LAI KeyNotes: August 2007

Letter from the President

Dr. James A. Fawcett

With our fall Land Economics Weekend and Biennial Congress just a couple of months away, I want to offer some highlights of the fall meeting and entice you to make early travel arrangements. Every two years, our Land Economics Weekend becomes the LAI Biennial Congress. This year it will be held in Los Angeles at the beautiful Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica. In addition to our accustomed city tours, at the Biennial we recognize our members and those in the land economics professions who have made noteworthy contributions during the previous two years.

First, a note concerning the October meeting schedule: we’ll hold all of our business meetings on Thursday, 18 October so that we can devote the balance of the weekend to our tours and other events. That will allow time for those of you not attending the business meetings to get settled at the hotel prior to the Thursday evening events. There will be a get-acquainted tea for members and spouses at the Fairmont Hotel in the afternoon hosted by the Los Angeles Chapter. Then the Biennial Congress will commence on Thursday evening with the President’s reception followed by dinner at which new members of the Los Angeles Chapter will be initiated. We are particularly pleased that Gail Goldberg, AICP, the new Planning Director of the City of Los Angeles and a member of the Los Angeles Chapter, will give the dinner remarks.

On Friday morning, there will be a Lambda Alpha orientation session for new chapter officers and chapter administrators. An important, not to be missed session. It is designed to give new chapter officers an overview of the organization, the informational resources available to them and a chance to ask questions of the LAI Executive Director and to gain perspective on the role of the International office. LAI leadership will attend as well. This is a great opportunity for your team to get off to a great start for their term in office.

Our tours begin at 10:30 where we’ll see the RAND Corporation’s new LEED headquarters in Santa Monica. This will be followed by a tour of the Westside of Los Angeles (Westwood, Century City, Beverly Hills) and then on to Hollywood where there are multiple renovation projects underway. From Hollywood, we'll
return to the Fairmont Hotel to give everyone a chance to relax and do dinner on the town as they choose. The LA Chapter will be available with all sorts of great restaurant recommendations.

On Saturday, the tour includes a major new urbanism infill project, Playa Vista, built on the former airport site of Hughes Helicopter (yes, that Hughes). Our tour will continue to downtown where we will see two recent winners of the LAI Skyline Award, Staples Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall. Other new development is underway that is changing the look and feel of the downtown and offers lessons in the lifecycle of downtowns. We’ll return to Santa Monica for some leisure time and will re-convene in the evening for the LAI Biennial Awards Reception and Banquet. Anthony Downs, renowned land economist and member of our George Washington Chapter will present the evening’s remarks.

I want to invite you to join us in Los Angeles. As our European Region Vice President, Karen Sieracki, has said, the Land Economics Weekends are a wonderful way to “get beneath the skin of a city.” We hope you’ll come to Los Angeles and join us in getting under the skin of LA.

Dr. James A. Fawcett
International President
fawcett@usc.edu

Editor’s Column

Helen Sause

Dear Colleagues: In the last KeyNotes I wrote of five issues* that seem paramount to the membership. Since we are preparing to go to our Biennial Congress where leadership teams for the chapters will gather to learn more about the LAI structure, communications and resources to make their job easier, the focus will be on organizational matters and communications this month.

President Fawcett has made it a priority for the chapter presidents to meet in Los Angeles and learn/review the basic LAI structure of the organization and how it functions. This should help the chapter leadership teams get off to a running start for their two-year terms. For example, when I served the Golden Gate chapter several years ago, I never realized there was a Regional Vice-President I could turn to for help/ information. I never really focused on the Land Economic Weekends nor the Annual/Biennial meetings as a place to find peers, discuss chapter issues, and understand where one could find models to consider for enhancing the Chapters’ practices (in KeyNotes of course!). This meeting in Los Angeles should be really beneficial to new presidents just starting out as well as those who have been around for a while.

Questions that occur to me we should ask each other include:

Do you have a Chapter Administrator? (Best thing since sliced bread believe me!) This position is critical. Having a professional dedicated to spending the hours you agree upon and doing the essential organizational work when you want it done makes a world of difference. It may also make it possible for someone who felt that they didn’t have time to be president reconsider. An administrator can also methodically build organizational files to assist in continuity.

The objectivity of an administrator is important. It may be generous for a member to provide some of their secretary/assistance’s time to act as the chapter’s administrator. Generally a BIG MISTAKE! Perfectly well meaning and sensible as it seems, that person has a job that will always need to take precedence over LAI work and they answer first and foremost to a person other than the president.
When do your new officers take office? End of the year? Or?
If all chapters started at the same time we could all be on the same footing, not having some people well into their term and others months away from appointment. Individuality is important but does it matter in this case?
· How is your new leadership team equipped to guide the chapter? What are the organizational files that are passed on? Do they have to start from scratch?
· Do you do forward planning? Or at least plan your programs long in advance so that the best speakers are available.
Exactly when does your chapter induct new members?
· Think about dues collection – does LAI International collect them for you?
There are many advantages to having the central office invoice, collection and follow up, not the least is the time saved!
· How are your membership lists kept current?
· What do you know of the actual structure of the LAI organization?
· Does your chapter have a scribe? It is great to have someone other than the members' secretary.
· Do you use the KeyNotes as a communication tool and remind your membership that this is one of LAI’s chapters’ ways to share organizational information?

Please have YOUR questions at the ready as these issues and others will be discussed in Los Angeles Friday morning. Our goal is to achieve an informational network between the chapters and LAI. Then there is the great benefit of just getting to know each other better.

Till next time! All the best.

Helen Sause
International Editor
helensause@alamedanet.net

*This isn’t a test to see if you read the July issue...the priorities suggested in the column were: Organizational Communication, Preservation of Assets, Preservation of Eminent Domain Capacity, Developers Role in Communities and fostering Professionalism and Ethical Standards. - Helen

Guest Editorial

Alan Nevin

by Alan Nevin
Market Pointe, Realty Advisors

Hello Colleagues!
I keep looking around for a national energy policy and can’t find one. I recently read a publication that quoted energy statements of every president from Nixon forward. Each had the goal of oil independence. When Richard Nixon was President, we imported 36% of our oil from foreign countries. In each successive presidency, the percentage has risen. Now it’s 65.5%.

After all, France gets 75% of its non-vehicular energy from nuclear plants and Brazil gets 40% of its transportation fuel from ethanol and is now a net exporter of oil.

Gas mileage standards (CAFÉ in government terms) haven’t changed since 1990 and are relatively meaningless since light trucks (including, of course, SUV’s) have a mandatory average of 20.3 miles per gallon.

I have this vague feeling that nobody in Washington really cares that our entire economy and the future of our nation is in the hands of folks who have no particular love for us. Perhaps most folks have forgotten the oil crisis of 1973 (and the quadrupling of oil prices) and the recent tripling of oil prices.

Over the past few years, I have been jotting down some common sense remedies for our oil dependence. Let me offer a few for non-vehicular energy saving:

A tax credit for installation of double pane windows, sliding glass doors and wall and ceiling insulation;
A tax credit for installation of tankless water heaters;
A tax credit for replacement of old refrigerators and stoves.
Mandatory instillation of electronic heating/cooling regulating devices;
Mandatory installation of water control devices on showers, irrigation systems, sinks, etc.
Mandatory installation of water sensors on irrigation systems.
Develop nuclear power plants, many of them.

As non-vehicular energy consumes 1/3rd of all energy in the nation, if we could save perhaps 30-40% on our non-vehicular bills it would go a long way toward oil independence.

Perhaps Lambda Alpha should come up with its own energy policy. Why shouldn’t we be at the forefront of a national energy movement? Let me issue a challenge: if you will send me one idea for energy conservation, I will blend it into a draft of a national energy policy. Then we’ll publish it in Keynotes for your critique and suggestions and then we will do a mass mailing to Congress and local elected officials.

Energy independence is not an unreachable goal. It just take guts by our elected officials and a little common sense. Very little. I await your input.

Alan Nevin
San Diego Chapter

Report from the 2007 Awards Committee

The highlight of the 2007 Biennial Congress in Los Angeles will be the gala Awards Dinner where trophies will be presented to the recipients of Lambda Alpha International Awards.

At the Executive Committee and the Board of Governors meeting, in Dublin, the Awards Committee presented a trophy design to be used for all awards given at LAI biennial events. The single trophy “look” will enhance the value of each individual award and recognition, and it will establish a permanent and unique symbol of achievement in the field of land economics. It will be known as the ELY.

The trophy, designed by Theresa Cardinale of Pasadena, California, contains a soaring flame of knowledge embracing the Lambda Alpha International Key.

The flame of knowledge symbolizes Professor Richard Ely’s emphasis on the academic study of land economics as a science. The LAI key represents the multiple disciplines of members’ professional practice. These two elements merge together in the advancement of the best use, interests and preservation of the land.

The flame and key sit on a wood base with a plaque identifying each Award, its citation and the current year recipient’s name.

Paper Maquette of the ELY Award

Above the plaque is a laurel wreath, denoting both achievement and continuity.

The Board of Governors approved production of the new award at its Dublin meeting and six chapters of the Society have also made contributions to create this first version of what we believe will become a permanent award design. Awards Plus of Los Angeles (www.awardsplus-usa.com) also contributed set-up costs to the production of this first series of awards. The Awards Committee wants to express its appreciation to those chapters (listed below) and to Awards Plus for making this award possible.

Contributing Chapters
Aloha
Baltimore
George Washington
London
Los Angeles
Phoenix

We look forward to seeing you in Los Angeles.

Fereydoon Ghaffari
International Historian and
Chair, 2007 Awards Committee