Tourism should pay for undergrounding and more
We all love Laguna Beach and we know why. With the good, we must also endure the bad, such as lack of parking and tourism. Suffocating blankets of tourists come every day. It’s not just summer anymore by the way. Residents hibernate much of year in their homes avoiding the downtown. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you saw one of your neighbors downtown when it wasn’t a special event?
Residents are asked to pay for the privilege of having tourists here. Why are residents asked to pay for an expensive beatification for the downtown and city entry? This attracts more tourists. We were also recently asked to pay for an expensive parking garage. It seems our city is more in the business of serving tourists and business owners than serving its residents. I recently was wondering who pays for the additional police presence when protesters organize a giant rally on Main Beach. Tourism is a big expense on residents of our small town. Thus, I wonder what’s the advantage of tourism?
Now our crazy City Council proposes that residents be assessed the cost to underground electrical wires for $200 million. (This has nothing to do with tourists, stay with me. I’ll get to that.)
Why would residents and neighborhoods who already have wires underground be obliged into an assessment? Additionally, what about neighborhoods that have already recently paid out of their pockets to have wires under grounded. The argument the city makes is about safety. This is a shallow argument. There have been aboveground wires in Laguna since there has been electricity. Since the maintenance of the poles is an issue the city should address that particular issue rather than going to the most expensive solution. The utility companies don’t even think it’s necessary and have separately sued the city. While possibly not ideal or beautiful, safety is just not a good argument for burying wires at tremendous expense. The “evacuation routes” are possibly the only place where issues of safety make sense. A fallen pole could strand cars in a city with only a few ways out. Fallen poles and live wires also prevent the circulation of emergency vehicles. The city’s expensive misdirected plan has me insulted that the City Council could not come up with a creative funding source before they came to us for the money! Quoting from the city last week… “if you already paid to underground your neighborhood you wouldn’t be paying to underground someone else’s.” (It’s the next line that important)… “but you would potentially be contributing to a city-wide assessment for evacuation routes.” So you see, you will be paying an assessment no matter where you live. If it’s approved by voters.
So, what do we do about it? Wouldn’t it be ideal if the burden of tourism could be paid by the same people who burden it? Additionally, wouldn’t it be ideal if we could raise money from tourism to support ideas for city improvements, rather than taxing or assessing residents? This could make tourism an asset that directly benefits residents. I propose we only underground wires in the “evacuation routes” and it should be paid for by tourist dollars.
There is a of couple ways we could do this. A very steep price adjustment to the parking meters would raise a serious amount of money and would not affect residents as most residents have parking stickers. I also suggest that residents should not have to pay for parking stickers. I talked to a member of City Council about this recently and it is plausible to have free stickers for residents. He never followed through on the idea though.
A sales tax increase tax of say 9% for a length of time.
A higher city fee on operators of short term rentals. If we can’t eradicate this scourge on our city, at least we can tax it for everyone’s benefit.
Importantly this money would be earmarked specifically for things like ungrounding, parking improvements, beautification projects etc. All paid by tourism. Assessments now would not be necessary. The tax won’t kill business. Neither will meter prices. Think of the high prices you pay anytime you go to a tourist destination. You almost expect it and consider it the cost of vacation. If it’s not enough money raised for proposed projects we should spend less.
Imagine. Plentiful sidewalks, parking, undergrounding, free resident parking and beautification. All paid directly by tourism over time. I’m beginning to love tourists!
Roderick Reed owns REEDesign Interiors in Laguna Beach. He lives in town with his wife Kathy and two sons Mason and Jack. http://roderickreed.com/.
