Where do "growth" profits go? Submitted: Jun 17, 2006 I have a dumb question I am proud of. It is so dumb it is worthy of a citizen of the new Appalachia, as the San Joaquin Valley is known in fashionable political circles. None of the smart people in charge of our Merced County growth are talking about this question, at least in public. And if you don't want to live in the shade of a speculative real estate boom, why -- for Land's sake, son, -- you can go straight back to the old Appalachia, at least as far as our fashionable political circles are concerned.
None other than the president of the University of California said UC Merced would be a high-tech and bio-tech engine for growth, and the implication behind his statement was that no community could ask for anything better than such a thing as that because growth raises all boats and brings the long-sought universal prosperity where pies fall from the sky and money grows on trees.
But, where do the profits from all this “growth” go?
Merced County is in the midst of a speculative housing boom. The local paper reports that, “Housing prices have soared to 77 percent above where they should be,” but a housing industry consultant said they should sink “about 35 percent to 40 percent over a period of three years.”
But the essence of a speculative boom is that is bust, as much a part of it as that 77-percent over value, cannot be predicted. From a speculator’s viewpoint, however, it’s a fair guess the housing prices are just about where they should be – maybe a little low, but not bad if you can flip the property before the bust.
Since most of the investment comes from the outside, would the capital and its profits (or losses) return to the outside? Where does the money go that developers paid farmers and ranchers for their land? Pretty places in the mountains and on the seashore? Farm or ranchland in some other, cheaper state? Where does the money a homeowner receives for his or her house go? If you sell your farm, ranch, or house, it seems logical to assume your money goes with you, elsewhere. What economic incentive would there be for local people who had just sold to buy agricultural land or a house in Merced County at the moment? Wouldn’t they want to go raise some other community’s real estate values? Or would they just blow it on golf, cutting horses, really expensive SUVs or trips to Thailand? Has there been any real public benefit from all this money? Has there been any thought that all this investment and profit should produce some public benefit?
It’s clear that one dumb question leads to others, even dumber.
UC Merced’s vice chancellor for money raising, John Garamendi, Jr., announces a big increase in donations to the school now that the campus is open. Does that money benefit the people of Merced? Nope. Primarily, it gratifies the prestige cravings of the donors, UC research, and UC staff after the large cut for administrative fees is taken. If donors want to benefit the educational progress of the people of Merced, isn’t the best bang for the buck still Merced College, which educates local students in practical skills and transfer credits so that they can attend universities and colleges later?
As far as the Great Merced Speculative Housing Boom is concerned, is that a genuine, huge, Perotian sucking sound we hear?
All that obstructs the glorious flow of the boom are the niceties of the land-use laws. But, if Merced County is nearly devoid of the kind of entrepreneurs who created new industries and jobsites, it is exceedingly rich in the kind of politicians and planning departments adept at getting around the niceties of the law.
To begin, everybody who is anybody in Merced County is his or her own planning department.
There are the county and the incorporated cities, which actually have legally constituted planning departments.
There is UC Merced, which had a completely separate planning department until recently. Now they have turned over development of their UC Community to Lennar Homes, a national home building and another de facto planning department.
There is the county Public Works Department that planned the Campus Parkway.
There are large projects like WalMart and the Riverside Motorsport Park, which create their own plans and count on their own political influence to drive them through the legal land-use authorities. Others in this category would include: Gallo’s Yosemite Lakes, Toronto-based Brookfield Homes, KB Home Central Valley, Inc., Florsheim Land, LLC, Crosswinds Development at Bellevue Ranch, the Gallo/Kelley Stevinson new town, and Ranchwood’s Geneva at Planada. This by no means exhausts the list.
Greg Hostetler’s Los Banos-based Ranchwood Homes is in a class by itself, the local boy who pay wages to other local boys and girls. But, nonetheless, some dumb questions about Ranchwood arise. Does Ranchwood operate on its own money? If not, where do its investor profits go? Los Banos? San Jose? San Francisco? Los Angeles? Chicago? Hong Kong? Does being the local developer mean Ranchwood should be granted dispensation from every local, state and federal environmental law and regulation and public process? Or just the laws it wants to break? Who, for example, granted dispensation to Ranchwood to disk or deep-rip several thousand acres of habitat for endangered species? Who excused Ranchwood from installing a 42-inch sewer trunk line from Livingston, entirely in county jurisdiction, without any county permits, to open a corridor for residential development from Livingston’s pathetic sewer plant all the way to Stevinson? What planning department actually authorized Ranchwood to build settling ponds that flooded this winter in Franklin-Beachwood?
There is also the special category of Fox Hills, a new town near Los Banos, one of whose developers is Steve Sloan, also chairman of the Merced County Planning Commission.
There is the Merced County Association of Governments (McAg, as some locals call it) which claims the land-use authority to act as the lead agency and planning department for an entire transportation plan for the county. Although MCAG tries, and reported having spent $420,000 on its latest multi-year campaign to get Merced County citizens to raise their sales taxes to pay for UC’s roads, it has still not added successful political campaign consulting to its resume of expanding powers. McAg’s latest transportation plan would remove 2,000 acres of Valley agricultural land. Now, what has that got to do with the county’s existing General Plan?
There is Gov, Schwarzenegger’s San Joaquin Valley Partnership (whose vice chairman is San Joaquin County’s most prominent developer), which will define what areas between Lodi and Arvin will become exempt from environmental law and regulation for the purpose of development.
Finally, there is the Great Valley Center (known to some as the Great Valley Economic Development Corporation) a non-profit corporation acting as a regional planning agency to push an eight-county council of governments to create a blueprint of those same areas to be exempted from environmental law and regulation.
All this goes on in the bureaucratic stratosphere while the legally constituted land-use authorities stall on updating their general and community plans, the legally compliant documents that include local public comment that are supposed to guide how these jurisdictions want to grow. Merced County has been so completely dominated by UC, by developers and by grifting hordes of planning and environmental consultants, that its officials no longer even see its citizens and their diminishing natural resources, much less hear public doubt. But, hey, how about that Measure A?
Isn’t the speculative housing boom in Merced County “trickle up and out” economics? It has corrupted and destroyed the land-use authority of local government, charged with balancing the impacts on existing citizens from speculative housing booms, their busts and consequences.
This growth boom creates a magnet for chain retailers, extracting more profits from the community, driving local retailers out of business, making downtown a haven for antique franchises -- all perfect according to the impeccably stupid ideology of the far right business community, dominated by developers and realtors. Who benefits when people who should not have tried to buy homes on adjustable rate mortgages cannot meet their balloon payments, meeting instead their natural predators, the foreclosure vultures? Is there anything less conducive to civic harmony than the naked hand of the real estate marketplace?
Ironically, the workers that have probably realized some benefit from the boom have been those farmworkers able to find work in construction. Personally, I would be skeptical of the ability of a tomato picker to construct a roof gable that doesn’t leak, but who cares in a real estate boom? For the rest of Generation Me, when the real estate deal bottoms out, it will be back to McJobs. While local government planners mutter about preserving land for industry to improve the jobs/housing ratio, some members of the public wonder if the owners of parcels zoned for industry are simply getting a property tax break while they hold the land for residential development.
Speculators and developers have bought thousands of acres of Merced farmland and realize a state subsidy on property tax under the Williamson Act. County supervisors only voted in the Williamson Act in 2000, 35 years after the act was established to help farmers keep their land in agricultural production. It was sold politically under the entirely bogus theory that it would be “mitigation for UC Merced,” language not appearing in the legislation nor contemplated in its intent. However, it was very popular among a select group of large landowners and land speculators, who, by 2000 could not be distinguished one from the other. The late passage of the Williamson Act in Merced County, for corrupted reasons, raises the question of what Merced farmers and ranchers might have been able to achieve with 35 years of property tax savings, had supervisors supported agriculture from the act’s inception.
Watching the founding of UC Merced led some members of the public to revise their entire theory of the American university, deciding that there are really only two divisions left: Science and Technology incubating new high-tech, bio-tech engines of growth; while all departments of what was once called Humanities have become nothing but propaganda incubators. Could a university with a beginning as destructive as UC Merced ever produce anything but weapons of mass destruction? We put our hope in Rep. RichPAC Pombo, R-Tracy and his local supporters: let those super patriots become neighbors of UC’s new level-4 biodefense laboratory. We prefer not to. There is something about proximity to Ebola that does not inspire confidence in a UC education.
After nine months of campus operation, UC Merced’s chancellor, provost, one vice chancellor, its environmental compliance officer and the dean of social sciences have fled. Why? It’s just another dumb question.
Planada...Chris Collins...In Brief
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/12326846p-13059086c.html
Planada board to hold meeting about development
The Planada Municipal Advisory Council will host a meeting June 29 to discuss the proposed Geneva Estates development.
The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the Planada Community Hall at the Senior Annex Building.
For more information, call 385-7366. -- Chris Collins
Hot housing likely to cool...Leslie Albrecht
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/12326842p-13059033c.html
Housing prices have soared to 77 percent above where they should be, which means Merced is "at risk for a price correction," according to the study released earlier this week by financial services company National City and economic information company Global Insight. When prices dip, they'll probably sink about 35 percent to 40 percent over a period of three years, said DeKaser.Developers and real estate agents alike have been forced to slash prices lately.
Grand Jury scolds planners over service...Chris Collins
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/12326844p-13059085c.html
A report released by the Merced County Civil Grand Jury accuses the county Planning Department of poor customer service, using faulty computer records, and refusing to carry out an order issued by the five-member Planning Commission.
UCM pledges increase fourfold...Corinne Reilly
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/12326841p-13059087c.html
Fundraising efforts at UC Merced this year have drawn the most private support in the university's history, with total donations for the year at more than $19 million, according to university officials. Of the 612 gifts made by 462 private donors this year, the largest - at $5 million - will support the university's proposed medical school. The national corporation that made the donation will be publicly announced soon, said Garamendi. Systemwide, UC has brought in more than $1 billion a year for the past five years, according to the UC Office of the President.
After another week of flak Submitted: Jun 11, 2006 If for some reason, one finds oneself trying to look at things while standing somewhere in
Some things to think about on Measure A Submitted: Jun 04, 2006 URGENT
Small price, big benefit...Connie Warren, Merced...Measure A will increase the Merced County sales tax by one-half of one cent per dollar: This means an increase of 5 cents on a $10 purchase. You would need something in the $1000 range before the increase would impact a 16-year-olds (allowance driven) buying power. Ever heard the phrase "New York minute"? In fact, Measure A would add 50 cents to a $10 purchase, not a nickel. If Measure A sales tax passes, the City of Merced would have a one(1%) percent tax increase within a year.
Vanishing Hakuta Submitted: Jan 09, 2006 It seemed to begin so auspiciously. UC presented us with a builder of educational bridges, here in the Valley, a man who came talking about a "balance between excellence and equity." We were dazzled, as we were meant to be.
MERCED, CA. --- Kenji Hakuta, Ph.D., is an experimental psychologist by training, a teacher and researcher by profession, and a builder of bridges by nature. He will bring this passion for building bridges to educational excellence, opportunity and enlightenment to the University of California, Merced as the newly named founding Dean of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts...
Hakuta is best known for his research on the psychology of bilingualism and second language learning, as well as for his work in education policy and equal educational access for minority students...
"At UC Merced, I will be busy hiring and developing the academic program, but the precious time that I have for research will be trained on improving access to higher education," Hakuta said. "I look forward to partnering with K-12 educational institutions to increase regional student access to the University of California and developing methods to more extensively track progress toward improvement. Fortunately, there is great staff in student outreach already in place at UC Merced, and my goal is to give that effort as much research backing as possible..."
Hakuta is particularly excited about applying knowledge he has acquired from the field of education toward building the liberal arts component of the campus. He has a clear vision for the academic foundation he hopes to help create: an educational environment that fosters critical and reflective reading, persuasive and analytic writing, and effective and responsible leadership.
"I feel it is important to achieve a balance between excellence and equity," Hakuta said. "As a new campus, there also is the really interesting challenge of creating the kind of culture where teaching has a shared priority with research. We want to recruit faculty who have spectacular research programs, but who also see themselves as teachers. That kind of supportive teaching environment is especially vital given UC Merced's special mission to serve students of the Central Valley, many of whom may be the first in their families to attend a university, along with students from the balance of California."
As with the mix of students, Hakuta aspires to attract a mix of faculty, including some with local connections. Another personal priority is hire faculty members whose interests cut across divisions of academic discipline and who are committed to increasing educational access and, more broadly, to regional development such as the environment and the economy. He is intrigued by the opportunity to contribute to the World Cultures Institute, one of UC Merced's two signature research institutes. Looking at the institute as a means to facilitate cultural and linguistic understanding through scholarship and internship programs, he points to the learning opportunities that arise when connections are made between the cultures and languages at the local scale with cultures and languages at the global scale...
So went the UC Merced bobcatflak campaign around the arrival of Dr. Hakuta at UC Merced in the spring of 2003. Last week UC Merced announced he would leave in July 2006.
He said he had considered the move for the past two months, but new job opportunities leading research teams at two California universities would allow him to live closer to his aging mother in the Bay Area.
"There's a lot of things I want to get done," Hakuta said. "We figured the campus is open now, and this is a pretty good time to make the move."
One job option is at a UC campus and the other is at a private university, but he would not say which one he is interested in, because those job searches are still ongoing. His decision should come in February, he said.
Hakuta is the primary caretaker for his mother, who lives in Woodside, so he wants to live in closer proximity as her needs increase.
He was also itching to get back to conducting research in his scholarly work, which emphasizes the psychology of bilingualism and second language acquisition.
"Some of my friends in the field kept saying they missed me, my research," Hakuta said. "I felt guilty to not be training some of these faculty members..."
A research university in the Central Valley would be a fertile ground for bilingual research projects, but the life of an administrator leaves little time for direct contact with research...
Beyond his leadership role as one of three founding deans, Hakuta has made contributions to creating a campus culture that values academic excellence and promotes community interaction, said David Ashley, UC Merced executive vice chancellor and provost...
Regionally, Hakuta has been actively engaged in building connections with the Great Valley Center, where he also serves on the Board of Directors. The non-profit think tank recently entered into a formal partnership with UC Merced.
He said he would continue to serve on the board as long as the Great Valley Center wants him there. He and his wife, Nancy Goodban, will continue to be advocates for the region.
"The Central Valley is something that we'll always carry with us," Hakuta said. "The future of California depends on how successfully the Central Valley transforms itself..."
In the meantime, Hakuta said he still has to lead his school in searches for 10 new faculty members, fundraising and helping current faculty get research funding. But establishing the UC Merced Child Development Center is a project that is very close to his heart.
The childcare center is expected to serve 150 children up to 5 years old, and will include an infant care unit. Officials are aiming to open the campus center in early 2008.
He said he would help the chancellor in the search for a successor, and announcing his departure in January will allow the university to make a smooth transition.
There's no prescription for the perfect leader, he said, but maintaining a Valley focus should be a major focal point for the new dean.
It’s good to know that Hakuta and his wife, who seems to have founded a group called Valley Hopefuls, will continue to advocate for the region from back in the old Bay Area. We got the impression, from more than one Hakuta public appearance, that UC was finally going to explain us Valley people to ourselves and to the rest of the world. Why are we so poor, for example.
But these were the naive speculations of the untutored masses. Instead of a live dean of social science, arts and humanities, we now have a partnership between UC Merced and the Great Valley Center. UC Merced and the recipients of its "outreach" have been saved from intellectual ferment for as long as the grants hold out.
A man, two of whose favorite authors are Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and Noam Chomsky, should be missed out at the former municipal golf course. But who, in our humble Macondo, could tell what goes on out there? We are, after all, or were, the objects of research, not its subjects. The objects of UC research are, by definition, incapable of speculation. This explains why whatever UC says to us sounds like flak, and whatever we say to UC sounds like pure cafone.
We were interested in the high praise given Hakuta for a
clear vision for the academic foundation he hopes to help create: an educational environment that fosters critical and reflective reading, persuasive and analytic writing, and effective and responsible leadership.
People have come to the Valley and stayed their whole lives with a vision less clear and grand than that. Here we thought leadership was at least as much about what the leader did as what he said, except that there shouldn’t be too much difference between the two. But, again, you see, we just lack the culture. What sort of example did Hakuta set for the students and faculty, we ask, rudely.
Sal, si puedes? (Get out if you can?)
It is not for us to judge the ways of UC professors or even to attempt to interpret them from the dubious sources broadcasting the rumor of Hakuta's departure. We don't possess the culture to understand. Possibly, it is a question of options.
But, stumbling through the Internet in our crude auto-didactic way, we did learn that UC Merced just hired another professor.
Renowned Berkeley Physicist Raymond Chiao to Join UC Merced Faculty
In a major recruiting triumph for the University of California, Merced, Professor Raymond Chiao of the UC Berkeley Physics Department has accepted a joint faculty appointment in the fledgling university's schools of Natural Science and Engineering. He plans to pursue a new line of research in gravitational radiation when he assumes his new post.
"Professor Chiao's expertise and experience as a researcher and teacher will be enormous assets," said Dean Maria Pallavicini of the UC Merced School of Natural Sciences.
"Faculty members and students will benefit from his insight and example, and his high-level research is going to have a major impact on the physical sciences and engineering academic programs. It's an honor for UC Merced that he has decided to join us."
"The potential for engineered applications based on Professor Chiao's scientific research is tremendous," said Dean Jeff Wright of the School of Engineering. "We're extremely pleased that he will be part of UC Merced's Energy Institute, where we are already working on solar energy solutions that use advanced optics. His work will simultaneously fit our mission and expand our capabilities ..."
Clearly, Chiao is a man who deals with immutable facts of nature, not the ephemeria of social life and living languages. Here's solid man, who can produce a win-win public/private partnership to capture earth radiation, just like UC captured cow farts.
Hakuta’s departing insight, with its theme of "balance," suggests prolonged, unhealthy exposure to Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced and the Great Valley Center leaders of "smart growth."
"There needs to be a balance between the regional and national aspect of this university. It can't just be a UC campus that happens to be in the Valley."
Thoughts like that could end up costing people money, if UC administrators don't remain diligent in their sustained efforts to suppress anything resembling rural sociology in California. That would be because people in the Valley need money and there are reasons that they don't have money. If you started studying that topic, there would be rumblings from the trustees of the UC Merced Foundation, who have all the Valley money.
But, whatever are the Valley Hopefuls going to do without the Hakutas?
V.I. Ratliff
http://www.ucmerced.edu/news_articles/05132003_stanford_professor_kenji_hakuta.asp
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/11663623p-12391714c.html
http://www.ucmerced.edu/news_articles/12142005_renowned_berkeley_physicist_raymond.asp
Timing is everything Submitted: Jan 06, 2006 While some in Merced scratch their heads and chew their pencil erasers trying to comment on a large Riverside Motorsports Park Master Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Report and others don their black RMP caps to rally in support of the track, John Condren, CEO of RMP, and Kenny Shepherd, RMP president, take their dog-and-pony show to Tracy to talk about the wonders of an expanded Altamont Speedway and about expanding their lease on the Speedway from two to 10 years.
“We’ve had more tracks close in the past 12 months than in the entire period (from) 1975 to 2005,” he said. With Stockton 99 due to close at the end of 2006 “we cannot afford to lose another track, so we stepped up to the plate.” Timing is everything. Condren is a talented man. Perhaps, given the timing, he should consider promoting bicycle tracks, popular during the McKinley administration, widely adored by the present administration at war for oil and the right to torture anyone to get more of it.
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Where do "growth" profits go? Submitted: Jun 17, 2006 I have a dumb question I am proud of. It is so dumb it is worthy of a citizen of the new Appalachia, as the San Joaquin Valley is known in fashionable political circles. None of the smart people in charge of our Merced County growth are talking about this question, at least in public. And if you don't want to live in the shade of a speculative real estate boom, why -- for Land's sake, son, -- you can go straight back to the old Appalachia, at least as far as our fashionable political circles are concerned.
None other than the president of the University of California said UC Merced would be a high-tech and bio-tech engine for growth, and the implication behind his statement was that no community could ask for anything better than such a thing as that because growth raises all boats and brings the long-sought universal prosperity where pies fall from the sky and money grows on trees.
But, where do the profits from all this “growth” go?
Merced County is in the midst of a speculative housing boom. The local paper reports that, “Housing prices have soared to 77 percent above where they should be,” but a housing industry consultant said they should sink “about 35 percent to 40 percent over a period of three years.”
But the essence of a speculative boom is that is bust, as much a part of it as that 77-percent over value, cannot be predicted. From a speculator’s viewpoint, however, it’s a fair guess the housing prices are just about where they should be – maybe a little low, but not bad if you can flip the property before the bust.
Since most of the investment comes from the outside, would the capital and its profits (or losses) return to the outside? Where does the money go that developers paid farmers and ranchers for their land? Pretty places in the mountains and on the seashore? Farm or ranchland in some other, cheaper state? Where does the money a homeowner receives for his or her house go? If you sell your farm, ranch, or house, it seems logical to assume your money goes with you, elsewhere. What economic incentive would there be for local people who had just sold to buy agricultural land or a house in Merced County at the moment? Wouldn’t they want to go raise some other community’s real estate values? Or would they just blow it on golf, cutting horses, really expensive SUVs or trips to Thailand? Has there been any real public benefit from all this money? Has there been any thought that all this investment and profit should produce some public benefit?
It’s clear that one dumb question leads to others, even dumber.
UC Merced’s vice chancellor for money raising, John Garamendi, Jr., announces a big increase in donations to the school now that the campus is open. Does that money benefit the people of Merced? Nope. Primarily, it gratifies the prestige cravings of the donors, UC research, and UC staff after the large cut for administrative fees is taken. If donors want to benefit the educational progress of the people of Merced, isn’t the best bang for the buck still Merced College, which educates local students in practical skills and transfer credits so that they can attend universities and colleges later?
As far as the Great Merced Speculative Housing Boom is concerned, is that a genuine, huge, Perotian sucking sound we hear?
All that obstructs the glorious flow of the boom are the niceties of the land-use laws. But, if Merced County is nearly devoid of the kind of entrepreneurs who created new industries and jobsites, it is exceedingly rich in the kind of politicians and planning departments adept at getting around the niceties of the law.
To begin, everybody who is anybody in Merced County is his or her own planning department.
There are the county and the incorporated cities, which actually have legally constituted planning departments.
There is UC Merced, which had a completely separate planning department until recently. Now they have turned over development of their UC Community to Lennar Homes, a national home building and another de facto planning department.
There is the county Public Works Department that planned the Campus Parkway.
There are large projects like WalMart and the Riverside Motorsport Park, which create their own plans and count on their own political influence to drive them through the legal land-use authorities. Others in this category would include: Gallo’s Yosemite Lakes, Toronto-based Brookfield Homes, KB Home Central Valley, Inc., Florsheim Land, LLC, Crosswinds Development at Bellevue Ranch, the Gallo/Kelley Stevinson new town, and Ranchwood’s Geneva at Planada. This by no means exhausts the list.
Greg Hostetler’s Los Banos-based Ranchwood Homes is in a class by itself, the local boy who pay wages to other local boys and girls. But, nonetheless, some dumb questions about Ranchwood arise. Does Ranchwood operate on its own money? If not, where do its investor profits go? Los Banos? San Jose? San Francisco? Los Angeles? Chicago? Hong Kong? Does being the local developer mean Ranchwood should be granted dispensation from every local, state and federal environmental law and regulation and public process? Or just the laws it wants to break? Who, for example, granted dispensation to Ranchwood to disk or deep-rip several thousand acres of habitat for endangered species? Who excused Ranchwood from installing a 42-inch sewer trunk line from Livingston, entirely in county jurisdiction, without any county permits, to open a corridor for residential development from Livingston’s pathetic sewer plant all the way to Stevinson? What planning department actually authorized Ranchwood to build settling ponds that flooded this winter in Franklin-Beachwood?
There is also the special category of Fox Hills, a new town near Los Banos, one of whose developers is Steve Sloan, also chairman of the Merced County Planning Commission.
There is the Merced County Association of Governments (McAg, as some locals call it) which claims the land-use authority to act as the lead agency and planning department for an entire transportation plan for the county. Although MCAG tries, and reported having spent $420,000 on its latest multi-year campaign to get Merced County citizens to raise their sales taxes to pay for UC’s roads, it has still not added successful political campaign consulting to its resume of expanding powers. McAg’s latest transportation plan would remove 2,000 acres of Valley agricultural land. Now, what has that got to do with the county’s existing General Plan?
There is Gov, Schwarzenegger’s San Joaquin Valley Partnership (whose vice chairman is San Joaquin County’s most prominent developer), which will define what areas between Lodi and Arvin will become exempt from environmental law and regulation for the purpose of development.
Finally, there is the Great Valley Center (known to some as the Great Valley Economic Development Corporation) a non-profit corporation acting as a regional planning agency to push an eight-county council of governments to create a blueprint of those same areas to be exempted from environmental law and regulation.
All this goes on in the bureaucratic stratosphere while the legally constituted land-use authorities stall on updating their general and community plans, the legally compliant documents that include local public comment that are supposed to guide how these jurisdictions want to grow. Merced County has been so completely dominated by UC, by developers and by grifting hordes of planning and environmental consultants, that its officials no longer even see its citizens and their diminishing natural resources, much less hear public doubt. But, hey, how about that Measure A?
Isn’t the speculative housing boom in Merced County “trickle up and out” economics? It has corrupted and destroyed the land-use authority of local government, charged with balancing the impacts on existing citizens from speculative housing booms, their busts and consequences.
This growth boom creates a magnet for chain retailers, extracting more profits from the community, driving local retailers out of business, making downtown a haven for antique franchises -- all perfect according to the impeccably stupid ideology of the far right business community, dominated by developers and realtors. Who benefits when people who should not have tried to buy homes on adjustable rate mortgages cannot meet their balloon payments, meeting instead their natural predators, the foreclosure vultures? Is there anything less conducive to civic harmony than the naked hand of the real estate marketplace?
Ironically, the workers that have probably realized some benefit from the boom have been those farmworkers able to find work in construction. Personally, I would be skeptical of the ability of a tomato picker to construct a roof gable that doesn’t leak, but who cares in a real estate boom? For the rest of Generation Me, when the real estate deal bottoms out, it will be back to McJobs. While local government planners mutter about preserving land for industry to improve the jobs/housing ratio, some members of the public wonder if the owners of parcels zoned for industry are simply getting a property tax break while they hold the land for residential development.
Speculators and developers have bought thousands of acres of Merced farmland and realize a state subsidy on property tax under the Williamson Act. County supervisors only voted in the Williamson Act in 2000, 35 years after the act was established to help farmers keep their land in agricultural production. It was sold politically under the entirely bogus theory that it would be “mitigation for UC Merced,” language not appearing in the legislation nor contemplated in its intent. However, it was very popular among a select group of large landowners and land speculators, who, by 2000 could not be distinguished one from the other. The late passage of the Williamson Act in Merced County, for corrupted reasons, raises the question of what Merced farmers and ranchers might have been able to achieve with 35 years of property tax savings, had supervisors supported agriculture from the act’s inception.
Watching the founding of UC Merced led some members of the public to revise their entire theory of the American university, deciding that there are really only two divisions left: Science and Technology incubating new high-tech, bio-tech engines of growth; while all departments of what was once called Humanities have become nothing but propaganda incubators. Could a university with a beginning as destructive as UC Merced ever produce anything but weapons of mass destruction? We put our hope in Rep. RichPAC Pombo, R-Tracy and his local supporters: let those super patriots become neighbors of UC’s new level-4 biodefense laboratory. We prefer not to. There is something about proximity to Ebola that does not inspire confidence in a UC education.
After nine months of campus operation, UC Merced’s chancellor, provost, one vice chancellor, its environmental compliance officer and the dean of social sciences have fled. Why? It’s just another dumb question.
Planada...Chris Collins...In Brief
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/12326846p-13059086c.html
Planada board to hold meeting about development
The Planada Municipal Advisory Council will host a meeting June 29 to discuss the proposed Geneva Estates development.
The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the Planada Community Hall at the Senior Annex Building.
For more information, call 385-7366. -- Chris Collins
Hot housing likely to cool...Leslie Albrecht
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/12326842p-13059033c.html
Housing prices have soared to 77 percent above where they should be, which means Merced is "at risk for a price correction," according to the study released earlier this week by financial services company National City and economic information company Global Insight. When prices dip, they'll probably sink about 35 percent to 40 percent over a period of three years, said DeKaser.Developers and real estate agents alike have been forced to slash prices lately.
Grand Jury scolds planners over service...Chris Collins
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/12326844p-13059085c.html
A report released by the Merced County Civil Grand Jury accuses the county Planning Department of poor customer service, using faulty computer records, and refusing to carry out an order issued by the five-member Planning Commission.
UCM pledges increase fourfold...Corinne Reilly
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/12326841p-13059087c.html
Fundraising efforts at UC Merced this year have drawn the most private support in the university's history, with total donations for the year at more than $19 million, according to university officials. Of the 612 gifts made by 462 private donors this year, the largest - at $5 million - will support the university's proposed medical school. The national corporation that made the don
ation will be publicly announced soon, said Garamendi. Systemwide, UC has brought in more than $1 billion a year for the past five years, according to the UC Office of the President.
After another week of flak Submitted: Jun 11, 2006 If for some reason, one finds oneself trying to look at things while standing somewhere in
Some things to think about on Measure A Submitted: Jun 04, 2006 URGENT
Small price, big benefit...Connie Warren, Merced...Measure A will increase the Merced County sales tax by one-half of one cent per dollar: This means an increase of 5 cents on a $10 purchase. You would need something in the $1000 range before the increase would impact a 16-year-olds (allowance driven) buying power. Ever heard the phrase "New York minute"? In fact, Measure A would add 50 cents to a $10 purchase, not a nickel. If Measure A sales tax passes, the City of Merced would have a one(1%) percent tax increase within a year.
Vanishing Hakuta Submitted: Jan 09, 2006 It seemed to begin so auspiciously. UC presented us with a builder of educational bridges, here in the Valley, a man who came talking about a "balance between excellence and equity." We were dazzled, as we were meant to be.
MERCED, CA. --- Kenji Hakuta, Ph.D., is an experimental psychologist by training, a teacher and researcher by profession, and a builder of bridges by nature. He will bring this passion for building bridges to educational excellence, opportunity and enlightenment to the University of California, Merced as the newly named founding Dean of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts...
Hakuta is best known for his research on the psychology of bilingualism and second language learning, as well as for his work in education policy and equal educational access for minority students...
"At UC Merced, I will be busy hiring and developing the academic program, but the precious time that I have for research will be trained on improving access to higher education," Hakuta said. "I look forward to partnering with K-12 educational institutions to increase regional student access to the University of California and developing methods to more extensively track progress toward improvement. Fortunately, there is great staff in student outreach already in place at UC Merced, and my goal is to give that effort as much research backing as possible..."
Hakuta is particularly excited about applying knowledge he has acquired from the field of education toward building the liberal arts component of the campus. He has a clear vision for the academic foundation he hopes to help create: an educational environment that fosters critical and reflective reading, persuasive and analytic writing, and effective and responsible leadership.
"I feel it is important to achieve a balance between excellence and equity," Hakuta said. "As a new campus, there also is the really interesting challenge of creating the kind of culture where teaching has a shared priority with research. We want to recruit faculty who have spectacular research programs, but who also see themselves as teachers. That kind of supportive teaching environment is especially vital given UC Merced's special mission to serve students of the Central Valley, many of whom may be the first in their families to attend a university, along with students from the balance of California."
As with the mix of students, Hakuta aspires to attract a mix of faculty, including some with local connections. Another personal priority is hire faculty members whose interests cut across divisions of academic discipline and who are committed to increasing educational access and, more broadly, to regional development such as the environment and the economy. He is intrigued by the opportunity to contribute to the World Cultures Institute, one of UC Merced's two signature research institutes. Looking at the institute as a means to facilitate cultural and linguistic understanding through scholarship and internship programs, he points to the learning opportunities that arise when connections are made between the cultures and languages at the local scale with cultures and languages at the global scale...
So went the UC Merced bobcatflak campaign around the arrival of Dr. Hakuta at UC Merced in the spring of 2003. Last week UC Merced announced he would leave in July 2006.
He said he had considered the move for the past two months, but new job opportunities leading research teams at two California universities would allow him to live closer to his aging mother in the Bay Area.
"There's a lot of things I want to get done," Hakuta said. "We figured the campus is open now, and this is a pretty good time to make the move."
One job option is at a UC campus and the other is at a private university, but he would not say which one he is interested in, because those job searches are still ongoing. His decision should come in February, he said.
Hakuta is the primary caretaker for his mother, who lives in Woodside, so he wants to live in closer proximity as her needs increase.
He was also itching to get back to conducting research in his scholarly work, which emphasizes the psychology of bilingualism and second language acquisition.
"Some of my friends in the field kept saying they missed me, my research," Hakuta said. "I felt guilty to not be training some of these faculty members..."
A research university in the Central Valley would be a fertile ground for bilingual research projects, but the life of an administrator leaves little time for direct contact with research...
Beyond his leadership role as one of three founding deans, Hakuta has made contributions to creating a campus culture that values academic excellence and promotes community interaction, said David Ashley, UC Merced executive vice chancellor and provost...
Regionally, Hakuta has been actively engaged in building connections with the Great Valley Center, where he also serves on the Board of Directors. The non-profit think tank recently entered into a formal partnership with UC Merced.
He said he would continue to serve on the board as long as the Great Valley Center wants him there. He and his wife, Nancy Goodban, will continue to be advocates for the region.
"The Central Valley is something that we'll always carry with us," Hakuta said. "The future of California depends on how successfully the Central Valley transforms itself..."
In the meantime, Hakuta said he still has to lead his school in searches for 10 new faculty members, fundraising and helping current faculty get research funding. But establishing the UC Merced Child Development Center is a project that is very close to his heart.
The childcare center is expected to serve 150 children up to 5 years old, and will include an infant care unit. Officials are aiming to open the campus center in early 2008.
He said he would help the chancellor in the search for a successor, and announcing his departure in January will allow the university to make a smooth transition.
There's no prescription for the perfect leader, he said, but maintaining a Valley focus should be a major focal point for the new dean.
It’s good to know that Hakuta and his wife, who seems to have founded a group called Valley Hopefuls, will continue to advocate for the region from back in the old Bay Area. We got the impression, from more than one Hakuta public appearance, that UC was finally going to explain us Valley people to ourselves and to the rest of the world. Why are we so poor, for example.
But these were the naive speculations of the untutored masses. Instead of a live dean of social science, arts and humanities, we now have a partnership between UC Merced and the Great Valley Center. UC Merced and the recipients of its "outreach" have been saved from intellectual ferment for as long as the grants hold out.
A man, two of whose favorite authors are Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and Noam Chomsky, should be missed out at the former municipal golf course. But who, in our humble Macondo, could tell what goes on out there? We are, after all, or were, the objects of research, not its subjects. The objects of UC research are, by definition, incapable of speculation. This explains why whatever UC says to us sounds like flak, and whatever we say to UC sounds like pure cafone.
We were interested in the high praise given Hakuta for a
clear vision for the academic foundation he hopes to help create: an educational environment that fosters critical and reflective reading, persuasive and analytic writing, and effective and responsible leadership.
People have come to the Valley and stayed their whole lives with a vision less clear and grand than that. Here we thought leadership was at least as much about what the leader did as what he said, except that there shouldn’t be too much difference between the two. But, again, you see, we just lack the culture. What sort of example did Hakuta set for the students and faculty, we ask, rudely.
Sal, si puedes? (Get out if you can?)
It is not for us to judge the ways of UC professors or even to attempt to interpret them from the dubious sources broadcasting the rumor of Hakuta's departure. We don't possess the culture to understand. Possibly, it is a question of options.
But, stumbling through the Internet in our crude auto-didactic way, we did learn that UC Merced just hired another professor.
Renowned Berkeley Physicist Raymond Chiao to Join UC Merced Faculty
In a major recruiting triumph for the University of California, Merced, Professor Raymond Chiao of the UC Berkeley Physics Department has accepted a joint faculty appointment in the fledgling university's schools of Natural Science and Engineering. He plans to pursue a new line of research in gravitational radiation when he assumes his new post.
"Professor Chiao's expertise and experience as a researcher and teacher will be enormous assets," said Dean Maria Pallavicini of the UC Merced School of Natural Sciences.
"Faculty members and students will benefit from his insight and example, and his high-level research is going to have a major impact on the physical sciences and engineering academic programs. It's an honor for UC Merced that he has decided to join us."
"The potential for engineered applications based on Professor Chiao's scientific research is tremendous," said Dean Jeff Wright of the School of Engineering. "We're extremely pleased that he will be part of UC Merced's Energy Institute, where we are already working on solar energy solutions that use advanced optics. His work will simultaneously fit our mission and expand our capabilities ..."
Clearly, Chiao is a man who deals with immutable facts of nature, not the ephemeria of social life and living languages. Here's solid man, who can produce a win-win public/private partnership to capture earth radiation, just like UC captured cow farts.
Hakuta’s departing insight, with its theme of "balance," suggests prolonged, unhealthy exposure to Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced and the Great Valley Center leaders of "smart growth."
"There needs to be a balance between the regional and national aspect of this university. It can't just be a UC campus that happens to be in the Valley."
Thoughts like that could end up costing people money, if UC administrators don't remain diligent in their sustained efforts to suppress anything resembling rural sociology in California. That would be because people in the Valley need money and there are reasons that they don't have money. If you started studying that topic, there would be rumblings from the trustees of the UC Merced Foundation, who have all the Valley money.
But, whatever are the Valley Hopefuls going to do without the Hakutas?
V.I. Ratliff
http://www.ucmerced.edu/news_articles/05132003_stanford_professor_kenji_hakuta.asp
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/11663623p-12391714c.html
http://www.ucmerced.edu/news_articles/12142005_renowned_berkeley_physicist_raymond.asp
Timing is everything Submitted: Jan 06, 2006 While some in Merced scratch their heads and chew their pencil erasers trying to comment on a large Riverside Motorsports Park Master Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Report and others don their black RMP caps to rally in support of the track, John Condren, CEO of RMP, and Kenny Shepherd, RMP president, take their dog-and-pony show to Tracy to talk about the wonders of an expanded Altamont Speedway and about expanding their lease on the Speedway from two to 10 years.
“We’ve had more tracks close in the past 12 months than in the entire period (from) 1975 to 2005,” he said. With Stockton 99 due to close at the end of 2006 “we cannot afford to lose another track, so we stepped up to the plate.” Timing is everything. Condren is a talented man. Perhaps, given the timing, he should consider promoting bicycle tracks, popular during the McKinley administration, widely adored by the present administration at war for oil and the right to torture anyone to get more of it.
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