State’s housing expectations give skeptics of government something new to worry about

Some people just don’t trust government, and the bigger the branch, the greater the distrust. The most trustworthy, according to government skeptics, would be council members of a very small town, maybe a community of a dozen or so inhabitants.

Officeholders in major cities like L.A. or Chicago would get no trust at all. Council members in a city like Thousand Oaks would fall somewhere in the middle.

According to this theory, the farther you get from home, the greater the mistrust. At the county level, there’s greater likelihood of corruption compared to city hall. At the state level, almost everyone is untrustworthy.

We don’t need to tell you what a government skeptic thinks of anyone who serves in Washington, D.C., whether it’s Congress or the White House.

If we aren’t government skeptics, maybe we should be.

The state of California says that the Golden State will need many affordable dwellings by the year 2014. Every city will be assigned a target. To comply, the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) calls for Thousand Oaks to accept 1,081 dwelling units of affordable housing.

The Ventura Council of Governments (VCOG) reshuffles the cards and says T.O. should accommodate a mind-boggling 5,408 dwellings.

The VCOG figure is totally inconsistent with our city’s General Plan, and completely ignores the fact that we don’t have the land or the infrastructure or even the space for the students that 5,408 homes will produce.

When asked about Measure E, the county’s plan to restrict new residential development, city attorney Amy Albano said the state of California doesn’t care about self-imposed measures to control growth.

When it comes to housing, the real power sits in Sacramento.

And the government skeptics’ theory seems all the more credible.