Recent news items put plans
to build a water museum in the Whittier Narrows Natural Area into what looks
like a campaign by monied interests and their allies to turn public lands to
private benefit.
In west Los Angeles, the
Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve has been selected by the Annenberg
Foundation as the site for a pet adoption center and interpretive center. If
that sounds familiar, it's because the foundation had originally selected
public land in Rancho Palos Verdes for its project. Annenberg withdrew its
project after opposition from the community and federal officials.
In the east, areas of
wildlife habitat -- purchased with county tax dollars for parks and open space
-- were being cleared by Texas-based
Matrix Oil and the city of Whittier, for a proposed drilling project
in the Whittier Hills even though the project is facing lawsuits and there are
questions regarding Whittier's authority over the land and whether the city
would see any money from the deal.
What all these stories -- Whittier
Narrows, Ballona Wetlands, Whittier Hills -- have in common is the exploitation
of public lands for what is essentially private benefit.
In the case of the Whittier
Narrows wildlife sanctuary we see agencies, which have little or no background
or interest in place-based nature education, seeking to build a monument to
themselves. The better to announce to everyone -- the public, their rivals and
partners, their superiors and subordinates -- that they are powerful and
influential.
The Ballona case is an almost
pure example of rent-seeking. Here we have a powerful organization, which is
already receiving preferential tax treatment as a 501(c)3 charitable
organization, seeking valuable public land at little or no cost to itself, for
a project that, by rights, belongs in a heavily trafficked urban area. But
that, of course, would entail buying or leasing land at market rates.
Take note, reader: Not only
would Annenberg get precious public land for a song, but in the process it
would deny a local city and its residents a legitimate contribution to the
common good.
Which seems like not such a new story at all.
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