Giving Parents a Choice
♦ Giving Children a Chance
The Orange County REGISTER
January 27, 2004
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A welcome push for freedom in Anaheim
State if the city addresses are typically bland affairs, with mayors rambling on about all the wonderful things the government has done over the previous year. That’s why it was so refreshing to hear Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle, giving his address at the Grove Theater on Monday, mention some words not usually heard at these affairs – words such as freedom, property rights, individual creativity.
Even more astounding: The mayor has introduced a plan that attempts to put these concepts into action. In 2003, the Anaheim City Council, led by Mayor Pringle and council members Tom Tait and Richard Chavez, rolled back some of the city’s regulations and promoted a general plan that frees individuals to make more of their own land-use decisions.
For 2004, he announced a plan that builds on that “freedom agenda.” Typically, he said, city governments lay down strict land-use guidelines that attempt to micromanage every minute decision. He calls that a form of “elitism” in which a few dozen officials claim to have the franchise on creativity and good ideas.
In particular, the mayor wants to loosen development restrictions in the area known as the Platinum Triangle. That’s the light-industrial area around Anaheim stadium. Instead of creating a redevelopment plan with promises of subsidies and use of eminent domain, to acquire and consolidate parcels, as many cities advocate, he wants to encourage developers to create their own plans for new apartments, nightlife, high-rise offices and whatever the market demands.
The watchwords: “Bring us your ideas.”
Second, Mayor Pringle argued that “creativity and property rights are even more important when applied to our homes.” He is proposing a 100-day home-improvement holiday, in which all plan-check fees and permit fees will be waived on home improvements. The city promises to grant project approvals within five days. The plan also offers an amnesty for all non-permitted uses, giving homeowners a chance to bring their previously built additions up to code without penalties.
When asked whether it will cost the city money, he notes that it is not the city’s money anyway, that many of the projects would not happen if the fees were in place and that the new projects would not happen if the fees were in place and that the new projects will pay for themselves several times over in sales taxes from the new construction and in increases in property taxes from the home improvements.
Finally, the mayor pointed to a privately funded school voucher program he supports that will provide more than $1 million to low-income people to help send their kids to private schools.
On a separate note, the mayor said he is working with former state Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg, a Democrat, on a plan to revise the tax structure so that cities receive more tax dollars from Sacramento without having to rely so heavily on retail and redevelopment funds. We long have been a proponent of changing tax-distribution practices.
Mayor Pringle also emphasized that the new Anaheim is interested in helping “not only the businesses we are famous for, but the businesses which we will one day be famous for.” That’s a refreshing change in attitude from the past, when the big, influential national companies in Anaheim received all the attention, and the little businesses often were hassled by the rules, regulation and redevelopment plans.
This is good stuff, and an example of a city politician building a wide political base to pursue a freedom agenda. Now comes the hard part – putting these solid proposals into action.