Daily News Publishes My Platform's "Walk To Work" Initiatives
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, MooreIsBetter.com.Today the Los Angeles Daily News published, with a few revisions (e.g., I would never use the word "incentivize"), an essay I wrote in early March 2007 on my platform's "walk to work" initiatives. Here's the link: "Living close to job would clear traffic."
We can attack the traffic problem by amending laws that make it hard for people to find homes near their jobs.
One reason people can't find a place to live near their jobs is rent control, which effectively makes 550,000 to 620,000 apartments unavailable to commuters at any price. The result is a distorted housing market. Owners of non-rent-controlled units charge higher prices than otherwise, because they don't have to compete with the rent controlled units.
So one of my walk-to-work initiatives is to repeal rent control -- while guaranteeing 100% Section 8 housing assistance at market rates for any qualified person who is adversely affected by the repeal.
Another walk-to-work initiative is to make Proposition 13 "portable" for anyone who is moving to a home within a mile of his or her job. That way, a person who wants to sell one home to buy another, much closer to work, will not have to pay a massive tax penalty. Likewise, we should allow a first-time buyer to keep a home's existing property tax level if the home is within a mile of the buyer's workplace. This would help reduce traffic without reducing the tax revenues the properties generate.
Finally, we should provide for "instant" mixed-use zoning for the upper floors of commerical and office buildings. Owners of those buildings should be allowed to convert the upper floors to residential for people who work within a mile of the buildings.
These walk-to-work initiatives could reduce significantly the number of people stuck in traffic every day, without our having to spend billions and wait decades to build subways.
Posted by Walter Moore @ 5/29/2007 07:32:00 AM
19 Comments:
Prop. 13 has done more to decimate California's public education than the A-bomb did to Nagasaki.
You're a crackpot, Walter, for even suggesting that Prop 13 be "portable."
We're 48th or 49th in per-student spending as it is.
F*%$ you and the Prop 13 horse you rode in on.
Walter-
"BEIJING - China's former top drug regulator was sentenced to death Tuesday in an unusually harsh punishment for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths."
-What would our politicians do in China?
Poor MAV. Sentenced to ___________
Don't you need a 2/3 vote to ammend Prop. 13 to make it portable?
If thats the case...good luck on passing it.
"Prop. 13 has done more to decimate California's public education than the A-bomb did to Nagasaki."
Time for a new excuse.
That one's getting pretty stale.
...and it's been nuked a hundred times.
12:55
How has it been nuked?
Here was latest A-Bomb. This one landed on Don "Cracker" Perata's thick skull when he tried to blame Prop. 13 for the sad state of education in California: http://www.californiarepublic.org/archives/columns/coupal/20060426CoupalScapegoat.html
Quoting the California Republic as "resource material" wouldn't fly at Santa Monica College, let alone the real world.
ESPECIALLY when the column is written by the President of the HJTA!
Come on...find a less biased source next time.
Umm, it's called the facts, and if anyone has them, it's Jon Coupal.
3:32
Once again ---
Using CA Republic and the President of the HJTA as "nuking" the Prop. 13 belief is not only moronic...no wait..it IS moronic.
Okay, I bite: why?
Anon-8:54
You appear more interested in Ed. as a jobs program NOT to improve literacy. Want to improve literacy remove $$ away from educrats, at that point it has a chance to get better.
EDUCATION is rarely about the money.
P-13 forever
Prove it, 507.
Please cite ANY STUDY YOU CAN FIND that shows NO CORRELATION between spending and education efficacy.
Can't, can you?
That's because they don't exist. Educational success is closely linked to spending -- in any study you can find.
Start looking through Rand studies and see ... if you dare:
http://www.rand.org/publications/newsletters/education/0505/issue.pdf
Let's try that link again:
http://www.rand.org/publications/newsletters/education/0505/issue.pdf
Here's a money quote:
California’s annual per-student spending was more than $600 below the national average in 1999–2000. Support for K–12 education as a proportion of the per-capita income of Californians has fallen as well. School finance reform, which helped narrow the gap in spending between rich and poor districts, also contributed to lower spending levels overall.
http://www.rand.org/publications/newsletters/... education/0505/issue.pdf
We spend half of our state budget on education and yet somehow come out $600 below the national average?
6:12, where's all the money going???
Ohhhhhhhh, you don't want to talk about that. . . You want to blame Prop. 13, -- and why not? After all, everyone else is doing it, including that rotten dirtbag Don Perata, who, by the way, is in the news today for WASTING our money on his fancy lifestyle.
You people disgust me. You want NO accountability -- just more, more, more and more tax money to waste.
on the 'walk to work' thing.
here's an idea: only repeal rent control in neighborhodds where there is predominantly work available, not just all rent control.
plenty residential neighborhoods out there where you simply cannot walk to work.
is that a fair assessment/compromise?
Jon Coupal knows only dogma. I wouldn't ask him where to find toilet paper let alone how to finance government or protect taxpayers.
As for Walter and "incentivize," no need for him to know the word OR use it, since he wouldn't even help his grandma across the street, let alone lend a hand to someone else to do something societally responsible.
I just came across another flaw in the rent control system last week (I have written about many in the past) when my daughter signed a lease for her first apartment. It is a rent-controlled building, and the new landlord Barbara said, “There will be an automatic rent raise at the end of the year’s lease.” I asked, “But what if market rates are stable or have declined?” She said, “There is an automatic rent raise every year. The city tells us to do it.” I told her this is not true; the city does not force landlords to raise the rent. She replied, “The unit is under market value now.” I said, “No, it isn’t. It sat here vacant for over two months before we agreed to take it.”
Even though I could tell she was getting angry, I added that I had been a landlord for over 20 years (non-rent controlled properties) and have never raised the rent on any tenant, even when he or she has stayed in excess of 10 years. I do this because when I was a tenant and the rent went up, I always found a better deal and moved.
The incident got me thinking…. Everyone I know who owns rent-controlled properties raises the rent like clockwork when he or she can. Yet everyone I know with market-rate units leaves the price “as is” for long periods of time.
I wonder if there is some sort of psychological reason for this. Perhaps landlords of rent-controlled units feel they are being taken advantage of by the system, therefore feel entitled to raise the rent. Market rate landlords don’t feel exploited. Plus, maybe tenants typically fall for the line “the city makes me do it.” Rent control law becomes an excuse, turning the city into the bad guy while the landlord can assume the role as the good guy.
If my observations are correct with respect to the big picture, rent-controlled tenants are disadvantaged. They will be cornered into paying over market rate after a year, or they will have to uproot their lives and shell out moving fees for a new place.
Charlotte Laws
Anon 06:09
Well lets leave the studies for now and look at some real world examples.
The tail that wags the dog in Ca. is LAUSD. In 1996 the adjusted budget was just under 5 billion. Now some +10 years later is beyond 13 billion. This does not include BOND debt to build new schools or to put in AC. Or to lay concrete for a new parking garage for that matter. Did the BB AC $$ do anything to boost the test scores. Are the education results proportional to the spending. Let me know if you find many who think the answer is yes. Sorry the garage was an additional $49mil
In '05 I believe, state controller Wesley reported an alarming number of districts that over spent their budgets. 552 of them to the toon of $668 million. He reported that most of the 552 overspent multiple years. The point is that a large percentage of school districts have no civic responsibility when it comes to spending someone else's ie taxpayers $$.
In my earlier post I suggested taking $$ away and problem will then start to get better. I think the Wesley report corroborates this. DO YOU!
A couple of years ago the CTA spent $50 mil to fight the RINO's ed budget which PO'ed many of the members, remember. Even though the RINO upped the ed budget by $3 billion.
Alan Bersin of SDUSD made the remark: Is public ed going be something that serves the adults and their jobs, or the children.
I think Bersin would agree to my earlier post.
More than ten years ago or so the state mandated class size reduction. A classic union jobs program as well as facilities management. Where are conclusive results of that endeavor? Why not extend it to its logical conclusion and mandate IEP's individual education plans at a ratio of 1 teacher to 1 child. Yes I agree, education may at that point improve.
Thanks for the dialog.
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