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Fee increases – SLO County’s self fulfilling prophecy

November 27, 2023

Mike F. Brown

OPINION by MIKE BROWN

The annual San Luis Obispo County fee increase ritual will be celebrated during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. The county negotiates higher salaries and then pleads the need to raise the fees to cover some of the cost. Meanwhile your one lot subdivision takes two years and $50,000 in fees as well as your own applicant costs for engineers, architects, environmental experts, and a Native American monitor.

The underlying theory is that users of government services that do not befit the public at large should pay for them so as not to consume tax supported services, which benefit everyone. Accordingly, citizens should pay fees for services such a public golf courses, beach parking, airport operations, document filing, hunting and fishing licenses, gun licenses, and hundreds more.

On the other hand, services such as policing, fire protection and suppression, public prosecution and defense of criminals, jail, snow plowing, some health services, social services, and public education are regarded as beneficial to the entire society and are largely covered by taxes.

There is a gray area in-between where services such as flu shots, local parks, libraries, etc., are often funded by both taxes and fees. These often are set on a graduated basis to subsidize the poor.

Public transit was once entirely supported by charges but has now become mostly subsidized by general taxes and the rip off of gas taxes. Roads are funded by a combination of general taxes, user charges, excise taxes, and tolls.

The underlying problematic historical trend is the evolution of local government regulation from tax supported to fee and excise tax supported over the past 70 years.

Originally, governments viewed land development, agricultural expansion, and commerce as beneficial. But as so-called safety, zoning, and aesthetic regulations expanded massively, academics and public administrators preached the gospel that “users” should pay the costs of being regulated, that is permitted.

This theory has been exponentially expanded under the regime of environmentalism in recent decades through the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), CO2 reduction mandates, and bias against the conversion of land to suburban development (stack-and-pack).

The housing crisis, permanent homelessness, and the decline of the family are all major destructive bi-products.

The underlying problems include:

  • There are too many regulations.
  • The regulations are horribly complicated and subjective.
  • The cost of administering the regulations is too high due to feather bedded processes and government unions controlling the government bodies that determine the efficiency, velocity, and cost of the regulations.
  • Bias against development by college educated bureaucrats who have been brainwashed by the leftist industrial complex at university planning schools.
  • NIMBY elites.
  • Powerful elitist environmental groups who contribute to political campaigns on the one hand and sue over development decisions on the other.

The key operative departments include the Ag Commissioner, Planning and Development, Public Works, Fire, and the Environmental Health Division of the Public Health Department. The County Counsel’s office is an underlying controller secretly advising the others in the name of liability prevention.

Once again the board should stop the dance and require the subject departments to demonstrate the process and cost for key components such as a minor use permit, building permit, or well permit in public. These should be done in flow chart format with the time and price of each step documented.

Since most plans are produced and stamped by licensed architects and engineers, backed up by other subject specific experts, how does the county, using liberal arts planners, public administrators, and environmentalists, actually have the expertise to judge a project? It does this by setting up its own subjective regulatory scheme under which the applicant can be treated arbitrarily and must play regulatory roulette while the game board is constantly manipulated.

Why not try a fair game? A project that is in the proper zone will automatically be approved within no later than 90 days, unless the county can document actual violation of public health and safety.

Mike Brown is the government affairs director of the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture, and Business of SLO County.

 

 


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Well Mr Brown continues his paid position to challenge our government and push for unchecked growth, unfunded demands on infrastructure, corporate and individual profits, and “trickle down” economics. The trickle down just never trickles down.

When developers, farmers, and others propose projects within our communities, they are obligated to go through so e review processes to ensure that the proposal is environmentally sound, not detrimental to the community, and financially responsible for funding any impacts that will affect the community. A good example is the San Luis Ranch development on Madonna Road , which agreed to help cost share in a new Prado Road Overpass to accommodate the new “market-price” housing & traffic for 3000 new residents. Well- here we are – nearly two years into the project, and the overpass is still in design phase ,and nowhere near construction. Is that developer’s overpass fees collected as they sell those houses? No!

Of course the costs go up over time. Blame it on Biden or inflation… it just happens!

When businesses and government work together, equitably, and timely, to get communities built, maintained, and improved- we all win. It’s far too easy to oinsll the blame on Government regulations. Own some of the responsibility Mr Brown & COLAB!


-3

Wow, what yhe author desscrijef in this article is identical to a $1,000,0000 projrct in zthe 5 cities

Engineers have mucked u p their project descriptions with so much technical jargon that the administrators don’t have a clue of what they are paying for with the citizens money. They are on schedule to pay 4 times the typical price for a commodity(service) that the city is already getting at a fair and normal price.But because it is an environmental high priority at Stste and Federal government levels, the City administrators and council members want to appear to be in line with government environmental regulations, they are ignoring all the red flags and excessive cost already built into this project

And by the way, the project is already three years behind and still waiting on necessary permitting from the state. The design and planning engineers have already been paid millions while having not completed the product design 7 years after being awarded the contract for project design and management. City staff can’t answer any questions because it is a jndustry specific project, they just don’t understand the technical crsp they are being fed.


-2

The worst thing to happen to taxpayers was the Government Employee Unions. Private Unions deal with the owners of the businesses, Government Unions deal with elected officials who will give anything the Unions ask for as long as the Unions give to the re-election campaigns of those elected officials, who know they will be long gone when the bill comes due!


24

I don’t have to wonder what happens with the exodus from California because with my short lived seasonal product sales I get to meet and greet our common people. They are you, me but to my surprise now from Russia and China too, those who have the money are coming to replace those who take the easy way out. Another observation has been the government retirees who scoot out at 55 either double dip here or live an easier life elsewhere. This is it, and it is our doing by what might be deemed as social negligence or sleeping democracy. With the cost of government, forget affordable housing for you children, either they will be waiting or move elsewhere as fast as they can.


18

Government employees only care about government employees!


39

Exactly! Thank you, Mike!


38

Well said Mike. This is why a decent house in Obispoland costs a million + bucks and only the bureaucrats can afford one.


45

Actually, the reason houses cost as much as they do in San Luis Obispo county is because there are enough people who readily pay that amount to live here. If people could not afford million dollar houses there would not be any. It is wealthy people who cause the price of housing to rise.


8

Residential development does not pay its own way, not by a lot. Every new unit in the City of SLO receives a $100,000 subsidy from existing ratepayers for water alone. Developers pay for the election of the preferred candidates committed to maximizing their profit under the guise of “affordable housing”. A house is going to sell for market value, the developer is not going to pass along any discounted fees to buyers. Development impact and utility connection fees don’t come close to covering the costs of residential development. All “affordable housing” is going to be 1) government funded, in part using the fees Mr. Brown is complaining about, 2) income-restricted sales with a deed restriction, or 3) an affordable portion of rentals with no enforcement. There is no “building your way to affordability”, not in Beverly Hills, not in Santa Monica, not in Santa Barbara, not in the City of SLO, and soon nowhere in rest of the County of SLO. Mr. Brown is a paid lobbyist, plain and simple.


-49

I think if you asked a number of people they would agree with Mr. Brown. Government funded housing is taxpayer funded


19

Hogwash. Brown is a paid shill working for wealthy farmers and businessmen who don’t think they should pay for government. They should simply be left alone to wreak havoc on the environment and general public.


-59

With no constraint on the cost of government, cities and counties compete to overdevelop commercial property in an effort to gain the revenues to pay for over compensated regulatory employees. This excessive commercial development, then creates vacancy and eventual disrepair in older, less competitive, commercial districts. Just look at downtown SLO to see this effect.


14

Exactly, it is what the author and California land use expert Bill Fulton referred to as “the fiscalization of land use.”


2

Spoken like a true libertarian. I was one once, too. It’s not realistic. Please name one viable nation in the world that does not regulate and I’ll show you utter chaos.


1

Most people know there is a need to pay tax’s but when the Government just spends the money with no accountability or for what is really needed then people feel ripped off, which they are. There is a fee or tax on everything and the Government can’t balance there budget as the working people have too


20