“THE COLDEST WINTER I EVER SPENT WAS A

SUMMER IN SAN FRANCISCO.”

NOT

By

Mark Twain

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES Jeffersonian

Laissez-Faire“Let Do”

HamiltonianProgressivismCentral Planning

EARLY WATER POLICY Private – as in LA Public

State legislation requiring municipal systemBuy existing system?Tuolumne River and Hetch Hetchy ValleyBring on Joseph Lippincott1901

HETCH HETCHY

HETCH HETCHY VALLEY Part of Yosemite National Park Requires Federal action Roosevelt = Greatest Good Nope $1 MILLION bribe (1902) 1906 Fire (water pipes) Garfield = highest value “Market” versus “non-market” value Utilitarian versus non-utilitarian John Muir

JOHN MUIR Yosemite

National Park Sierra Club First to identify

the conflict between market and non-market values?

GREAT writer More than nuts

NON-UTILITARIAN VALUE “Good is only good to eat” “a grand landscape garden, one of

Nature’s rarest and most precious mountain temples.”

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”

“in picturesque beauty and charm Hetch Hetchyn (it) surpassed even Yosemite.”

UTILITARIAN VALUE Municipal water Electricity Fire protection Monopoly deterrence Recreation “benefit more from boating, fishing and

swimming than staring at a canyon now accessible to few.”

“as beautiful as the other lakes which would add charm to the landscapes of the Sierras.”

1910 $45 million bond (recall LA $25 million) Alternative sources? Engineer in pay of monopoly Independent assessment

No funds or staff City sourced data “obfuscation through excess” No cost comparisons To Congress December 1913: “I have signed this

bill.”

IMPLEMENTATION Use existing

private water distribution profits

Use existing private electricity distribution profits

Sell bonds piecemeal

$100 million - $23M over budget

1970’S $33 million revenue annually

1980’S Reagan & Watt

Drain it Dianne Feinstein

DUMB, dumb, dumb