Gavin Newsom did not create the homeless problem in California.

Neither is the governor the first — nor will he be the last — politician or non-elected bureaucrat to be blinded to the fact they play a role in making things dysfunctional in California just as much as they do in making things work.

It is why his bellowing about how cities have fumbled handling more than $24 billion in state funds poured into initiatives to address homeless issues since 2019 is myopic, disingenuous, and  disconnected from reality.

At worst, it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the regulations guiding 246,000 foot soldiers in the State of California army of government workers that he oversees as “bureaucrat-in-chief.”

Take the City of Manteca’s effort to establish an “emergency” shelter for the homeless as opposed to a temporary warming center they operated previously at 555 Industrial Park Drive.

The city foolishly — or more aptly unwittingly — believed when they were responding at the time to Newsom breathlessly declaring homelessness an emergency in California, they could get temporary modulars in place before the winter of 2023 hit.

That was in August of 2023.

Two winters later, the “emergency” dorms with beds for 50 homeless opened in April of this year.

There were “supply chain” issues involved, but that only masks two real problems.

The first is the environmental review process.

It’s the same process that Sacramento created that state politicians stepped in to “streamline”  when it started holding up favored endeavors such as Los Angeles sports arenas.

The arenas were being pursued by local government-private sector coalitions with enough wealth to qualify for a maskless dining experience with the governor at the French Laundry at the height of the pandemic.

Before Manteca could go from emergency center to emergency center and shelter, they had to jump through the state’s byzantine environmental review process.

And because the state rarely covers the full cost of such initiatives they dictate, the operation of the emergency shelter required federal help.

Once you accept a cent in federal funds, you are subject to the national environmental review laws.

They were processed in tandem, so to speak. But in the end, a long list of A to Z state and federal agencies had to sign off plus EIR clearing houses operated by Sacramento and Washington had to give the reviews their seals of approval.

In the process we learned that 555 Industrial Park Drive was not:

prime farmland.

within the establish flight path for Stockton Metro Airport.

land of cultural or indigenous significance.

adjacent to navigable water ways.

You get the picture.

Keep in mind, 555 Industrial Park Drive for almost 20 years served as a photo processing center for Qualex, a division of Kodak.

Then for 30 or so years, it stood vacant first in private ownership then in in-direct city ownership after the redevelopment agency in 2004.

The process, which required public hearings, took the better part of nine months to complete.

Then there were the steps needed to secure the dorms that required specific government procedures that were lengthy.

Next, they had to go through more steps to actually secure the money to pay for it.

 The city, as one would hope they would, did not order the dorms until they were absolutely sure they checked all of the state and federal boxes.

Failure to do so, could have let Manteca taxpayers holding the bag  and triggered cutbacks elsewhere in day-to-day spending on municipal services to cover the financial commitment.

The city did what they could to speed things up and save money.

City crews were used to install on-site infrastructure — buried power lines, water and sewer — to avoid using outside contractors.

It avoided a lengthy bid process. It also was able to be done without paying prevailing wages which is a string that comes attached to state and federal money including those tied to homeless emergency funds.

The second problem is PG&E.

Ask any farmer who has sent the for-profit utility a request with a check attached to extend power lines from existing poles to connect to a water pump that never existed before.

Ask any developer, contractor, or small business seeking a new connection with check in hand to become another  hostage to fattening PG&E’s bottom line with fat energy charges.

They know where this is going.

After doing the proper paperwork and your check is cashed, it can often take PG&E’s construction division six months to a year to do the work on the company’s side of the box to get electricity flowing.

The reason this is partially Sacramento’s fault, is the state regulates PG&E, et al.

Long before the pandemic and years before PG&E’s natural gas lines flame broiled a San Bruno neighborhood on Sept. 9, 2010, the regulated power company took its sweet time getting things done.

The state has no effective safeguards in place to make sure PG&E doesn’t drag its feet and in turn place a heavy and expensive drag on the Northern California economy.

PG&E clearly has historically understaffed its construction division to safeguard against having periods where there are too many workers which in turn can cut into million dollar bonuses in the executive suite or ding the bottom line of Wall Street hedge funds.

And any discussion about the homeless problem growing can’t be complete without pointing out Sacramento contributed to the issue of affordable housing by getting rid of the one tool local governments had to deal with it.

California’s lawmakers dissolved redevelopment agencies on Feb. 1, 2012.

They did so to avoid streamlining and whittling back on the ranks of bureaucrats when revenue shortfalls hit the state as part of the Great Recession.

Twenty percent of RDA funding that came from diverting new property tax generated in blighted or economically challenged areas had to fund affordable housing projects.

In Manteca alone, that translated into more than 400 new housing units for low-income seniors and working class families on the low end of the economic spectrum,

Another 60 units of blighted and problematic apartments were bought and refurbished for that purpose.

Imagine the impact of losing RDA had on San Jose or Los Angeles in their respective bids to generate low-income housing which is a major key to preventing and reducing homelessness.

But hey, if you’re preening to scoring political points washing your hands of all blame is much easier than looking in the proverbial mirror.

This is not to say local government can’t be part of a problem, especially when they try not to offend anyone when it comes to locating a homeless outreach whether it is a shelter or a navigation center.

The bigger problem by far are the roadblocks created by the very state Newsom has twice spent a lot of time and energy to secure the ability to govern.

And governing is more than just channeling Daddy Warbucks with someone else’s money and then blaming others when money budgeted can’t  clear fast enough the seemingly endless number of albatrosses the state places on local government’s proverbial neck to slow the process they must maneuver to get solutions in place.

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com