California's Bureaucracy And A Park Restroom

26 January 2004 - 11:00am

An attempt to build a park restroom exemplifies the California's inane bureaucracy.

"Let's say the bathroom is to be built outdoors, near a man-made pond in Elk Grove Regional Park, as, indeed, is proposed... Then, a district staff member -- say, Fred Bremerman, advance planning and operations superintendent -- must prepare a study showing that the restroom would not significantly affect the environment and therefore the district does not need to prepare a lengthy and costly environmental impact report... The district's board again, the county park commission and the county Board of Supervisors each need to assent."

Source: The Sacramento Bee, January 25, 2004
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All of that only scratches the surface of what's wrong with this study. The idea that complex urban development patterns and human behavior can be meaningfully studied according to one primary criteria — density — is wrong from the start.