To its minimal credit, Borders Books & Music always had a a few shelves where the works of Jacobs, Mumford, Kunstler, Whyte, Florida, and others resided.  But, judging by the financial and aesthetic bankruptcies of, respectively, Borders and many American cities, it seems that copies of Life and Death (or anything else) weren't exactly flying out the door. If the public's understanding of urban economies even began to rival its fascination for gossip, self-help, and vampires, Borders never would have arisen in the first place. And its creditors wouldn't have had to put a stake through its heart .   I, for one, am glad to see it go.  On the one hand, America inches ever more towards illiteracy. Borders stores, while far from cozy, were pleasant and reasonably stimulating, relative to, say, big boxes and supermax prisons. For countless thousands of bibliophiles and starving students who found their first jobs there, Borders sure beat McDonald's. I should know. One of my first jobs was at Barnes & Noble (same difference). What I found working my (short) stint at B&N -- and I'm sure that Borders was much the same -- is that the mega bookstores treat books like any other commodity. Borders stores are sterile, corporate places where art, ideas, and information rot on the shelf. As I once noted in a Planetizen  book review of Stacy Mitchell's Big Box Swindle, the big bookstores share far more in common with Walmart and Best Buy than they do with the independent stores that populate Main Street. Or that used to.  Along with the other mega-retailers who benefited from perverse incentives in planning, zoning, and tax laws, Borders assisted in the gutting of American retail streets and the decimation of a proud entrepreneurial and intellectual tradition. In my hometown, I have already shed enough tears for Dutton's, Wilshire Books, and others. I, unlike Borders'  fans , am all tapped out.  But I'm hopeful about what could arise after the demise of Big Book.   The U.S. government bailed out the auto and finance industries because, so the argument goes, the economy depended on them. But that's only half the reason. The other half is that those industries have incredibly high barriers to entry. If you want cars and banks, you have to stick with the ones you have. You can't design and build cars or a banking system overnight.  You can, however, set up a bookstore in pretty short order. (In downtown L.A. one opened up from nothing a few weeks ago.)  I want to believe, as Jacobs' famous title implies, that the pendulum can swing back. In fact, the conditions could not be better for a revival of independent retail.  Borders, with 399 remaining stores on death row, collapsed because it had too few customers to support hundreds of enormous stores. But that doesn't mean that there aren't enough customers to support smaller stores in equal, or even greater, numbers.  For a little while, in cities where Borders already drove out all the independents, those customers will be out of luck. But then they should start raising hell. Perhaps a few of them will even found stores of their own. The next wave of startup bookstores will face competition from neither Borders nor other independents. The same recession that has depressed consumer spending has also depressed commercial rental rates. Vacant storefonts in Main Streets and in strip malls alike are there for the asking. You could probably buy a truckload of gently used books for what it costs to air condition a single Borders for a month. These new stores will, I suspect, instantly gain the loyalty -- and money -- of legions of customers who formerly thought that Borders was the ne plus ultra of retail. They will quickly learn the error of their ways. They will also make cities better. People on the extremes, who are both cynical of and rapturous about the free market, forget that some forms of commerce have intrinsic social benefits. Payday advance places and Hot Topic, for example, probably do not. But bookstores do. They are lively places, ideally with something for everyone. They bring people together and give them something to talk about. They foster the exchange of ideas that make cities great, and wealthy, in the first place. Cities with half a brain will throw out the tiresome manual that says that economic development depends on factories and infrastructure. They should, instead, seize this moment and promote entrepreneurship.  A bookstore-centric economic development plan probably makes little sense. But just as cities have lured big boxes for all the wrong reasons, they can probably figure out ways to make their storefronts and urban neighborhoods more inviting to entrepreneurs.  Most antiques don't get a second chance. Sure, some folks still ride horses, and fewer still take the hotrod out on Saturday night. The market for ironic vintage fashion is bigger than ever. But the demise of Borders does not mean that books have become antiques. They have survived for 600 years. As a human innovation, they are bested only by cities themselves. When something has been around that long, it doesn't easily turn into an anachronism. It is, in fact, an institution. The bookstore is dead. Long live the bookstore.  --Josh Stephens This piece also appears on Josh Stephens' blog on Planetizen's Interchange.

The Governor's Office of Planning and Research occupies an unusual place in California planning. Even though planning is an intensely local function, part of OPR's mission is to convey Sacramento's planning agenda to the local level. At times when that agenda has been ill-defined, OPR has nearly withered. But now that Gov. Jerry Brown has articulated support for Senate Bill 375 and for a host of smart growth principals, OPR may regain prominence. This task falls to attorney Ken Alex. Alex, who served under Brown in the attorney general's office, is Brown's senior policy advisor and director of the Office of Planning and Research, as well as chair of the Strategic Growth Council. In the attorney general's office, Alex specialized in environmental cases, and before that he led numerous settlement negotiations against power producers that collectively resulted in over $5 billion in settlements. As OPR director, however, Alex will see no such windfall. With a small staff and constrained budget, Alex spoke with CP&DR about his goals as OPR director and the future of California planning under the Brown administration. What are your and Governor Brown's goals for OPR? Some of the highest priorities for the governor are to promote the conversion to renewable energy and to think about it in local terms. One way to think about that is distributed generation. We are considering how to site not just rooftop solar, but also solar facilities that are more modest in size than some of the large-scale projects out in the desert. You might think about a 20 megawatt system that can go in fairly small areas. Ground-mounted tends to be cheaper than roof-mounted; they're easier to install and easier to take care of. And there are a lot of possibilities for where they could be sited: on utility right of ways, on freeway right of ways, and along the California Aqueduct. OPR is trying to help local jurisdictions figure out where some locations might be and then to think about what sort of barriers might exist for those projects: How do we streamline permitting so that we are sensitive to environmental issues but don't slow down the project to the point of making it nearly impossible? As former governor and mayor of Oakland, infill development is something that Governor Brown has been interested in for decades. So we're thinking about what strategies can promote infill development and do it in a way that's good for urban areas and brings people back to downtown areas in ways that we've seen in places like Oakland. Then one of the things that OPR has some statutory obligation to do, but hasn't spent a lot of time doing, is looking at the state of the environment every four years or so. I'd like to do that in ways that think about different measures of the environment that may not be traditional, such as air quality and water quality. Those are important. But how is public health? How are we doing on crime? How are we doing on other measures of the broader environment? What is California going to look like as we look towards 50 million people in the state? There's a lot of things that go into evaluating the state of the environment. What role does the Strategic Growth Council play in OPR's work? Right now the SGC is focused, in significant part, on doing its various grants. There are three rounds of grants: one set for urban greening and another set for planning and, in particular, for sustainable communities. The Strategic Growth Council has a very small staff. It actually has one , and she just hired a second staff member, and we're trying to get her a third staff person. But they really have very minimal capacity to do much beyond the grant process when the grants are in action. So the first priority is to receive the grant request applications and make decisions about them. What role can OPR play in implementing Senate Bill 375? Then SB 375 requires metropolitan planning organizations to evaluate and plan in a regional way, particularly for transit oriented development. We're trying to help the MPOs with some of that process on the planning side. More importantly, for me, is the question of how we get the local jurisdictions—which are not obligated to follow those plans—interested in meeting up with those plans and working in a regional way, which I think will help how we grow in California. One of the challenges that the metropolitan planning organizations have is to do modeling to evaluate what different strategies and scenarios mean and what are the impacts if they develop in certain ways as opposed to developing in other ways. We can help with the modeling. We can help with different scenario plans. We are trying to get the different MPOs to talk to each other, to coordinate, and to use the extraordinary amount of work that's been done in this area on transportation planning, on modeling, on design work on transportation-oriented development. SGC awards some highly coveted grants for local planning. What can cities expect from those grant programs? The criteria were put out to bid pretty much when I came into being chair of the SGC. I think the criteria haven't changed much in the past year. Obviously on the Urban Greening Grants, they're supposed to be primarily urban, so they're areas of high density, and there are various possibilities for how communities can go about, not just planting trees, but also creating places that are going to be relevant to downtown areas and to communities that have very high densities. SGC, as I noted, has a limited staff. But the grants themselves are actually looked after by the Resources Agency and by the Department of Conservation. Looking after those grants and making sure that the money is used properly, appropriately, and effectively is quite relevant. We're going to be doing some auditing and ensuring that the money is being used properly. Oversight is always an important issue, but even more so given the current economic times. How does the potential demise of redevelopment affect OPR's work? That's a fair question, and I don't really have a good answer at the moment. We don't even know which bills are going to the governor's desk, and which he may or may not sign. And when the smoke clears, where are we going? I would expect that there will be something to replace the current system but what that's going to be, I don't know. It has a lot of potential impacts for everything that OPR is doing. Like you and your readers, I am very curious to see what happens next. Are these incredibly trying times to be in your position right now? At the outset it's very exciting. We have a half-dozen new staff people who are excited to be there and have many, many ideas. We have almost no budget. But that's OK. We're interested in trying new ideas. What is difficult is that local governments in their planning departments have been decimated, so how do we help them without many resources ourselves? Some governors have embraced OPR, as Jerry Brown did in his first stint, others have not. How does Gov. Brown approach OPR this time? He was a big fan of OPR the first time around when he was governor. He understands that it has great potential to do good things. He is supportive of the idea of land use planning. He knows very intimately the issues that local jurisdictions face. I feel like we have a very supportive governor for what OPR is about, but the challenges we've identified are small staff and small budget. He has also made it clear that his government is going to run under a very slim budget and we have to live with that. That's life and we'll deal with it. How has your time in the attorney general's office influenced your approach to OPR's work? It's an interesting change from going from being an attorney and thinking first about litigation and how you use legal tools to being in a policy position. I think having some sense of how the laws are used, and sometimes misused, is a huge advantage. In many conversations, I have a sense of the legal issues, and as I learn some more of the policy questions I can bring some of that knowledge to bear. It's very interesting to approach these problems and start thinking about, "OK, as a lawyer you might use the law in a particular set of ways." And now we have to think about what are the problems created by how the law is used? And are there ways to reform or modify or give some guidance to make things easier and better.  I actually am enjoying that very much. You have a unique perspective on CEQA having worked on some landmark CEQA cases in the Attorney General's office. How do you think the relationship between CEQA and greenhouse gas emissions is going to evolve? What we found at the AG's office is that it was a new area some years ago. And it really needed to develop. The AG's office was very much a part of that development. Sometimes the development occurs through litigation and negotiation. But OPR has some very interesting tools, like technical advisories and guidelines and information letters, and I'm interested in seeing if we can use some of those tools as well. It's a positive development, and I think both tools are relevant. And I think working with local jurisdictions to figure out the challenges they have and to use OPR in a way that there's no threat of litigation--because we're not going to sue anybody--has some advantages. And I think sometimes the AG's approach has some advantages. Hopefully, there will be some ways to make progress on all fronts and come to the point where some of the very difficult questions raised by GHG emissions are less contentious and more sophisticated. How do you feel about the prospect of reforming CEQA? I think that CEQA has been perceived as a hindrance in certain instances. Whether that is objectively true in some ways doesn't matter, because perception is on some level, reality. I think it's fair and appropriate to evaluate what kind of changes may make sense. Is it just CEQA? I think it's fair to say that there are a lot of reasons why infill development is difficult. Some of them are straight economics. There are legal impediments. There are actions that can be taken under CEQA that can make development more difficult. So, fine, that's where we are, and I think that it's fair and appropriate to evaluate CEQA and see if it's time to make some changes. I know that the governor is interested in doing a very serious process to evaluate that. And at OPR we are working on possibilities of thinking about infill CEQA streamlining. We're evaluating whether some sort of best practices approach might make some sense where projects that meet a set of criteria would then have a very streamlined environmental review. That's an area where I think there's a fair amount of promise to make some possible changes. So we're convening some discussions on that topic with a lot of interested folks from a lot of different perspectives: environmental, builders, chambers of commerce, etc. I'm hoping that we can make some proposals in the not-too-distant future. What's your approach to the age-old challenge of coordinating different governmental units in California? The very first thing that we are doing is to get a sense of what the various interfaces between government agencies and local governments are on urban issues. It's not always obvious. There's quite a few of them. What Gov. Brown has emphasized with his cabinet secretaries….sometimes the agency jurisdictions are relevant, and they certainly are for budget purposes, but, in his view, it's one government, and we need to work together. I think OPR is part of making that happen. I want to find where the interfaces are and I want to get these entities to talk together and coordinate and figure out what works for local jurisdictions. We're doing that already. We're particularly focusing on renewable energy. We have programs at the Energy Commission, Air Resources Board and Public Utilities Commission, and we are meeting with these various departments and agencies trying to figure out what resources are available. How do you encourage cities to take health into consideration, on top of all the other factors that go into land use planning? I think that's a fair observation: cities have a lot of things to deal with. But I think for everybody at the state level and the local level, health issues are central. At the state level, we're working on something called Health in All Policies through the Strategic Growth Council, which is an attempt to integrate health into all sorts of decisions at the state government level: infrastructure spending and regulatory issues. What policies affect health and how do we ensure that decisions that are made that do affect health do take into considerations those impacts. The Health in All Policies work group has just identified 11 such impacts and are now working on a program to integrate those 11 identified issues into state policy. When we're done with that, we're going to integrate some of that into general plan guidelines for local governments. It'll be on a voluntary basis. But we want to try to help those jurisdictions that are interested in integrating heath into their planning decisions. We're going to introduce some informational processes to try to get some buy-in at local levels. For jurisdictions that may not have the capacity to have thought about this in an extensive way, they might be able to use some of the material, and say, ‘here's something off the shelf that we can do that might make quite a bit of difference.' For others, some of the jurisdictions are very sophisticated and it will be a reinforcement. As usual in California, there are all different sizes and shapes and we're trying to help as best we can. Photo of Ken ;Alex speakingat a UCLA / Berkeley Law forum May ;23 in Sacramento courtesy of the UCLA School of Law. Photo by Tia Gemmell.

OK, nothing surrounding redevelopment is much "fun" these days. But let's try to lighten the mood. In case you're wondering what exactly could get eliminated, the Senate Committee on Governance & Finance has compiled a list of the most salient facts from a recently released draft annual report, for FY 2009-10, compiled by the Office of the State Controller. This report was based on data reported by the agencies themselves, so some of the facts probably should be taken with a grain of salt. (For instance, if anyone knows exactly how to measure "jobs created," I want to hear about it.) There are 425 community redevelopment agencies, but only 399 are active Every city with a population over 250,000 has a redevelopment agency 94% of the 174 cities with populations over 50,000 have redevelopment agencies 81% of the 480 cities have redevelopment agencies 31 of the 58 counties have redevelopment agencies There are 750 redevelopment project areas 65 redevelopment project areas cover 50 acres or less 34 redevelopment project areas cover more than 6,000 acres Frozen property values were $164 billion; incremental values were $544 billion New construction fell to 12.5 million square feet, the lowest level since 1995-96 New construction of public buildings boomed from 222,000 to 1.4 million square feet Rehabilitated construction was down in every category except industrial buildings Redevelopment agencies created 36,000 jobs, more than double than in 2008-09 Agencies' total revenues & other funding fell to $8 billion, down from $8.3 billion Property tax increment revenues were $5.4 billion, 5% less; first drop since 1995-96 Pass-through payments were $1.2 billion, about the same as in 2008-09 Pass-throughs & other aid to K-14 schools was $315 million, down from $328 million Agencies spent $943 million in Low & Moderate Income Housing Funds Of that amount, 20.7% went for administrative, professional, planning, & design costs Low & Moderate Income Housing Funds' total revenues were $712 million Of that amount, $552 million came from property tax increment revenues Agencies' equity fell by $1.4 billion to $16.5 billion Agencies had unmatured long-term debts of $29.8 billion Agencies issued $825 million in tax allocation bonds Agencies' unmatured tax allocation bonds totaled $19.1 billion Source:  Draft Community Redevelopment Agencies Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2009-10. John Chiang, State Controller.  Released to the Legislature on July 7, 2011. --Josh Stephens

If you haven't heard, we're expecting a little traffic here in west Los Angeles this weekend. Actually, we're expecting it all over the city. No, wait. All over the county.  Forget it. The entire state is going to be paralyzed. Now everybody freak out! I am writing, of course, about the two-day closure of Interstate 405 between the 101 and 10 freeways, otherwise known as "Carmageddon." This weekend, LA Metro turns off the busiest freeway in the country, like Niagara Falls running dry.  The stanching of the flow of 500,000 cars daily will be a grand experiment in transportation planning and public relations, and as far as I'm concerned, there's not a single credible hypothesis. I'd like to think that I have special insight into what's going to happen because I live a two-minute drive from Ground Zero--the Sunset exit of the 405, where the cascade of cars from the Valley splashes down into the pool of gridlock that is the Westside--but I don't have a clue about whether this will be a blessing or a curse.  It's quite likely the parallel routes to the 405 will be stuffed. I wouldn't drive Topanga, Coldwater, or Laurel canyons for all the oil in Saudi Arabia. The 101 and the 5 are likely to absorb traffic well beyond their carrying capacity.  But it's the broader network effects that are going to be most interesting. For instance, if drivers want to get to Century City but take the 101, does that mean that all the east-west streets between Hollywood and Century city are going to be clogged?  Will through-traffic -- from, say, Santa Clarita to LAX, or even San Francisco to San Diego -- have to make massive detours, thus backing up the entire statewide freeway system?  Or will most people just stay home and fire up the grill?  Carmageddon has elicited some hopeful proclamations from folks who say that it presents a great opportunity to stay home, hang out with local friends, smoke a few joints, and contemplate the lamentable role of the automobile in modern life. I'm all for it. But I'm not sure that people who have to work Saturday and Sunday feel the same way.  However fun or inconvenient it may be, all the speculation about Carmageddon weekend ignores important questions that policymakers may have missed in their original cost-benefit analyses. For sure, the improved freeway will be better than the old freeway. But you can't compare the new and the old. You also have to consider the costs that we have incurred in between.  If you haven't seen the construction site, you'd be amazed at what's already been going on for two years. This isn't Texas, where another lane just requires laying down another strip of asphalt. And it's not even the San Francisco Bay, where you can build a new bridge right next to the old one.  We're talking about demolishing houses. We're talking about cutting 200-foot-high chunks off hillsides and replacing them with retaining walls. They're tearing bridges down one half a time, so traffic can squeeze past until they rebuild them whole (that's what they're doing this weekend). On- and off-ramps have been jury-rigged. Lanes on surface streets have disappeared.  In short, Carmageddon may be arriving this weekend, but we've been on a highway to hell for as long as this project has been underway.  Everyone, save a few transportation planners, is familiar by now with the arguments about induced demand . Once the lanes are added, they could fill up almost instantly. But that's only half the problem with freeway construction.  The other half--which is never mentioned or measured, as far as I know--is the time and money lost to drivers while the freeway is being improved. Even if the 405 doesn't clog up instantly and does flow freely for a few years after the project is finished, I find it hard to believe that the time savings will compensate for all the time lost during its construction.  To whit, a 1.5-mile drive from my apartment to Westwood, via Wilshire Boulevard, that can take five minutes can now take over a half-hour. Walking is literally faster. Multiply that by the tens of thousands of other drivers who take that route daily. Then multiply it by the other chokepoints. We'd all need Buggatis and open roads for years in order to make up for what we're now enduring.  Then there's the pollution. One of the arguments in favor of carpool lanes is that commuters consolidate their vehicles and that they'll pollute less because they're flowing freely. But the cars stuck on Wilshire are now polluting more. Again, unless every car stuck in traffic on the new 405 runs on hydrogen and fairy dust, the construction alone will have caused a net increase in pollution.  In other words, by the time this thing has a chance to reduce pollution and traffic--if it ever does--it will already have generated plenty of pollution and traffic.  So who benefits from this feat of engineering? I know that a certain construction firm is reaping $1 billion in revenue. But I'll get something more sublime. On Saturday evening, perhaps near sundown, I get to stroll across the Sunset bridge, peer into the twilight, and see, for once, what an empty freeway looks like.  --Josh Stephens Updated 15 July 1pm.

Here's one for the irony hall of fame: the new distribution center of one of the world's largest shoe companies is located in one of the most un-walkable places in California. I mean to rib Skechers USA Inc. and its warehouse in Moreno Valley only lightly. No one expects to walk to an industrial or logistics facility the way they would to an office building or corner grocery store. Progressive planners can only hope that all those shoes land on worthy sidewalks after they're sold. Nonetheless, the Skechers distribution center has captured attention, not only because it's a real live building (we remember real estate development, don't we?) in one of the foreclosure capitals of the country but also because it touts its "green" credentials to a fare-thee-well. As the second- or third-largest warehouse in the state, it seems to hold as many superlatives as it does shoes. Most notably, this biggest of the big boxes claims to be the largest LEED-certified building in the United States. We usually don't talk about sprawl in discrete terms. Sprawl is a totality of developments. Yet the Sketchers building itself is sprawl. The structure spans 1.8 million square feet, mostly on one level. That alone is the size of a small tract housing development. The Los Angeles Times notes that it would take a half-minute to drive the 2,900-foot length of the building – at 60 miles per hour. The "short" end of the building is 700 feet, meaning that it covers the area of 40 football fields. This is ironic, since Skechers isn't known for making cleats. Up to 20,000 shoes of other types will pass through its conveyer belts and out the 270 truck bays every hour. Not bad for a little cobbling outfit from Manhattan Beach. Somehow, this behemoth racked up enough points to gain basic LEED certification. Environmentally friendly features reportedly include solar power (makes sense with a roof that big), natural ventilation (good luck in the Moreno Valley summer), and sensors that turn off lights in vacant parts of the building (duh). These features will reportedly save Skechers $10 million in energy costs per year compared to a conventional building. That's nice for Skechers, but it's not clear why the company deserves a plaque for being sensible. \tBeyond the building's walls, its location flouts every principle of smart growth. Moreno Valley is the classic outer suburb. It has wide streets, strip malls, and tract housing, and it's far from any traditional urban center. This means that 500 or so daily workers will be driving there by all sorts of routes, none of which is likely to involve a bus, bike, or, indeed, even those weird convex shoes that claim to make your butt look firmer. So, on the regional scale, the place embodies, at best, business-as-usual freeway urbanism. If laws like Senate Bill 375 were retroactive, we'd scoop up all the residents of Moreno Valley and deposit them in condo towers in Downtown Los Angeles. Then we'd let wildflowers take over. Then you'd build warehouses…. Well, I don't know where you'd build them. Probably close to freeways, rail spurs, and other infrastructure. \tBut just as you can't un-ring a bell, you can't un-leap a frog. Moreno Valley's leapfrog development is here to stay, and the freeways and heavy rail lines leading to it (as well as the ports of L.A. and Long Beach) are too. That's why—and I can't believe I'm saying this—the Skechers warehouse might be almost all right. \tRegardless of what LEED says, the greenest component of the warehouse may lie in what it isn't: it's not six other warehouses. \tThat's the number of facilities Skechers currently uses, and they're spread all over the Inland Empire. So if all those truck trips to one location in Moreno Valley scare you, imagine the aggregate impact of the current system. There's no reason to believe that workers are driving any less to get to those jobs than they will once they're redeployed to the new place. There's one other scale worth considering: the global scale. Ultimately, Skechers' LEED-plated building is just one stop on the long conveyor belt connecting the sweatshops of China to the closets of America. Those shoes grace California's shores because we have the port infrastructure and inland connections. But the environmental impact of what happens here pales in comparison to what's happening in Guangzhou or Shenzen. Out of sight, out of mind. \tSo let's tally the votes. Building: OK. Location: bad. Economics of scale: good. Global impact: unclear, but probably unavoidable no matter what it is. \tThere is, of course, one more element to consider: the output. Skechers isn't a tire company or chemical plant. If, after they cross an ocean, slide through a conveyer belt, and cross a continent, Skechers' products get consumers to lace up, take a stroll, and tighten their glutes, then it might be pretty green after all. They just probably won't be doing much of it in Moreno Valley. --Josh Stephens

I don't want to appear out of step with rational people – it's so hard to regain people's trust once they suspect you've gone off the rails – but that doesn't mean that I don't endorse Riverside County Supervisor Jeff  Stone's suggestion last week to partition California into two states.  The beauty of this two-state idea is the epic gerrymander that would force Northern California to take Los Angeles-- a magnet for entertainment types, Beverly Hills matrons, hiphop artists with jewelry in their teeth and people who speak foreign languages, among other annoyances--as its new capitol. For its part, the new State of Southern California would include up to 13 counties, including Riverside, Orange and San Diego The motivation? "Our taxes are too high, our schools don't educate our children well enough, unions and other special interests have more clout in the Legislature than the general public," Stone said in a statement. Speaking as the self-appointed representative for Los Angeles, I'm willing to strike a deal with Supervisor Stone, as long as he meets the following demands: 1. \t I want a redwood grove immediately transported to Edwards Air Force Base, located in the desert region in northernmost L.A. County.  If we arrange all the redwood trees in a giant circle, they can make a convenient target for incoming spacecraft. 2. \t I want giant fog-making machinery, so clouds can drift poetically over the LA in the afternoon, just before the evening gets that oceanfront chill. (Believe me, they'll never miss the fog in Tiburon.)  3. \t Move Malibu to Eureka, so we don't have to deal with people who challenge us as we wade waist-deep across their "private" beach waters.  Granted, such people are a tiny minority of the good people of Malibu, but relocating them northwards improves the chances they will be eaten by sharks.   4. \t Move the Golden Gate bridge to Long Beach, which could serve as a wonderful "image piece" to celebrate that city's industrial waterfront.   5. \t Move Santa Monica to a site just outside Pleasanton –they're roughly in the same demographic and median household income, so they should get along-- while bringing Big Sur and Point Lobos Reserve to the area to the Santa Monica Bay, so I don't have to drive so far to visit my favorite parts of Northern  California.  6. \t To keep undesirables out of the new State of Northern California, a barrier fence can be built along the borders of the two states, to keep Southerners from attempting to infiltrate our citadel of affluence and scenic shorelines. Travelers attempting to enter Northern California would be stopped at checkpoints. Those lacking special work visas would be turned away. 7. \t In recognition of the region's emerging majority population, Spanish becomes the official language of the new State of Southern California.  I‘m prepared to deal, Supervisor Stone. And I'll make a special offer: if you and I can come to an agreement before Labor Day, I'll throw in Kern County, as a kind of goodwill gift, or "lagniappe," as such gifts are known in Louisiana.  Think it over. Lunch is my treat. We'll have Humboldt fog for the cheese course. --Morris Newman

United by common complaints against a particularly loud, disruptive neighbor, the residents who live under the flight path of Los Angeles International Airport are a relatively cohesive bunch. The Second District Court of Appeals has ruled, however, that neighborhood cohesion goes only so far. According to the court's decision in City of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (2011), the city's voluntary program by which certain residents who live near the airport can sell their property to the city does not amount to a taking of adjacent properties. In this case, plaintiffs argued that the city's program to purchase properties in areas near LAX and demolish the buildings constituted inverse condemnation of adjacent properties owned by plaintiffs. The decision illustrates the difficulty of establishing such a claim when a public entity does not directly invade a claimant's property. The court was not persuaded, and plaintiffs' suit was dismissed. In 2000, the city established the "Voluntary Residential Acquisition and Relocation Program" for the neighborhoods of Manchester Square and Belford. According to the city, this program was created in response to residents who expressed a desire to relocate rather than to submit their homes to city-funded soundproofing as mitigation for the noise associated with the airport. As the name of the program implies, the city purchased properties from only those who chose to sell to the city—without ever invoking taking a property against an owner's wishes. By 2009, the city had spent several hundred million dollars to purchase and demolish 72 percent of the multi-family dwellings and 94 percent of the single-family dwellings in the area. Unlike the majority of the property owners in Manchester Square and Belford, plaintiffs in the suit—including owners of rental properties within the neighborhoods—chose not to sell. Yet, as more and more buildings were demolished by the city, the number of renters in plaintiffs' properties continued to decrease as the neighborhood presumably became less appealing socially and aesthetically. Instead of selling their properties, plaintiffs brought suit against the city claiming inverse condemnation: the city's program, they claimed, devalued their property but offered no compensation. The trial court agreed with plaintiffs. The city appealed, and the appellate court reversed. In the appellate court's words, the central question in the case was "whether the City's creation of ‘condemnation blight' resulted in a duty to pay just compensation." In answering "no," the court discussed prior case law holding that "there is no property right appurtenant to plaintiff's property … which entitled him to the maintenance of his residences…" (Bacich v. Board of Control (1943) 23 Cal.2d 343; see also Hecton v. People ex rel. Dept. of Transportation (1976) 58 Cal.App.3d 653; Oliver v. AT&T Wireless Services (1999) 76 Cal.App.4th 521 Legal=">Legal" Digest="Digest" Vol.="Vol." 15,="15," No.="No." 1,="1," Jan="Jan" 2000="2000"> .) The court also discussed another Supreme Court case, Klopping v. City of Whittier (1972) 8 Cal.3d 39, in which the City of Whittier had initiated and then withdrew condemnation proceedings while continuing to declare that it would one day condemn the property. The California Supreme Court found that this amounted to a compensable taking because the city's promised actions had lowered property values. In this case, plaintiffs asserted that the principles in Klopping applied to the city's actions, and therefore, a taking had occurred. In comparing the facts in this case to those in Klopping, the court found that plaintiffs had failed to show any facts that would support a Klopping-style taking. Specifically, plaintiffs presented no evidence "that the City had condemned their properties, had intent to eventually acquire their properties through condemnation, or had a plan for future use of their property that would someday require condemnation of their properties – or any property in Manchester Square or Belford." Contrary to plaintiffs' implications, the city's program was voluntary, and plaintiffs presented no evidence that any former owner felt coerced to sell their property to the city. The "blight" that emerged was therefore the result of voluntary actions which, though possibly detrimental to the remaining owners, were not directly influenced by the city. Under these facts, the court held that the city acted properly in acquiring and demolishing the properties, and plaintiffs were not entitled to compensation. The Case: City of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (2011) 194 Cal.App.4th 210 Photo Credit: Hillel Aron

A notable feature of California land use law, when compared to the overall body of civil law, is the relatively short filing period for bringing legal challenges. This constraint came into full view in Haro v. City of Solano Beach , in which the would-be builder of a mixed use development claimed that the city violated the terms of its own housing element.   The California Environmental Quality Act potentially has the shortest time period in which legal challenges can be filed—as few as 30 days, depending upon the fact pattern. For legal challenges alleging noncompliance with provisions of the state Planning, Zoning and Development law, the relevant statutes are slightly longer at 90 days. However, the Legislature has created an even longer filing period based upon challenges under the affordable housing laws. A recent decision of the Fourth Appellate District illustrates the overlapping and potentially conflicting application of CEQA and other land use statutes. The northern San Diego County city of Solano Beach submitted a draft housing element to the Department of Housing and Community Development in 2007. The department found the element in compliance. However, compliance was subject to approving a then-pending application for a site referenced as Site 8 in the Housing Element for 131 units, including 13 affordable units. Site 8, which is near the Solano Beach train station, was one of nine such sites identified by the Housing Element as appropriate for mixed use and residential development. In fact, Site 8 was considered crucial for the implementation of a Housing Element policy to encourage residential capacity in mixed-use developments. The Housing Element claimed that Site 8 would "be a key to the City's ability to meet not only its regional share for new construction but also its quantified objectives by income category." In the following year, the city processed a developer's application for Site 8. After a number of public hearings, the city directed the applicant to revise the project design based upon inconsistency with local zoning and specific plan requirements. This decision meant that project approval could not meet a grant deadline. The project ultimately failed to qualify for a $6 million grant and thus became financially infeasible.  Roughly two months later, on July 8, 2008, plaintiffs gave notice to the city that failure to approve the original Site 8 project violated its housing own element. On August 27, 2008, the City Council adopted Resolution 2008-152, retaining outside legal counsel to defend the city against anticipated legal challenges to its housing element. On September 2, 2009, the plaintiffs filed a complaint and writ of mandate. The petitioners presented eight causes of action, all linked to alleged compliance with various requirements of state affordable housing requirements applicable to planning, zoning and land development requirements.  The city responded by filing a demurrer, arguing that the claims were barred either by the 90-day provisions of Government Code sections 66499.37 (90 days; Subdivision Map Act) or alternatively 65009(d) (1 year; housing element challenges). The city also argued that, as a matter of law, the plaintiffs failed to state a cause of action. The trial court ruled for the city on both the statute of limitations as well as the substantive legal issues. On appeal, the Fourth Appellate District ruled for the city on the statute of limitations grounds; because that ruling disposed of all of the claims, the court declined to rule on the substantive allegations. The court's ruling on the statute of limitations focused on 65009(d) as it was most favorable to the plaintiffs. Litigation under this code provision first requires the future plaintiff to give written notice to the city or county before it files suit. The code then provides that the cause of action accrues "60 days after notice is filed or the legislative body takes final action in response to the notice, whichever occurs first."  As pled, the complaint established that the City Council took action on August 27, 2008. This became the controlling date in calculating the statute of limitations and as a result, plaintiff's complaint, filed on September 2, 2009, did not meet the one-year requirement. Therefore, the appellate court concluded that the case had been appropriately dismissed. The Case:  Haro v. City of Solano Beach, No. D057304, 2011 DJDAR. Filed May 12, 2011. Ordered published May 12, 2011 The Attorneys:  For Plaintiff: Affordable Housing Advocates and Catherine A. Rodman  For the City of Solano Beach: Burke, Williams & Sorensen, Thomas B. Brown, Matthew D. Visick and John J. Welsh; McDougal, Love, Eckis, Boehmer & Foley and Johanna N. Canlas; Goldfarb & Lipman and Barbara E. Kautz

The new rules of redevelopment – if the courts agree – are now clear: You're dead, but you can buy your way back to life. That's probably enough to keep most redevelopment agencies in business. But is it enough for cities to continue to do redevelopment deals? That's not clear, though redevelopment agencies have gotten accustomed to doing deals with less and less money over the years. Also not clear is whether this is the end-game on redevelopment or the first step in an effort to truly reform redevelopment – a possibility that seemed far more likely in January than it does now. Even though a lot of rhetoric about the past six months has focused on whether redevelopment is effective, the redevelopment deal in the budget was just about money. Agencies can stay in business if they fork over a big chunk of their tax-increment funding, but there's nothing in the budget deal that reforms how they do business. So, moving forward, there are two questions about redevelopment: First, now that the budget has passed, will there be some kind of effort to reform redevelopment? Second, can the remaining redevelopment power be combined with other financing mechanisms to put successful deals together – especially in a down economy where real estate seems to be terminally in the tank? Or must redevelopment be combined with other financing mechanisms to make deals go? Back in January, there was a lot of talk about redevelopment reform. Brown's proposal to eliminate redevelopment was couched partly in budget terms, but also in terms of redevelopment's overall effectiveness. In his budget press conference in January, Brown spent more time on redevelopment than any other topic; and he promised to devise a replacement tool if tax-increment financing went away. There was some talk, for example, of permitting cities to issue economic development bonds with 55% voter approval, though nothing came of it. A ferocious back-and-forth went on all spring, with anti-redevelopment folks claiming it was a gravy train for fat-cat developers and pro-redevelopment folks delivering anecdote after anecdote about redevelopment's benefits. The fat-cat developers stayed on the sidelines in this debate, and the pro-con gradually degenerated to partisan politics, with urban Democrats speaking out against redevelopment and suburban Republicans defending it. Lost in the shuffle of this debate was the question of whether redevelopment should be – or could be – reformed. There was some talk about tightening up blight findings yet again and a number of other ideas were floated – making it easier to create blightless tax-increment financing districts, for example, but creating a state allocation system and stronger state oversight in response. These were mostly non-starters for two reasons: First, the real reason redevelopment was on the table in Sacramento was money, not effectiveness; and, second, the only thing that sets the redevelopment establishment on fire more than taking away the money is the possibility of more state oversight. Yet, in the end, redevelopment reform is ultimately about more state oversight. Tax-increment financing is far easier for local governments to use in California than in any other state – and it will remain so even if the two-bill strategy goes into effect. In most states, access to tax-increment financing is strictly controlled by the state, which uses that control to ensure that TIF is used for specific purposes. Washington, for example, recently adopted a law giving access to tax-increment financing to cities that participate in the Seattle region's transfer of development rights program. So it would seem that any meaningful redevelopment reform would have to begin with narrowing the purpose of redevelopment and giving the state more oversight power.  This is not likely to sit well with local governments, who would probably much rather take more of a hit on the blight finding than surrender any actual power to the state. On the other hand, it's not clear how much clout the locals will have on redevelopment if they are engaged in firestorm litigation with the state over the budget. Nor is it clear that the state will have much interest in real reform if the budget is resolved. Which leads us to the second question: Will there be enough money left in redevelopment to do the real estate deals that redevelopment agencies have traditionally done? The answer to this question is probably no, but it's worth noting that – in the past – the answer has always been yes even though prospects were dim. After Proposition 13 passed in 1978, for example, most experts predicted the end of redevelopment, because the property tax rate – and hence the tax increment – was cut by more than half. Cities soon figured out, however, that under Proposition 13, redevelopment was one of the few ways to wrestle property tax revenue unilaterally away from other agencies. So redevelopment was back in business. Most agencies will probably decide it's worth it to stay in business, even though they will probably be getting less than half the tax-increment revenue they received only a few years ago. Especially in a lousy market, however, this situation will put pressure on cities and agencies to find other ways to fill the financial gap. The problem here is that the options are limited. In general, in order to subsidize a real estate deal without outside funding, there are only three options: 1.Redirect some of the tax revenue from the project back into the deal, which is what tax-increment financing does. 2.Create additional revenue streams from the project's developers and tenants by creating something like an assessment district, which of course raises costs and changes the dynamics of the deal. 3.Give developers something of non-monetary value to the city, such as reduced parking ratios or increased square footage. With property tax increment flows down, you can expect that more cities will turn to sales tax rebates – an equivalent tool – to make deals work. Sales tax rebates, of course, will only work for retail deals or other deals that involve businesses engaged in taxable transactions. Retail's on the way back, but retail chains are very reluctant to pull the trigger on new stores. So cities focus on other businesses that generate taxable transactions – such as companies that manufacture large pieces of equipment that are sold to other businesses at high prices in taxable transactions. Among the options for additional revenue streams are things like assessment districts, parking districts, business improvement districts, and so forth. Cities are also likely to move toward these financing tools as well, though there are some problems. First, many assessment districts require an election under Proposition 218 – and approval is by no means certain. Second, by adding to the overall cost of development in a lousy market, such districts may raise money for infrastructure but may make it harder to do actual deals. The trend toward BIDs will continue, though BIDs tend to focus on operational funds for, say, a downtown, rather than capital cost of infrastructure or writing down land. The last option would be to manipulate regulations to give developers something of value to them that doesn't cost the city anything. And there are two ways to do this. The first is to simply give these regulatory breaks away in order to induce private development. The second is to, in essence, sell those breaks, through something like a transfer of development rights system, in order to raise money for infrastructure or land write-downs. Reducing parking ratios is a very powerful inducement for developers, especially in urban areas where the cost of structured parking is extremely high. In the current market, this option is probably more powerful than increased density, which increases revenue but also increases cost. At the same time, most developers will balk at reducing parking too much, since they must still deal with market demand for at least some parking on-site. The TDR alternative essentially permits a developer to build larger buildings by purchasing development rights for other property owners who have ample zoning. If the seller of the development rights is a public agency, this could potentially raise money for infrastructure or land writedowns. Seattle has done this a lot – since the city has limited access to tax-increment financing – and Los Angeles has done it a few times with the Transfer of Floor Area Ratio (TFAR) program. L.A. Planning Director Michael Lo Grande has state L.A. is likely to do more TFAR deals in the future if redevelopment is eliminated or restructured. Big-R Redevelopment has been curtailed and could still die – maybe a slow deal. But small-r redevelopment will continue, as cities and developers look under every possible rock to find ways to do deals.

After an agonizing six-month prelude, the curtain has finally risen on the drama that is redevelopment in California. Agencies are now forced contemplate the costs of staving off their own demise. Yesterday Gov. Jerry Brown signed a pair of budget trailer bills -- ABx1 26 and ABx1 27 -- that would wrest $1.7 billion in the coming fiscal year from the state's nearly 400 redevelopment agencies. The so-called "two-bill" solution eliminates redevelopment but permits agencies to buy their way back in, by forking over a total of $1.7 billion in 2011-12 and $400 million 2012-13. The laws take effect on October 1. The "remittances" to the state permitting redevelopment agencies to stay in business must be "voluntary" in order to avoid violating Proposition 22, the 2010 measure that prevents the state from forcibly taking local redevelopment funds. The governor has contended that Prop. 22 does not explicitly prevent lawmakers from dissolving redevelopment agencies altogether.   But a dramatic court battle is about to begin. The Community Redevelopment Agency and the League of California Cities have vowed to file a joint lawsuit contending that any transfer of tax-increment funds violates Proposition 1A, passed in 2004, and other provisions of the state Constitution, in addition to Prop. 22.  "They have fashioned a phony voluntary plan that is anything but voluntary," said Chris McKenzie, executive director of the League of California Cities.  McKenzie said that the lawsuit will be filed within a matter of days directly with the state Supreme Court, rather than to Superior Court, because of its statewide jurisdiction. McKenzie said he hopes that the court will issue a swift ruling, possibly within 4-6 months.  "We hope we get the court to issue a stay very soon so everybody can take a breather and wait for the court to make a decision," said McKenzie. McKenzie said that the League's and CRA's legal strategy has not been announced. The new "voluntary" component of the budget trailer bills is not likely to cause a change in strategy from when the Legislature was threatening outright elimination.  "We're certainly hopeful that the courts will issue an injunction because of the irrevocable damage they will cause," said David Bloom, spokesperson for the state's biggest agency, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.  "And then the state will be back in a hole again."  Steve Shea, consultant to Senate Pro Tem Darrel Steinberg (D-Sacramento), claims, however, that even if a court strikes down certain parts of ABx1 26 and ABx1 27, ABx1 26 contains a provision—a "poison pill," according to Shea—that would limit agencies' function to that of merely servicing existing debt. They would, therefore, cease to pursue new projects and would waste away as project areas expired.  "It's very difficult to see any possible resolution that would require redevelopment agencies to be restored in their pre-existing format," said Shea.    Shea said that the payment scheme and other aspects of the legislation resemble those that were included in the CRA's own proposed legislation, which also called for voluntary payments. The difference, said Shea, is that "the CRA's didn't have the elimination component."   For those agencies that survive, Shea said that the budget legislation foreshadows reform legislation that will be considered in the next legislative session.  In the meantime, redevelopment agencies around the state must decide whether to fold up shop or stay in business by paying the "remittance." "We're not issuing blanket recommendations," said McKenzie. "We encourage them to look at their own situation and make what they deem the best determination."   Unless a court issues a stay, the laws call for agencies that intend to pay to notify the state within 90 days of the law's signing – the end of September. Agencies can ask for a one-month extension.  Unless a judge issues a stay, agencies do not have the option of staying in business without paying the remittance. Payments would be spread among the state's redevelopment agencies in rough proportion to the size of their tax increments. As the state's largest agency, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency would pay roughly $95 million this fiscal year, according to analysis conducted by the California Redevelopment Association. Many smaller agencies would pay several hundred thousand dollars.  No matter what, any payment would be a burden for most agencies.  "We're not walking around with a nine-figure sum in our back pocket," said CRA/LA spokesperson David Bloom. "It is a significant hit to us."   As such, agencies that choose to stay alive will almost invariably have to curtail programs and scrap planned-for projects.  "If the city elects to opt into the AB 27 option, that means that we're going to have to take a look at all of our projects and activities," said Derek Danziger, spokesperson for San Diego's Centre City Development Corporation. Danziger said that the agency could "delay, postpone, defer, or eliminate (projects such as) parks, fire stations, public infrastructure." While most agencies are expected to fight for their survival—and support the lawsuit, according to McKenzie—the decision to submit to the funding transfer rests with city councils and county boards of supervisors. Therefore, the ability to pay remittances does not depend directly on an agency's liquidity, but presumably city councils would hesitate to support agencies if they would have to draw from their cities' respective general funds.   "(Payment is) a decision the agency doesn't make. That's the city," said Jim Morales, general counsel for the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. "They will need to take a look at the budget and the agency's budget and determine if that's an appropriate amount at the city can assume."   Those that do not notify within the 90 are assumed to be shutting down, at which point their assets and liabilities will be turned over to "successor" agencies.  In many respects, the signing of the budget legislation marks only the beginning of the real battle over redevelopment. In the past six months debates have raged over the efficacy of redevelopment, the prospects for redevelopment reform, and even the value of the tax increment, which some say is far less than the governor's estimate of $1.7 billion. A week after taking office, Brown called for the elimination of redevelopment. The League and the CRA responded by proposing that agencies provide schools with voluntary contributions in exchange for extending the life of their projects. For some cash-strapped agencies, a win in court may be their only hope of survival. Agencies that have the funds, and that wish to continue doing their work, are now gearing up to assess their finances and ask their respective city councils to approve the transfer of funds to the state. Many are prepared to adhere to the 90-day deadline even though the lawsuit could push the deadline back.  "Our legislative body has a summer recess, so if the city were to pursue the option there would be added pressure because of the need for hearings and advance notice of the legislation," said Morales.  "It's do-able but clearly it's pushing it."   One interpretation of the legislation contended that agencies that participated in the lawsuit would forfeit their opportunity to stay alive via remittances. Spokespeople from several agencies mention this concern. However, Shea said that he was "not aware" of any such provision.  Statewide, clear trends have not yet emerged regarding which agencies will fold versus which will submit to the payment. Bloom noted that some large agencies are relatively stable whereas the San Jose Redevelopment Agency – traditionally one of the biggest and strongest agencies -- is over-leveraged and has been running on a skeleton crew for several months.  As of now, therefore, no one knows how many agencies could fold if the legislation is upheld.  "We don't have a sense of that," said Shea, of the Senate Pro Tem's office. "The bill doesn't require (the Department of) Finance to release those numbers until September.  It's obviously a significant decision. We want to put the agencies in the best possible shape."   All along, supporters of redevelopment have argued that agencies and their programs stoke exactly the sort of economic development and employment that the state needs amidst its historic economic downturn. A chorus of developers, public officials, and legislators have called for the Legislature and governor to keep redevelopment intact so that it can be reformed and made more effective. Many, including State Controller John Chiang, have criticized agencies for pandering to developers, avoiding oversight, and using specious findings of blight.  For agencies, many of those arguments became moot with the stroke of Brown's pen yesterday.  "It would be imprudent for us to just wait and hope," said Bloom. "I anticipate that we will have things in place to protect the city's prerogatives and finances as much as possible should we not be successful in court."   Contacts:  David Bloom, Spokesperson, Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, 213-977-1600 Jeff Danziger, Spokesperson, San Diego Centre City Development Corp., 619.235.2200  Chris McKenzie, Executive Director, League of California Cities, 916.658.8200 Jim Morales, General Council, San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, 415.749.2400 Steve Shea, Consultant, Sen. Darrel Steinberg, (916) 323-2263

After six months of debating and negotiating, Governor Jerry Brown today signed AB 1x 26/27, the pair of bills that would compel redevelopment agencies to make voluntary contributions to the state or else face elimination. Opponents of the budget trailer bill contend that the requested contributions would be so burdensome--totaling $1.7 billion this fiscal year--as to effectively end redevelopment in the state by putting all but the most financially solvent agencies out of business.   They were included among eight budget trailer bills that the governor signed today. He has yet to sign the main budget bill, which the Legislature revised following his June 16 veto of their first attempt. The Democratic governor got no support from Republicans. Several legislators from his own party were reportedly wary of the redevelopment bills but ultimately relented.  The budget bills call for $86 billion in expenditures and attempt to close what was a $9.6 billion gap. $1.7 billion of that amount is expected to come from redevelopment agencies' tax increments, either by voluntary payments or complete shutdown of agencies. Members of the redevelopment community insist that this choice is no choice at all.  "Make no mistake about it: AB 1x 26/27 would lead to the elimination of redevelopment agencies throughout California," said California Redevelopment Association Executive Director John Shirey in a statement issued Monday. "Since the (legislative) passage of these bills, we've heard from dozens and dozens of agencies that will not be able to make the ‘ransom' payment, and thus will be forced to shut down, eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process." Shirey has vowed that CRA and other organizations will file suit if the governor signs the bills. He contends that they violate Proposition 22, which was designed to prevent the transfer to certain funds, including redevelopment agencies' tax increment, to the state.  The governor has not yet made a public statement about the signing, nor has the CRA or League of California cities, both of which are expected to file suit to halt the implementation of the bills.  CP&DR will have continuing coverage of the elimination of redevelopment .

At the rate things are going, cities in California might not just be broke -- they might become an endangered species. This month, a grand jury recommended that governance of the tiny city of Maricopa be turned over to the Kern County Board of Supervisors.  Once the center of the petroleum industry at the southwestern end of the Central Valley and the home of the famous Lakeview gusher, Maricopa � located about 40 miles southwest of Bakersfield -- has declined the recent decades of its 100-year history. Kern County Supervisor Ray Watson said that centralization in the oil industry cut down on employment in the area, and many of the remaining oil field workers live in larger towns such as nearby Taft.  "I'm not at all surprised," said Watson. "Maricopa has lost population in the last few years due to the way the oil industry is managed."   With a population of 1,154--down from a historic high of 20,000 during the peak of the region's oil boom--Maricopa is now the smallest city in Kern County. Of California's 481 cities, only 12 have smaller populations than Maricopa � most of them in rural areas in the far northern part of the state. If Maricopa ceases to exist as a legal entity, it would be just the third such city to do so in modern California history. It might even be the fourth, depending on whether legislation to force disincorporation of the City of Vernon goes through.  The Cities and Joint Powers Grand Jury conducted an investigation into Maricopa's municipal health and published troubling findings in its report "City of Maricopa: Lots of Past, Any Future?" The report judges the city on its ability to provide basic services such as police, fire, and sanitation services that, under California law, all incorporated cities must provide. The grand jury concluded that "with a crumbling infrastructure, the financial resources of the city are insufficient to cover current needs let alone retire outstanding debts." Those debts include over $61,000 owed to the county for fire protection and over $100,000 owed to the Local Agency Investment Fund for monies the city borrowed for street repairs but that were diverted to "ordinary expenses." The report also accuses the city of borrowing from private individuals in order to meet some of its payroll and even for keeping cash "in an unsecured desk."  The report also suggests that the city has neither the political will nor the administrative competency to pay its debts or restructure its governance. The report carries a vitriolic tone, noting that investigators were met with "delays and excuses" from many city officials.  No member of the Maricopa City Council responded to interview requests for this story. Interim City Administrator Laura Robison declined to comment, except to say that "the City of Maricopa is working on their response, and will be addressing the recommendations at a future council meeting."  The report acknowledges that the prospect of disincorporation might be "distasteful" but necessary in light of the city's dire situation. However, it is the citizens of Maricopa that will have to decide whether disincorporation is more, or less, distasteful than carrying over $200,000 worth of debt.   If Maricopa disincorporates, Kern County will automatically assume responsibility for what remains of the town. County officials are not taking a position on disincorporation but say that they stand ready.  "If they decide to cut their losses and disincorporate, then the county is prepared to assume those services," said Watson. "That's our job."   In most years, the potential disincorporation of a city would be not only distasteful but, in fact, unheard-of. This year, however, Maricopa is the second city to flirt with oblivion.  Since the original 1963 passage of what is now known as the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Local Government Reorganization Act, which governs municipal incorporations, only two cities have suffered that fate: Cabazon in 1972, and Hornitos in 1973, both of which were small hamlets that withered.  The possible demise of Maricopa comes amid a raucous debate over the fate of the City of Vernon, an industrial enclave east of downtown Los Angeles (see CP&DR Vol. 26, No. 5, March 2011 ). The Legislature is currently deliberating on a bill that would forcibly dissolve the Vernon city government, which has been accused of corruption. The bill that would fell Vernon would have no bearing on Maricopa because that bill, AB 46, is directed at all cities with populations less than 150 because, by law, the Legislature could not deliberately single out a city. (Vernon is the only city in the state with a population of less than 150, though the similar city of Industry has 219.) Therefore, if Maricopa is to disincorporation, it must do so by the will of its own voters. Watson said that they are unlikely to do so.  "The people that live out there have a lot of pride in their community," said Watson. "It's a historic place. They are reluctant to give up that local control they feel they have." Then again, noted Watson, "when you don't have the financial capability, you don't have the control either."   If residents did choose disincorporation, that vote would trigger a formal process administered by the Kern County Local Agency Formation Commission. LAFCO would have to make its own findings regardless of the residents' vote and the grand jury's findings.  "We would have to follow our regular process because it's considered a reorganization," said Rebecca Moore, executive officer of Kern County LAFCO. Moore suggested that the remains of Mariposa could be governed by a special district that would take over city services.  Ironically, the cost of the LAFCO process might rival the amount of Maricopa's debt.  "It would be expensive," said Moore. "There would have to be an environmental report done."  Watson said that he does not expect this trend--such as it is--to spread.  "There are many cities throughout the state of California that are having financial problems," said Watson. "I think the unique thing about Maricopa is that they just have a very small population base." Contacts & Resources:  Grand Jury Report: City of Maricopa: Lots of Past, Any Future? Rebecca Moore, Executive Officer, Kern County Local Agency Formation Commission, 661.716.1076 Ray Watson, Supervisor, Kern County 4th District, 661.868.3680