418 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 70 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing Summarizing
Exclusive to OpEd News:
OpEdNews Op Eds   

Payola politics between developers and politicians casts a blight on grassroots community development

By       (Page 1 of 1 pages)   1 comment

Jack Lindblad
Once developers and politicians are divorced from the decision-making process of where, how much and what to build, gentrification fueled by payola politics will cease to block and counter the public interest, permitting a revitalized Tujunga-Pacoima Watershed to answer a sizable portion of the City of Los Angeles water needs as a localized solution to our water crisis.

Prudent land-use policy does not promote sprawl. Political opportunism must be dead-ended, as such was the misguided recent effort to gut and amend defeated legislation, in which the elected office holder accepted a developer's campaign donation in return for allowing the same developer to sponsor Assembly Bill 212 (to limit the municipal powers of the City of Los Angeles to control land use) favoring the same developer whose sprawling 229 single-family home Tujunga project would benefit from the legislation.

Respecting and seeing a renaissance of the watershed's carrying capacity presents a powerful argument for neighborhood empowerment to reject payola politics: the greed and corporate-personhood of the developer greasing the skids by writing the legislation, then profiteering from that legislation, after paying the politician, with both the developer and the compromised politician threatening, exhorting and coercing the constituency to share their viewpoints with bureaucratic layers of immunity provided by the one-party town politic.

Surely, once payola politics borne of a tryst between politician and developer is extinguished, dialog of communitas in the public forum around aesthetic, life-safety, and other community impacts will resurge and negotiation between all concerns will be voiced, but the nature of bio-regional determinacy will leave the decision-making about restricting sensitive, ecologically vital land areas from urbanization up to a map generating process of overlaying various map overlays of hydrologic, ground water recharge, riparian, chaparral, flora, fauna, woodland, forest, geologic, landslide-prone, seismic off-limits-to-urbanization preserves to be maintained for the overall carrying-capacity of the watershed.

Without human intervention, an emergent composite will reveal those least ecologically sensitive areas remaining as suitable for green-collar, 100% renewable energy source economic and built-form development.

Once crass developer payola-inspired politics are removed from the State Legislature, California can proceed to mitigate and cope with global warming and act to pull the human species back from the precipice of extinction. Payola politics does not allow adequate funding to restore our watershed and provide for a relocalization of our unsustainable, failed global economy based on the local production of food, energy, and goods and the local development of currency, governance and culture.

Reuse, reduce, recycle, restore--have to replace the one-party town payola mantra of denial, distraction, disruption, distortion, and diversion.

Healthy watershed means healthy neighborhood means no payola politics.
Rate It | View Ratings

Jack Lindblad Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Permission is given to reproduce in whole or in part with attribution of authorship and a link to this article. An architect by education and profession, Jack Lindblad is running to win California's 18th Senate District seat in 2014, having (more...)
 

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter

Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Local water shortages loom closer for the Los Angeles regional community

Tax policy implications for a Sustainable, Green, Steady State Economy for the 21st Century (series: part 1 of 2)

Financial meltdown offers green economy growth

Assembly Candidate Lindblad urges a No Vote on LA Charter Amendment B

Four years for Obama to lower emissions to levels to avoid climate change worst effects

Assembly Candidate Lindblad urges a No Vote on LA Charter Amendment B

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend