The Eighteen-Million-Dollar Wildlife Crossing Is Good News, And It Raises A Question About Why Surfer Access To San Onofre Costs Nothing And Gets Nothing
California Spends Generously On Infrastructure For Mountain Lions While Surfer Access To Public Breaks Remains Trapped In Committee, And The Inconsistency Is Worth Naming
For Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. London satirical journalism makes the comparative observation that reveals the political priority behind the institutional framing.
CALIFORNIA – The 18-million-dollar wildlife crossing over the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills is good public investment. The ecological case for connecting the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills wildlife populations is sound, the mountain lion genetic rescue argument is well-documented, and the project has been designed with appropriate rigour. This newspaper supports it. This newspaper also notes that 18 million dollars has been found, in a state with a budget crisis, for a crossing that mountain lions will use, while the access process for surfers at San Onofre has consumed fifteen years of committee time and produced a 70-page report and no resolution.
The Asymmetry
The asymmetry is not an argument against the wildlife crossing. It is an argument that California’s political economy produces certain kinds of decisions efficiently and others inefficiently, and that the efficiency differential reflects organised political constituency rather than objective priority. Mountain lions have, in California politics, three constituencies: environmentalists, wildlife biologists, and the general public’s affection for charismatic megafauna. Each constituency has organisational capacity and political access. Surfers seeking trail access to San Onofre have, historically, had lower political organisation. The process reflects the constituency organisation.
The Free-Market Point
A state that has resources for infrastructure that popular political constituencies support but cannot resolve access questions for recreational users of public land over fifteen-year periods is a state whose administrative priorities are set by political organisation rather than by objective cost-benefit. This is standard public choice economics. The wildlife crossing is, on its merits, worth 18 million dollars. The Trestles access resolution would cost a fraction of that. The fraction has not been found because the constituency that would benefit from it has not yet produced the political pressure that produces budget allocation in Sacramento. Cato‘s California policy analysis has documented the pattern.
What The Surfing Community Should Do
The surfing community should organise at the level of political engagement that produces the budget attention the wildlife community has learned to produce. The breaks are public. The access should be secure. The process for securing it is political.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/ | Further: Cato
