Don's Tuesday Column

          THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   4/23/2024

CA’s crime; illegals in, businesses flee

Reading about the Red Bluff Round-Up, I recall the 1982 George Strait classic, “Amarillo by Morning”: “I’ll be lookin’ for eight when they pull that gate, and I hope that judge ain’t blind.” In today’s televised bull riding spectacles, high-definition video and super-slow-motion replay assure all that a judge’s “blindness” has no influence on when the cowboy touches dirt.

It was pointed out by the editor that the Red Bluff and Chico newspapers did, in fact, report on the California auditor’s finding of little to no accountability for the efficacy of the $24 billion spent “fighting,” or addressing homelessness. I’m chagrined that the apparent “style book” terms are “people experiencing homelessness,” or the “unhoused” or “houselessness,” rather than the common-sense phrase “homeless people”.

Kudos to local efforts that acquired $14 million, in state funds, toward housing, supportive services and “long-term stability.” Local oversight must see that those benefiting are identified, found to be who they say they are, with criminal background checks, etc.

I gathered that the $192 million in awards is expected to provide permanent housing for 2,200 people. The state’s homeless population being probably north of 181,000, it will take about 10 times that to accomplish the same result state-wide—or nearly $2 billion. Ironically, the auditor found that some $24 billion already spent has accomplished approximately nothing; it’s been a “funding failure” per Gov. Newsom.

My suspicious mind—knowing that government benefit programs become permanent, industrial-size bureaucratic behemoths of endless taxing and spending, with little interest in eliminating the original problem—sees yet another institutionalized redistribution of wealth.

California’s bard of analytical knowledge, Dan Walters, in “Supreme Court decision could help housing in California,” simultaneously pointed to hope, and hypocrisy, over “affordable housing,” without which homelessness is a permanent scourge. A 9 to 0 decision found that local fees cannot become a burden, a “taking” of monetary property. Combined with “dictating the use of high-cost unionized construction labor, time-consuming environmental clearances, arbitrary design criteria and so-called ‘impact fees,’” the building of financially feasible housing units is effectively barred.

Walter’s piece shows how foot-dragging and ballooning fees often push construction expenses past $1 million per unit. At $2,000 per month rent, it would take over 40 years to recoup that million-dollar cost; 10 percent interest on that loan would be $100,000 per year—it never pencils out as worth building.

Newsom, while giving lip service to “affordable housing,” actually supported El Dorado County’s $23,000+ “traffic impact” fee on retiree George Sheetz’s plan to place a manufactured home on his lot. That was the impetus for the lawsuit that was just decided unanimously against the county’s exorbitant assessments.

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Gov. Newsom earned some well-deserved “fact checking” over an April 3 post on X wherein he tried to boast about low murder rates under Biden, while dunking on Trump for supposedly presiding over “the highest jump in the murder rate in this country.”

He’s hardly alone; we saw a broad, “full court press” by media and Democrats, of propaganda over crime and murder in America and the misuse of statistics for partisan gain. Missing context and inaccuracies include: 2020 was the last year that over 90 % of municipal police departments shared their crime data with the feds. Less than 80 % of departments (covering about 60% of America) now report data to the FBI, including numerous large cities; reported crime is artificially reduced due to misreporting.

2020 saw the lawless, crime-ridden protests and riots resulting in spikes in deaths and injuries; $2 billion in property destruction; the ideologically-motivated demonization of local police and sheriff efforts to control said crime; and mandates for police to back off of pursuing, arresting and prosecuting violent criminals, particularly in minority communities.

Traffic stops became social media and political free-for-alls at the expense of cops doing their duty to protect civilians from predators and malevolent social misfits. Juveniles were given avoid-jail alternatives which exempted them from punishment, and encouraged lack of respect for laws, turning them into adult violators. Business owners, knowing that reporting crimes only wastes their time, simply don’t call cops.

While the FBI’s data shows a 13.2% decline in murder, and a 5.7% decline in violent crime, Councilonncj.org compared Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS, meaning actual crime) and found, rather than a decline of 2% in Total Violent Crime, there was a 75% increase; Rape rose by 58%, rather than dropping 6%; Aggravated Assault rose by 104%, while Robbery rose by 47%.

Meanwhile, Sacramento Democrats watered down a child sex trafficking bill to weaken penalties; dozens of illegals hopped off a beached speed boat in La Jolla, running to waiting vehicles; people are responding to the influx of illegal migrants by flocking to gun stores to arm themselves; and California, which never had slaves or slave owners, is creating a “Genealogy Office” to screen for reparations eligibility.

What should surprise no one but progressive sycophants, is that “Small-Business Owners in California Seek Greener Pastures Amid High Taxes and Crime” (Theepochtimes.com).