This is an interesting question. It is estimated that 50% of the cost of a new San Diego home is the result of building regulations. This suggests that the State of California should take a look in the mirror for answers to affordable housing.

San Diego county comprises 4,526 square miles, most of which is uninhabited but further away from employment and commercial centers. This argues for rural road, water, sewer and utility expansion and much lower gasoline, water and electricity prices to make living affordable in undeveloped areas of the county.

Civility is a cultural product. Entertainment and news media glorify incivility. Drug abuse creates incivility. The institutions of family, education, religion, entertainment, sports, law enforcement and even the US military have been the guardrails of civility. Most of these are cultural, and beyond the reach of State government with the exception of K-12 public education.

Unfortunately K-12 education has been put at odds with two other cultural elements of civility; family and religion. Social indoctrination, which conflicts with family and religious values, occupies much of the time and resources that formerly went to K-12 education. This is part of the reason for the decline in civility and also the decline in California schools as revealed by their low ranking in competitive testing with other States.

The major division today is about the cause of climate change.

The Sun has short cycles and long cycles in which energy output varies, as the Sun's energy output changes so does Earth's climate.

To understand California's water resources we first have to appreciate that nature has given our State a 4 to 6 year wet-dry cycle. We do not have a simple yearly cycle as many think. Over that 4 to 6 year cycle California has on average per year 192 million acre-feet of rainfall, mostly in the north. According to the Federal USGS survey of 2010 California uses only 42 million acre-feet of water for ALL uses: Residential, Industrial, Commercial and Agricultural. Only 71 million acre-feet flows down California's rivers on average per year over the 4 to 6 year cycle. Every year of the 4 to 6 year cycle California on average receives about 430% more rain water than it consumes.

If we understand how agriculture works our water situation improves even more. What does a farmer do with water? It's simple, he moves water from one place in California then pours it onto the ground in another part of California. When water is used for Residential, Commercial and Industrial purposes it is contaminated by the process. The imported water the farmer pours on the ground adds to the ground water supply available for pumping.

Agriculture takes 60% of our 42 million acre-feet of consumption, that's about 25 million acre-feet. 42-25 leaves about 17 million acre-feet of consumption from Residential, Commercial and Industrial users.

We only contaminate about 17 million acre-feet of water per year but we receive 192 million acre-feet per year of fresh water on average over the 4 to 6 year cycle!!

Unfortunately our rainfall comes in deluges rather than evenly spread over the 4 to 6 year cycle. We saw this most recently in latter 2016 and early 2017 when the Oroville dam was almost breached from the torrential rains. Had we captured part of that deluge in new reservoirs we would not have to suffer another shortage 4 years from now when the drought is at its' worst. Instead we let all that excess water flow down the Feather river into the ocean.

In the mid-1800s Sacramento residents had to use canoes to navigate the city streets during floods. The first dams in Northern California weren't built to provide water but to protect from flooding the downstream flatlands. Water is a deadly hazard in the North but a precious commodity in the South. We should be able to make a deal!!

We did, it's called the SWP, State Water Project, that moves water from the Northern San Joaquin River Delta through man-made pipes and canals to Southern California.

Droughts do not have to cause water shortages if we capture the water when nature gives it to us. We have had our wet-dry cycle since California was discovered 500 years ago. It's time we learn to adjust to nature.

San Diego county only uses 550,000 acre-feet of water per year for ALL purposes. That leaves 16,450,000 acre-feet of water for the other Residential, Commercial and Industrial areas of the State.

California spends about $60 Billion per year on all levels of education. For that we receive a rank of 47th or 49th lowest K-12 student test scores in the nation. We have beautiful new K-12 campuses in our city, very comfortable teacher retirement plans and yearly compensation that can exceed $100,000 per year in many cases.

Clearly the students and taxpayers have been swindled. Are our schools for educating students or are they for employing teachers and administrators?

The evidence says the latter is true.

It is time to come to a sad but unavoidable conclusion. California's K-12 education system is an extravgantly expensive failure.

California used to have the best K-12 in the nation. Then around 2002 or 2003 it was broken and has remained so since.

Discover what broke it and it will become clear what will fix it.