Presswatch/On the Bus With Bill and Hillary
Eastland, Terry
THE PUBLIC POLICY Clean Air's Dirty Politics by Robert J. Ernst III No one who lives in the Monterey Bay area can remember a smoggy day. Ninety-nine percent of the air in the district has never...
...There is no right to appeal...
...Code:1205 8.25% Sales Tax TN Residents Only...
...If successful with methyl bromide, the air district will likely begin taxing all pesticides, opening the door to a huge source of income to be paid by fanners—and, ultimately, consumers...
...The investment pays handsomely.' When state laws actually limit the board's power, the air district either flouts them or lobbies against them...
...The air district offices are in a brand-new three-story' building with underground parking, in an exclusive subdivision...
...If there is no pollution, then why does the air district—one of many regional agencies charged with improving air quality—even exist...
...Air district employees call it the "Taj Mahal...
...A respected environmental engineer has said that the district air pollution "problem" could be entirely solved, fulfilling the requirements of California law, if the plant were to shut down for only four hours each year...
...Setting aside the question whether engineers were necessary, the means of procurement would not be tolerated in private business: the dry cleaners had already submitted the inventory data...
...Because it is said to deplete the ozone layer, methyl bromide will be banned by the EPA within eight years...
...Farr has even proposed a super-regional agency for the Monterey Bay...
...At this writing, the cities within the air district must each design a "trip reduction ordinance" (TRO)—a plan for coerced car pools—by December 31, 1992...
...The annual air board "mortgage" payment is $322,838...
...The head staffer at the Monterey air district, Abra Bennett, recently advised the Pacific Grove city council that the 46 The American Spectator October 1992 town's residents must car-pool to reduce the number of "standard" 20-mile round trips...
...Sam Farr...
...Annual maintenance costs on the building are $31,278—all this in a region where office space rents for $.75 to $1.10 per square foot per month...
...Most earn substantially more than their counterparts in the private sector...
...FAST FAX ORDERUNE: 615-297-1037 24HOUR ORDERUNE: 615-298-4753 ellican romotions ncorporated Mail Order: P.O...
...When ordering, specify: Code #, Shirt #, Quantity, Size, Style, Name, Address & Phone...
...In addition to its engineers, the air district has a full-time lawyer (who has his own law library) and many other professionals...
...The board will mail copies of these documents for an advance payment of $340 yearly...
...Pacific Grove is about a mile across...
...Box 158141 Nashville, TN 372158141 Call for wholesale or fundraising pricing: 615-297-2421 Allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery...
...The district recently fired its outside PR firm...
...It is the largest stationary source of air pollutants in the entire district, and it pays almost $1 million a year to the air district...
...Five years ago, a commercial sewer hookup cost about $1,500...
...Outlays to personnel during fiscal '92-93 will exceed $2.8 million...
...For example, the air district mandates that the sewer agency collect a fee from every property owner...
...Worse, to provide these public-sector sinecures, air boards take away private-sector jobs...
...VISA & MC accepted...
...The San Francisco air boardhas called for a 100 percent reduction in air pollution by 1997...
...The air district and other super-regional agencies—all exempt from Proposition 13—have quietly supplanted Sacramento and local government, deciding the important issues without accountability...
...Pacific Gas and Electric runs a natural gas–fired electric power plant at Moss Landing...
...basin billions in revenues...
...The staff grows exponentially...
...How can it get away with spending not one penny on incentives to pollute less...
...Over the last twenty years, the Los Angeles air board, the SCAQMD, has destroyed the once-thriving furniture industry in riot-torn South-Central...
...Complaints by the local chambers of commerce to stop this growth have been ignored...
...The air district recently met to pass a staff proposal to extract a $300 "fee" from every dry cleaner, auto body shop, cabinet maker, and gas station, among other unsuspecting Rotarians...
...Ninety-nine percent of the air in the district has never been polluted—ever...
...IT MUST BE A REAL STUPID QUESTION: #00P103 - BACX T-Shirt: 100% Cotton ?Style = T ?S,M,L,XL ($15) 2X ($17) Sweatshirt: 50/50% ?Style = S ?S,M,L,XL ($26) 2X ($30) Postage and Handling: $3.50 for 1st shirt, $1.50 each for 2nd and up...
...has banned bakeries, claiming that baking bread pollutes the air...
...They will be paid off by permits, fees, and fines...
...state Senator Henry Mello wrote the legislation that created the air district to stop growth...
...The air district rules, agenda, and minutes are not available at any public library...
...The regional boards cannibalize other agencies...
...air board members Gary Patton, Barbara Shipnuck, Karin Strasser-Kauffman, and Abra Bennett...
...The movement to "regionalize" California politics continues to accelerate faster than Willie Brown's Ferrari...
...To learn about the board's activities requires visiting the air district offices, where the "public" documents are safely housed...
...For four days during the last decade the ozone was high in Carmel Valley, but that was not enough to deter Stanford University from locating its heart transplant division there...
...The air district creates its own rules, fines, and fees with little public input...
...With Proposition 140 limiting the number of terms Willie and his cronies can serve as legislators, they are looking to the air boards and other job-for-life regional agencies to save them from living by their own rules in the private sector...
...The air district—made up of members of the Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz Boards of Supervisors—is not directly elected...
...Pending in the legislature that he controls are five bills that would create new regional agencies, including one that would combine the San Francisco Bay Area air board, the Association of Bay Area Governments, and its transportation agency into one super-regional colossus...
...Why does it collect $5.7 million annually from fines, business permit fees, sewer district and city assessments, and auto license fees...
...The air district's lobbyist has been pushing for an exemption from public reporting of the socioeconomic effects of its regulations...
...about them when an air enforcement person arrives at his door...
...But stopping pollution is not the objective...
...Each political subdivision must base its TIRO on air district standards, which would not be available until September...
...On virtually every matter before it, the board gives the public the minimum notice prescribed by law...
...Now it can run up to $22,000...
...The air district floated "certificates of participation"—like government bonds, but exempt from public vote—to finance the $4 million building...
...How can it instead spend all its money on itself, its lobbyist, and other agencies that advance its cause...
...The American Spectator October 1992 47...
...Methyl bromide is a fumigant, essential for cultivating strawberries (the district's biggest cash crop), and for controlling the naturally occurring carcinogen aflatoxin...
...Salinas, Carmel, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Santa Cruz, and Watsonville, home to most of the 650,000 people in the area, have never experienced a single day of air pollution, according to the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District (the "air district" or "board...
...There is a right to a hearing...
...State law says that air quality boards may not regulate land use, but the air district has imposed emission standards that forced the sewer agency to build the only sewage treatment, plant in the state that has less capacity than the facility it replaced...
...No bike racks clutter its sleek exterior...
...Pending passage of this exemption, the "citizens"' advisory panel to the board formally recommended that the staff and the board ignore the state law requiring reports...
...T he air district has a cozy relationship with local representatives...
...Fines are routinely "settled" for a few hundred dollars, provided the violator buys a permit...
...The Monterey air board has adopted an Air Quality Management Plan that could require 5,000 car pools per day in Salinas—where the average commute is 1.7 miles...
...State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown is California's biggest advocate of regional government...
...The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, a joint California-Nevada enterprise, spends 80 percent of its revenues on litigation...
...They will be well looked after...
...The sewer agency complained to the air district about theincreases and received a reply only after eighteen months and the threat of litigation...
...Legitimized by the federal Clean Air Act—and the stricter California version—and headed by a self-proclaimed Green named Gary Patton, the air district is empowered by state law to create and enforce district-wide rules and regulations even more stringent than those in smoggy Los Angeles...
...after all, there is plenty of room to park one's car...
...The fees were to raise $300,000 for three full-time engineers, hired without funding, to "inventory" the reactive organic gases (ROGs) emitted by these small businesses...
...Never mind, the air board staff did the talking for Farr at a recent meeting...
...The air district collects from each city, county, and other regional agency within its 5,100-squaremile jurisdiction...
...to warrant asking him to speak to the public on the issue...
...17I / MONT THIS IS YOUR BRAIN THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS IF BILL CLINTON MINE ANSWER...
...Ever on the alert for new sources of revenue, the air district is presently trying to regulate and tax pesticides—particularly methyl bromide—by making an end-run around the state Department of Pesticide Regulation...
...The air district plans to fine employers whose employees do not car-pool...
...Just a few yards from the Laguna Seca golf course, it is blocks from the nearest bus stop—miles from the nearest town...
...Designs ID 1992, 1990 Owned or licensed by Pelham Promotions, Inc...
...Most of its increased fees went to the air district, not towards sewers...
...The air district lobbyist, at the behest of Abra Bennett, has also convinced State Assemblyman Sam Farr to exempt it from Assembly Bill 2783, which would have checked the power of the state air boards...
...most of that fee goes to the air district...
...Permits are renewed annually without a hearing...
...and has cost the residents of the L.A...
...Anyone violating the rules typically learns Robert J. Ernst III is an attorney in Salinas, California...
...Farr did not return phone calls from businessmen concerned with his position on the air board...
...When asked if Farr could explain his position on the legislation, an air board staffer said that Fan did not understand enough about it 'It is hardly the most egregious offender...
...Its 1992-93 budget calls for $261,000 of its $5.7 million to be spent on "Professional and Special Services," including lobbying Sacramento through its lobbyist Lenny Goldberg and Associates and paying its in-house publicist Tom Manheim...
...Willie has plenty of friends around Monterey Bay—Henry Mello...
...One can't build without a sewer hookup...
...At the far northeastern edge of the district lies the farm town of Hollister, where unacceptable ozone (possibly from decaying crops) shows up ten days per year...
...F ew Californians realize that their two-tiered system of state and local government no longer really exists...
...and the local paper...
Vol. 25 • October 1992 • No. 10
