Anaheim has a unique position within the county, since it owns its own municipal electric utility. This benefits residents and the city in numerous ways. Just looking at the differences in rates between Anaheim Public Utilities and Southern California Edison nicely illustrates one of the biggest benefits: our rates are much lower. There are other benefits as well: investments in our power grid directly benefits Anaheim residents; Anaheim Public Utilities also has the ability to adjust rates and institute policies to advance certain goals that would benefit the city.
One goal that Anaheim Public Utilities should try to advance is the creation of distributed power generation throughout the city.
First, what is distributed power? Most of our electricity comes from large centralized power plants. Coal, nuclear and hydro-electric plants, such as San Onofre and the Hoover Dam, are where the majority of our electricity comes from. Distributed power, on the other hand, is a large collection of smaller electric facilities located much closer to where the electricity is used. The most recognizable is rooftop photovoltaics, or solar. However, solar isn’t the only way to produce distributed electricity. There are also micro wind turbines that would work very well in Anaheim Hills and The Canyon.
There are many advantages to distributed over centrally produced electricity. Distributed power is more efficient, resilient and sustainable.
Large central power plants must produce considerably more power than will be used since power is lost when transmitting the electricity over long distances. Because electricity generated in a distributed system doesn’t need to travel as far, for instance from your rooftop to your living room, or to your neighbor’s house, it doesn’t suffer from these losses. This makes distributed power more efficient than centrally produced power.
Another advantage of distributed power is its relicensey. The power grid across America is amazingly fragile. California saw this first hand with the power crisis and rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001, and then again in 2005 due to a key transmission line going down due to a faulty sensor. And while we didn’t experience it first hand, we saw the wholesale failure of the power grid in the northeast in 2003. While these issues are rare, they will become increasingly common as we continue to tax our power grid and fail to invest in it. Because of Anaheim’s unique position, it’s possible to mitigate these crises with a distributed power system. A distributed system does not have a single point of failure. If the power fails, but you have enough solar on your roof to generate as much electricity as you use, your power will still work. If your neighborhood’s subgrid generates enough power, your neighborhood’s power will still work. And if the City of Anaheim generates enough power within the city, and something happens to the rest of Southern California’s power grid, our lights will still turn on.
The final benefit of distributed power is that it is green and renewable. Fossil fuels, oil and coal, will become increasingly expensive as demand increases and supplies decrease. Most, but not all, distributed power systems are renewable, such as wind and solar. If we build these renewable systems, we will be able to ensure our electric rates stay low even as the price for electricity continues to rise for most of our neighboring cities.
While the advantages of a distributed power system are great and many, so are the hurdles to installing such a system. The biggest hurdle is two pronged: cost. For your average house, it will easily cost ten or twenty thousand dollars. For an apartment complex, a system can be a quarter million or more. This is a huge outlay of money for any home owner.
Coupled with the initial outlay of funds, a homeowner will never recoup their expenses from the savings they would expect to see in their electric bill because of Anaheim’s low electric rates. While some home owners will install such systems in an effort to be green, or because of other financial considerations that make such a system feasible, the majority of Anaheim will choose not to spend the money.
Another hurdle to adoption is the aesthetics of solar systems. While it’s clear that solar on the roof of one of Anaheim’s many historic homes would ruin the character of that house and neighborhood, newer homes can support solar without much problem. As solar becomes more prevalent, we will become accustomed to seeing it and it will therefore be less obtrusive.
Thankfully, there is a relatively simple solution to all of these barriers, although it will be unwanted by many. If Anaheim Public Utilities raises rates a little, not even to the same price as SCE or PG&E, just a little, and then uses that excess revenue to provide subsidies to homeowners who install solar or wind power systems, such systems will suddenly make financial sense. By attacking the cost issue from both sides, the initial outlay of money and its payback period, the city can minimize the burden on homeowners while still improving our power system.
Yesterday was the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce’s annual State of the City event. Â There were a number of interesting initiatives that both the City and the Chamber are attempting that I hadn’t heard about before. Â I’ll post more about these once I have a chance to do a bit more research, but from the event yesterday, here is a short list of developments that were of interest:
- The Chamber is trying to form an in Anaheim. Â They didn’t mention where in the city the Enterprise Zone would be, but I would expect that The Canyon would be the most likely place.
- The Mayor announced an initiative that he is trying to get adopted by the City Council to refund one half of the City’s part of the sales tax on all large purchases of $20,000 or more.  He wants this program to run from February until June, in order to help spur the local economy and encourage large purchases from local businesses.
- The Anaheim Fixed-Guideway Transit Corridor has been renamed Anaheim Rapid Connection (ARC).  Additionally, Anaheim has launched a new website and branding campaign for all of the City’s transportation related projects called .  This is especially exciting because it shows the City’s understanding that all of our transportation amenities form an interdependent network for people to move around the city.
- Finally, Mayor Pringle talked about the successes of over the past year and also mentioned that the City received a $5.8 million grant to help create a smart grid for the City and encouraging the creation of renewable energy for Anaheim. Â This is particularly timely for Anaheim 2060 because there is a post on renewable energy scheduled to be posted later today.
As was discussed on Monday, the California High Speed Rail Authority held their first public meeting this Wednesday evening. OCTA has put together a short two minute video about the presentation.
The City of Anaheim is currently served by eight different school districts. There are 65 public schools with grades K-12 within the City’s boundaries. While not all of these districts are comprised entirely of Anaheim schools, many of them are. This myriad of districts throughout the city requires more resources to be dedicated to administration and overhead—as opposed to education—than a single unified district would require.
The division of school districts within Anaheim started in 1913 when the Katella School District broke away from the Anaheim City School District. This was the result of politics and the fact that parents wanted more local control of the schools. This theme of local control is still alive and well in discussions about Anaheim’s schools.
Local control and the parental involvement that it presumes is admirable. A parent’s involvement in their child’s education is the single biggest factor in determining a child’s scholastic achievement. For this reason, local control is a very emotional issue for many. We all want the best possible education for our children. However, if we look at it objectively, we must realize the true costs of local control and how it has negatively impacted our children’s education.
Anaheim’s smaller school districts have been hurt primarily by two factors: resources being diverted from the classroom to administration and poor management by both the boards and administration of the school districts.
The first problem, that of resources being diverted from the classroom to administration, is inherent in the system we currently have in place. Eight districts require eight superintendants and eight payroll systems and simply a duplication of many of the functions that are required within a district. That is not to say we can cut the administration costs by eight, but it might be possible to cut the administration costs in half, or even a fourth of what they are today. This will free up more of our schools finite resources for the classroom.
While the second problem is not inherent in our current system, it is strongly influenced by it. Because our school districts are many and small, they do not have the resources to hire the highest caliber and most experienced administrators. This is not meant as a slight to those who currently work in the administration of our schools, they are all good people who care deeply for education, but the simple fact is that the best people will look for the challenge of a larger district.
Our school boards face a similar issue. Each of Anaheim’s school boards have one or two excellent board members who truly understand the issues that they have to decide upon. The rest of the board members, while well meaning, simply aren’t up to the task of running a top rate school system. In a unified district spanning the city, we would be able to pool those skilled board members to create a board that is up to the challenge of providing the best possible education for our schools.
Here is one example of the poor decision making we now see on our boards: Over the past decade, the Anaheim City School District has benefitted greatly from the housing boom over the past decade. When each of these houses and apartment buildings were built, the developer had to pay a development impact fee to the district to offset the long-term impacts of having additional housing units the schools had to serve. The basic logic is that, given enough new homes, the district can build a new school to teach those additional children. In any case, these impact fees are one time money that is intended to go towards capital improvements for the district. Unfortunately, Anaheim City School District did not spend the money on capital improvements. Instead, they spent the money on short-term leases for temporary, portable classrooms.
Thankfully, the Anaheim City School District has seen the error of its ways. The district is now looking at using the impact fees from the Platinum Triangle to fund the construction of a new elementary school to serve those new homes.
A large school district with more experienced administration and a more qualified board might not have made these same errors in the first place. Instead, it is likely that they would have looked to the long-term well being of the district instead of their immediate problems.
Of course, many Anaheim residents would want to preserve some form of local control of the school district’s board. A good solution would be to have districts for each board member to represent, similar to how the Los Angeles City Council is set up. If the Anaheim Unified School District’s board had seven members, one could be from each of the existing K-12 districts within the city.
Anaheim is a great city. We have a rich and colorful history, and we are one of the top tourist destinations in the world. But the quality of our schools is one of the biggest factors when people decide where to live. If we, as a city, want to continue to attract quality residents, we will need to improve our schools. Local control of our schools is nice, but it carries a heavy cost. That cost is detracting from the quality of education in Anaheim. While a unified school district isn’t a perfect solution, it’s better than what we have today.
During the November 2008 election, California voters approved Proposition 1A, a bond issuance to fund the construction of a high speed rail line for the state. Anaheim’s Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) will be the southern terminus during the first phase of the High Speed Rail network. As part of the design and impact study for the construction of the HSR line between ARTIC and the Fullerton train station, the High Speed Rail Authority, OCTA, and the City of Anaheim will be holding an Open House on January 20th in the Anaheim Council Chambers. I’m posting this now to give people an overview of the entire system and some of the challenges present in Anaheim.
Along with the bonds approved by voters in November 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger applied for additional Federal funding made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Proposition 1A made $9 billion available to build the core of the HSR line between Anaheim and San Francisco, via Los Angeles Union Station and Fresno. Prop 1A also made $950 million available for upgrades to other rail lines that will feed the HSR system. The ARRA application is for $4.7 billion, primarily for train facilities at Union Station, Norwalk and ARTIC, as well as right-of-way acquisition and grade separations along the entire length of the track. The ARRA application also include funds for a deep bore tunnel between ARTIC and Fullerton.
Since the approval of Prop 1A, the California High Speed Rail Authority has been conducting the required environmental studies. These studies not only show the impact on nature, but also our communities and the people who live there. Part of these studies includes an examination of multiple alternatives and a cost-benefit analysis of each. The goal of the High Speed Rail Authority is to complete these environmental studies by the end of 2011 and begin construction in 2012.
There were four alternatives for the section of rail line between ARTIC and the Fullerton station. Two of the alternatives have already been rejected. Those two alternatives were to not build this section of rail or to build it on an elevated line. The two alternatives that are still being considered are a deep bore tunnel under the existing right-of-way or to expand the right-of-way that runs just south of East St through The Colony.
While this is not the most contested section of HSR track, it has generated quite a bit of controversy. Cynthia Ward, along with the Anaheim Historical Society, has . At the same time, the High Speed Rail Blog . The figure they give is that a tunnel is six times more expensive per mile than at-grade construction. While that might be the case when it comes to building the tracks themselves, it does not take into account the cost of land acquisition for the expanded right-of-way or the seven grade crossings that will need to be built between ARTIC and Fullerton.
Unfortunately, the alternatives study does not take the true cost of at-grade construction into account. This is not the only place the alternative studies are lacking. For the section of tracks running up the Central Valley, they are either going to go up the east side or the west side of the Valley. One side has much more valuable farm land than the other, but since it’s all farm land, the alternatives study views the land as being the same cost.
Along with the cost advantages to a tunnel, there are also advantages for both the schedule and the community to digging a tunnel. Â It’s possible that many of the properties that would need to be acquired to build the tracks at grade would need to be acquired through eminent domain, which can be a long, slow process. , although there is obviously no indication of whether the current property owners would be willing sellers or not. Not only would the right-of-way need to be made wider, the biggest impact would likely be to build the grade separations at each of the seven road crossing. High speed trains cannot cross roads the way normal rail roads do.
While the tunnel sounds like a good way forward, there are some challenges to getting it adopted as the prime choice. As has already been discussed, the alternatives study is, at a minimum, incomplete. Secondly, residents on the San Francisco peninsula want a tunnel through Palo Alto and San Jose. However, the situation there is quite a bit different than in Anaheim since the HSR line can be built mostly within existing right-of-ways on the peninsula. To complicate this matter, the Chair of the California High Speed Rail Board is our own Mayor, Curt Pringle. While there are legitimate reasons why a tunnel is an appropriate choice in Anaheim but not on the peninsula, it will be difficult for Mayor Pringle to avoid appearing to play favorites.
Unfortunately, the above ground option was rejected before the public could have a say in the matter. This is exactly the type of issue where it is important to have residents involved early enough in the process where they can make a difference.
The most likely reason the above ground option was rejected is that some people think that elevated rail lines are ugly. While that’s often the case, there are plenty of well designed elevated railways that fit in with the community. One factor that lends itself to an elevated rail in Anaheim is that the existing right-of-way already provides a break between neighborhoods, so the new elevated line wouldn’t be bisecting existing neighborhoods.
Here are :
Thankfully there is a public meeting on January 20th from 5-7pm in the Anaheim Council Chambers. The address is 200 S. Anaheim Blvd. This meeting is set up as an open house, so come by any time you can. However, there will be a brief presentation at 5:30 by the High Speed Rail Authority staff.
Anaheim, and California as a whole, needs to see this High Speed Rail built. It will create jobs and speed the flow of people around the state. Having the station at ARTIC will make it easier for resident from around California enjoy Anaheim’s many tourist attractions.
Thus far, this website has been transportation heavy. This is for two reasons: first, transportation is the key to unlocking any of the other changes we might want to see in our built environment; second, there are some real challenges for Anaheim when it comes to implementing the High Speed Rail. This second point is what’s providing the time pressure for all of these transportation related posts, there is a public meeting next week about HSR in Anaheim and I would like to lay the groundwork for all of the transportation issues before then. I’ll have a post that looks more specifically at the HSR issues prior to next week’s public meeting.
There are many types of public transit, each type serves a different purpose. Rail, subways and monorails, and buses each serve a different role in the transportation landscape. The different types of transit form something of a chain, where each link connects to the others and, to use a a tired cliche, the entire system is only as strong as its weakest link.
The relationship between the City of Anaheim and its residents has been fairly contentious over the past few decades. Residents see the City as unresponsive, which City staff seem to have the attitude that residents are an obstacle to overcome instead of participants in the decision making process. This status quo will not produce a vibrant and invigorated community. Residents need to be more involved and the City needs to enable residents to become more involved at a time and place their input can make a difference.
Through the late 1970s and into the ’80s, the City of Anaheim, lead by the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency, sought to revitalize the city’s flagging downtown by demolishing what was there and rebuilding. At the time, some Anaheim residents tried to save downtown, but the Agency pushed ahead with its plans despite the objections.
Everybody, residents and City Hall alike, knew that something needed to be done with Anaheim’s downtown. The storefronts had been taken over by adult bookstores, the movie theater showed x-rated films. Many residents wanted a reinvigorated downtown, bringing it back to its heyday from decades earlier. The Redevelopment Agency’s plan was to scrape the existing buildings off the land to make way for something new. The Agency moved ahead with its plans, which unfortunately has turned out poorly.
NOTE: The City of Anaheim has two primary decision making bodies, the City Council and Planning Commission. Anaheim 2060 will review the agenda for each Council and Commission meeting and discuss any issues that either support or oppose the goals of Anaheim 2060.
There are two items on this week’s that are worth discussing.  The first is a grant request to help fund the construction of a new part and the second is an increase in electric rates charged by the Anaheim Public Utilities Commission.
Item #23 – Miraloma Park Grant Application
There is a lack of easy access to parks in much of Anaheim. Â The City’s Community Development Department is . Â Â This grant, if awarded, will work in conjunction with a Section 108 loan the city has applied for to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Â (I’ll be talking more about the Section 108 loan in a future post.) Â This application is just one example of the many ways Anaheim is finding to fund the improvement of resident’s quality of life without over exerting the City’s general fund.
The City of Anaheim has been studying whether it should build a transit link between and the Anaheim Resort. Â The city has commissioned the and is well under way with gathering public input.
As the Anaheim Resort continues to grow and expand, it will become necessary to accommodate more visitors into the area. Over the past few years, the resort has added a number of new destinations, most notably the GardenWalk. Disney is currently renovating Disney’s California Adventure, with the hopeful result being increased park attendance. The convention Center has been contemplating expansion plans. As the Platinum Triangle develops, more residents will be living in the area. Once ARTIC is built, it will be easier for visitors to get to Anaheim without a car. These visitors will need a method of transit within the city once they get to the city. With all of this recent and planned expansion of the Resort and Platinum Triangle, it is important for the City to look ahead at its future needs and make its own plans to ensure those needs are met.
In the two decades between 1950 and 1970, Anaheim grew from 14,500 residents to 166,000. More than at any other time in American history, urban planning over those same twenty years was dominated by the automobile. Anaheim’s rapid growth during this car dominated era has lead to a city whose infrastructure has been built around getting people from place to place by car.  This monomaniacal focus on the automobile is felt throughout the city even today.
The primary challenge presented to the city because of this rapid growth at the height of the car culture is that Anaheim’s infrastructure is designed around the car. Anaheim is very spread out, without any centers for people to congregate or transit connections between different parts of the city. Many communities have been bisected by freeway construction and continue to be harassed by freeway expansion. There is not a single street or block throughout the city that has not been negatively affected by parking whether it’s a lack of parking caused by over crowding or the creation of sufficient parking that leads to great expanses of asphalt that negatively impacts our community in other ways. Anaheim needs to transition its infrastructure from being car dominated into one that is more walkable, transit oriented and sustainable. While it is easy for some cities to build new infrastructure that’s not completely designed around the car, since they’re not having to change their legacy systems, it will take decades for Anaheim to change and evolve
While these changes will be hard to imagine in a city like Anaheim, we must start our journey down this path if we are to see the city thrive in the decades to come. Continue reading »
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