California Dreamin’

When I was very young my cousin, Becky, moved to California. To this day, over 60 years later, I remember my awe at where she was going. California. Land of sun, beaches, oranges, golden opportunities and Disneyland.

It seemed so magical and so far away. I dreamt of visiting her, imaging what it must be like to live in such a place and then, in 1966, the Kroeger’s loaded up their Mercury station wagon, without air conditioning, and drove Route 66 to –

CALIFORNIA!

The journey was long. We went through mountains, plains, long stretches of desert, but it all made sense; California was another world. It had to be far away.

We arrived after 4 days with many memorable stops along the way (the Grand Canyon!) and, granted, we arrived in Fresno, but I didn’t know then that raisins came from grapes. This was still where everything transformed into Mecca.

We drove to San Francisco, to the great Redwood Forest, down the coast through all those oranges and I was right! Oranges are what jet fuel is made of! And we went to DISNEYLAND. Words cannot describe how it made me feel. Maybe, magic. Magic from being at the center of the universe. That’s what all of California meant to me. And apparently I wasn’t alone…

Massive influxes of people, like my cousin, aunt and uncle, moved to California for the opportunities, for the sunshine, and for the many benefits this diverse state had to offer. As a state California met their needs by creating an environment to welcome discovery while living dreams.

As a result of popularity the cost of living went up. That’s what happens when everyone wants to be in the same place. A ranch home on a 16th of an acre went from less than $12000 in 1960 to twice that in 10 years.

In 1960 a typical California home was four times the average household’s income and today it’s valued at more than eleven times what the average household makes in a year. Demand drives the market and demand in California consistently rose.

Wages rose, although not commensurate with other rising costs, and very soon everything in California was more expensive. And kept going up. Tax revenue increases with working population and public services like police and fire departments increase and often improve but so do demands. The homeless population increases, as well, as preferable climate and programs to address inequities and public health, also expand.

California grew to become the 5th largest economy in the world with a gross domestic product just under $4 trillion, comprising 14% of national GDP. Not easy for any governor, state legislature, mayor or city council, to run. Add the irrigation and water needs of a population expanding into arid land and zoning regarding use of space and the responsibilities therein, and there is a cornucopia of conflicting interests. Budgets expand and contract and gambles are made with crossed fingers that one condition will not affect another. And least not in this fiscal cycle.

All to maintain a status quo that also generates 13 billion dollars a year in tourism; California is bound to stay open for business while a house of cards is built on dry soil.

Then, in 2020, something unexpected happened that no one was prepared for anywhere. The Covid pandemic realigned our workspaces and many Californians decided it was time to stay home. Somewhere else.

I’ll share some personal numbers. I sold my house in the Hollywood Hills in 1992 for $300,000. Three years later it sold for $650,000 and five years ago it sold again for 1.6 million. If I’d kept my home I would have had well over a million dollars to buy a house in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Can you imagine what I’d have for a million dollars? A lot of Californians had that opportunity and they took it. The cost of living was 38% higher in California than the national average and the home they could purchase would be 4 times as spacious. And with land.

And people started moving from California in 2020, causing the tax base to decrease dramatically. Yet the cost of running a city like Los Angeles does not go down while events, human-made and by nature, are simultaneously increasing the demands on natural resources and human resource power. City and state governments start to play Russian Roulette with budgets.

In Los Angeles the city was faced with less revenue against higher demands. The fire department rightly petitioned the city to increase their budget to prepare for future fires in a dryer environment that has seen an increase in the frequency and intensities of fires. The city, however, used actuarial logic to flex their diminished budget so that they would also continue needed programs to address crime, poverty and myriad inequities among schools, neighborhoods and businesses, and cut the fire departments annual budget. It must be noted, however, that the actual fire department budget has increased year over year, but a substantial amount was cut from that fiscal budget this year.

Should we have expected the perfect storm of natural events to take place at the same time? Hurricane force winds over 303,000 acres of brush dried without rain for 9 months? There were warnings, but at what point are we safe from any catastrophic event? Twice the fire fighting force with twice the equipment would not have contained this fire. Call that pure speculation but the logic of preparing for what has never happened can also be called irresponsible if it hinders other aspects of running a city of 4 million people. Or a state of 39 million.

So, what is the lesson here? What is the moral of this story about golden California?

It is about our broken system of democratic engagement. It is about the politicization of party politics and the ad hominem operation of our national discourse. There is no choice but to bring names into this conversation and it is the attack-first policy of Donald Trump and the legions who follow suit that have bound the devastating loss of lives and livelihoods with partisan rhetoric.

Wildfires are not the result of “democrat’s policies” that according to his accusation did not care enough about human lives to create aqueducts from the north and cared more about smelt fish. If California had voted red, even with the same policies in tact, would Trump’s response have been the same? Of course not.

The response America needs is this:

A tragedy such as what is happening in Los Angeles deserves the attention and support of all of us. California is a vital part of our national identity, our resources and to our economy. No one deserves the wrath of mighty nature that destroys homes, businesses, fertile land and takes lives, as well as memories. We will undoubtedly discover mistakes with tragic consequences; we are human. Perhaps there are ways to better communicate and cooperate to create safer environs for all of our citizens. But that will only happen when we put accusatory fingers back in our pocket and offer assistance instead, in the recognition that we are all citizens of the same planet.

WE can make that response, together, regardless of political emnity. Will we? Maybe if we all smoked some California grass (pun and action intended). Is there a way to realize that the dream I had of California as a boy, and shared with millions of others around the world, was not a political dream, but was an experience of what actually made America great?

Until such a time…
Gary