Jump to navigation
By 02/03/2021
Everyone can agree with the frightening opening to the Inverness Foundation’s solicitation for the adoption of another Inverness Public Utility District tax: “We don’t want Inverness to be like Paradise…ravaged by…fire.”
Alarmed Inverness residents are then presented with a property tax proposition authored by Seahaven residents rather than our utility district. This tax, they claim, will provide funds to alleviate the wildfire threat and Inverness’s water problems essentially leaks and inadequate storage capacity. Yet combining wildfire danger with IPUD’s water issues creates a scattershot approach to two separate and complex situations. And a cursory analysis of the proposal’s enormous ambitions reveals that its expenditures will clearly exceed its generated income.
We who live in the West benefit from public ownership of 47% of the land across 11 states, most of it managed by federal agencies. It’s our wild backyard mountains, forests and seashores available to all for free or for a nominal entrance charge. But only 4% of the land in the rest of the country is publicly owned, and even in the West, much of our “commons” is remote, far from cities where people may need it most.
Fortunately, we have a national program for adding to America’s open-space estate: the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Since 1964 a portion of the receipts from offshore oil and gas leases has gone to federal, state and local agencies to acquire and preserve land for recreation and conservation. Unfortunately, Congress diverted much of the money $22 billion by one estimate to other federal programs.
Jump to navigation
By 01/20/2021
The smoke from the Woodward Fire was still lingering in the air when a group of Inverness residents decided that the village’s immediate needs related to wildfire prevention and water storage would require a new funding source. In a survey launched this month, residents are weighing in on whether they would support a new parcel tax that the Inverness Association hopes to sponsor.
“The biggest driver of this is climate change,” said Jerry Meral, who sits on the association’s board and had the idea for the tax. “Look, we have had almost no rain halfway through January, and that’s true throughout the whole Pacific Southwest, it’s not just Inverness. And so I think we need to be ready to be ready with our water supply and to fight the fires we all know are getting more and more frequent. Now whether the Inverness voters share that view, I guess we will find out.”