Author: Lucy Dunn

It’s all about jobs. How many times do we have to say it? A lot, I guess. Business wants to hire, to thrive, but we get pummeled every day from neighboring states to move to lower tax, less onerous regulatory locales. In fact–true story–even OCBC was solicited by Henderson, Nevada’s economic development team to “move” to Nevada!

I know–it was an unsolicited email, but that’s how crazy things are for California business.

There’s one economic incentive this state does have: enterprise zones or EZ. EZ is a designated area where businesses earn tax credits by hiring certain qualified, unemployed workers, buying equipment and growing in an economically depressed area. Great idea. And Santa Ana is Orange County’s success story, retaining businesses, hiring unemployed and attracting new enterprises. Anaheim also qualifies for an EZ, but the state currently caps the number allowed and there were 15 applications for only 4 spots, out of 42 total.

In the movie “Groundhog Day,” the lead character relives the same day over and over until he finally gets it right. When he realizes that the day has finally changed he says, “Something is… different.” “Good or bad?” he is asked. “Anything different is good.”

Today California has graduated from its endless loop of just discussing our water problem to actually taking action to solve our water problem. Today is different, today is good. Today marks a historical day for California as the State Legislature and the Governor came to resolution on a critically needed comprehensive water package – they are all to be applauded and congratulated for their hard work and efforts.

Is it a perfect package? No, but very little in this life is perfect and while we can quibble over certain aspects of certain bills, we do know that a comprehensive, balanced water solution was the only way a deal would get done. Not just because California’s environmental resources are at risk – but its very economic foundation as well.

The press reported recently that an L.A. businessman wants to build a 75,000 seat football stadium in the City of Industry. Now that local objections to the project have been settled, the state legislature plans to waive environmental and planning rules for the new structure, arguing that the stadium is a job-creating machine. A bill granting that waiver, which bends the rules every other builder must comply with, passed the state Assembly earlier this month and now awaits approval from the Senate.

I don’t get it. How can the state legislature even propose to “bend the rules” to complete a stadium for a mere Sunday afternoon sporting event but they can’t “bend the rules” to get water to one half of the state’s population?

No government in the history of civilized society has turned off a water supply for its people until now. Because of a protected fish, water pumps have been turned off, drying food-producing fields, killing jobs in Central California, and threatening water supply for all of Southern California. Water rates are skyrocketing and mandatory conservation, even water rationing, is the order of the day.