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: KeithBohr@aol.com; 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.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.