MASS TRANSIT MERITS THE BUDGET CUT IT MAY GET

 

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2023 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

  “MASS TRANSIT MERITS THE BUDGET CUT IT MAY GET”

 

        From the moment Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in January that his next budget plan would include a $2 billion cut in funding for building mass transit, there was bleating from many of California’s leading liberal legislators.

 

        The budget reduction, warned Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, “could lead to significant service cuts, which is a downward death spiral for some (transit) agencies.”

 

        Oakland Democratic state Sen. Nancy Skinner added that “I think everyone in the Legislature would not want to have any funding shift, for example, for a public service like transit.”

 

        But a look at the numbers gives a pretty good idea why Newsom chose transit for about 10 percent of the cuts needed to make up a predicted $22 billion deficit.

 

        They show Californians are not as enthusiastic about either light or heavy rail commuting as their elected lawmakers.

 

        Figures from the American Public Transit Assn. demonstrate that neither the extensive Bay Area Rapid Transit system nor Southern California’s Metro Rail have come close to recovering the ridership they lost during the coronavirus pandemic, when two things happened:

 

        One saw many white collar workers begin staying home to work. The other was that thousands of commuters daily chose to use private cars rather than public transit in order to avoid possible exposure to the many, ever mutating variants of Covid.

 

        By the fall of last year, BART was carrying just 55 percent of its pre-pandemic passenger load, while Metro Rail was at 71 percent of prior ridership. Partly, that’s because San Francisco saw a greater shift than Southern California toward remote work. The change also saw that city lose about 6 percent of its population, many workers moving to less expensive areas once they no longer needed to live close to their jobsites.

 

        The specific numbers, available most recently from last July, August and September, saw both systems carrying tens of thousands more persons in those months of 2022 than a year earlier. But still not nearly enough to make either system break even financially.

 

        That’s one reason the Newsom budget proposal seeks to cut much more money for new lines and equipment than for operations.

 

        But any reduction in new rail construction offends folks like Wiener and Skinner for other reasons, even though they rarely mention it. Wiener, in particular, has been the legislative point person for the recent spate of state laws that encourage far denser housing than California has previously seen.

 

        Proximity to mass transit lines and stations is written into some of those measures, with high-rise construction permitted almost automatically in areas close to “major transit corridors” and light rail stations.

 

        So the more new rail lines are built, the more dense housing will be permitted over the next few years.

 

        The fact that not very much of the development authorized so far has actually taken place has less to do with transit access than with high interest rates and skepticism on the part of lenders. They see high vacancy rates where new construction has risen. Current vacancy rates in commercial and multi-family housing run about 27 percent in San Francisco and 20 percent in Los Angeles.

 

        In short, just because legislators authorize something does not mean it will automatically occur, especially when the average cost of creating a new one-bedroom apartment or condominium reportedly is about $830,000.

 

        None of this will dampen the enthusiasm of Wiener, Skinner and other legislators for ever-denser housing.

 

        As a result, and if transit ridership gradually creeps back toward pre-pandemic levels, expect pushback from the lawmakers over the cut in transit construction funding, putatively slashed by Newsom from $7.7 billion in 2022-23 to $5.7 billion in 2023-24.

 

        For the fiscally conservative governor had to find places to cut his budget that would impact the fewest possible Californians.

 

        Since ground has not even been broken yet on rail lines that were to be financed by the funds at issue, let alone have them in operation, this is a cut that affects no one right now.

 

        Which makes it a logical category to reduce, unless there’s a sudden and unexpected upturn in the state’s finances.

 

    -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

MOVED-UP PRIMARY SUCCEEDS AS STATE EXERTS SIGNIFICANT INFLUENCE

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2020, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

          “MOVED-UP PRIMARY SUCCEEDS AS STATE EXERTS SIGNIFICANT INFLUENCE”

          It turns out California’s politicians were right: they advanced the state’s presidential primary election from its traditional June date to the earliest time available under Democratic Party rules to attain more national influence, and they achieved that goal.

          First, 13 other states quickly followed California onto March 3, creating a coast-to-coast Super Tuesday that still left the Golden State’s pot of delegates the day’s biggest prize. That’s influence.

In turn, this forced decisions onto candidates who managed only middling performances in the four small-state “undercard” primaries and caucuses, and that wound up creating either a two- or a three-man race by the time California’s primary day arrived. Again, this state’s outsized influence was felt heavily even before a vote was cast here.

Then came the preliminary results, which appeared to leave the race to oppose President Trump this fall pretty much a two-man affair.

All this represents a huge change for California. For most of the last 50 years, America’s most populous state had little or no voice in choosing presidential candidates for either major political party, even though it largely fuels both the national economy and culture.

          That changed a little in 2008, when California moved its primary up from the customary early June date to Feb. 5, only to be joined by a dozen more states seeking to dilute its influence, just as they did this year.

Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton’s big win here 12 years ago forced eventual winner Barack Obama to keep campaigning through other primary states until late spring.

          Then in 2016, California’s primary returned to its traditional June slot, giving the state no say at all in shaping the eventual matchup of Mrs. Clinton vs. Republican Donald Trump.

          Which helps explain why California opted to vote early this year.

          And California could have been decisive if Democratic voters had solidified behind one candidate to take on Trump in the fall. They did not. Nevertheless, the California vote will reverberate for months.

          Although 13 other states also voted on “Super Tuesday,” Bloomberg’s six weeks of campaigning and spending here and in Texas, while ignoring the small earlier states, put him in third place after the California primary and probably deprived former Vice President Joe Biden of a plurality here.

          If you figured the $90 million-plus spent here (an economic benefit of moving up the primary) by Bloomberg and fellow billionaire Tom Steyer on a per-voter basis, they paid about $40 for every vote they both won.

          Once again, if an early candidate like Biden or Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren had thoroughly dominated here, any of them could have become the big favorite.

          Now, even though Sanders won here, the ideological split among Democrats between moderates and extreme liberals will force him to keep campaigning hard for months. Had Warren dropped out before California, it’s possible Sanders could have held a dominating position because of the 415 first-ballot national convention delegates California offered, almost one-fourth of the 1,991 needed for a first-ballot nomination.

          Also, few Democratic candidates took advantage of California’s conducting what amounted to 54 separate primaries, one statewide and one in each of 53 congressional districts. Any Democrat who cared to campaign heavily in Republican-dominated districts would not need to win over many voters in order to get the several delegates each district provides. Bloomberg was the only candidate to do much of this and it won him delegates.

          The others essentially threw up their hands when they got to California and saw they couldn’t possibly match the outreach Bloomberg bought with his many millions, along with the established name recognition and popularity of Sanders and Biden.

          The result is that California saw plenty of benefit in the early primary: Media businesses (but not newspapers) made millions, mostly off Bloomberg and Steyer, who began their big spending in December. There’s also little doubt this state’s positioning helped winnow the field down.

          So California may not have been decisive, but both its actions and its votes shaped the race the nation will see for the rest of the spring. That was this state at last exerting some of the influence it deserves to wield.

    -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, go to www.californiafocus.net.

CHIANG A DIFFERENT KIND OF CANDIDATE FOR GUV

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2017, OR THEREAFTER


BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
     “CHIANG A DIFFERENT KIND OF CANDIDATE FOR GUV”

          If there’s one quality shared by several of the leading candidates to succeed Jerry Brown as governor, it’s flamboyance. No one ever accused Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco, or ex-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of being boring.

          The same for financier Tom Steyer, who has spent many millions pushing green, environmental causes, often centering  cause-oriented commercials around himself.

          So it’s no wonder these three and San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, the most prominent Republican prospect for governor next year, are the early leaders in the polls, even though no one yet approaches even 30 per cent support in any respectable poll.

          But the other major office-holding Democrat in this race, state Treasurer John Chiang, brings a different approach. He’s not about bling, but concentrates on policy. He’s also shown he can be tough on his fellow politicos, regardless of party.

          He proved this in 2011, after voters passed Proposition 25, which requires legislators to pass a balanced state budget by each June 15, or see their salaries and expense account checks abruptly halted. No legislator thought this would ever actually happen, because the state controller is one of them, an elected politician.

          But Chiang, then the controller, announced on that June 22, with lawmakers a week past the deadline, that he would dock their pay. He did, the average legislator impacted to the tune of about $400 per day. A balanced budget quickly followed and the lawmakers have been on time ever since, after almost a decade of consistently late budgets.

          So it’s not very surprising that Chiang, who trailed badly in the early polls, is not approaching California’s many conflicts with President Trump in the same way as his fellow candidates, who have loudly decried many of the new federal administration’s moves but so far done little about them.

          Knowing that Trump and his Secretary of Energy, former Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry, deny the science behind global warming and the many measures California has adopted to combat it, Chiang realizes the federal loan guarantees that have enabled most solar and wind energy projects are bound to dry up soon.

          So he’s pushing “green bonds” as a substitute. By that, he means bonds issued by corporations, cities or states to finance climate-friendly projects. Rather than lending money easily because of a federal loan guarantee in case a planned project goes belly up, lenders, borrowing companies and local agencies will have to vet proposals very carefully.

          “Because of California’s record in making these projects succeed, and the state’s mandate for producing more and more renewable energy, the market for this kind of bond will accelerate,” says Chiang, whose current job sees him promote California state bonds to the world’s leading financiers. “We will have big investments from Europe and China in this; we’re not looking just at the pool of investors in the U.S., but the world.”

          Chiang maintains bond money going to green projects with solid profit prospects “will eventually grow to more money than has been enabled by federal loan guarantees. There is a huge interest around the world in American projects, and people are looking to California for leadership. There are many billions of dollars out there.” For sure, this kind of leadership will not emanate from Washington, D.C. for at least the next few years.

          Chiang has quietly done this kind of thing for the last decade, as controller and then treasurer. He’s aware that if voters think of him at all, it is as a technocrat.

          “We have to communicate more,” he said. And he had more than $7 million on hand in February to help him start doing that. “I will offer solutions to the state’s other problems just like I am now with the green bonds, as ways to move forward with or without support from President Trump.”

          Chiang also thinks California should pick its fights carefully, and should shun the idea of California independence. “California needs to be doing things to produce prosperity for us all. Pursue independence and things like water, pension debt and other problems would not get solved.”

          This kind of practicality could make Chiang effective as governor. But first, he’ll have to get past the technocrat image which his solid ideas ironically tend to reinforce. 

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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

CONVICTS WHO DON'T DESERVE PAROLE HEARINGS

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
   “CONVICTS WHO DON'T DESERVE PAROLE HEARINGS”

          Consider the criminal history of Bobby Beausoleil, 67, the latest follower of Charles Manson to come up for an automatic parole hearing.

          Among the lesser-known members of the murderous so-called Manson "Family,” Beausoleil was a Manson henchman who fled Los Angeles after the 1969 murders of musician Gary Hinman and movie stuntman Donald “Shorty” Shea. Caught near San Luis Obispo and jailed, he could not participate in the group’s notorious slayings of actress Sharon Tate and grocer Leno LaBianca a few days later.

          Beausoleil was up for a routine, periodic parole hearing late this winter, with Gov. Jerry Brown yet to decide his fate. As it did with fellow Manson acolyte Bruce Davis last year, there was every likelihood the state Parole Board would order him released on the basis of advanced age and good behavior while in prison.

          The Manson cases raise the question of whether some crimes are sufficiently heinous to merit a special classification, one amounting to locking them up and throwing away the key without ever holding parole hearings like those given Davis, Beausoleil and Manson himself every few years.

          The question takes on urgency because this will likely be the last time the fate of either Beausoleil or Davis will be decided by Brown, who will likely be the last California governor with any personal recall of the horror of their crimes and the wave of fear and panic they spawned across wide parts of the state. The current front-runner to succeed Brown, for example, is Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor and a former San Francisco mayor who was two years old when Manson & Co. spread the chopped body parts of Hinman and Shea across the Spahn Movie Ranch in Chatsworth.

    It’s an open question whether an old crime story like this would have the same impact on him that Brown’s memories do on his actions. Brown lived in Los Angeles at the time.

    The Hinman and Shea murders marked the beginning of the Manson Family’s campaign of killings. Years after he was convicted, Beausoleil said he went to Hinman’s residence in the Santa Monica Mountains with two “Manson girls,” one of them Susan Denise Atkins, who would die in prison after being convicted in the Tate-LaBianca slayings.

    His alleged mission: To recover money previously paid to Hinman for mescaline which had later been sold to the Straight Satans motorcycle gang, operating in the Los Angeles area. The bikers demanded their money back when they discovered the drug was flawed. Beausoleil said Manson ordered him to hold Hinman at gunpoint until he arrived and began trying to extort money from Hinman by cutting his ear off with a sword, among other tactics. Eventually, Beausoleil told authorities, Manson told him to kill Hinman and he did, Davis also being convicted in the murder. They scrawled “Political Piggy” on a wall with Hinman’s blood, hoping to make police believe the slaying was done by political radicals. The scene presaged what Atkins and others wrote on the walls at the gruesome LaBianca murder scene.

          Eventually, Hinman was chopped up along with Shea, who Manson allegedly feared would turn him in to Los Angeles police. Parts of their bodies were found on the Spahn Ranch, the scene of many early Western movies.

          Few relatives of the victims survive today. A Hinman cousin living in Denver regularly opposes parole for anyone who participated in his murder. The same for Tate’s sister Debra, her lone surviving family member.

          Few doubt that Beausoleil, Manson and others in their grisly crew deserved the death sentences they first received, later changed to life in prison.

          In his message denying parole last year to Davis, Gov. Brown clumsily but accurately opined that “In rare circumstances, a murder is so heinous that it provides evidence of current dangerousness by itself.” That is also true for Beausoleil, whose role in Hinman’s death was larger than Davis’.

          There are a few other killers who could fit the same category, like Richard Ramirez, the recently deceased Night Stalker whose crime spree terrorized both the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.

          People like these, as Brown implied, should never be freed. So it’s high time legislators create a new category of convict beyond the reach of parole, taking their eventual fate away from politicians who might not even remember them and their misdeeds.

-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