One thing that California does well is to consider the environment. At the world’s forefront in many environmental issues, Californians make protecting the environment an obligatory concern. From recycling to gas additives to protection of lands, Californians realize the importance of environmental issues.

However, our practices sometimes conflict with our heartfelt intentions. California is growing at a phenomenal rate, and with the added people comes myriad problems. Our urban areas are expanding rapidly. Smog, now mostly from our vehicles as opposed to industry, blankets our valleys and basins.

An example of a California oddity in environmental policy is San Francisco’s water source—Hetch Hetchy. A dam across the front of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park built in 1923 fills a valley said to be equal in magnificence to neighboring Yosemite Valley. Although scientists have recently speculated San Francisco could draw its waters differently, allowing restoration of the valley, many in San Francisco are steadfast about Hetch Hetchy. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein has said, “Hetch Hetchy is San Francisco’s birthright.” One of the most liberal cities in the world fears a slightly progressive environmental agenda in favor of harkening to a technologically outdated water retention system.

This example serves to illustrate a point. Although Californians know what is right for the environment, we are uncomfortable with a lot of change. This ability to overlook environmental concerns when they are inconvenient has put California in danger of losing one of its most amazing characteristics—our natural heritage. Due to a number of geographical factors, including the presence of a coast, mountain ranges, a desert, the highest point in the lower 48, the lowest point in the lower 48, and volcanic and seismic activity, California has developed some of the most unique organisms on the planet. The California Floristic Province, which includes portions of Oregon and Mexico, has over 2,100 plant species and a great variety of animal species. In 1990, Conservation International named the Province a biodiversity hotspot; meaning 70% of the primary habitat has been lost.

Sometimes at ValleyVue, we lament the loss of farmland to development. We must also consider Central Valley land has not always been utilized for agricultural. In a blog that often discusses the development of land to the greatest possible use, we must realize that sometimes the best use is preservation. Right now, 20% of California’s land has been preserved through legislation or purchase by land trusts. However, much of the land protected is not the habitat of the species needing protection. Unfortunately, some of those areas are not the most picturesque, nor are they worthless in terms of human need. It is easier to preserve a beautiful mountaintop than to preserve a parcel of Valley land that could instead become an auto mall.

Land use decision must increasingly consider regional concerns and environmental impact. The state’s current environmental impact laws are not living up to their intention. Right now, developers and environmental scientist often agree the current air impact rules for development generally result in fewer living units per acre and few mixed-use developments in order to satisfy concerns of too much traffic or pollution. This cannot be the way the state operates, or sprawl will continue to spread. As urban areas expand into formerly agricultural areas and undeveloped land, the ecological impacts are clear. What is California now will be gone forever.
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Thanks to our sources: National Geographic, Sacramento Bee, Photographer Dan Borlik

Despite high real estate costs in the Sacramento area, landlords across the region are reporting a high number of vacancies. Rental management companies are also reporting rates to be flat over the last year.

It is unclear whether or not the rental inventory in Sacramento is increasing. While there are a number of rental construction projects in the area, there has also recently been a trend of older rental communities converting to condominiums.

What is clear is there are not enough renters to fill the area's surplus rental properties. Vacancies are running at about 10% for most rental communities, and experts have seen an increase in incentives. What they have not seen is an increase in prices for units, in what is becoming a very competitive renter's market.

While not the best news for Sacramento landlords, it looks like low rents could be a great benefit for an area of the Valley quickly losing its status as a real estate bargain. An influx of Bay Area and southern Californians to the ranks of buyers in the Sacramento real estate market have cause home prices to sky rocket over the last few years. Incomes in Sacramento, while showing a healthy average increase per year, are being split between the increases Californians must pay for energy and healthcare, not to mention housing. Relatively low rents may allow working families and low income individuals to remain in the area.

Experts are confident rents will increase and vacancy rates will fall, as Sacramento continues to see a strong job market and the California economy grows. Hopefully, though, residents that depend on affordable rates will not be priced out of Sacramento.

The Los Angeles Times has reported on a shift seen in the Inland Empire surrounding the town of Ontario. Once a powerhouse in the south state’s dairy industry, the Inland Empire is quickly losing its industry and its farmlands to development.

Here’s a familiar story. Around fifty years ago, the dairies that were located in the Los Angeles basin began to relocate to the nearby Inland Empire due to low acreage prices and few complaining neighbors. Farmers at the time were able to sell their L.A. land to developers looking to build suburbs for a fast growing megalopolis. Now the process goes full circle, as developers deluge dairy farmers with offers for their land in order to allow developments for the growing cities of Ontario and Riverside.

It is not as if the new neighbors in the encroaching developments are demanding that the cows move. It is more the case of dairy farmers cashing in on their most valuable asset—the land. It makes business sense for a farmer who can only make so much from the herd’s milk to see the increasing offers on their land by developers and be tempted to throw in the towel. Besides, cattle are odorous, an unpleasant characteristic for an urbanizing area. Also, other forms of agriculture are also leaving the vicinity of dairy farmers, leaving them fewer options in disposing of manure formerly sold as fertilizer.

So, the farmers are leaving. Some are simply retiring, walking away from their family’s agricultural heritage. Others are taking their money and moving somewhere else. Dairy is still a necessary commodity, so there is some money to be made from it. While some of the industry is growing in such far-flung places as New Mexico, a lot of the industry is moving to the San Joaquin Valley. The Dairy industry, as well as agriculture, still has a foothold in the economically stressed (and therefore less developed) Valley.

How long the dairies will remain in the Valley is unforeseeable. However, the Valley is also growing. Dairies will be increasingly squeezed here too, if the Valley isn’t able to get a handle on urban sprawl to prevent what has happened in the Los Angeles area.

Some day, developers from Fresno and Merced may indeed be looking to supplant the dairies in a need for more housing. It has already been seen throughout the Valley, as mostly small family owned dairies have left what are now fully urbanized neighborhoods. Population projections for the Valley forecast millions of new residents to move in over the next 25 years. Looking at how development has occurred over the last 25 years, it could be very possible that much of the dairy business now growing in the San Joaquin Valley will one day be looking for cheaper and less crowded pastures.

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Update: Stockton City Manager Fired

As reported in an earlier ValleyVue article, Stockton’s city officials were under fire after a disastrous concert for the brand-new Stockton Arena. The Neil Diamond concert lost $400,000 for the city. Consequently (or as city council members would claim, in an unrelated move), the council fired City Manager Mark Lewis by on a vote of 6-1. Wile publicly the council expressed problems with a number of incidents involving Lewis during his his tenure in Stockton, it is fairly obvious due to the timing that Lewis’ goose was cooked following the money-losing concert.

If any city in the state of California should be applauded for its efforts to improve its downtown core, it is Stockton. In the past few years, mostly due to the determination of Stockton city officials, downtown has been the site of myriad civic improvement projects. Stockton has refurbished the Fox Theater, cleaned up an under-utilized water front (yes, this is a port city in the Central Valley), added an outdoor concert venue with a fancy fountain in the Webber Events Center, saw the building of a multiplex movie theater, addition of parking, renovation of the Stockton Hotel landmark, and built a waterfront baseball stadium. Most recently, Stockton opened the Stockton Arena, home to hockey, football, and soccer teams. As part of its opening ceremonies for the publicly owned arena, Stockton city officials planned to kick off concerts by bringing in a big-time performer with Neil Diamond.

Stockton was able to swiftly and easily redevelop downtown, especially in building so many attractions. In comparison, big brother to the north Sacramento has been struggling for years to come up with a plan to build a new basketball arena, particularly due to little voter interest in using public funds. Now it seems this free and easy city management style might be catching up with Stockton. Many in the community were angered when city officials did not follow open meeting laws in disclosing the costs of the concert. As is often the case within the concert industry, negotiations with artists and agents are often confidential, as artists are trying to receive compensation from various venues. The performers do not want promoters to know "the going rate", which would hamper their ability to negotiate the best price possible.

Apparently, it cost the City about $1 million to contract Neil Diamond. With an expected sellout at the Stockton Arena, the city will lose $200,000-400,000. The high sums of money add to the outrage that citizens feel, further insisting that those amounts of money must be open to public oversight. The City Council was able to force the City Manager last week to reveal the costs of the concert.

While it is hard to figure a positive coming from this opening concert, the accomplishments of the City have to be admired. However, it is also a lesson that must be learned by Stockton and other cities involved in similar enterprises. While it is great that Stockton has been able to do so much to improve the city with funds they have access to, it must be remembered the ultimate source of the funds. Government entities in the United States are using the people's funds, and the people must be given the opportunity to object. Publicly funded concerts, due to industry standards, will always be in conflict between secrecy and the right of people to know. Stockton officials may need to slow down from their ambitious goals and remember who they serve.

“I say build it.”

Last week, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered an address on the status of the state of California’s governance. The governor appears to be trying to remake his image after a disastrous attempt to gain all of his objectives in a special election. In his speech, he apologized for his mistakes.

The crux of the speech, however, was the governor’s projections of the future. Schwarzenegger insistently placed the needs of California before state legislators, and amazingly was not strongly rebuffed by his political opponents. His listed vision of projects for the state, after which he repeated “I say build it”, drew praise from many people representing all parts of the political spectrum.

For the Central Valley, the governor is demanding better flood control by placing in his budget construction dollars for levies. He also talked about highway projects that would speed up the movement of goods through the state. While obviously focused on his truck highway idea around the Port of Los Angeles, the Valley would see some highway expansion. Notably, a goal for Highway 99, sometimes called the “spine” of the state, is to eliminate cross traffic. Now, some portions of 99 have perpendicular streets where traffic has to dangerously turn on to the freeway, or sometimes drive across.

Whether or not the Governor is simply trying something new in order to help him win a second term, his proposals seem to be both essential and to have popular appeal. Obviously, his proposals will cost money, and lot’s of it. His budget, released earlier this week, projects a shortfall of $4.7 billion. Most of his “State of the State” projects would be paid by local funding sources plus bond measures. Some critics say the state’s borrowing ability would be pushed to its limits to pay for all the proposals.

Other critics suggest Schwarzenegger is doing nothing more than disingenuously supporting issues he earlier opposed (like a hike in minimum wage) in the name of improving his public image. He took a small hit (literally and figuratively) when he had a motorcycle accident and subsequently revealed he had no license for operating 2-wheeled motorcycles. The motorcycle he was on during the accident was connected to a sidecar, which he was allowed to operate. The fiasco was nothing more than a minor embarrassment for him, and in fact the nature of the accident may remind many voters of the reasons Californian’s voted for an action-star in the first place. It sure is cool to see your governor riding around on a motorcycle. One can liken it to seeing Governor Reagan riding his horse.

Image certainly is important, especially in celebrity-mad California. However, Schwarzenegger is increasingly being required to show progress. The lack of improvement is why Gray Davis was recalled in the first place. Schwarzenegger must see throughout history the legacy of politicians is often most visible in public works. Luckily for him, California has a plethora of needs, and it appears he has picked the right projects to support.