Google Glass comes into the restroom — and for men’s rooms, will that lead to more privacy? Just an alert that’s the topic of my column today at CNET, which you’ll find here: Google Glass and the men’s room urinals.

After seeing BuzzFeed’s “26 Reasons Kids Should Not Be Allowed On Facebook” post, I couldn’t help myself. It was yet another one of those stories that pulls a bait-and-switch, cleverly I’ll admit, and made me feel dumb for getting sucked into such stupid stuff, along with feeling despair that is this really where journalism is heading, feeling cynical knowing plenty of journalism has always been this way and semi-mirthful in having some laughs.

Fight your way through that sentence? Then here are 26 reasons you shouldn’t read BuzzFeed:

1) An article about why you shouldn’t do parkour over a cop? Really? Well, if it was on YouTube…. You know who could pull that off, by the way? Schmidt from New Girl. Parkour!

2) A three-year-old who can’t miss hitting baseballs. Hey, if only I could hit this way. Or hit. See also, well, if it was on YouTube.

3) 21 pictures of people wearing bad overalls. Because 10 or 20 pics would be too even. And because, um, seriously, how did this become a story?

4) 19 instances of real March Madness. Because people are searching for March Madness, right now, SO WILL SOMEONE WRITE US A MARCH MADNESS STORY ABOUT ANYTHING RIGHT NOW SO WE GET THAT SEARCH TRAFFIC? PS: Make sure you don’t use an even number.

5) 18 things that Season 2 of Girls taught us. Because even numbers aren’t bad. Just numbers that end in 5 or 0. Oh, and that I really need to watch season one.

6) A kitten that sounds like a goat. Because it’s on YouTube, and it’s cute. And anything on YouTube that is cute must be fully documented by BuzzFeed. “All The YouTube That’s Fit To Blog.”

7) Reasons why In-N-Out is better than Five Guys. Amazingly, a missed opportunity to say “# of reasons” in the headline. And c’mon. They’re both good. Five Guys has better fries; if you’re at In-N-Out, ask for them lightly fried, and you’ll be happier.

Oh, were you really expecting 26 reasons? Yeah. No. I think you got plenty. Now I have to go back to both hating myself for even following the damn site on Twitter and admiring that someone out there is out-Business Insidering Business Insider. Or HuffPo.

I love infographics. I used to do infographics. So here’s an infographic I made as a little reminder to those who do infographics that taller is not better.

Enough said. Apologies to Apple, where I borrowed the MacBook Pro image. MacBook Pros are great, by the way.

When I was a senior in high school, I was fortunate enough to attend a leadership camp that taught me that we all have prejudices, but those prejudices don’t make us racists. There’s a huge gap between those two things that I fear gets terribly lost when discussions of race come up.

The Tech Is Too White Debate

This is all on my mind because of a debate that hit my Twitter stream today. Jamelle Bouie wrote a piece talking about how tech writers seem to be mostly male and white and reasons why that might be. Tech entrepreneur Jason Calacanis is making waves from a series of tweets that suggest anyone can break in with hard work. These are recapped at The Atlantic and Current Editorials, and Jason did a further post here.

I’m going to stay (mostly) out of the argument over why the tech press is apparently so male and white, and what can be done to fix that. I would agree that it does seem to be that way. Then again, I see TechCrunch co-edited by Alexis Tsotsis; I see AllThingsD co-edited by Kara Swisher. Those are at least encouraging on the “it’s all male” front.

What I want to instead focus on is the idea that’s voiced in several comments that I’ve seen, the idea that white people can’t understand racism. They probably can. It’s just that I’d say in the America (and Britain) that I’ve lived in, they don’t encounter it much.

Much more important, there’s a huge, huge difference between racism, prejudice and discrimination.

How I Learned We’re All Prejudiced

Now I’m going to tell my story of that leadership camp to explain some of this more personally, then I’ll get back into the more generic discussion.

The camp was sponsored by what was then called the National Conference of Christians & Jews. Today, it’s the National Conference for Community and Justice — keeping the same acronym, NCCJ.

I was one of the few campers from Orange County, California. I grew up in the city of Westminster, where my school population was mostly white, with a big proportion of asians and latinos. Blacks were a tiny percentage.

(By the way, I’m going to use lower case for all races, ethnicities and religions as I write this. All those caps for White and Black leap out at me, and if I lower-case those races but not Asians and Latinos (as I learned all those years ago as part of AP style), that also seems strange.)

The camp was pretty evenly divided: 1/4 white, black, asian and latino, with maybe 200 campers in all. Those were the major groups we found ourselves constantly divided into. Within the white group were also jews, many of whom didn’t consider themselves to be white — but those who were not white did consider them to be so. That was just one of the many lessons the camp taught us all.

It’s Prejudice Day

After some lead-up, we had what I came to remember as prejudice day, where we had to explore different prejudices that we all held about each other.

I, being a fairly liberal-thinking teenager, didn’t believe I had prejudices. I didn’t see race, as far as I felt. The whole prejudice day wasn’t going to have much to teach me!

A key part of the day was when one of the races was asked to leave a big room we were in, while those left behind wrote all the prejudices they had or thought about the other races. For example, all the asians would leave, and the other races would write what they thought about that race.

That was the first instructive thing for me, the first revelation — that white people weren’t the only ones with prejudices.

Understand that I grew up in the post-Civil Rights era. Roots was the big TV show when I was in elementary school, and the whole country — to me — was abuzz with the idea of racial equality, of rectifying a situation where a white majority, however it happened, seemed to hold back other races. I had good teachers who taught the salad bowl rather than the melting pot, too.

I’d really been brought up thinking white people were to blame, that white people had so much prejudice to overcome. So the idea that other races had prejudices about each other? That was eye-opening.

White People Have Herpes?

The next revelation was coming back into the room with my white group, to see what prejudices had been written about us. I didn’t think there would be many. I guess as a white person, I never spent much time trying to overcome those types of prejudices, living in a mainly white world with mostly white friends (thought I had a large number of asian friends, which I’ll return to in a bit).

Oh, there was a list. One of the items I’ll never forget was that white people have herpes. Really, this was apparently a fear other races had of whites. Wow.

Prejudices Don’t Equal Racism

Everyone learned from this exercise that we had prejudices of each other — and importantly, that it was almost natural for us to have these prejudices. We picked them up in various ways. They didn’t make us bad, not the having them. It was the not recognizing them or worse, believing them and acting on them in the form of discrimination or racism.

I’ll get back to that, but next, the story gets even more personal. At the end of the day, we had to go around the room and talk about a particular prejudice we might have had in relation to a particular camper. You couldn’t dodge with a safe answer — all the other campers could tell if you were being real or not.

I dreaded when my turn came around. As I said, we were a mixed race group at the camp, and that went down the cabin level. In my cabin were several black boys, one who was very large and to me, threatening. My prejudice. I didn’t know him. I just knew he was a large black guy, and my experience around large black guys was pretty much nil. In elementary school, we literally had one black kid — who, by the way, I was friends with. But after about a year, he left, and I was back in my mostly white world.

Not having known many blacks — and having been raised by a father out of the South who had not just prejudices but also racist attitudes about them — I just wasn’t comfortable. I was afraid. And that’s what I said, that I was afraid of this other camper in my cabin, because of those prejudices. OMG.

The camper stood up and asked if I was afraid of him now. I said I wasn’t. Why? Because I knew him. He wasn’t an unknown quantity to me, where my prejudices could build in my mind. He was just another camper.

That’s prejudice. That’s when you literally are doing what the word comes from, making a prejudgement. That’s not racism. That’s not discrimination. And despite me having that prejudice, it would never be my belief that he was somehow inferior to me (which is racism) or that I wouldn’t want to hire him for something (which is discrimination).

What Racism Is

Racism is a terrible thing, and I hate to see that word used without precision. I’ve seen it today, in arguments about whether we’re living in a “post-racist” world or whether someone has racist views.

In my book, someone only has racist views if they believe other races are not equal to their own. On an industry basis, I don’t know that a tech industry (or any industry) that doesn’t seem diverse is “racist,” especially given that the industry itself might not be actively trying to somehow keep out a particular race, based on some idea of superiority.

That’s where some of the disconnect in these types of arguments come up, I feel. Jason might not feel there’s any racism in the tech space because he’s not overtly thinking it, or seeing it and also, because there probably isn’t much of it. I find it hard to believe that any major tech site is overtly excluding people because of their race.

What Discrimination Is

There certainly seems to be discrimination however, as opposed to racism. That leads into two types that I’d characterize: overt and, for lack of a better word, institutional.

I don’t think there’s a lot of overt discrimination going on. As with racism, I find it hard to believe that tech news sites are overtly trying to hire people of one race but not others. But institutionally, that seems to be what’s happening.

Why? That’s part of the discussion that’s going on now. I suspect a big part of it is like-hires-like. If you’re white, there’s an excellent chance you know other white people, and you likely seek them out for hiring, if you’re not doing a big search.

It can work other ways, too. Last week, I did a lunchtime talk at the LA office of the Huffington Post. Of the 20 people who came, 19 were women. It was amazing, encouraging, that there were so many women editors there. But was it some overt effort to hire only women? I doubt it. It might be that the operation, begun as I understand it by two women, continued on with like-hiring-like.

I think diversity is important. I think whatever can be done to improve it is good. But I have to say, we’ve got three full-time jobs open right now with Marketing Land and Search Engine Land, and ensuring that we have a diverse workforce isn’t top of my mind. Our editors are all pretty white, though largely split male-female. That’s going to look bad to anyone wondering why we don’t have a latino, or asian or black editor employed.

But while I’m sure the entire staff would agree we’d like to be more diverse, the bigger priority right now is just finding good people. We need an editor who understands marketing and working with columnists. We need a writer who understands paid search and social. We need a general assignment reporter who understands internet marketing.

Finding those qualifications is tough enough, but while doing it, we also still have to keep working extremely hard on the day-to-day activity of being still a relatively small start-up, with no outside-funding making it on our own. Oh, and can those people be in one of the 11 states we’re already registered to do business with? Because the regulations of starting up in a new state are pretty killer.

There are obviously some type of barriers that have prevented the tech press from being more reflective of the diversity out there, ranging from like-hiring-like to not making the time to look further afield. I’d also agree that for the white people who have been successful, they might not understand or even be aware of all the challenges, because they just don’t encounter them. That’s not to take away from the fact people of all races can and do make it, of course.

How Prejudice Can Sneak Up On You

A little side-note now on how subtle prejudice can be.

Until I went to my camp, I had no idea about the stereotype that jews are supposedly cheap. That was introduced to me there. Not that I believe it, but I sure would have been happy to never hear it.

As an adult, I watch how jokes about racial stereotypes come up in television shows that my kids see. I find myself pausing the TV when these happen, to make sure they understand that different types of jokes or references are merely that, jokes. But part of me wishes the jokes weren’t made at all, because it’s almost by making them, the stereotypes are reinforced.

In another example, I purposely avoid referring to someone by their race, if I’m talking with my kids (or really, most anyone). If there were a group of people, I wouldn’t say, “Go ask that black guy.” I’m making a conscious decision not to do that, not to characterize someone by their race. And it’s hard. If you want to understand how hard, try it. Try to reference someone of a different race in a group. It’s really easy to reach for the race description, and perhaps that subtly reinforces some of the divisions between us.

You can see this in books all the time, by the way. Go read a book, even by a super-liberal fiction writer. Chances are, they’ll not refer to the white people as white. It’ll be assumed you know this. But black people are often described as black, and it happens with other races, as well. Of course, most of my fiction tends to be written by white guys (I guess they’re big in sci-fi), so maybe it’s different when reading authors of other races. But really, every person’s race should be described — or no one should. Damn racist authors!

As for not understanding racism as a white person, in college, I was once denied entrance as a reporter to a meeting at the Cross Cultural Center because I was white. It was the only reason I wasn’t allowed in. If I hadn’t been white, I’d have been admitted. That wasn’t racism. It was discrimination, and I sure didn’t like it. But it’s about the only time in my life I’ve knowingly been discriminated like that. It gives me no great insight into what it must be like for someone who encounters discrimination, prejudice or even racism on a regular basis.

When Races Turn Into People

A few other things. I think when you do grow up around other races, the differences are amazing. I know people who fear asians. I find that odd. I grew up with them, had many asian friends. I don’t tend to look at asians as “asians” perhaps because they were so ubiquitous in my life.

One of my best friends (OK, Greg, you’re my best friend) is latino. But with us both having grown-up in a similar area of middle-class Orange County, there’s not much difference between us. He’s less latino, and I’m less white, and we’re both much more North Orange County boys.

He’s also gay — which leads to an entire other areas of discrimination and prejudice, one that to me grows largely out of people who simply don’t know gays. I could never imagine not wanting gays to have equal rights because I have so many gay friends. As I wrote before:

These are all good friends. They are all good people. It has pained me to see them have to keep some part of them back, to not be complete out of fear or concern of not being accepted. I have no problem with homosexuality. Clearly, many people still do. I hope those that do can be more open, to understand the pain fellow human beings feel when they have to remain closeted. At the very least, understand that they are not gay people — they are real people with feelings who happen to be gay. They are godparents to my children; good friends I’ve known for years and people I hate to see feeling excluded in so many ways such as with marriage laws.

I don’t know that we’ll ever be in a post-prejudiced world, but a big step is acknowledging that we have prejudices, understanding that’s not the same as being racist and most of all, that we begin to really know other people as other people, not as other races. That doesn’t mean not seeing race, not understanding the complex challenges of race in the world, but more that we have friends and coworkers of all races.

Related Articles

I find it hard to believe that anyone from the CBS Corporation would try to dictate what CBS News could and couldn’t cover because of CBS business issues. Trying to interfere with broadcast news like that is fodder for movies and TV shows like “Broadcast News” and “The Newsroom.”

It’s no more acceptable to think CBS would interfere with the editorial processes of its other news operations. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what it has done to CNET recently.

I’m not trying to fan the flames further than they already burned last Friday and again on Monday. I don’t feel like I need to give up my freelance column on the site, and I sure don’t feel like CNET employees need to start resigning in mass protest. But I do have some things to say that I’d hope might somehow make it up the chain to CBS Corporation, where upon reflection, maybe it might better understand what a serious mistake it made last week.

CBS Making CNET Pay A Debt

Last week, CNET’s editorial staff voted to award a Best Of CES prize to the Dish Hopper with Sling. Then CBS demanded that CNET deny Dish that award because of a lawsuit between CBS and Dish over the Hopper’s TV commercial skipping feature, CNET’s editor in chief, Lindsey Turrentine, explained earlier this week.

The cost so far? At first, it was a story that mostly made waves within the tech press last week. Then the cost grew. CNET reporter Greg Sandoval resigned this week, saying on Twitter that he no longer had “confidence that CBS is committed to editorial independence.”

Suddenly, CBS putting CNET in the middle of its fight with Dish was turned into a broader discussion of news ethics in general, with CNET’s entire editorial integrity being called into question. That’s a pretty expensive price CNET had to pay on behalf of its corporate owner. But the costs aren’t over yet.

CBS seems to be trying to minimize the damage saying that CNET continues to have “100% editorial independence” in reporting “actual news” but that reviews of products that CBS is in active litigation over are now verboten.

Rather than reassure, I feel that statement leads to continuing costs that will mount for CNET: a chilling effect among CNET staffers about what they can and can’t write about, plus concerns among CNET readers about what CNET can and can’t report about.

The Chilling Effect

I can’t confirm if there’s a chilling effect with CNET staffers or not. I’m not a CNET employee. I’m not involved in “water cooler” discussions that employees of a company typically have. I’m not on any staff mailing lists, editorial discussions or anything like that. Indeed, all I know about what I potentially can or can’t write about on CNET as a freelance columnist comes from what I’ve read along with everyone else on the CNET site itself.

But I imagine there has to be a chilling effect. When you read in your own publication that your senior management was unable to reverse something it clearly disagreed with, when you read elsewhere that it was distraught over the decision, when some know first-hand what transpired, which reporter wants to be the first to potentially upset the higher-ups at CBS Corporate? Who wants to be that target and write anything about Dish, even if “news” stories are still supposedly perfectly acceptable?

Reader Doubts

As for CNET readers, one thing I’ve learned after nearly a year now of writing there is that everyone knows that CNET is biased in favor of Apple. Or Android. Or Microsoft. Just write anything that’s even remotely critical of Apple, Android or Microsoft, and the fanboys turn out to declare this is part of the secret uber-plan that CNET has.

The charges are absurd. I’ve responded to any number of comments like this, saying that I was sorry to disappoint, but I never received the secret CNET handbook demanding that all things be written to favor or attack a particular company.

Now, in the wake of Dish-gate, those type of charges no longer feel so absurd. Once a publication gets known for compromising for a particular reason in one instance, it becomes easy to believe it’s compromising in other ones.

Some Questions For CBS To Consider

All this concern caused, and for what? Because the CBS higher-ups just can’t stand a product they believe to be illegally violating copyright gets reviewed at CNET? If so, what next? What if CBS feels that filing over 300,000 copyright infringement removal requests with Google isn’t enough and decides to file a lawsuit against Google? Will CNET be allowed to report on the news of that filing but not write reviews of any Google products?

Maybe the issue is that CBS doesn’t support copyright infringement, so it doesn’t want reviews of products that assist in piracy. I could get behind that, sure. But if so, then shouldn’t it be for all products, not just those that CBS has a particular beef with? And shouldn’t it be for products that are actually proven in some way to be infringing, rather than just having accusations against them?

Maybe the issue is, as unnamed CBS Interactive sources apparently told The Verge, that CBS fears a CNET review of the Dish Hopper might somehow get used against it in court. If so, it’s not like CNET has pulled its current editor’s take, which by the way, didn’t even mention the “auto hop” feature. Clearly that’s not what was making it the contender for Best Of CES. Maybe not allowing future reviews possibly might help? But maybe a court might also understand that CBS Corporate’s views aren’t represented by CNET.

Then again, as the Hollywood Reporter notes (see also here), CBS has already had an initial minor loss in a legal battle over copyright, based on claims that CBS Interactive and CNET perhaps encouraged copyright theft. Given this, there’s some understanding that CBS might be skittish. But if so, taking action not to review one particular product CBS is litigating against doesn’t remove all the other possible things written on CNET about similar products or issues that might potentially get used against it.

Is CNET Worth More Than The TV Ads We Already Skip?

Back to the cost question: is all that’s being harmed for CNET really worth it for CBS?

Consider the deep irony of the Wall Street Journal reporting on the uproar. CBS — through its own actions — looks bad in the pages of a publication owned by News Corp., the same company that owns Fox, which CBS competes with. Fox is also suing Dish, but since its News Corp.-owner hasn’t made any similar moves to block Dish reviews on News Corp. publications, neither Fox nor News Corp. come off looking bad like CBS does. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

All this because CBS thinks that it’s so much of a threat to its business model that TV viewers might entirely skip commercials rather than fast-forwarding through them on their DVRs? Because so many of us who fast-forward often think “Wait! I need to stop to see that particular ad!”?

At a time when so much viewing is moving onto the Web and mobile devices, where it’s hard to nearly impossible to skip ads at all, this seems like a dumb fight to be having. It seems like a dumber fight to be hurting what CBS’ future really should be — properties like CNET — than to protect broadcast ads that largely died years ago but simply don’t know it yet.

Exercise The Right Control, CBS

As CNET’s publisher, CBS does have to exercise some control. A publisher doesn’t want its publication involved in libel, false reporting or any number of generally considered bad reporting practices. In these regards, CBS does want to be in CNET’s business.

But where CBS most definitely doesn’t want to be in CNET’s business is when it’s trying to interfere to help CBS’s own business. That opens the gates to CNET simply being a propaganda organ for CBS. Whether CNET actually acts that way or not becomes beside the point. Some believe it. Trust is lost.

My column is at CNET is called Common Sense Tech, and it’s just common sense that the type of thing CBS did to CNET should have never happened. I’d like to see CBS back off and let CNET get back to the business it does very well, reporting on and reviewing technology, as it long has.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow, what are known as “king tides” are occurring. These are exceptionally high tide caused by how both the sun and the moon pull on the water. In my city of Newport Beach, they’ve pushed the harbor to extremes. Today, we had flooding in a few places. It would have been far worse if there had been rain or a strong storm. As it was, the tides put area flood defenses right on the tipping point.

By the way, king tides are not caused by global warming. However, as sea levels rise, the tides rise with them, so these extreme periods now give a hint at what likely will become all-to-common in the future.

Below, some before-and-after shots from around my city, from just after the high and low tides, which were a bit lower than the ones that hit today.

Newport Island Bridge

Newport Blvd Bridge (both sides)

Lido Isle Bridge

Balboa Coves & Newport Island

From Today (Dec. 13)

I probably won’t get out to do the “after” shots of these. Today’s tide was higher by about a half-foot than yesterdays. These are some high water examples. First is near Lake Street, which, if the waters had gotten higher, would have turned into its namesake:

Next is the Newport Island Bridge. If I’d been able to get out right at the high water mark (rather than about 40 minutes later), I’m pretty sure there would have been no gap at all:

This was water that came over a neighbor’s wall through the small gap where there are steps to the dock:

This is Short Street which was one of the hardest hit areas today. Nothing like the flooding people have seen with hurricanes like Sandy or Katrina, of course. Nothing at all like that. But if we’d had rain, there’s a chance the water would have gone over many sea walls in the area:

Another big reason there’s so little flooding is because of the hard-working city crews. They shut the storm drains before a bit event like this, so water doesn’t back up. Of course, it’s going to leak through in places, and you can get pools like this:

This is about 15 minutes later:

The water is gone because they can pump it back into the harbor faster than it’s flowing into the streets from various places. Crazy, but it works. Of course, with a rain, if the harbor was absolutely full, then there’s no where to pump the water back to.

And thanks, city crews! You can also see more king tide examples throughout California here.

Postscript: I’ve had requests for better copies of the photos. You’ll find them in my Flickr set here.

One of the reasons the city of Newport Beach claims that it must increase the rents on residential piers is due, in part, to SB 152, a bill authored by California State Senator Fran Pavley. However, Pavley’s office tells me it doesn’t apply.

You can read more about SB 152 here and here. It required the State Land Commission to charge fair market rents for piers that it manages. But the bill made no mention of Newport Beach (as opposed to nearby Huntington Harbour) when it was being discussed, as you can find on Pavley’s site.

I contacted her office noting that Newport Beach wasn’t listed and asking if the senator felt whether property taxes already paid by pier owners should be taken into account in setting fair market rates. I got this response back from her spokesperson Liz Fenton:

Newport Beach’s proposed action does not have anything to do with SB 152.  A quick read of the Newport Beach FAQ on Rental Rates for Residential Piers in Newport Harbor [see here] shows: “The obligation to charge fair market rental value is in the California Constitution (Article XVI, Section 6), in the Newport Beach Municipal Code, and in State law (the ‘Beacon Bay Bill’).”

According to the §17.05.080  of the City of Newport Beach Harbor Code, the Beacon Bay Bill was Chapter 74, Statutes of 1978.  That bill (AB 1422, Cordova) granted the City of Newport Beach title to the tide lands and submerged lands subject to certain conditions.  One of the conditions is that the lease of tide lands and submerged lands must be at the fair market rental value.

It appears that the City of Newport Beach is simply attempting to comply with 35 year old legislation.

The FAQ page actually does have the city citing SB 152, like this:

A law passed in 2011 (SB 152, Pavley) directed the State Lands Commission (SLC) to begin charging fair market rental value to residential or recreational piers up and down the state. The State Lands Commission is  the agency that oversees our City’s administration of the State tidelands of Newport Harbor. They are, in effect, our landlord. If you look to the State Lands Commission’s website and review recent and upcoming agendas, you will see significant activity involving changes in rent in Huntington Harbor and other places where the SLC controls recreational piers.

The city has repeatedly cited SB 152′s provisions to justify its change. It doesn’t rely solely on this, but certainly it seems it should stop citing this particular bit of legislation.

As for the Beacon Bay bill, the folks at Stop The Dock Tax, in reading through my previous post and the city’s reliance on that legislation to raise rates, said this:

The Beacon Bay bill calls for charging “fair market value” rent only on the residential parcels of Beacon Bay!  Kiff has consistently said the Dock Tax increase is required by the Beacon Bay bill, an incorrect statement.

My past articles on this topic:

• The Dock Tax: Why The Newport Beach Boat Parade Is Being Boycotted.
• What’s A Fair Market Rate For Newport Harbor Residential Piers?

Next Tuesday, the Newport Beach City Council meets again about assessing fair market rental rates on residential docks. But what’s the fair market rate for space over pubic waters that’s unlikely to be rented to anyone but the adjacent property owner? That’s a key question I’ve had in the current debate over proposed increases. Newport Beach spokesperson Tara Finnigan has sent me some answers, in conjunction with talking with city manager Dave Kiff.

I contacted Finnigan this week with several questions via email. She spoke with Kiff and provided the responses below.

Question

Has the state suggested to the city that it is somehow not charging appropriately for residential pier permits?

Answer

No, but we think it’s risky to wait until they do. Dave suggested a couple of examples. The first, is the State Auditor’s report to the State Lands Commission chastising the Commission (the City’s landlord) on how the Commission has administered its own properties (August 2010) [I believe this is the report]. The next is SB 152 (Pavley) [see here and here for more about this].

We’re also sensitive to the fact that we have a supermajority in the State Legislature, as well as a Governor of the same party, – all representing a State in need of revenue – that could look to the tidelands trust properties. Our concern is that the State could ask us to make up for past “short falls” or give up the tidelands to the State so they can collect the revenue.

Question

If not [if the state hasn't asked the city to charge more], why is the city changing the fees so dramatically?

Answer

See above. The increase will be phased in over five years. It’s actually less than what the appraisers themselves thought was FMV [fair market value] (because it only applies to the docks + dockable space). By 2017, most will see fees at $500 – $1,000/year. Not $10,000 and certainly not the $30,000 figure that some have suggested.

Question

I get that the Beacon Bay Bill has this whole thing about recovering cost of services for “fair market rental value” though it also says, “where appropriate,” if this is the right text of the bill. But nothing in it says that residential charges aren’t appropriate.

The only real challenge the city seems to have had was over the offshore moorings as part of the Grand Jury report about harbor moorings. That report doesn’t seem to be critical of residential moorings. The only mention I find of those is that it doesn’t seem to even know how they got offered in the first place. It doesn’t suggest there’s any type of gift of public funds going on.

Answer

The Beacon Bay bill shouldn’t be looked at in isolation.  The Gift of Public Funds clause of the CA Constitution has even greater weight.

The Grand Jury has never looked at anything but moorings – that’s all that was in their scope.

Again, the Grand Jury didn’t look at residential piers.

Question

What’s the city’s position if people give up their piers? The city can’t do onshore moorings, since it can’t anchor to private sea walls. Are there any restrictions to whether it can make use of those public waters for any type of public mooring?

Answer

It depends on where the pier is. Technically, all of the private piers along Balboa Island could be removed and the same space assigned to someone else – fairly easily. (The Bay Front Walk divides the Balboa Island homes from the piers.)

For piers along the Peninsula or Bayside, the City or a new permittee would have to install a mooring device that did not touch private property, including private sea walls.

Offshore moorings could do this, so could piers extended out from street ends – but the latter is highly unlikely.

It is more likely that if someone did not want to pay the fee, they would abandon and remove the dock and that space would either be vacant or have an onshore mooring placed there with no connection to the adjacent private property.

Thanks to Finnigan and Kiff for the responses. I’m expecting to do one further post before the coming city council meeting, putting them in perspective alongside some other issues.

The Daily Pilot also has a Q&A that it posted this week on some of the issues involved. In terms what I’ve covered above, this is an relevant section of that:

According to Sheri Pemberton, the State Lands Commission external affairs division chief, if the city doesn’t comply, the commission can let city officials know they are in violation of the regulations and possibly work it out. Depending on the city’s response, the commission could pursue legal action.

She said the commission periodically reviews jurisdictions’ income and expenditures to ensure that “the revenues are being used in a manner that’s consistent with the grant.”

For those seeking background on the issue, please see my previous post, The Dock Tax: Why The Newport Beach Boat Parade Is Being Boycotted.

Remember, the meeting will be held at 4pm Tuesday, December 11 in the old council chambers on the Balboa Peninsula, not in the new chambers at Fashion Island as was originally the plan.

Postscript: See my follow-up post, SB 152 Doesn’t Apply To Newport Beach Residential Piers

Next week is the 104th Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade, an amazing and fun tradition in my city that until now has only failed to run during World War I and World War II. Now it’s under threat from a different war, one some residential dock owners are waging against the Newport Beach City Council, over proposed dock rent increases of 500% to 3000%.

I’m going to be writing what’s popularly become known as “The Dock Tax” by residents opposed to the City Council change over the coming few days, exploring different issues of it. In this piece, I’ll give an overview of the issue and how the boat parade came to be involved.

Let me also make clear that that the Newport Boat Parade hasn’t been canceled. It’ll still continue, and for the many visitors who come for it, the boycott might not be that noticeable. It really depends on how many residential dock owners decide to “go dark” during the event.

Private Docks, Public Waters

At issues are about 1,000 private docks in front of residential homes in Newport Beach. The docks are built over public land, state tidelands, to be specific. The city manages these waters on behalf of the state and collects a usage fee. Currently, that fee is $100 per dock, regardless of size or number of boats moored.

Good luck if you want to learn more about the current permit process at the city web site, by the way. The city’s main “Harbor Resources” page has a link to a page supposedly to answer questions about non-commercial pier permits, but that’s actually all about commercial piers. It has a page about how to transfer your pier licence to a new homeowner, but it offers nothing about what’s in the current agreement with residents and so on.

Good luck if you call the city, also. I tried twice, on two different days, last week, to get a copy of my own agreement. I’m still waiting for any city employee to get back to me.

Still, the public knows that the current fee is $100 because of all the attention on what the city wants to increase it to be, which is, well, it’s complicated — and very rushed.

City Seeks “Fair Market” Rates

You see, the city has been reviewing how much it charges for all types of facilities in the harbor, to ensure it’s keeping in line with state law that requires it charges a fair market value for public land use. The city especially uses some fear that it could get accused of making a gift of public funds if it doesn’t increase fees despite the state not apparently making any threats or demands that it’s not already charging enough.

That’s why last month, commercial rates went up from around 36 cents per square foot to $1.68, a 450% jump. Now it’s time for residential dock owners to be similarly aligned.

The city held a workshop on November 19, just a few days before Thanksgiving, to discuss the proposal to raise what it calls a rent and what many opponents call a tax. The presentation can be found here. It suggested that residential owners should be charged $0.525 per year based on the size of their dock, waters within an internal slip and 10 feet of “usable waters” around a dock.

Despite knowing what was proposed, the city sent no estimated bills to any of the dock owners. It was left to owners, who received small postcards information them of a “rent change,” to figure out that this all meant they’d be paying $500 to $3000. Or maybe nothing, if they could figure out if their docks were over private waters.

The City Council Meets

I didn’t make that workshop. I didn’t even know it was happening, perhaps because I just moved into a new house with a dock, so maybe the postcard came before we arrived. I did make it to the city council meeting last week, however, which was packed with people upset about the change.

There were many concerns, ranging from whether residents would have to maintain costly and perhaps impossible-to-obtain insurance to indemnify to city to whether the fair marke value of the docks was fairly assessed. You can read more about it in this Daily Pilot article.

I’d say the biggest concern over all of those was that no one wanted the city to rush ahead with making a decision. While no one wants to pay more for something than they have to, I wouldn’t say there was mass opposition to a fee increase. Rather, there was mass opposition to the city pushing ahead with something that many there felt hadn’t been explored enough.

The Council Pushes Ahead

To its credit, the city council didn’t vote to approve a change then and there. Largely, there were so many unanswered questions that it couldn’t. But it also didn’t vote to hold further workshops or discussions. Instead, it voted to take the matter up again on December 11.

Ironically, this will be the first council meeting held in Newport Beach’s new, expensive city hall, a construction of some controversy in the city and one that will be scrutinized even more when the council debates whether it needs to extract more money from its citizens despite having a huge budget surplus.

Postscript (Dec. 4): The city has decided the meeting will now remain in the old council chambers, as it’s not certain if the overflow area in the new chambers will be ready.

The Boycott Goes Ahead

If the council had voted to explore the issue more, the threatened boycott of the parade probably wouldn’t have faded away. Instead, pushing ahead has caused the Stop The Dock Tax group to move forward with a boycott. That image above is an example of door hangers that were distributed over the weekend.

As said, the parade will no doubt continue. Perhaps some private dock owners might not put a few boats in it or pull out from planned participation. More likely, many homes throughout the harbor will switch off their lights.

I don’t actually agree with the boycott, but I certainly can understand why many dock owners feel powerless and as if this is the only thing they can do.

Again, I’ll explore some of the issues more in the coming days. Personally, I’m:

• Not opposed to a reasonable fee hike (I want to support public lands)
• Question the “fair market value” of docks the city probably wouldn’t rent if they didn’t exist
• Question the choice of not charging for boats actually moored
• Have concerns about how the fees might escalate over the years

It’s also easy to write the issue off as something that a bunch of rich people are complaining about. That overlooks the fact that some already pay extremely high amounts of property tax already, in part based on the value of having a dock.

More than anything, however, I was struck by the large number of senior citizens at the meeting, who purchased homes back before when Newport Beach real estate was so expensive and question how they’re going to afford the new rates.

At the very least, the city could take its time to explore this all more in a series of workshops. That doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask for.

I’ll update this post with links to future posts that I do. In the meantime, some resources if you want to learn more:

• City Of Newport Beach resources page for residential dock owners
• Stop The Dock Tax
• Daily Pilot articles on the topic

Postscript: See my follow-up posts:

• What’s A Fair Market Rate For Newport Harbor Residential Piers?
• SB 152 Doesn’t Apply To Newport Beach Residential Piers

I-110 Express Lanes, from LA Metro ExpressLanes site

Orange County has a number of tollroads run by Transportation Corridor Agencies. We have little “FasTrak” transponders in our cars, stuck to our windshields, and we pay a toll on the infrequent occasions we use one of these. But with LA County getting its first tollroad, it suddenly made much more sense to abandon my “home” tollroad agency and go cross-border to LA MetroExpressLanes.

I discovered all this when I found I’d been charged for using the new Metro ExpressLanes on the I-110 Harbor Freeway. Previously, these were carpool lanes. Technically, they still are. If you have two or more people in your car (important note to come), you don’t get charged. But if you want to use them solo, now you can pay a variable toll, if you have a FasTrak transponder.

Now for that important note. Going down the 110 earlier this month, and seeing that carpools were still free, we used the lanes, wondering how they would tell we were a carpool. Our FasTrak transponder beeped a couple of times along the way, indicating that there may have been a charge. And, there sure was.

As it turns out, if you don’t want to get charged, and you’re a carpool, you have to use a “switchable transponder.” I’ve never seen one of these, but I assume there’s a switch you flip to broadcast that you have a carpool, so that you won’t be charged (and no doubt, there’s spot checks that happen to help enforce against abuse).

I discovered all this when I contacted the TCA, my home agency that I rent my transponders through. The TCA doesn’t have switchable transponders. It’ll be getting them next year, I was told. Moreover, it suggested that I close my TCA account and open one with LA, if I didn’t want to wait. From the email I got:

A switchable transponder is required for eligible carpools that want to use the I-110 and I-10 LA Metro Express Lanes for toll-free travel. A switchable transponder enables the driver to switch the dial on the transponder to indicate the number of passengers in their vehicle when traveling on the I-110 and I-10 Express Lanes.

Due to high demand, we regret to inform you that we do not have any switchable 3-way transponders in stock at this time. At the time of this e-mail, we are unable to provide you with an anticipated restocking time frame.

If you need the switchable 3-way transponder, it may be in your best interest to close your FasTrak account with our toll agency and create a new FasTrak account with LA Metro Express Lanes.  They may be reached at www.metroexpresslanes.net.

First, consider this a warning to anyone without a switchable tresponder and a suggestion to LA. Nothing on that freeway says you need one. The signs simply say that you need a FasTrak transponder, not some switchable one, so I’m sure a few out-of-area drivers are getting hit for tolls because of poor signage.

Second, decisions, decisions! One annoying thing is that the TCA charges you $2 per month as a “maintenance” fee per transponder, whether you use a toll road or not. If you spend more than $25 in tolls, this fee is waived. That’s good for frequent drivers; not so good for the infrequent ones.

LA is charging $1 more, or $3 per month maintenance. What’s not clear is if that is per transponder or for the account overall. If it’s per transponder, you pay more. If it’s per account, and you have more than one car, you’re going to save a bit.

Similar to OC, the monthly fee is waived, though this is based on making four one-way trips in a month. But better, it’s totally waived through early 2013 until the new I-10 lanes are approved.

That’s what tipped me over to switch for now. On the odd occasion I go into LA, I’m usually driving alone, and using the tollroads will be great. I can use their transponder, with no monthly fee for the next few months and perhaps even at a lower fee than OC. I’ll see how it goes.