Southland Scenario
Guest article by that superb prose stylist and truth speaker, Hakim of the Westside, who offers a more complete version of a recent subdivision deal in the region.Southland scenarioAnaheim Bob, as he is affectionately know to the southlands developer community, was nearly in tears as he made his report about his visit with the Merced County planning department to the board of directors of the I-5 City project.Im tellin you they didnt want to hear about this project. They didnt even look at our popsicle-stick model of I-5 City with the battery-powered fiberoptic street lights and the little cars parked along the streets. And they made me turn off the Its a Small World music that was suppose to go along with the Powerpoint presentation. All they wanted to know was where were gonna get water for 1,500 homes. They kept askin that over and over again, Where is your water source? Where is your water source? I felt like pissin in one of their in-baskets and sayin theres your damned water source.Now Bob, dont take it so hard, said Project Manager Doug The Bulldozer Mulholland. Youve got to understand the mindset of those yokels up north. They havent come to believe in the intrinsic value of asphalt and concrete yet but theyre trying real hard to do that. Maybe you should have complemented them about they way they planned Delhi and on the boon to the local economy their approval of the Fox Hills development will bring. You know, massage em like we did the guys in Riverside County years ago. But John, Bob brings up a good question, where are we going to get water?John Potables part of the project was to worm the plans through a heap of enviromental issues, not the least of which involved mitigation for destroying 900 acres of endangered kit fox habitat. He was also the point man when it came to planning utilities for project, including water.Bob, the plans were still sketchy on the water question when you left for Merced, however my team has come up with an answer for your planners up north that would make Walt Disney proud. But it doesnt involve soiling their correspondence.I swear, if I had had to go at the time, I would have peed on a desk, Bob countered.We all know that the property we bought is dry as the moon and an island in the middle of a federal water district, John continued. We could punch holes in it until it looks like cribbage board and not find any subsurface water, and trying to get the parcel annexed to the federal district and get an entitlement would literally take an act of congress. So the answer is to import the water.John, how much bud had your team smoked before they came up with that idea? the Bulldozer asked. I know something about the area youre speaking of. There is a shitload of farmers around there, everyone of them and each of their cotton-eyed offspring owns a gun, and you go dropping a pipe in some guys irrigation canal and start pumping youre going to need Kevlar Fruit-of-the-Looms.Anaheim Bob blanched and reached for his crotch.Youre right, Doug, we cant just take the water were going to need; they dont have a Colorado river up there. But we dont have to actually buy it either.So illuminate us. No, wait. Janet! Doug yelled to his buxom secretary from Orange County. Get Michael Eisner on the speaker phone. Tell him weve got a new idea for Fantasyland.OK, go ahead, John.Potable hung a map of the San Luis Water District on a whiteboard the staff had been using before the meeting to draw pictures of Mickey and Minnie Mouse posed in Kama Sutra positions one through 12. Activating his laser pointer he began, I was eating lunch at Wool Growers in Los Banos.Whats a wool grower? Anaheim whispered in the Bulldozers ear.A Basque shepherd, you idiot! Or maybe the restaurant that John Madden eats in when he travels through the Central Valley - which do you think, Bob? Sorry, John. ProceedI met a farmer there - an ex-farmer - who owns 500 acres that are inside the federal water district and just 20 miles from the I-5 City site, a red dot appeared on the map and flitted about inside the boundaries of the property. He lost his ass trying to grow tomatoes on the ground, mainly because the property is damned near vertical. I mean the guy could have made a fortune selling white-water raft trips down the furrows when he irrigated. Anyway, the property has a federal water entitlement and he wants to sell out, cheap.How cheap? asked Doug.Ag land price - $1,000 and acre, maybe cheaper depending on how desperate he is.Barry The Barrister Levi, whod been playing Super Mario Bros. on his Palm Pilot during the meeting chimed in, How does buying the land get us water, John? You cant transfer rights from within the district to land outside the district, not without the consent of the feds and the water district. So it looks to me like were back to square one.Were not going to transfer the rights, were going to transfer the water. Thats the beauty of this plan - no legal loopholes to fall into.Janet! Is Eisner on the horn yet? the Bulldozer shouted.Doug, you know Westmark trailer company, right? Well the CEO there said hell make us a hell of a deal on a fleet of tankers. We park the tankers on the property, fill them up with water, truck them to I-5 City and then pump them out into the water tower were going to build there. So you see, were using the propertys water entitlement on the property, sort of. I mean the trailers are parked there while were pumping from the federal ditch, John explained.Janet!How bigs the water tower were going to build? asked Sammy Smooze, head of marketing for the project.Big, John said. Were thinking its going to have to hold 100,000 gallons.Thats beautiful, Johnny. Its going to make a great selling tool, you know, big letters across it I-5 City; red, white and blue banners, maybe even flashing lights - definitely lights at Christmas time. Im lovin this plan Doug, lovin it.The Bulldozer didnt seem as impressed with the idea as his sleazy salesman, but by that time had decided to keep the plan in-house rather than share it with Disney.OK John. Lets suppose we can buy the 500 acres cheap, make the deal with Westmark, truck the water to our giant water tank/billboard and convince Merced County that a mobile water source is still technically a water source, how are we going to pay for all this?Tim Ticonderoga, the projects accountant, peered over is glasses across the oak table in the board room at John in anticipation of his reply.We dont, Potable offered. The people who buy the homes are going to pay for it, and then some. Well buy the water from the feds by the acre foot, add in the transportation, storage, treatment and delivery costs and sell it to homeowners by the gallon, by the quart if we need to.Wait a minute, Johnny. How am I going to sell houses if I have to tell the buyer that hes going to have a $1,000 a month water bill? Smooze protested.Relax, Sammy. Its an easy sell because the buyers not going to have a monthly bill, at least not a water bill, John said. Were going to push conservation and technology with these homes - you know, low-flow shower heads, low-flow toilets, low-flow dishwashers and no-flow landscaping - were going to plant big rocks on the lots.Great idea, Johnny. I tried out one of those low-flow shower heads at a convention in Frisco last year. You have to jump around in the shower for a while to get wet and even longer to rinse off, but the Yuppies really get off on doing their part to save water for the fish. Thatll really sell. I tell you, Doug, Im lovin this.John, get to the money part, will you? - the no monthly water bill part. Ticonderoga grumbled.Thats where the technology comes in Tim. Were thinking way out of the box on this one, Potable said. Were not going to have water meters in the classic sense. Instead, were going to sell the water at the source using mini-computers and credit card readers like the ones you see at gas stations and convenience stores. Lets say a guy wants to take a shower. He swipes his Visa or MasterCard through the card reader installed in the bathroom next to the shower, punches in how many minutes he wants to the water to run, grabs his rubber ducky and jumps in. The machine keep track of the time, turns the water off when times up, calculates the price and prints the guy a receipt as hes toweling off.The kitchen faucet and dishwasher work the same way. So you see, a guy can control his water bill each month. If hes a little cash-strapped one month, he cuts down on how many times he flushes the toilet. If hes in the chips, he takes a bath.This is brilliant stuff, Doug, said Ticonderoga. We get our money from the credit card people before the homeowners dry, and if the guy turns out to be flake, Visa eats it.Im lovin it, lovin it! Smooze shouted. Swipe, youre clean. Swipe, youre dishes sparkle. We need one of the machines on the outside of the refrigerators for the auomatic ice maker. Swipe, four ice cubes.Great job, John. Tell your team to keep smoking what ever it is its been smoking, the Bulldozer said. Anaheim! Pack your bags for Merced. Were going to run with this.Ill be on my way, boss, Bob replied, picking up his briefcase and designer sun glasses. But what about the Kit Foxes? Those planners up there are surely going ask me how were going to mitigate the impact on the damned foxes.Janet! Doug bellowed. Get me Smith and Wesson on the speaker phone.