Recently, my gerontologist administered the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a test used to detect any signs of cognitive impairment.
I was troubled by my inability to cope with one question, which involved drawing lines connected to numbers and letters in a certain order. I am usually better than most at connecting the dots among seemingly disparate categories, and I like to pull back to see those connections.
The fact that I froze was anxiety inducing, on top of all the other anxiety-inducing events of the last year.
I decided it was a metaphor: I am also anxious over the fact that we don’t appear to have anyone in leadership in California, either on the state or the local level, who has shown themselves to be particularly interested, let alone skilled, in looking at connections among our most challenging policy issues, and creating fair and rational policy to integrate and implement solutions.
Connecting the Dots
The ongoing L.A. firestorms have pulled back the curtain in a dramatic way to show that there has been, in California, a huge lack in coherent and coordinated thinking on climate policy, fire insurance policy, and land use policy, and an utter failure to respond to these emerging, interconnected challenges.
In the name of housing opportunity, our state legislators keep tossing out uncoordinated and inconsistent housing requirements as though they had broken a pinataat a party, as local government responds with panic and outrage, affronted at having to scale up, rationalize, and coordinate their approval process, while meeting legal deadlines.
With respect to addressing fire hazard, in particular, the problem is this: all areas of our county are divided into “categories” based on fire maps that were adopted when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor (2003-11); still today, decision-making is based entirely on whether a property is on, or off a map, regardless of actual physical conditions on the site, or its physical location.
Decades ago, being on a map meant a property owner was required to comply with “defensible space” requirements ( in English: tree trimming and brush clearing).
Being on a map most certainly did not make the difference between having a single family home or a small housing project approved, or not. These changed consequences have created conflicts over land use which simply did not exist before. And they are preventing appropriate infill housing from being built.
The insurance companies use these same or similar maps, but have their own secret system for assigning risk to individual properties, which is apparently not the same as the way Cal Fire assesses risk.
But the concept of risk is irrevocably changed when embers from a fire hurricane fly, in minutes, to ignite “safer” areas. We learned this locally 30 years ago, when the Paint Fire jumped the 101 Highway and entered the edge of Hope Ranch.
Why Insurers Are Fleeing
Insurers have figured this out, and are leaving the state in droves. The maps — which never adequately distinguished levels of risk in local areas — have become quite irrelevant. What counts, now, as never before, are evacuation standards, and building standards.
Meanwhile, while local government is “risk averse” when it comes to challenging patently absurd projects because they fear the big money lawyers, they are quick to make demands they should know are illegal on the “little people” — the individual property owner who has neither the money nor the expertise to challenge them.
I have more than one friend who has thrown up their hands and withdrawn from the process because of ridiculous positions that local bureaucrats have staked out. And, as I was told by one state official — in reference specifically to the City of Berkeley, which also has flat and hillside areas — local politicians are afraid to challenge any demand by a fire official, even if they know they have exceeded their authority, because “what if” there is a fire like the Oakland Fire in their district?
The Bony Finger of Blame
All politicians — and political appointees not protected by the civil service system — fear the bony finger of blame, more than anything else. (viz. Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass and the LA Fire Chief, in recent days).
So they fixate on easy targets, big and small.
No, delays in rebuilding a billionaire’s beach house in Malibu are not the “fault” of the environmental laws. Similarly, the addition of one “peak hour” vehicle trip from one small house to the freeway will not prevent evacuation of an entire neighborhood, but the simultaneous attempt to evacuate 250 new residences in an area with an historic evacuation deficiency, will actually kill people.
But none of the interest groups – local government, state government- including the Insurance Commissioner, and the Nimby/Yimby contingent seems to understand two principles which must be considered in any regulatory system: context and proportionality.
Where is that one house, and can the Fire Department access the property without impediment, now? Where are the 250 new units, and is there an existing evacuation deficiency which will be significantly exacerbated by adding this additional population in the location proposed?
The County and the City both have objective, existing standards which can and should be applied in considering the facts in these cases.
Whimsical and Arbitrary
I used to be a lawyer. I like to see cases decided on the evidence.
It’s that mania for due process I inherited, from my Czech survivor/refugee/immigrant parents. I grew up with a healthy fear of bureaucratic abuse.
The courts have been clear: “[W]here the law imposes upon [a public official] specific duties and he either whimsically or arbitrarily refuses to perform those duties, or where his refusal is based upon an erroneous conclusion of his legal duties, or where the right of the individual is so fixed that the refusal of the official to act amounts to a clear abuse of discretion, such error will be corrected in a proper judicial proceeding.”
In the current situation, the whim, of an individual bureaucrat, or politician, the inability to admit even an error and change course, can result in disaster for the community.
Bottom Line
So, in the context of fire safety, the 26 out of 30 score I achieved on the cognitive test in conceptualizing solutions would just not be good enough.
My mother would not have patted me on the head and given me an “A” for effort. She would have said, “So what happened to the other four points?” She just insisted on an ”A” — for performance and for Accountability.
In the same way, we need to stop indulging the egos, insecurities and ambitions of our elected officials and executives, as though they were underachievers in elementary school. Our lives, our homes, our economy, our future are literally in their hands.
I got all As, by the way, except in “social attitudes.” My feelings were hurt, but my mother didn’t care about that. Plus ça change.
P.S. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment is the test that even Trump passed, so I am now calling it the Felon Test).
Jana Zimmer is a recovering environmental attorney who was Santa Barbara County’s chief land use attorney and chief deputy county counsel from 1986-91. She is a former member of the California Coastal Commission.