Something You'll Never See In California

At the risk of this blog becoming an advertisement for the state of Nevada, I'm here to alert you to an astonishing development east of the border.

This morning, I received an email indicating that Washoe County -- where Reno and the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe are located -- has decided to lower its assessed property valuations by 25 percent across the board. So, without any action on the part of homeowners, property taxes will automatically be reduced 25 percent this year.

Yes, I realize that such a thing wouldn't work in California because of Proposition 13. And, I know a homeowner in California can petition to have their house reappraised. But that's not the point.

The point is that there actually are places in this country where sufficient fiscal discipline has been exercised to permit reasonable reductions in taxes to compensate for the poor economy.

An across-the-board tax cut does just this. And, you can bet that Nevada will balance that with reasonable spending reductions to keep their budget balanced.

So, what will we do with the $1,000 in property taxes we won't have to pay in Nevada this year? Maybe we can put it toward hiring a private security patrol to compensate for Oakland's refusal to adequately police our neighborhood.

But, more realistically, we'll earmark it to pay for the next ridiculous tax increase we can expect from Mayor Dullums. It'll be sad to see Nevada's money wasted on more make-work programs for "violence reduction."

Oakland's Low Homicide Clearance Rate: A Tactic?

My foray today into the cloudy Oakland afternoon was punctuated by two articles regarding the future of Oakland. So, when I arrived home -- after a brief stint tickling the ivories on my Steinway B -- I sat down to write this entry.

The first article was a column by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor in the Berkeley Daily Planet which spent a significant amount of time dissecting my views on local politics. The second was the cover story regarding Oakland's low homicide clearance rate published in my favorite local publication, East Bay Express.



I couldn't help noticing a striking similarity between the two articles' appraisals of the current situation in Oakland, and it got me wondering whether there is some purpose at work here.

Allen-Taylor's column seemed irritated by my decision in the past two months to highlight the effectiveness of Oakland's regressive parcel taxation and increased police presence in encouraging the poor to leave the city. While he disagreed with my contention that this is a good thing for Oakland, he appears to agree with me that this process of gentrification is well underway.

Before moving on to the crux of the matter here, I want to take a look at two specific points made by Allen-Taylor in discussing my views.  Actually, before doing that, I want to again thank Allen-Taylor for mentioning this blog in his column. While he clearly disagrees with my political perspective, he is doing the community a service by further popularizing this blog and its message. A diversity of viewpoints is important, and the East Bay clearly lacks a sufficient dose of non-Leftism.

Allen-Taylor's first point involves my decision to remain anonymous in writing this blog. Frankly, I'm surprised that he takes issue with this decision. We live in a part of the country that is not particularly friendly to those with views like mine. So, I am simply adopting a tactic frequently employed by the oppressed throughout history.

Allen-Taylor also seems confused by what I mean when I opine that Oakland has more than its reasonable share of the poor. To this, I encourage him to think about the relative function of wealth and poverty in an economy. Obviously, wealth is preferable to poverty. This fact encourages people to enrich themselves -- thereby innovating, working hard and improving society as a whole. Poverty should always be available as a choice in a free society, but it should not be much fun. Wealth should be a choice as well, but it should require work and a bit of luck.

The problem with Oakland is we have inverted this relationship. Through government policies such as rent control and welfare we have permitted what should be prime real estate to remain impoverished. Why should a family earning $100k a year live in Walnut Creek and commute 45 minutes to San Francisco while people languish on food stamps in neighborhoods a mere 10 minutes from those same jobs? It doesn't make sense; it's a misallocation of resources. Oakland should attract those wealthier residents.

Above all, Allen-Taylor agrees with me that Oakland pursues policies which drive out the poor. The odd thing to me is that he seems to think this is a bad idea, but I didn't see him take apart Mayor Dullums' support of Measure NN or any of the other regressive parcel taxes we've seen in the past decade. Perhaps he's like most Leftists in that he wants to get money into government hands, even if the net result is terrible for the poor.

The East Bay Express article discussed the correlation between the percentage of homicides solved in Oakland and the homicide rate itself. The article makes the reasonable argument that failure to solve crime encourages more crime.

But what really caught my eye was the article's implication that this is a direct consequence of deliberate policies by Oakland's police department and city government in general. The Express seems to agree with Allen-Taylor that, rather than solving homicides, the police are content to harry the city's poor residents by chasing around after so-called "hot spots."

Reading this article also reminded me of what I see when the Tribune publishes the pictures of all those murdered in Oakland during the year. By and large, those murdered are non-white, and they live in areas of the city which correlate with lower incomes and home values.

So, we appear to have a city which enacts regressive parcel taxes, fails to stop crime in its impoverished areas and instead tasks the police with making the lives of the poor as difficult as possible. Our policies are therefore perfectly aligned with the goal of gentrification -- something I support strongly.

But how is this possible? Oakland is a bastion of Leftism, voting for such leaders as Barbara Lee and Ron Dullums. Is it possible that this is a deliberate policy? Or is it just a consequence of incompetence and the inherent flaws of Leftism.

While I would like to think that this set of policies is deliberate, I think the latter explanation is by far the more likely one. I have long noticed that government action seems to create more unintended than intended consequences.

I find it hard to imagine that our mayor and police chief set out to increase the homicide rate -- just as I doubt that Leftists in Congress hope to foster government dependency when they implement social programs. For the most part, these people have their hearts in the right place. It's just that the actions they choose tend to have consequences opposite from those they intend.

I believe this in turn is a consequence of government's tendency to view policy from a very static perspective. They do not expect people to react to the programs they implement. So, it never occurs to them that, if they offer money to bail people out of foreclosure, some people will purposely stop paying their mortgages to get government money.

Similarly, Oakland consistently votes to raise taxes on the poor to pay for programs to help the poor. Never mind that all this does is introduce a layer of bureaucracy into the system.

And, Oakland's police department chases "hot spots" around the city, thinking that the homicide rate is the consequence of people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Never mind that if you are not involved in drug dealing or other gangster-type activities, Oakland is as safe as any other city in the country.

Luckily, we conservatives reap the benefits of this wrongheaded thinking. It's no coincidence that San Francisco -- America's most liberal big city -- has already ejected most of its poor residents. Oakland is close on its heels, and not a moment too soon.

Gentrification is here to stay, and I couldn't be happier.

Dullums Says "Step Up"; I Say "Step Off"

My favorite Oakland conman is a gentleman who plies his trade in the afternoons by the West Oakland Bart station.

Nattily dressed in a suit and loafers, he approaches commuters as they hurry to their cars. To those who will listen, he weaves a tale of woe, ending with an explanation as to why he needs a few dollars to get his car back home from work.

I miss this man, and not only because of our most recent encounter which ended with a knowing grin and the words, "Wait a minute! I've done you before, haven't I?"



Recently I've made the choice to abandon West Oakland in favor of a safer Bart station closer to my home. Sadly, this has reduced my exposure to petty tricksters and my ability to report on the Mandela Foods debacle.

A man must make such sacrifices to ensure his safety. Certain parts of Oakland have become downright deadly of late, and I'd rather not end up part of Mayor Oswald Bates' next set of talking points.

So it has also become with Oakland eateries. It's very nice that Dullums thinks we should "step up" and help put a stop to those committing takeover robberies on a daily basis throughout the city.

The problem is, I'd rather avoid being pistol whipped while enjoying my dinner. So, while Dullums and his ilk try to encourage bravery -- or perhaps I should call it foolhardiness -- among the citizenry, I plan to take my dollars elsewhere.

Though, I have to admit, Whole Foods' decision to staff its Lake Merritt store with armed guards does intrigue me.

Already, I've taken some extra time to sample the foodstuffs in San Francisco and North Berkeley, and I expect that to continue. I'll avoid eating out in Oakland until the situation improves -- if it ever does.

When I moved to Oakland nearly 10 years ago, I had reasonably high hopes for the city. Given its proximity to San Francisco and its gentrifying population base, it seemed like a sure bet to become a compelling urban area.

While I continue to believe demographic trends will eventually make the difference for Oakland, I am surprised and disappointed by how tightly the city holds on to its ghettoized past and present.

It's tempting to say that this situation is the product of a "few bad apples" who terrorize the rest of us and decrease economic activity by scaring dollars away from the downtown area. Though it is true that these criminals represent a small percentage of the population, their success is a direct result of policy choices made by the city's liberal regime.

The only solution to Oakland's near-term malaise is a significant police crackdown on crime at all levels. But I do not see this happening anytime soon. Too many forces stand in the way: consent decrees related to the Riders scandal, our leaders' opposition to strong policing and the constant siphoning of money toward bloated pay packages and welfare schemes.

No, I think the reality is we all have to sit around and wait for time, gas prices, house prices and whatever other economic forces are out there to move the gentrification process to the next level.

In the meantime, the only thing to do is to keep ourselves safe. If this means avoiding Oakland for eating and shopping, so be it. I realize this may contribute to the problem's worsening in the short term, but we are faced with little choice.