Tag: Ghost Town

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Almost Immediately the City of Tustin Began Selling Off their “Free Toxic Hangar Land” to Developers – Who In Turn – Sold it Off as Apartment Homes – Offices – Shopping Centers – Medical Buildings and to “Home Builders” and then – to “You” – But Now – Your Dream Home Property Value “Just Got Reduced to “Junk” Status” – Where Did All that Money Go? Orange County Assessor: Tustin Fire Could Tank Property Values.

Orange County Assessor: Tustin Fire Could Tank Property Values

BY NOAH BIESIADA

Tustin homeowners could see a drop in their property taxes after an old air base hangar burned to the ground, showering the surrounding area in ash and debris containing asbestos.

“This is a disaster,” said County Assessor Claude Parrish in an interview. “You think anyone’s going to want to buy your home right now? No, it’s economic damage.”

“The damage could be for years,” he continued. “Who wants to buy something when you’re near that?”

Now, the county tax assessor is sending out over 23,000 notices to homeowners surrounding the ruins of the hangar, notifying them that they need to submit applications if they want their property values reassessed due to any damage to their homes.

Parrish, who lives near the hangar, said he tried to avoid going home during the fire because he could see the asbestos showering over his house.

“I’ve had flakes as big as a half an inch square,” Parrish said. “We had to put up with that for days.”

It’s unclear just how many homes could see an adjustment, with the letters noting the assessor will “make value adjustments as appropriate,” and stating that any property that suffered over $10,000 in damage “may be eligible for a temporary value adjustment.”

Property taxes are one of the pillars that fund cities and local school boards, meaning any adjustment could see a dip in funding for the agencies that rely on them.

For example, property taxes contributed roughly $23 million to Tustin’s overall $84 million general fund budget during its last fiscal year.

However, Parrish noted it was too early to make any determination on what the impact would be to local tax collection.

Tustin Mayor Austin Lumbard criticized the roll out of the notices, saying the assessor’s office didn’t send any messages to the city and he found out about the issue when it showed up in his own mailbox.

“The assessor sending something out about property damage without coordinating with anyone … could potentially lead to unnecessary alarm for other residents,” Lumbard said in a Monday interview. “Getting a letter like this is not helpful.”

Parrish said he isn’t required to work with any local agencies, and that he’s required by law to run tests like this after a major fire.

“There’s a loss in value definitely, the question is how much,” Parrish said. “We’re going to do a survey and find out how much.”

The Future of the Hangars

The final pieces of the hangar came down last Thursday, when demolition crews knocked down the doors that have stood since the 1940s – the last piece of the hangar that was still standing following the fire.

The future of the land is also up in the air, after Tustin leaders shot down plans from the county government to turn the spot into a regional park because they took too long to develop it.

The south hangar, which was unaffected by the blaze that burned down the hangar to the north, is also still waiting on future plans, but the site is too expensive for most people to use according to Lumbard.

“I probably get a call every week with someone who has an idea for it,” Lumbard said. “When we get to the point of actually engaging with these folks and explain the challenges, how there’s no active utilities, the challenges of cost and upkeep, they often back away.”

The city has already budgeted $8 million to try and get the hangar to the point that it can operate, and occasionally hosts events there, but right now it’s still costing the city money every year.

“We’re interested in talking with the right folks,” Lumbard said. “But it’s going to take someone with serious financing to come in.”

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @NBiesiada.

Orange County Assessor: Tustin Fire Could Tank Property Values
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Tustin California Pleas for More Help from Navy, State in Hangar Fire Aftermath – Could Hangar Fire Bankrupt the City?

City leaders are pleading for more help from the state and federal government to support cleanup efforts in the fallout from the massive hangar fire that broke out almost a month ago at the closed Marine Corps Air Station Tustin.

“We need the Navy to not only step up in terms of funding, but in terms of actively leading the recovery effort,” Mayor Austin Lumbard said Tuesday. “The city has filled the void in the interim, but now that the fire is extinguished, we’re really looking for the Navy to take ownership of their property and their recovery leadership.”

Officials said the city has depleted what it could take from its reserves to fund asbestos testing and cleanup in the public and residential areas surrounding the burnt northern hangar and are counting on other government agencies to step up.

Cleanup costs are expected to be in the tens of millions for addressing in the surrounding neighborhoods. Lumbard called the $1 million the Navy committed early on “grossly insufficient.”

Navy officials on Wednesday said the service has been working with the city since day one of the fire and in no way is shirking its responsibilities or its share of funding.

“We are working on an amendment to an agreement to provide additional funding,” said Chris Dunne, a Navy spokesman. “We knew the $1 million wasn’t going to do it. The Navy fully intends to support what the city is doing and fund that to the fullest amount we can.”

Dunne acknowledged that setting up the funding agreement has taken weeks, but expects more money to make its way to the city in days. Officials are now figuring out the Navy’s financial responsibility and what will be covered, he said.

“It’s just one of those tedious processes of getting the language just right and trying to remember through this whole process that we’re talking about people and the community and taking care of people and not getting too bogged down in process at a time when the help is needed,” Dunne said.

The City Council on Tuesday asked to continue efforts to pressure local, state and federal officials for help with the response. City leaders are also asking for additional health guidance from the county health agency. Residents have peppered local leaders with questions about what is and isn’t safe to do in and around their homes, such as walking dogs or using outdoor barbecue pits.

All the councilmembers echoed the calls for help. Councilmember Letitia Clark implored the county public health director for clearer answers about “simple things.”

When asked Wednesday for comment, a representative of the OC Health Care Agency sent a link to Tustin’s North hangar fire community resource page.

Clark said the emergency is not over and the city still needs help from higher levels of government.

“There were a lot of promises made that we would have that support and it’s kind of dwindled as time has gone by,” Clark said.

Tustin declared a local emergency on Nov. 10 and the county followed up with its own on Nov. 13. Both times the city and county each asked the governor to declare a state of emergency.

“The governor has yet to act,” Lumbard said. “We are committed to getting that state help that we ultimately need to free up some resources for our recovery.”

Since the fire’s outbreak, the Navy has deferred to the city for what the next steps are, Dunne said, because “the Navy is not equipped to handle this type of response compared to what local officials can do.”

Regarding the hangar footprint, the Navy will lead the cleanup there and hire experts and contractors. While no exact timeline has been set for that, Dunne said he expects that to happen “in the next few weeks.”

“We’ll look at what needs to be deconstructed from the site and removed all the debris,” he said, adding that at present a product that seals the debris in place has been put over the site to “create a crust.”

Work is expected to begin Thursday, Dec. 7, to take down the 120-foot tall hangar doors that remain standing, officials said. Cranes and rigging have already been set up around the hangar and removing the doors will take about two weeks.

After the fire was confirmed completely extinguished on Dec. 1, the Orange County Fire Authority stepped down from leading the Incident Management Team and disaster recovery contractors from Innovative Emergency Management will now lead the team.

Colin Cummings, an official with IEM, said during a presentation to the City Council Tuesday that debris will not be removed from the site during door deconstruction.

“The Navy will be responsible for all debris removals from (the) incident site, and is working to assign a contractor at this time to perform that work,” Cummings said. “When the Navy is ready to start taking that material off the incident site, we will be increasing (air) monitoring just because of all the additional risks of breaking that material apart, and removing it into those containers and taking it off site.”

The Navy has yet to explain how it plans to address remediation on the entire site, Lumbard said. Air monitoring will remain active surrounding the hangar until the site has been completely cleaned by the Navy.

Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, who represents Tustin, sent a letter on Tuesday to the Navy asking for an update on its efforts and if it would commit to expanding debris cleanup and reimbursing people who have paid for asbestos remediation out of pocket.

The city on Wednesday hosted its first community Zoom meeting to provide updates on recovery efforts. OCFA Division Chief Scott Wiedensohler said in the meeting that more than 60% of the surrounding community has been cleaned up as of Dec. 1.

Future community meetings will be 10 a.m. on Wednesdays. Residents are asked to send new questions and requests regarding the hangar fire to [email protected].

Tustin pleas for more help from Navy, state in hangar fire aftermath
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CAL AMSTERDAM – California Sees Mass Legal Cannabis Exodus – Jerry Garcia’s Grateful Dead cannabis brand is leaving California

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Jerry Garcia is one of the most iconic pot smokers in California history. Born in San Francisco, Garcia led the Grateful Dead for 30 years as the city became an international beacon of counterculture, and he did it all while casually and openly smoking weed. His pot pipe is considered an artifact of California cannabis history.

But even the iconic Jerry Garcia name couldn’t survive California’s turbulent legal pot market.

The Garcia Hand Picked brand, launched by the deceased musician’s family in 2020, has pulled out of the state, a spokesperson confirmed to SFGATE. Garcia’s exit comes as cannabis insiders predict a “mass extinction event” for California’s pot industry, with thousands of companies expected to go out of business this year.

Andrew DeAngelo, a cannabis consultant and former owner of Harborside, one of the state’s pioneering medical cannabis dispensaries, said the Garcia brand probably learned the same thing that all of California’s pot companies have realized: “You can’t make any money in this market.”

“Not only is Garcia leaving, a lot of people are leaving,” DeAngelo told SFGATE. “It’s a real shame that California is losing out. We’re losing out on jobs and economic activity and other places are benefiting from that.”

Garcia Hand Picked, like most celebrity brands, contracted out its cannabis growing and manufacturing to partner companies and then stamped Jerry Garcia’s face on the packaging. The company said they are looking for a new cannabis supplier, but declined to be interviewed for this story and did not elaborate on how long the brand would be on hiatus in California. Garcia Hand Picked is still available in five other states.

“We’re taking a pause in California. We want to ensure CA consumers have the highest quality flower for the long term, so we are in the process of choosing a new local partner for cultivation, production, sales and distribution of Garcia Hand Picked in CA,” a spokesperson from Holistic Industries, the brand’s parent company, said in an email to SFGATE.

California’s cannabis industry has faced huge economic hurdles in its first four years of legal sales. The state’s complicated cannabis regulations and high taxes add costs to legal operators, while widespread illegal farms and retailers undercuts legitimate companies. Limited access to banking means these companies pay exorbitant fees for simple banking services and have almost no access to loans. Federal law blocks pot companies from deducting most business taxes from their federal taxes, making pot businesses pay an effective federal tax rate as high as 80%.

These factors have come together to make California a painful place to run a legal pot business. The majority of small legacy cannabis farms are on their way out of business and even the country’s biggest cannabis companies are leaving the state.

Nearly a dozen states had legalized cannabis by the time Jerry Garcia’s surviving family members decided to start a pot brand built around the Grateful Dead frontman, who died of a heart attack in 1995. But the Garcias chose to launch their brand in California, the same place that Jerry was born, spearheaded an artistic movement, and died.

The Golden State featured prominently in that initial launch. An airstream painted with swirling psychedelic colors crisscrossed the state in late 2020 announcing the new brand. Esquire profiled the family as they smoked a bong in Oakland and asked, “If Jerry Garcia were a kind of weed, what would the high feel like?” The family told Esquire they were planning on opening a Jerry Garcia-themed cannabis consumption lounge at a dispensary in San Francisco, which never materialized.

Nearly a dozen states had legalized cannabis by the time Jerry Garcia’s surviving family members decided to start a pot brand built around the Grateful Dead frontman, who died of a heart attack in 1995. But the Garcias chose to launch their brand in California, the same place that Jerry was born, spearheaded an artistic movement, and died.

The Golden State featured prominently in that initial launch. An airstream painted with swirling psychedelic colors crisscrossed the state in late 2020 announcing the new brand. Esquire profiled the family as they smoked a bong in Oakland and asked, “If Jerry Garcia were a kind of weed, what would the high feel like?” The family told Esquire they were planning on opening a Jerry Garcia-themed cannabis consumption lounge at a dispensary in San Francisco, which never materialized.

The Garcia brand’s departure is also a sign that customers could be getting tired of celebrity pot brands. There are so many famous people selling weed that even the rock stars are noticing that it might not be an easy business to get into: David Crosby told the Los Angeles Times last year that he wanted to start his own pot brand but said, “Celebrity brands didn’t turn out to work nearly as well as anyone thought they were gunna.”

Indeed, Garcia Hand Picked isn’t even the first Grateful Dead pot brand. Drummer Mickey Hart launched his own pre-rolled joint brand called Mind your Head in 2019, although that brand also appears to be on hiatus. Its website is down and a brand representative could be contacted for this story.

Garcia Hand Picked and Mind Your Head could come back to the state, but for now, Deadheads in California will have to get by without smoking any cannabis blessed by the legendary band.

https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/jerry-garcia-cannabis-leaving-california-17741843.php

Hangar Fire - "Without Litigation" - City of Tustin Already On the Hook for $90 Million in Clean-Up Costs - "Not Including the Actual Hangar Property" - and Heading for a Billion Dollars - Developers Likely Not Off the Hook Either - Property Value Assessments Undergoing Official Review - Ask Yourself - Would You Buy or Rent at the Tustin Legacy - Remember there's "Another" Hangar Too
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