Early Risers

Palmdale. Think about it. Desert. Low priced homes and a two hour commute to a job in Los Angeles. It was almost ten years ago that we had to sell a home in that lonely region. We had inherited the home and had hoped to sell it for a profit but there was absolutely no market for it. But later, after we had given the house away, the housing market surged with low cost loans and pretty soon Palmdale was booming again. But…there is no work available in Palmdale. There have always been rumors that they might build an alternate airport there; one similar to the one in Ontario, built to help LAX carry the load of increased air traffic. Something like that would have attracted all sorts of industry, but that has never come to pass. So the majority of the good citizens of Palmdale gets up early and drives to the San Fernando Valley and beyond.

With gasoline over $3 a gallon and good paying manufacturing jobs almost non existent now; how do you make a house payment? It’s just speculation on my part but I think Palmdale is headed for another ‘bust’. And that ties into a story I read the other day about the water behind the dam in Lake Oroville. The County of Butte owns some of that water because of agreements made during the construction of the dam. Butte County doesn’t need the water and it would be difficult to pipe it anywhere in the county right now, so it just sits in the lake with all the rest of the water. This was fine till those in charge of the lake decided to charge 'rent'. They now expect a hefty payment for storing the water and so a deal was made to ship it south to Palmdale for something like $1.4 million. That’s about twice the amount needed to pay the rent for the water. Of course they need the water in Palmdale. (It’s a desert…duh!) So now I’m wondering just how long Butte County can expect those payments to be made? And if Palmdale goes belly up, Butte will have to find another buyer right away. Again, it’s just speculation on my part.