Whatever happened to the “States Rights” good old boys? In the old days, they were always screaming about how the federal government was overreaching on everything and keeping the states from carrying out their god-given duty to the people of their states. Suddenly, those good old boys are in the Trump regime — and now in power. Our Attorney General, the distinguished citizen from Alabama, Jeffery Beauregard Sessions III, has practically threatened us with martial law if we don’t bend our knee to the federal behemoth and immediately turn over every suspected Hispanic to ICE. The term “sanctuary city” is apparently a red flag to these Southern bulls, much the way the word “integration” was in the past.
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Understandably, many cities, courts and law enforcement agencies in California and elsewhere are unsettled that frightened Hispanics won’t call the police when they are victims of crimes, or willing to be witnesses with ICE crawling through the courthouses. We supposedly have 11 million undocumented living in the U.S. and several million in California, many with American citizen children. It looks to me like the entire immigration policy is just a sop to a bunch of angry people who feel that their miserable lives are somebody else’s fault and want to have someone to blame. For people who are upset that they are breaking the law, there are two obvious solutions: One, hire 10,000 or 20,000 new ICE cops and send them out surrounding every Hispanic neighborhood and arresting everyone and then sort it out — worked fine for the Third Reich, no reason it wouldn’t work here. The other alternative is to pass a new law through Congress making everyone here over five years, or anyone with American children, simply a legal resident alien allowed to stay in this country, as many other countries have done.
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It’s apparent that with the House “Freedom Caucus” prepared to vote “NO” on everything, both Trump and Ryan have only one way to go if they want to pass some legislation, and that is, they have to do a deal with the Democrats, and do some plain old American political horse trading. The tougher question is, what are the Democrats going to do? Do they cut deals on immigration, infrastructure, tax code revisions… or do they say “No” to everything, as the more militant wing of the party wants them to do in hopes of picking up more seats in 2018 and perhaps the presidency in 2020? There is going to be some serious soul searching and some nasty internecine battles coming.
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Locally, things are hopping with the city council unanimously agreeing that we should have our own school district and that we encourage the separation from Santa Monica. Malibu and Santa Monica were joined together many years ago, because we needed a home and they needed additional students. Strangely, the LA School District is right in the middle of our school district so, assuming we climb all the hurdles and everyone in both Santa Monica and Malibu votes for the split, we will ultimately have a small, concise, contiguous, well-funded district, and with some support from the community we could have one of the best school districts in the state. It will help us draw some younger population, give us an opportunity to better educate our children and certainly serve to boost the value of our real estate as a family-friendly community.
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Speaking about real estate: I want to welcome back Rick Wallace who once again will be writing his real estate column for The Malibu Times as he had done previously for 13 years. Rick is a meticulous researcher and there is no fluff or “alternative facts” in his data. His first new column, a wrap up of the 2016 real estate market, opens on a high note. The median home price of residential real estate in the 90265 zip code leaped 17 percent last year, which is this week’s feel-good thought of the week.
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A couple of new local studies were issued recently, one on parking in Malibu, the other on the environmental impacts of projected sea level rise. We will be writing extensively on both in the near future, since both promise to have some major short term and long term impact on our live.
For an overview on parking, I would summarize it as: Too many cars, not enough parking spaces. Details to follow.
On the environmental issue of a rising sea and its impacts, there are many questions that will take a long time to find answers. How fast is it happening and how fast must we respond? What’s our obligation to the citizens of 2030, 2050 and 2100? How much is cyclical and how much does man contribute? How should we handle agencies like the Coastal Commission — who will invariably overstate the possible consequences and then use the answer to grasp wider powers and broader jurisdiction? The problem with something like a rising sea level is there are always the deniers who will continue to deny even as the seawater sloshes over their socks. And then there are the Chicken Littles who don’t want you to put a lock on your gate so the beachgoers have free access to escape if the sky should fall suddenly.
There will be lots to argue about.