew steadily larger during the drought of the 2010-20 decade have long since been inundated, with the artificial lake shining bright blue on crisp, sunny winter days.

 

Water officials also promise San Luis will soon be expanded.

 

So why does California’s Department of Water resources persist in providing preliminary farm water allocations that can only be described as pikerish?

 

It may be due to insecurity, a sense that the Pacific Ocean is due for a long-running “La Nina” condition that could produce a new drought and lower water levels of the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project to the dangerously dry levels of seven and eight years ago. Or it may simply be bureaucrats reminding farmers that they control the lifeblood of America’s most productive agricultural region, also one of the five largest industries in California.

 

But the reality – especially after heavy “atmospheric river” rains in mid-November and December drenched Northern California – is that farms will receive far more water than the 5 percent of requested amounts promised them in late December, when state officials behaved as if the November downpours would be the water year’s last precipitation.

 

Yes, it is the duty of water officials to husband California’s water supplies to make sure neither cities nor farms ever run completely dry. But 5 percent made no real sense.

 

It’s as if the bureaucrats who work for Gov. Gavin Newsom wanted to put the lie to his post-election pledges to pay more heed to the Central Valley and its interests, whose sense of being disrespected was one reason that region was the only major part of California carried by President Trump in last fall’s election.

 

This adds up to a need to change some practices, including a few outlined by Karla Nemeth, director of the Department of Water Resources. “We need to prepare for any scenario, and this early in the season we need to take a conservative approach to managing our water supply,” she said.

 

But that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for farmers to plan crops unless they depend greatly on ground water, a resource becoming increasingly depleted while ground levels above aquifers subside. And they have subsided, as anyone can deduce from seeing onetime irrigation pipes that now rise several feet above current ground levels.

 

Better to compromise a bit in years following a few seasons of heavy rain, today’s situation. Another way to put this might be to ask why state bureaucrats push a number and then essentially wink at farmers to tell them what they’re hearing is nowhere near what will eventually govern. That’s what happened last year, too, when the initial estimate of what farmers would get was 10 percent of requests and the ultimate amount was 40 percent – still using conservative allocations to make sure – unnecessarily – that reservoirs and canals remained full all year round, rather than just partially full.

 

Even now, after a 2024 that was much drier than 2023 and an early winter with virtually no rain in Southern California, drinking water reservoirs remain nearly full. Diamond Valley Lake, near Hemet, the largest such potable water storage facility in Southern California, was at 97 percent of capacity shortly after Christmas.

 

All this makes it high time for California water bureaucrats to cut out their act and provide farmers and other citizens realistic supply estimates, rather than constantly reserving the right to leave water districts and their people and industries high and dry, even when supplies are copious.

 

 -30-

   Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

 

DECISION TIMES BEGIN SOON FOR NEWLY HOMELESS FIRE VICTIMS

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2025, OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“DECISION TIMES BEGIN SOON FOR NEWLY HOMELESS FIRE VICTIMS”

 

As the flames of California history’s most damaging winter began to cool, decision times were about to arrive for tens of thousands of the state’s newest homeless.

 

Some evacuees had homes to return to; some did not. This was almost like a random lottery. But those whose homes fell to the mid-January firestorms suddenly face decisions they never wanted to think about.

 

The questions are no different from those that confronted victims of many fires over the last few years, but are made different and maybe more difficult because of scale. Never before have more than 10,000-plus fire victim households faced these issues simultaneously.

 

Do they rebuild, or do they sell the land long occupied by their ravaged homes? Do they settle for what insurance companies are willing to pass out, or hire a lawyer? With insurance companies bringing claims adjusters from around the nation, many of them unfamiliar with California conditions, do they hire a public adjuster to fight lowball damage evaluations?

 

Amid a housing shortage, do they seek a temporary rental or try to buy something in what is fast becoming a seller’s market? Do they want to keep living in what proved to be a hazardous environment, no matter how benign it seemed for previous decades?

 

The paths many will choose were eased only a little by an executive order issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom while flames were still spreading. He took the California Environmental Quality Act off the table, so environmental impact reports will no longer be a necessity for anyone rebuilding anything even similar to a previous abode or commercial building. CEQA never applied to individual homes, so this will aid only developers doing multiple rebuilds. For those who lost homes at or near the beach, Newsom's order means the state Coastal Commission won’t have a voice in how or what they can build.

 

But what about folks in their 70s and 80s? One 85-year-old Pacific Palisades resident whose longtime home burned down said he would rebuild. Noting he would be about 90 when that project ends, he said, “So I’ll be 90? So what?”

 

Others in that age cohort will no doubt opt to take insurance settlements and sell their land for others to rebuild upon, while moving to condominiums in untouched areas or to independent and assisted living facilities.

 

Younger homeowners will for the most part rebuild, as has happened with most residents of other fire-ravaged areas from Santa Rosa and Napa to San Diego and Malibu.

 

Whether in Northern California or Southern California, in a forest or along the ocean, reporters visiting the blackened scenes of fires a week or two after blazes end often are told by determined residents, “This is the price of living in paradise. We knew the risk and we’re coming back.”

 

To obtain fire insurance when they do that, they will have to use fire-resistant materials not commonly employed in earlier eras when most of the destroyed homes were built. Stone and Spanish tile roofs will be more common. So will fireproof siding. Finer screens will be deployed over vents where flying embers sometimes enter homes and ignite attics. Landscaping will employ more fire-resistant vegetation and fewer trees that can fall or spread flames. Nothing on the exterior will be placed even near to most walls.

 

Homes and buildings thus will more resemble small forts than ever before in California. There will be more brickwork, too, even if that can be an earthquake hazard.

 

The entire process, replete with permitting delays and contractor cost overruns in the coming boom construction market, will take more than five years, during which whole sections of cities will be grossly underpopulated.

 

There will be scams and gouging galore, even though some hotels and merchants now are offering deep discounts to fire evacuees. Some lawyers will demand unethically large percentages of insurance settlements. Imposter contractors will collect deposits, only to disappear.

 

So one watchword for the rebuilding will be “caveat emptor” – let the buyer beware.

 

But California will also see displays of fortitude, courage, generosity and family closeness. In short, the wide panoply of human behavior and emotions will operate closer to the surface than usual, with survivors needing to be as watchful now as they were while evacuating.

 

 -30-

   Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net.

'EXPERTS’ MISS THE POINT ON MOVING WELLS FARGO’S HQ

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2025 OR THEREAFTER

 

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“'EXPERTS’ MISS THE POINT ON MOVING WELLS FARGO’S HQ”

 

Every published analysis of Well Fargo’s Christmas-week decision to sell its longtime headquarters high-rise deep in San Francisco’s financial district has missed the entire point.

 

Speculation has been rife that the huge California-centered bank plans to move its corporate headquarters out of San Francisco, where it been since Gold Rush days and the Pony Express era. Guesses for a new headquarters have included Minneapolis, Dallas, Charlotte and New York City, where Wells Fargo’s president now keeps his main office.

 

That came about because Charles Scharf joined Wells Fargo from Bank of New York Mellon and didn’t want to move. At the time, Wells Fargo had just completed a new “branch hub” complex along the Hudson River and Scharf moved into it.

 

So talk of Wells Fargo shifting its headquarters is old stuff, since the company already has a very diffuse headquarters structure, with yet another major complex in Minnesota.

 

The “experts” bemoaned Wells Fargo’s shift in San
Francisco and the upcoming sale of its 420 Montgomery Street building as a sign that California will soon be a has-been as a financial center. That’s hokum.

 

So long as this state retains anything near its current stature as the world’s fifth largest economy, it will need to have a significant banking structure even if bank leaders keep offices in other cities, too. Big banks like Wells and Bank of America, another California native whose nominal headquarters are now out of state (in Charlotte), will need big employee bases here.

 

But like other white collar industries including insurance companies, law firms and stock brokerages, they saw many of their workers – even at executive levels – switch to working at home during the Covid 19 pandemic. So the businesses no longer need as many employees in their offices as often as before. It translates to billions of square feet of vacant offices, even if Tesla, Space X and Twitter/X owner Elon Musk disapproves and wants to call his own workers back to their old cubicles.

 

That’s not happening even at his companies, which have seen large-scale employee departures since Musk began making those demands. Example: Tesla last year saw a 44 percent departure rate among its executives, about five times the normal turnover rate for large corporations.

 

The Wells Fargo move has to be seen in its overall context, not merely as a banking move. (In fact, Wells officials said of San Francisco that “The city remains vital to us. It is very important to the bank.)

 

What’s happening is the same kind of real estate turnover that’s affected other office-centric businesses. Wells Fargo in 2023 sold one of its major San Francisco buildings, at 550 California Street, for $45 million, taking a loss of more than $200 million from what it paid for that structure in 2019, just before the pandemic.

 

Wells Fargo’s experience is similar to what’s happened to other office tower owners, with real estate investment trusts having lost billions of dollars when hundreds of tenant businesses left their old leases in the pandemic’s dust, exiting as fast as they could.

 

Now Wells is doing the same. Its workers will still come to an office sometimes. One common practice is to hold meetings and make plans at company headquarters, with workers carrying out those decisions largely from home offices.

 

Recognizing this reality, state legislators last spring passed a new law making building conversions into apartments and condominiums far easier than before, almost automatic.

 

This is the best way yet devised to solve much of California’s housing shortage, with new living units created in existing structures without altering the physical character of cities or neighborhoods.

 

So the Wells Fargo building sale and move actually is part of a trend, just not the trend many financial and real estate analysts think they’ve spotted of yet another big corporation moving headquarters out of California.

 

Sure, Wells Fargo will have significant offices elsewhere; it has had many of them for a long time. But the trend that’s really at work in this move is the switch from office-centric work environments to home offices, which has been underway now for almost five years.

 

-30-

 

    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