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Archive for February, 2012

1. We try to prod the Coastal Commission staff into doing some work

   February 1st, 2012

   The Coastal Commission staff appealed the land use permit that I got from SLO County in July 2011. During the last six months the only real issue the Coastal Commission staff have raised is with the source of domestic water for the house. The Coastal Commission staff says that I have to use the existing water well and I say that I should use the community water system of CSA-12 (as the SLO Planning Commission approved).

   Because I waived the 49 day appeal period deadline (as per my lawyer’s advice) there is no deadline at all for the Coastal Commission staff to do any work on my permit appeal.

   During the last six months I have spent about $100,000 in legal and professional fees and another $50,000 in interest expense while I wait for the Coastal Commission staff to do something. This works out to roughly $1,000 per working day.

   It only cost me $50,000 to drill the water well. My share of the costs to connecting CSA-12 will probably cost me under $70,000. So it will cost me far more for the permitting process to get water than it will for the actual work to get water. This is why this process is slowly driving me insane.

   Every working day that I sit and wait for the Coastal Commission I lose another $1,000. I can sure think of a lot of things that I would rather spend that money on – for example by helping pay for college for some of my nieces and nephews, or by campaign contributions to politicians who respect property rights, or to the Kern County Community Foundation.

   A well funded campaign for SLO County Supervisor costs around $25,000 – or about what I have had spend on average for every two months for the last two years – currently over $300,000 in total. It would be far, far cheaper for me to pay for all of the campaigns of all of the Supervisor candidates in SLO County that it has been to get one land use permit for a single family house in SLO County.

   Here is the latest email from Dan Carl of the Coastal Commission explaining that because Jonathan Bishop has been reassigned my permit appeal process will be delayed again:

   Dan Carl’s Email

   And here is Dave Watson’s email back to Dan asking that the Coastal Commission staff hurry it up:

   Dave Watson’s reply to Dan

   In completely unrelated news, within one month the State of California will be completely broke:

   California could run out of cash in March, controller warns

   What a bunch of clowns.

   UPDATE:

   I found out that I have been sadly misinformed about the costs of running a campaign for supervisor in San Luis Obispo County. This article in the San Luis Obispo Tribune discusses the fund raising in the current election cycle for Adam Hill and Jim Patterson:

   Arnold, Hill hold fundraisering edge

   It costs way more than I thought – Debbie Arnold raised $258,000 to try to defeat Jim Patterson.

2. A message for our times

   February 2nd, 2012

   

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