Community Editorial: Streetcar Plan
Shows Dark Side of Eminent ...Domain
Posted: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 6:00 am | Updated:
8:10 am, Wed Jul 10, 2013.
By CYNTHIA WARD | 21 comments
California’s
redevelopment agencies may be dead, but using the power of government to take
private property, by eminent domain if need be, to profit the chosen few in the
name of “economic development” is alive and well.
The ghost of
Kelo haunts Anaheim,
in the not so cleverly disguised form of the ARC or Anaheim Rapid Connection fixed guideway, a streetcar that transports resort visitors and
employees at public expense.
As it turns
out, this public project runs over some private property.
Not only has
the Anaheim City Council voted 3-2 for a project while blasting past the
Mayor’s objections that should have created concern, the Orange County
Transportation Authority has the nerve to call this a mandate from voters who
demanded this type of project for the benefit of all when approving Measure M.
The OCTA board voted Monday morning to move forward with the project while
Directors John Moorlach, Jeff Lalloway
and Matt Harper opposed the
boondoggle.
Republican
power-hitter Jon Fleishman already called this “subsidizing the Mouse,” a view
shared by transportation expert Randall O’Toole. Over at the Antiplanner, O’Toole
called it “a massive subsidy to Disney,” pointing out that “Disney is
reportedly enthused about the project, since otherwise it might have to provide
its own buses.”
The (flying)
elephant in the room is the public funding to mitigate the traffic impacts
caused by one of the most profitable corporate entities in the
world. Worse, the plans quietly call for the “taking” of private property,
which in turn picks the losers and winners in this high stakes game. Businesses
impacted — either voluntarily through the process of negotiation or by force
through eminent domain — will be offered fair market value for their property,
but the law does not really provide for lost future earnings.
The flip
side of this evil game of SimCity is that the property left adjacent to the
newly created gap in the motel grin along the right of way on Harbor Boulevard
will very likely skyrocket in value. While we may debate whether hotel guests
will use the streetcar while carting luggage and children, there is no question
of the value in offering guests the convenience of right-outside-the-front-door
access to the pedestrian bridge taxpayers are funding, to get those streetcar
passengers up and over busy Harbor Blvd into Disney’s gates, where they are
welcomed with open arms and open cash registers.
As it turns
out, the streetcar does not deliver passengers directly into Disney’s front
yard. After all, Disney has uses for Disney’s land, which apparently do not
include housing the streetcar nor shouldering the liability
of it on their property
.
Instead, the streetcar drops its passengers on the east side of Harbor Blvd, and
thus we see the need to acquire some of the most expensive dirt in the real
estate business.
The motels, restaurant and one office building that are seen by decision
makers as nothing but blocks of color in an aerial photo, represent the jobs of
about 235 Americans. For now. Yet we will celebrate
jobs created by the streetcar as “economic development” while the Anaheim City
Council majority stands beside the OCTA board smiling for the ribbon cutting
and congratulating themselves on how they have served
their constituents.
Anaheim Councilwoman Kris Murray has appeared at the OCTA board
repeatedly, working to convince us that the streetcar will bring prosperity to
the entire resort area, even famously
admitting within earshot of Voice of OC’s
Adam Elmahrek that getting tourists' cars off the
road lets Disney open their long-anticipated third gate.
The truth is that the properties most likely to benefit are those
immediately adjacent to the station stops. Property outside the magical
equation of the 500
to 1,000 feet that the average pedestrian is willing to walk
between destinations are left behind like small prairie towns that were missed
by the railroad. Those small towns sent emissaries to sweet-talk railroad
executives, offering free right of way, providing a station, even naming the
town for those executives. Yes,
I am talking about you, Fullerton.
Following a public challenge to ask staff what exactly does sit between Clementine Street
and Harbor Boulevard,
OCTA Director and County
Supervisor Shawn Nelson
asked Public Works Director Natalie Meeks to enlighten those in attendance at
the board meeting.
Meeks’ vague reply offered little hint beyond a need to acquire right of
way, as though referring to an open dirt field to be picked up for a pittance.
Her failure to disclose the visitor services, tax generating functions and
employment of those small businesses inconveniently sitting on her right of way
was typical of a project mired in secrecy
and deflection.
Director Nelson’s query about whether these property owners were aware of
their impending doom matched Voice of OC’s Adam Elmahrek’s interview of Meeks after the meeting. In both
cases their questions were met by nonspecific response, mumbling something
about not having actual parcel numbers, as though what they want to do is still
some pipe dream to be planned in more detail someday.
A view of the images used for their planning documents indicates a fairly
precise record with little doubt of whose financial future is bulldozer fodder
and who gets the golden ticket of increased property values. Should Natalie
Meeks really not have their parcel numbers, she might get a hold of me. I have
them and the names of the property
owners associated with the lots.
Ultimately the people of Orange
County, who are paying
for this, are getting a raw deal, losing gas taxes to a system that benefits
those with connections to the Masters
of the Universe. For those unlucky few whose livelihoods are
on the chopping block, they pay twice: once for the taxes,
once in the loss of the property they have worked to improve. Even those of us
who believe that the expansion of the resort’s business model serves to benefit
all of us in the way of increased tax revenues cannot help but feel just plain
dirty as the details of this project come to light.
Staff at the city of Anaheim
and OCTA have a clear stake in moving this project forward. There are
no prestigious awards given to transportation executives for the project they
did not build because they determined
it was wasteful. Career bureaucrats make and break their resumes on these big,
boondoggle budgetbusters, gathering at their annual
conferences to compare the size of their staffs and associated budgets as a
measure of their worth in the marketplace.
They are supposed to have that ambition reined in by the elected leaders
sent to represent us on these regional nongovernmental organizations, where
money is spent faster than Washington can
borrow it from China.
Those leaders in turn are sandwiched between public employee unions fighting to
keep their jobs pushing the pencils and counting the beans of the big project
that sends their boss to the annual conference and the private-sector building
trades eager for jobs creating the big, sexy project using monopoly
money from some fairy godmother named the Federal Transit
Administration.
Throw in the corporate interests who want to maximize their property
values while avoiding the cost of transporting their own paying customers and
perhaps taking out the competitor next door they never liked anyway and you
have a lot of special interests bending the ears and filling
the campaign coffers of those we suspect stopped looking out for us
long ago. The ARC streetcar project pretty much proves it.
Cynthia
Ward is a member of the Voice of OC Community Editorial Board and an
Anaheim-based consultant and longtime commentator on City Hall issues. You can
email her at cynthia@ward-associates.net