Keith Bohr: Growing the revenue necessary

THE RACE FOR CITY COUNCIL

Name: Keith Bohr

Age: 41

Occupation: Small business owner/real estate consultant

Family: Single, no children; three younger brothers.

Community Activities: Orangewood Children’s Home; board of the

Orangewood PALS, an auxiliary of Orangewood Children’s Foundation,

director of kids events and sits on the Scholarship Committee; a

court-appointed special advocate for a teenage boy who is in the

foster care system; the Sister City Board; and a volunteer driver for

the Council on Aging’s “Volunteer Van.”

Education: Bachelor’s in political science from Illinois State

University; master’s in urban management and planning from Arizona

State University; and real-estate-related courses from UC Irvine’s

Extension program.

Favorite Leader: Paul Hewson (a.k.a. Bono, lead singer of U2) .

Contact Information: [email protected]; www.keithbohr.org;

day phone: (714) 536-5888; cell phone: (714) 315-2143.

BOHR ON:

* CITY COUNCIL DISTRICTS:

I am against the proposed five-district system. I think going from

seven to five elected representatives is bad for residents, who are

simply less represented with two less council members. Often, a

district-elected council member is less interested and less motivated

to care about issues that are geographically sensitive. If an issue

involves someone else’s district, members might defer to that council

member’s preference, and sometimes trade votes. The fact that

residents would only get to vote for one council member every four

years is also a very undeniable outcome. It seems to me the most

valid reason for proposing such a system would be because four or

more City Council members were from the same part of town. However,

this is not the case here. In fact, four of the five proposed

districts are currently represented.

* PROPOSITION 50:

I think it would be ideal if the mesa could be preserved as open

space, but I also believe the existing property owner would have to

be compensated for its land. Therefore, I am strongly advocating for

the passage of Proposition 50. Both the environmental groups and the

property owners are for it, so it’s a win-win proposition. The state

water quality bond includes a provision to set aside $300 million to

acquire wetlands and protect watershed in Southern California and is

our best opportunity to provide the appropriate funding for the

purchase of the wetlands.

* DEVELOPMENT:

We need high-quality development that conforms to existing zoning

and design guidelines and is compatible with its neighborhoods and

mitigates all traffic, parking and noise issues. We are nearly fully

built out in Huntington Beach today, so most of the development to

take place in the years to come will be in-fill redevelopment.

We should encourage the renovation of our aging retail centers in

an effort to increase the city’s sales tax revenues. We should do all

we can to attract sales-tax generators to our industrial and office

developments. We have to increase our income in order to maintain

quality services. We need to resist the temptation to increase

density within our single-family residential neighborhoods.

* WATER QUALITY:

Drinking water is absolutely an issue. Long term, we must look at

how we continue to provide both quality and quantity drinking water

to our residents. Our groundwater supply is not unlimited, and we

must look at ways to conserve, as well as replenish our capacity. We

need to consistently conduct long-term planning analysis of our water

needs in order to ensure we have water for the foreseeable future.

This can be attained by conversation, recycling and keeping up on the

development of new technologies (e.g., desalination).

As for ocean water, we are on the right path. Most experts seem to

agree it’s a combination of things, which certainly includes urban

runoff. Another is the partially treated sewage that the Orange

County Sanitation District pumps 4 1/2 miles out into our ocean.

The City Council must keep the heat on the sanitation district to

implement the secondary treatment. Its projected time frame of 11

years is completely unacceptable.

The city’s infrastructure Committee puttogether a comprehensive

infrastructure report that identifies repairs needed to existing

infrastructure, as well as the purchase of new equipment that will

assist in the curbing of urban runoff. We need to continue to keep

these issues at the forefront until we have identified all sources of

contamination and developed a program and funding source to mitigate

the problem.

* BIGGEST ISSUE FACING HUNTINGTON BEACH:

Our lack of sufficient revenues to cover the cost of services and

other liabilities is our biggest problem today. We need to

continually keep our costs down, while doing all we can to increase

our revenues until we get over the hump and grow ourselves out of

this deficit situation. If we do not grow our revenues, we will be

forced to cut services. That would lead to a lesser quality of life

than we have enjoyed to date.