From Paul Shoop, a retired attorney who lives in “an enclave of multimillion-dollar homes off curving Malibu Canyon Road,” on the LA water board’s proposal to ban septic tanks and install a modern sewer system in Malibu:
It’s like living in a Third World country not to have sewers. But nobody wants to pay that sort of exorbitant fee. If we need a sewer system, you expect government to provide that service.
Quite so. Municipal services should appear magically for wealthy communities like Malibu.
Of course, the proposed fee for the new sewer system really is pretty exorbitant. But a big part of the reason for that is because Malibu is so sparsely settled, which means the cost of the system gets divided up among a small number of homeowners. And why is Malibu so sparsely settled? Because the current wealthy homeowners like it that way. Apparently they just don’t like paying the price.
