Across the country, stakeholders are protesting and decrying the development of data centers, which are being built at a torrid pace. But, those protests rarely prevail. Not so in Monterey Park. There, voters resoundingly approved a measure--86% to 14%--to ban the development of data centers, including at least one that was nearly shovel-ready. It may be the first official battle in the resistance against data centers, and it surely will not be the last.

Ballot-box zoning is not as frequent as it used to be – especially since SB 330 amended the Housing Accountability Act in 2019 to suspend local governments’ ability to restrict the overall amount of housing in their community, a frequent topic of previous ballot measures. Nevertheless, several measures will be on the ballot around the state in June. Here’s a rundown:

In the latest skirmish of a 40-year war, the appellate court has shot down Santee’s strategy to end-run a ballot initiative by approving the controversial Fanita Ranch project as an urgency “Essential Housing Project”.

SCAG's draft SB 79 map

It’s almost impossible to turn down a housing project in California these days, especially one that has affordable units included. But last week the small Orange County city of Fountain Valley did it anyway. Now we’ll see if they get away with it.

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. Concord Approves 12,000-Home Redevelopment of Navy Base An agreement between the US Navy and New York-based developer Brookfield Properties to redevelop the 12,800-acre abandoned Concord Naval Weapons Station into 12,272 housing units (3,000 affordable), parkland and other facilities gained unanimous approval by the Concord City Council. The development agreement sets a 40% local hire construction goal and includes a 75-acre first responder training facility, a 4-acre veterans community center, a sports park, a 5,038 acre park, 16 acres for permanently supportive housing and 10 acres for food bank expansion. In addition to $628 million over nearly 30 years promised by Brookfield, the city has promised a down payment of $4.6 million to the Navy and four guaranteed deferred payments of $10 million plus interest for land, beginning in 2033 and ending in 2036. The naval station, which opened in 1944 and closed in 1999, has been marked for redevelopment since 2006. Though the agreement has been approved the developer’s specific plan is not expected to be presented until summer 2029, with the entire construction projected to span 30 years. San Diego Seeks to Postpone SB 79 Upzoning in Low-Resource Areas The City of San Diego may delay implementation of many provisions of Senate Bill 79, which will dramatically increase housing allowed near trolley stations and some major bus stops, raising potential capacity from about 494,000 units to 861,000 units. in compliance with a provision that allows cities to delay certain provisions of SB 79, city planning officials have proposed that 16% of land near transit stops would be upzoned immediately. These are largely areas with abundant amenities and higher average incomes that can accommodate new housing. Roughly 26% of transit-adjacent land in low-income or “low-resource” neighborhoods would not see the changes until 2031 and 52% of land with issues like wildfire risk, historic buildings, or sea-level rise concerns would likely be delayed until 2027. Zoning would not change in lower-income areas until 2031. City planning officials have argued that some areas need more infrastructure planning before major growth occurs. (See related CP&DR coverage.) Modesto to Add over 12,000 Acres to Sphere of Influence The Modesto City Council voted 5-1 to advance the largest of three growth alternatives for its 2050 General Plan, expanding the city’s sphere of influence by 12,240 acres. The map allots 4,650 acres for mixed-use development. Opponents criticized the inclusion of areas within and around Wood Colony, a historic Old German Baptist farming community founded in 1869, arguing that development pressures could permanently alter its agricultural character. Supporters, including business groups, police union representatives and property owners, said the expansion is needed to attract commercial and industrial development, strengthen city revenues and increase housing supply. Former Mayor Garrad Marsh argued the proposal would accommodate an 80% increase in housing despite a steady decline in California’s population decline over the past decade. Sacramento Seeks Major League Baseball Team, Envisions Stadium District The city of Sacramento in cooperation with civic and business leaders has launched the “Sacramento Pitch” campaign to bring a permanent Major League Baseball franchise to the Sacramento region. The proposal centers on a 50-acre stadium site in downtown West Sacramento with claims of nearly $2 billion in public and private financial backing, with $1 billion that city officials expect to generate through financing, hotel taxes and other revenue sources. A potential challenge for Sacramento’s bid is attendance at the Athletics’ temporary home, Sutter Health Park, where the team averaged 9,487 fans per game last season and 10,634 this season, both ranking last in the American League despite the ballpark’s 14,014-seat capacity. Western Lands Lose Protections Enacted by Biden Administration The Trump Administration has overturned a Biden-era policy that facilitated the protection and preservation of hundreds of millions of acres of public lands across California and the West. The rollback of the Public Lands Rule on the Federal Register was first proposed in September, citing “inappropriately elevated conservation” and laws which prevented logging, drilling and mining on Bureau of Land Management property. The Public Lands rule applied to about 15% of California’s total land, which will now be subject to several initiatives that serve to increase development, ignoring ecological safeguards. CP&DR Coverage: Cities and Counties Push Back Against Newsom On Housing Elements The Department of Housing and Community Development surprised 15 mostly small jurisdictions around the state with a “Notice of Violation” – a final warning to adopt their overdue housing elements or face dire consequences, including lawsuits from Attorney General Rob Bonta and heavy fines for non-compliant housing elements, which are allowed under SB 1037 from 2024. Most jurisdictions pushed back, saying they have been going back and forth with HCD on their housing elements, some only days before the Notices of Violation were issued. Others said approval of their housing elements was imminent. Of the 15 jurisdictions, 13 are located in San Joaquin Valley counties, all of which have individual councils of governments. The other two are Half Moon Bay in San Mateo County and Montclair in San Bernardino County. Quick Hits & Updates The Department of Housing and Community Development released its California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Rezone Exemption Memorandum. Recent legislative changes enacted last year through Assembly Bill (AB) 130 and Senate Bill (SB) 131 made significant reforms to CEQA to accelerate the development of housing, including housing affordable to lower-income households. These measures create and expand CEQA exemptions aimed at reducing delays and legal challenges that have historically impeded housing production, particularly in higher-need areas. The Sacramento City Council voted on April 29 to deny appeals against a proposed six-story, 68-foot-tall apartment and retail project in East Sacramento, allowing the development to move forward despite opposition from neighborhood groups. Critics argued the project conflicts with local zoning rules, poses traffic and infrastructure challenges, and threatens the character of the historic Casa Loma Terrace neighborhood. The ACLU of Southern California filed a complaint against the City of Riverside over the rejection of a $20.1 million state HomeKey+ grant that would have created permanent affordable housing. The proposed redevelopment of a Quality Inn would have created 114 units of permanent supportive housing for veterans and people with disabilities, along with long-term services and affordability protections. Advocates allege city council members made biased remarks and relied on stereotypes about future residents, potentially violating state anti-discrimination laws. The ACLU argues the decision worsened Riverside’s affordable housing shortage and disproportionately harmed vulnerable populations. Governor Newsom announced the following appointments: Jonathan Klein has been appointed Executive Director of the Housing Development and Finance Committee; he previously served as Founder and Principal of Community Finance Solutions Inc. David Zisser has been appointed Deputy Director of Housing Policy Development at the California Department of Housing and Community Development; he previously served as Assistant Deputy Director for Local Government Relations and Accountability at the department since 2021. San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood is promoting the Slashing Housing Appeals & Delays Everywhere or SHADE Act, legislation aimed at speeding up housing approvals by preventing shadow analysis from being used as grounds for appeals under the California Environmental Quality Act. Mahmood argues that San Francisco’s unique shadow-review rules have delayed or stalled more than 2,000 housing units over the past decade, though all challenged projects were eventually approved. At the 2026 National Planning Conference in Detroit, Los Angeles-based planner James Rojas received the APA President’s Award for his innovative community-centered planning work as the creator of Placeit, an interactive design and public engagement process that uses art and interactive engagement to help residents better understand and shape urban spaces.

At a time when the Legislature is considering extensive measures to rein in the California Environmental Quality Act, a union representing the state’s attorneys has written a so-called “exhaustion letter” letter argument that CEQA analysis is required for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2025 “Return To Work’ executive order.

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The City of Fairfield is seeking an innovative professional planner with strong technical skills and a proven track record for leading and mentoring teams. This position offers the opportunity to help shape Fairfield during a period of growth, General Plan implementation, housing production, and major development activity. Fairfield, the heart of Solano County, is a diverse and growing community located halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento. Home to just under 123,000 residents, Fairfield offers a strong quality of life. Fairfield’s Community & Economic Development Department is dedicated to implementing the community’s vision through collaborative planning, robust economic development, and safe and resilient construction. The Planning Division is responsible for guiding private development, advancing long-range planning efforts, and implementing the City’s adopted land use policies and regulations. The salary range is $147,090 - $178,789, with a competitive benefits package. To apply, please visit our website at: Peckham & McKenney www.peckhamandmckenney.com Contact Tara Schultz at (626)644-1398 if you have questions regarding this recruitment. Filing Deadline: June 19, 2026

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. Developer Proposes 3.91 Million Square Feet for L.A. Area Oil Refinery Catellus-Deca, LLC on behalf of Phillips 66, has filed an application to redevelop the century-old decommissioned Phillips 66 refinery site in the Los Angeles County city of Carson after months of speculation over what would become of the site. The original site spans across two facilities, one in Carson and the other in Wilmington, connected by a five-mile pipeline. The proposed project at the Carson site, called Diamond Gateway, would cover 223 acres with 3.91 million square feet of building floor area comprising industrial buildings and two on-site parking lots for truck, trailer or electric vehicle parking. Plans for the Wilmington portion called Five Points Union, are still in progress, and would feature retail, outdoor space, and indoor sports complexes. The proposal also suggests possible “community benefits (such as financial contributions toward city initiatives and projects that support infrastructure throughout the city).” The project must be approved by the Carson City Council. A larger portion of the 659-acre refinery is in the City of Los Angeles; proposals for that property have yet to be issued. Concord Naval Air Station Takes Step Forward with $628 Million Proposal The Concord Local Reuse Authority, the U.S. Navy, and developer Brookfield have reached an agreement to transfer about 2,422 acres of the former Concord Naval Weapons Station for redevelopment after years of stalled talks. The term sheet establishes a price and payment structure before final contracts are written to finalize sale of the base opened in 1942, which played a logistical role during World War II and subsequent conflicts before being closed in the early 2000s. At full build-out, the Navy will receive $628 million over 30 years. The move could give planners and officials a financial pathway and clarity for what could one of the largest land reuse projects in California. (See related CP&DR coverage.) San Francisco to Vote on Measure to Expand City's Affordable Housing Fund The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has proposed a charter agreement for the November 2026 ballot which would expand the city’s Housing Trust Fund contributions from $52 million a year to $125 million by allocating a portion of future property tax growth every year to support affordable housing production and preservation. The Housing Trust Fund, which was established in 2012 and is set to expire in 2043, was approved by voters to support creating, preserving and supporting existing affordable housing projects. Under this agreement, funding for the program would be extended through 2058. This amendment comes on the heels of a proposed ordinance which would cut the percentage of affordable housing units market rate developers are required to include from 15% to 5%. Remote Workers Choosing to Leave, Avoid California on Net The California Legislative Analyst’s Office studied the effects of remote work, which has remained significantly more common in California than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Roughly three times as many people work remotely when compared to 2019, and although remote work rates initially fell after pandemic restrictions eased, they have stabilized since 2023. While heavily remote jobs have increased 16 percent in the rest of the U.S., the number sits at just 7 percent in California. Since the pandemic, California has experienced a net loss of workers in heavily remote jobs, with fewer remote workers choosing to move to California--for a net loss of over 37,000 in 2021. That pattern holds for California's urban areas, which had a net inflow of remote workers pre-pandemic. California has long benefitted from a range of location-specific industries which have changed in the face of increased remote work. Employers can now hire nationally, while workers are less tied to relocating to California for opportunities in key industries. CP&DR Coverage: L.A. Invokes SB 79 Delay Tactic Continuing its resistance to SB 79, the Los Angeles City Council voted March 29 to pursue an upzoning plan designed to delay implementation of the state law. But the council chose the least aggressive of three alternatives put forth by the Planning Department, and it remains unclear whether the plan will be met with the approval of the Department of Housing and Community Development. SB 79 hits Los Angeles hard because the city and L.A. Metro have expanded the rail transit system so rapidly. Approximately 150 transit stations in the city appear to qualify for SB 79 treatment, including some 17,000 parcels, most of which are zoned for single-family housing. The city is trying to delay SB 79 implementation, citing active ongoing efforts to upzone near transit stations, a plan which is technically an expansion of the Citywide Housing Incentive Program (CHIP). Quick Hits & Updates The UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation developed the Terner Housing Policy Simulator to help policymakers evaluate how housing reforms may affect different local markets. Using data on zoning, land values, construction costs, and historical development trends, the tool estimates how likely developers are to build multifamily housing under various policies and economic conditions. The findings show that reforms that significantly boost housing production in one city may have limited impact in another. The Sacramento City Council unanimously rejected appeals against a proposed six-story mixed-use apartment development in Sacramento, clearing the way for a 332-unit housing project with retail space and parking along Alhambra Boulevard. Opponents argued the project was too large for the neighborhood, while supporters argued that Sacramento urgently needs dense infill housing. A citizen-led initiative in Grover Beach gathered enough signatures to appear on the November ballot, where voters would decide whether to lower local building height limits and require 33% of mixed-use developments be devoted to commercial space. The measure would reduce maximum heights from 55 feet to 40 feet for mixed-use buildings and from 40 feet to 33 feet in industrial zones, limiting many projects to three stories instead of four. The Placer County Board of Supervisors approved a five-year extension of the North Lake Tahoe Economic Development Incentive Program, continuing incentives through 2031 to encourage redevelopment and new lodging projects in the Tahoe Basin. The incentive program includes three primary components aimed at funding Tourist Accommodation Units required for lodging units, transient occupancy tax rebates to offset hotel costs, and offsets for infrastructure costs. California Forever is negotiating with Suisun City to buy several city-owned Main Street properties and nearby parking lots in downtown as part of a broader investment in the waterfront district. The company says it has no fixed redevelopment plans yet and is looking for community input on what to do with the acquired property. The purchases tie into California Forever’s larger proposal, which would annex 22,873 acres for new housing, industry, entertainment, and manufacturing developments. (See related CP&DR coverage.) The Strategic Growth Council unanimously approved guidelines for two grant programs, the Transformative Climate Communities Round 6 and Community Resilience Centers Round 2, opening up $153.4 million in awards available for communities. TCC provides funding to communities directly impacted by pollution to create a roadmap for environmental repair through local community-driven projects, while CRC funds centers and resources for climate and other emergencies. Guidelines and pre-proposals are available on their website, with deadlines in June 2026. The California Department of Housing and Community Development released a series of Housing Law Fact Sheets to assist local decision-makers and staff, elected officials, planning bodies, and other stakeholders in understanding and implementing key state laws that make it easier and faster to produce housing at all income levels across the state. The entire collection of Housing Law Fact Sheets is available on HCD’s Enforcement Authority webpage, and the individual fact sheets are linked under each of the listed laws. The San Diego Sports Arena site redevelopment project Midway Rising received support from California’s Department of Housing and Community Development, who confirmed the developers can use the state’s density bonus law to exceed the area’s long-standing 30-foot coastal height limit. That ruling strengthens plans for a massive mixed-use project featuring 4,254 total residential units, a 16,000-seat arena, 130,000 square feet of commercial space, 8.1 acres of parks, and 6.4 acres public space. President Donald Trump promised a plan to house up to 6,000 veterans at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration campus, but the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs budget request includes no funding for new housing units. Instead, the proposal calls for about $500 million in infrastructure upgrades, parking expansion, and building repairs, raising doubts about how housing goals will be met. Veteran advocates say the plan could displace roughly 330 current residents in treatment programs without clear alternatives for where they would go during construction.

This article is brought to you courtesy of the paying subscribers to California Planning & Development Report. You can subscribe to CP&DR by clicking here. You can sign up for CP&DR’s free weekly newsletter here. For a guy who lives in a trailer, Spencer Pratt has unusually good taste in high-rise architecture. In a recent interview with the All-In Podcast, Pratt declared, “ we're going to have L.A. so beautiful. No more of these high-density, SB-79, prison-like structures.” The video of Pratt’s interview was accompanied by an AI-generated video envisioning soaring, gleaming towers that represent a new era of order, tranquility, and beauty. He calls out Art Deco in particular as the hallmark of a more attractive city. He even assured “the YIMBY people [that they] can have all their bike lanes going through the sky.” I’m not sure that's quite what YIMBY’s want. But, anyhow, this is the city Pratt promises to build when he becomes mayor. It sounds pretty nice. Let’s back up. Spencer Pratt does not actually live in a trailer. As reported recently by TMZ, Pratt has actually been living at the Hotel Bel-Air. That’s controversial because, in a campaign video released April 29, Pratt alludes to a litany of ills and catastrophes that have befallen L.A., including, and especially, the wildfires that devastated his home neighborhood of Pacific Palisades in January 2025. The video features Pratt standing next to an Airstream on his property snarling, “this is where I live.” (See related CP&DR coverage.) Pratt is running to usher in a “new golden age,” beginning with his defeat of incumbent Karen Bass; he is polling second in a tight three-way primary race. I would forgive Pratt his #vanlife fiction, except that his entire campaign is built on grievances. Pratt blames Bass not just for the city’s fire response and for being uninspiring but for causing the very conflagration that burned down his home, as if she personally summoned 100-mile-per-hour winds and a six-month drought. It’s hard to seem too aggrieved, though, when you live in a five-star retreat that costs upwards of $1,000 per night. Whatever his domicile may be, there’s one thing Pratt is not: urban. He gained notoriety in the mid-2000s at age 23 as an enfant terrible on the MTV reality show The Hills, about L.A. rich kids who yell at each other. Pratt later sold New Age crystals and dabbled in various other reality shows. The Palisades, where he and wife Heidi Montag moved in 2017, is lower-profile but only slightly less luxurious. Skid Row, it’s not. In look and feel, Pacific Palisades operates more like a suburb than an urban neighborhood — on the fringe, separate, with its own downtown, and incredibly wealthy and incredibly white. Those are characteristics that could just as easily describe Thousand Oaks, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rancho Santa Fe, or any number of other ranchos. Pratt clearly loves his suburban lifestyle, and rebuilding the Palisades is his top priority. That’s why Pratt’s turn towards Howard Roark seems more like a jab than a genuine campaign plank. He imagines a shiny new downtown in order to cast a spotlight on the grime and lifelessness that he associates with the current downtown -- and with its most prominent figure. This vision is the flip side of Pratt’s antagonism toward homelessness and other unsavory elements of urban life. When we look at gleaming cupolas and cornices and towers, we are also meant to envision clean sidewalks full of respectable, productive people — the sort Republicans often favor. Pratt’s imagined skyline depends, implicitly, on cleaning up the streetfront. On that count, Pratt has been ruthless. He wants unhoused people moved, arrested, and if necessary, forced into housing against their will -- possibly in the desert on the urban fringe. “We’re going around and we’re just arresting people and the people that aren’t getting arrested, we’re getting to mandatory medical treatment,” Pratt told Joe Rogan. If Pratt has any humanitarian instincts, they are indiscernible. He wants to eliminate homelessness mainly because it ruins his view. The great irony, of course, is that one of the primary drivers of urban decay has been suburbanization itself. The very instincts and development patterns that produced the Palisades — and more to the point, hundreds of independent cities across California's urban areas — are what drained center cities of people, energy, money, resources, and political clout from World War II onward. Whatever disdain Pratt has for urban Los Angeles, it was partly produced by white flight and middle-class flight. Pratt’s escape to Bel-Air puts this flight into Ludicrous Mode. In that sense, the Palisades Fire is the foil for past crucibles like the 1965 Watts Riots and 1992 Rodney King Riots: every three decades, a neighborhood burns and demands reform. Only this time, the neighborhood is wealthy, and they have only Mother Nature to blame. Spencer Pratt's home. Sort of. *** For a Republican to care about urbanism all of a sudden is ironic, to say the least. Yet, there are lessons worth taking from him. (Los Angeles elections are nonpartisan, but Pratt has made no secret of his affiliations or his sympathy for the MAGA movement.) In the introduction to my book The Urban Mystique, I noted that the attractiveness and functionality of LA's built environment is inversely proportional to the city's natural beauty. It’s as if some perverse defect in our collective unconscious forbids us from having nice things. We need to break the cycle of mediocrity. I would warmly welcome a copse of Chrysler Buildings or some friends for the Eastern Columbia Building, bedecked in jade and lapis lazuli. Art Deco is lovely, and Art Deco skyscrapers are lovely. We absolutely need more of them: dense, diverse, well located, and beautiful. I think I would drop my champagne flute if ever I heard a conventional pol mention aesthetics. They are likely afraid of the specters of gentrification or elitism, or they’re wonky enough to know how hard it is to regulate aesthetics. Or -- quite likely -- they simply have no taste and consider aesthetics to be frivolous. Except, aesthetics matter. Not as much as poverty, homelessness, or housing--but they still matter a lot. Planners are not architects, of course. But, anything that is planned is also something that needs to be designed. Good plans warrant good design -- and vice-versa. According to the recent article by David Broockman, Chris Elmendorf, and Joshua Kalla titled, “How Sociotropic Aesthetic Judgments Drive Opposition to Housing Development,” stakeholders oppose new housing because much of what they see is ugly. They find that “voters oppose new development not just out of self-interest or NIMBYism, but because they find certain types of development aesthetically unappealing and seek to enforce these aesthetic preferences through policy.” They’re alluding to the oversized, unadorned “five-over-one” buildings and all sorts of stucco aberrations that developers build in order to maximize their permitted square footage and minimize costs. The problem, according to Broockman, et. al., is that a developer’s payday can be a neighbor’s eyesore. Opposition leads to greater expenses for developers, which leads to less capital for niceties like design. The less housing is available, the more prospective tenants are willing to pay regardless of how a building looks and the more people end up on the street. It’s a vicious cycle. I don’t know if Pratt has read that research, but he clearly has an intuitive sense of its conclusions and an effective way of discussing them. In the All In video, Pratt refers to “soulless, SB 79 , prison-like structures” and shares images of typical five-over-ones. (It’s true that SB 79 hasn’t kicked in yet, but I actually take his point at face value; I don’t think we have any reason to expect that it will produce much other than utilitarian boxes.) Pratt's vision may be simplistic but at least it's a vision. He is, with the help of AI renderings, literally showing pictures of what Los Angeles could look like. It's fitting for someone whose fame derives from reality television, and it’s vastly more effective than the bureaucratic word salad tossed by many planners and their planning documents. What Pratt also draws from reality television is his anger. Pratt knows that comity does not make for good entertainment. Neither does consensus-building or good-faith negotiation. Whether for personal or ideological reasons, he has channeled his anger over the fires -- occasionally blaming Bass for “letting (his) house burn down”, as if he thinks she’s gleeful about it -- into relentless criticism of city leadership. Pratt’s rage is that of someone who has, admirably, woken up to these problems but who may not appreciate that a Lego version of L.A. is a lot easier to govern than the real thing is. That’s why he's doing well in the polls--not because he knows anything about governance, fire suppression, or even real estate but because he makes governance simple. To be fair, Pratt has released a more comprehensive housing and development platform. It includes many provisions -- such as streamlining -- that housing advocates and many planners would welcome. He includes a surprisingly nuanced critique of SB 79: density should focus on commercial areas rather than on transit stops, with a nice zinger: “Sure, taking a train to work is cleaner than driving, but taking an elevator to work is even cleaner than that.” Truth be told: his approach isn’t necessarily original, but, if we overlook (or embrace!) some of its impolitic language, Pratt’s platform is a lot more compelling than the incumbent’s is. I wish the capable people were more angry. Or the angry people more capable. Pratt’s turn toward aesthetics expresses a sentiment that no major LA public figure has articulated in recent memory. He is disgusted by the city's response to the crises--not just the fire but to so many other crises lying on the sidewalk in plain sight. On that count, I think almost every Angeleno — except perhaps certain members of city government — agrees with him. And yet, Pratt’s absurdities and offenses persist. *** What's interesting is that Los Angeles’s natural beauty is the very thing that put him in this situation in the first place. Los Angeles is ringed and bisected by mountains. Mountains have brush. We have a Mediterranean climate. Brush catches fire — not that it can catch fire, but that it does, and has, and will again. That is maybe the most absurd part of the Pratt campaign. He acts as if he was caught unawares, as if someone who lives on the urban fringe does not know — or does not care — that the hills may burn, and so will his house. It is that lack of judgment, more than any lack of responsibility, that I think disqualifies him from being mayor. Pratt, who reportedly did not have fire insurance, is now reportedly filming a reality show about his campaign, which he intends to extend into his mayoralty, if he can. Do I need to mention that the second-largest city in the country is simply not a serious place? Then again, who can blame Pratt? Producing a reality show surely pays a lot more than running the city does. As long as public-sector compensation is so woefully out of whack with similarly rigorous private-sector jobs, it will never attract top talent and always foment corruption and amplify the influence of special interests. Here is what I'll grant Pratt: he believes this city can be greater. He believes it can be governed better, look better, and that on average, people can live better here. If he is elected, those things may or may not come to pass. If he is not, I hope that whoever becomes mayor — and whoever fills the next round of council seats and department head positions — proves Pratt right anyway. I want Pratt, for all his weirdness and bombast, to be right. I want city leaders to learn the ample, if inadvertent, lessons that he so plainly offers. If that means we get some curves, tubes, and neon, all the better. I hope that, whenever he checks out of the Bel-Air, Spencer Pratt unpacks his bags someplace safe and comfortable. Maybe in an art deco high-rise. Maybe in his rebuilt Palisades house. Maybe in a box on a sidewalk. Really, I don’t care -- as long as he’s nowhere near Getty House.