Steven Greenhut Sr. editorial writer and columnist The Orange County Register [email protected]

Reading the official ballot arguments for and against Measure A, the April 5 initiative that will determine whether developer Michael Harrah will be allowed to build a 37-story office building in downtown Santa Ana, I'm left wondering what happened to the political IQ in this country. Neither side is wrestling with the central issue at stake.

When faced with a potentially complex issue - should this particular building be built or not? - it's best to start with the fundamentals. The obvious first questions: Who owns the land? Is the developer seeking city subsidies? Is the city proposing to use eminent domain to help acquire the property for the developer?

In fairness, we must also ask if there is some significant nuisance to consider or mitigate, such as the Disney Hall's heat-generating stainless-steel shell that is requiring sandblasting to keep from cooking the residents of a nearby building in downtown Los Angeles.

Go into a kindergarten classroom, and any kid will tell you that he can draw a picture on his own desk if he owns the paper and the crayons. Yet supposedly intelligent adults do not even confront these basic ownership issues as they spend a half-million bucks fighting over whether to allow a new building or not.

Harrah owns the land. He isn't seeking subsidies; in fact, he's one of the few developers who maintains an entrepreneurial independent streak, rather than lobby City Hall for favors. Eminent domain is not being used. Harrah is paying nearly $13 million for surrounding street improvements to deal with the additional traffic caused by his building. That's a reasonable amount of mitigation.

End of story.

Do I like tall buildings? Yes, but that's irrelevant. Do I like this particular design? It looks decent, but, again, a nonissue. It's all about property rights, period. I wholeheartedly support the project, regardless of my personal opinion of it, just as I wholeheartedly support my neighbor's exterior paint project even though I don't like the trim color he chose. This used to be common thinking, but now everyone wants to vote on everything anyone else might build.

Even supporters of Harrah aren't making the right case. Consider the ballot arguments published on the Registrar of Voters' Web site.

Why should Santa Ana residents vote "yes" on Measure A? According to the influential crew that signed the ballot argument (including the mayor, the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the executive director of the High School for the Arts), residents should vote "yes" so they can "make Santa Ana Number One NOW." One Broadway Plaza "is the centerpiece of a master plan to rebuild our downtown. ... One Broadway Plaza will bring good paying construction jobs, which will be a big boost to our local economy."

We're No. 1? What is this, a football game? And I've seen good master plans, but mostly bad ones. Finally, while I'm all for new construction jobs, I strongly oppose job-producing developments if, say, they are built on property taken by force by the city.

Opponents, including a councilwoman and various neighborhood association representatives, are even dopier in their opposition. "Santa Ana must have the right development to create sustainable growth," they wrote. Sustainable growth, by the way, is whatever proponents say it is. Some Smart Growthers, who use similar language, argue that sustainable growth means more high-rises, therefore less building on open spaces outside city limits. Others, such as this project's opponents, think skyscrapers are terrible things - at least ones in their city.

"This is the wrong place for a tower nearly three times as tall as the Reagan Courthouse," the ballot argument against Measure A continues. "The site is directly across from El Sol Elementary, and adjacent to the Orange County High School of the Arts and a planned elementary arts academy."

I didn't know that the 11-story Reagan building was a benchmark for urban height, nor did I realize that school kids have an aversion to being near tall buildings. Of course, the opponents' artist's rendering of the building, as reprinted in Tuesday's Register, makes One Broadway Plaza look as if a giant black hole the size of the Himalayan mountains would be plopped in the middle of downtown Santa Ana, casting a shadow from the Civic Center to somewhere in San Diego County.

The rest of the ballot argument against Measure A is filled with phrases such as this: "[F]uture development must be consistent with surrounding density and uses."

What we're witnessing is a transfer of power from individuals, who should get to make their own decisions about their own land, to "stakeholders" - i.e., anyone who might have an opinion on the project, for whatever reason. They are the ones who, in this new and disturbing worldview, get to decide consistency and proper density.

There should not be a vote on whether Harrah can build his new office tower. Democracy is a decent enough way to elect leaders, but it is not the right way to make fundamental decisions about life, liberty and property.

If your neighbors voted on what church you could attend,you would rightly view that as a massive infringement on religious liberty. If the public voted on the editorial position of this newspaper, most people (sadly, not all) would understand that to be a massive infringement of the right to free speech.

Yet vast numbers of Americans, from all political stripes and walks of life, believe it consistent with a free society for the majority to make land-use decisions for others. It's democracy, after all.

Many Americans think that democratizing more decisions - i.e., subjecting more things to a vote - makes for a more peaceful society because everyone gets to have his say and the majority gets to rule. Actually, the reverse is true. The more decisions are made in the private sphere, the more peaceful life becomes.

If every stakeholder gets a vote, I not only lose my freedom, but the approval process can drag out for years and can cause a great deal of contentiousness. Just think about the decade-long battle over the reuse of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station for a reminder of what these democratic land-use decisions entail. The El Toro decision involved public land, so the long battle was perhaps unavoidable. But the Harrah proposal is a private project on a private site with private funds.

There used to be a time when most Americans understood that private meant something, that not every decision should be subjected to the subjective ideas of the public. That time is long gone, and Measure A is just the latest reminder that when private property doesn't count for much, the tyranny of the majority quickly can follow.