prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: When did the London Paving and Lighting Act pass, which mandated the numbering of houses?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 1: A Brief History of Benjamin Franklin's Residences on Craven Street, London: 1757 - 1775 - Journal of the American Revolution
Benjamin Franklin House, 36 Craven St, London  (Photo by Elliott Brown | Wikimedia Commons)
If one looked into Benjamin Franklin’s time on Craven Street, they might initially believe he lived at 36 Craven Street the entirety of his two stays in London based on the plethora of articles on the internet that say so  If they dug a little deeper they might read that he lived at No  27 Craven Street, previously numbered 7, but now numbered 36; or that he lived exclusively at No  7 Craven Street; or that he lived in multiple residences on Craven Street; or that he moved out of No  36 to another house on Craven Street and then moved back into No  36 the last year of his residence  What is one to believe with all of the conflicting accounts? What does the historical record have to say about Franklin’s time on Craven Street?
Figure 1  Spur Alley 1685  “A map of the parish of St Martins in the Fields, taken from ye last survey, with additions (1685)”  (© The British Library Board, Shelfmark: Maps Crace Port  13 2, Item number: 2)
Before Craven Street existed there was Spur Alley, a narrow passageway sandwiched between the Hungerford Market to the north (now Charing Cross Station) and Scotland Yard and the Northumberland House and Garden to the south  It was flanked on both ends by major thoroughfares, the Strand on the west, connecting Westminster to London by road, and the River Thames on the east, not only connecting the two cities to each other and to Southwark on the south side of the Thames, but connecting the entire metropolis to the rest of the world  Being located in the City of Westminster, Spur Alley had escaped the devastation of the Great Fire of London in 1666 leaving its wooden structures, built in the early part of seventeenth century, intact, but also in dire need of restoration or demolition  “The ratebooks show that during the last thirty years or so of their existence the houses in Spur Alley were in a very bad condition  Few of them were rated at more than a few shillings and many of them were unoccupied ”[1] The landowner, William, 5th Baron Craven, desiring to increase the profitability of his assets, tore down the derelict structures on Spur Alley around 1730 and leased the newly established lots to builders  By 1735, twenty brick houses in the Georgian style had been built on the west side and sixteen on the east side of the way now called Craven Street [2]
Figure 2  Craven Street 1746  (John Rocque London, Westminster and Southwark, First Edition 1746, Motco Enterprises Limited, motco com)
Letters to Franklin during his residence with Mrs  Margaret Stevenson, his landlady on Craven Street, were addressed rather vaguely; “Craven Street/Strand”, “Mrs  Stevensons in Craven Street”, or “Benjamin Franklin Esqr ” are but a few examples  Letters from Franklin referenced “London,” or sometimes “Cravenstreet,” but never included a number  Despite the absence of numbered addresses in Franklin’s correspondence, there was a sense of one’s place in the neighborhood based on entries in the Westminster Rate Books (tax assessments)  The Rate Books did not list house numbers during Franklin’s time there, but they did list the residents of Craven Street in a particular order that became the default numbering system for the street  Number one was associated with the first resident listed under “Craven Street” in the Rate Books and was the northernmost house on the west side of the street  The numbers increased counter-clockwise down the west side and up the east side in accordance with the list of residents  In 1748, the first year of Margaret Stevenson’s (Stevens in the Rate Books for that year) residence on Craven Street, she is listed as the twenty-seventh resident, the second house north of Court Street (later Craven Court, now Craven Passage) on the east side of the street [3]
In 1766, Parliament passed the London Paving and Lighting Act (6 Geo  3 c  26), “An act for the better paving, cleansing, and enlightening, the city of London, and the liberties thereof; and for preventing obstructions and annoyances within the same; and for other purposes therein mentioned ”[4] One of the other purposes therein mentioned was the numbering of houses  With an aim to bring order to the chaotic numbering systems or lack thereof on London streets the Act provided that “… the said commissioners … may also cause every house, shop, or warehouse, in each of the said streets, lanes, squares, yards, courts, alleys, passages, and places, to be marked or numbered, in such manner as they shall judge most proper for distinguishing the same ”[5] This was quite an undertaking that took years to accomplish  It was a decade later before numbered addresses on Craven Street in the City of Westminster appeared in The London Directory (1776)  The London Directory and its competitors were published primarily by booksellers or printers to supplement their income and were highly profitable  To say they were competitive is an understatement  “Some of the most hotly disputed struggles over copyright in the century concerned guidebooks  Many were optimistically emblazoned with a royal license and a notice that the work had been entered at Stationers’ Hall  Various struggles between rival guides intensified as the potential for profits became clear ”[6] The London Directory boldly proclaimed to contain “An ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE NAMES and PLACES of ABODE of the MERCHANTS and PRINCIPAL TRADERS of the Cities of LONDON and WESTMINSTER, the Borough of SOUTHWARK, and their Environs, with the Number affixed to each House ”[7] Kent’s Directory made a similar proclamation: “An Alphabetical LIST OF THE Names and Places of Abode OF THE DIRECTORS of COMPANIES, Persons in Public Business, MERCHANTS, and other eminent TRADERS in the Cities of London and Westminster, and Borough of Southwark WITH THE NUMBERS as they are affixed to their Houses agreeable to the late Acts of Parliament ”[8] Mrs  Stevenson wasn’t included in the directories because she didn’t meet the criteria of being a merchant or trader, not because she was a woman  Although it is rare to see women listed in the directories, some examples do exist [9] If Mrs  Stevenson had appeared in the directories in 1776 it would not have been on Craven Street as she had moved to Northumberland Court, a stone’s throw away, the previous year [10] A comparison of Craven Street residents whose names and addresses do appear in the directories with the same residents as they appear in the Westminster Rate Books determines if the numbering systems were congruent  For the most part they were  For example, Joseph Bond at No  30, William Rowles at No  31, Samuel Sneyd at No  32, and Jonathan Michie at No  35 in The London Directory coincide with their places of residence in the Westminster Rate Books; however, errors did occur  The 1776 edition of The London Directory lists Brown & Whiteford, wine merchants, at No  9 Craven Street while the Westminster Rate Books list them as the twenty-ninth residents  Obviously, it makes no sense to have Brown & Whiteford at No  9 in The London Directory and their next-door neighbor, Joseph Bond, at No  30  The same error appears in Baldwin’s The New Complete Guide for 1783  The New Complete Guide may have “borrowed” the error from The London Directory  It was not uncommon for the owner of one directory to copy entries from another to save both time and money  Beginning in 1778 and contrary to The London Directory, Kent’s Directory faithfully followed the numbering system of the Westminster Rate Books in all of its editions and listed Brown & Whiteford at No  29 as did Bailey’s Northern Directory in 1781  Perhaps realizing their error, The London Directory changed their listing of Brown & Whiteford from No  9 to No  29 in their 1783 edition and maintained that listing thereafter 
Sometime prior to 1792, the embankment on the Thames at the south end of Craven Street had been sufficiently extended allowing for the construction of ten new houses below the original houses: “ … four houses, Nos  21–24, were built on the west side, and six houses, Nos  25–30, on the east side of the way ”[11] In a note in the same report, the new numbering system is explained  “The houses in the street, which had previously been numbered consecutively down the west side and up the east side, were then renumbered on the same system to include the additional houses ”[12] Because the new houses (21-24) on the west side were built below the existing houses (1-20), houses 1-20 retained their original numbering 
Figure 4  Craven Street 1799  (Richard Horwood’s Map of London, Westminster and the Borough of Southwark 1799, Motco Enterprises Limited, motco com)
One would think that the numbers of the sixteen original houses on the east side, Nos  21 – 36, would simply increase by ten with the addition of the ten new houses, but such was not the case; they increased by nine  How could that be? The only possible explanation is that No  21 of the original houses was demolished to make way for the construction of the northernmost of the six new houses on the east side (No  30)  Evidence of No  21’s demolition appears in the lease granted to Charles Owen by William, 7th Baron Craven, in 1792, which describes No  22 as: “All that messuage in Craven Street late in the occupation of Francis Deschamps undertaker … being the Southernmost house in the Old Buildings on the East Side of the said Street numbered with the No  22 ”[13] The lease describes No  22 as being the southernmost house in the old buildings on the east side of Craven Street  Clearly the house previously at No  21 did not exist when the lease granted to Charles Owen was written in 1792 as it used to be the southernmost house  It is also worth noting that in 1790, The London Directory listed Jacob Life at No  21 (original numbering)  In 1791-2, it listed him at No  6  With No  21 vacated, it would allow for its demolition and the construction of the tenth new house  By utilizing lot No  21 for the new construction, only nine additional lots were needed to build the ten houses, hence, Margaret Stevenson’s former residence at 27 became 36 (27 + 9) in the renumbering and not 37 
For nearly a century and a half after Franklin departed London for America in March of 1775 the scales were tipped heavily in favor of his residence having been No  7 Craven Street  As early as 1807 in London; Being An Accurate History And Description Of The British Metropolis And Its Neighborhood, Volume 4, one would have read: “In Craven Street is a house, No  7, remarkable for having been the residence of Dr  Benjamin Franklin [14] In 1815, the identical phrase appeared in The Beauties of England and Wales [15] After 23 editions of not mentioning Franklin, his name finally appeared in the 24th edition of The Picture of London in 1826: “The house, No  7, Craven Street, in the Strand, was once the residence of Dr  Benjamin Franklin ”[16] In 1840, Jared Sparks referred to Franklin’s Craven Street residence appearing in London guide books in his voluminous The Works of Benjamin Franklin: “In the London Guide Books, ‘No  7, Craven Street,’ is still indicated as the house in which Dr  Franklin resided ”[17] In 1846, George Gulliver F R S , in his book, The Works of William Hewson, wrote: “She [Polly] had been upon terms of the warmest friendship with Dr  Franklin
Figure 5  No  7 Craven Street with Memorial Tablet  (Photo courtesy of British History Online, and the Survey of London)
since she was eighteen years of age  That eminent philosopher resided with her mother, Mrs  Margaret Stevenson, at No  7, Craven Street, Strand, during the fifteen years of his abode in London ”[18] Guide books mentioning Franklin at No  7 continued to proliferate throughout the century: Handbook for London; Past and Present, Volume I (1849);”[19] Handbook for Modern London (1851);”[20] The Town; Its Memorable Characters and Events (1859);”[21] London and Its Environs (1879) [22] There was an anomaly when London In 1880 Illustrated With Bird’s-Eye Views of the Principal Streets, Sixth Edition (1880) placed Franklin at 27 Craven street [23] The anomaly lasted for six years until his place of residence was changed to No  7 in the revised edition, London  Illustrated by Eighteen Bird’s-Eye Views of the Principal Streets (1886) [24] London Past and Present; Its History, Associations, and Traditions, Volume 1 (1891), copied the 1849 Handbook for London almost word-for-word and included, “The house is on the right from the Strand ”[25] In October of 1867, The Society of Arts in London declared that: “In order to show how rich the metropolis is in the memory of important personages and events, which it would be desirable to mark by means of tablets on houses, the Council have caused an alphabetical list to be prepared, … ”[26] Franklin had been elected a corresponding member to the Society in 1756 and was a popular choice among Council members deciding who they were to memorialize [27] By January of 1870, a tablet honoring him was affixed to the house they believed to have been his residence while in London, No  7 Craven Street in the Strand on the west side of the street [28] A majority of historians writing about Franklin in the nineteenth and early twentieth century placed him at No  7: O  L  Holley, The Life of Benjamin Franklin (1848); E  M  Tomkinson, Benjamin Franklin (1885); John Torrey Morse, Benjamin Franklin (1891); Paul Elmer More, Benjamin Franklin (1900); John S  C  Abbot, Benjamin Franklin (1903); Sydney George Fisher, The True Benjamin Franklin (1903)  A notable exception is D  H  Montgomery’s His Life Written by Himself published in 1896  He has Franklin at No  27 Craven Street  It seems then that depending upon the source, Franklin was thought to have lived at either No  7 or No  27, but not both, the overwhelming majority favoring No  7  As late as 2011, Franklin is still mentioned as living at No  7 [29]
In 1913, No  7 was scheduled to be torn down  An article in the March 1914 edition of The Book News Monthly, describes the situation:
As is well known to informed American pilgrims, it has been possible for all admirers of the famous philosopher and statesman to pay their respects to his memory before that house, No  7 Craven Street, just off the Strand, which was his chief home during his two sojourns in the British capital, but even as these lines are being written the London newspapers are recording that that interesting shrine is soon to be pulled down to make room for a restaurant  It is some mitigation of this misfortune to remember that at the most the Craven Street house was nothing more than a reproduction of the one in which Franklin had his suite of four rooms, for the structure has been rebuilt since Franklin’s time  When, then, some one makes a piteous plea that at least the philosopher’s bedroom shall be preserved, the soothing answer is that the apartment in question is only a replica of that in which the illustrious American enjoyed his well-earned slumbers in 1757-62 and 1764-75  The restaurant-builder, however, with an eye doubtless to possible American patronage, has assured the world that every effort will be made to preserve as much as possible of the entire structure [30]
Concerned with the possible demolition of Franklin’s residence, the Royal Society of Arts (formerly the Society of Arts[31]) initiated an inquiry into the matter [32] The London County Council, having taken over the responsibility of placing memorial tablets on notable houses from the Royal Society, was charged with the investigation  It ultimately fell to Sir George Laurence Gomme, a clerk to the Council, to come up with a response  A few years earlier Sir George had discovered Margaret Stevenson residing at No  27 Craven Street in the Westminster Rate Books  He must have wondered why No  7 on the west side of Craven Street was being celebrated as Franklin’s residence when the evidence clearly showed otherwise 
Sir George and his staff examined the various London directories discussed earlier and came up with a novel explanation for the discrepancy  They concluded that there had been two numbering systems on Craven Street  An anonymous author echoes Sir George’s conclusion about the two numbering systems in an article in The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts:
…an inspection of the directories of that time proves that there were at least two systems of numbering in Craven Street before the erection of the additional houses  According to one of these the numbers started from the top (Strand end) on the west side of the street, and ran down to the bottom to No  20, then crossed over and went back to the Strand along the east side – 21 to 36  According to the other system, the east side of the street was numbered from the bottom upwards, starting at No 1  This was not apparently in general use, but there is evidence that this numbering was at all events occasionally used 
The evidence of these two systems of numbering, and for believing that Mrs  Stevenson’s house was first No  7 under the oldest system, next No  27 under the second system, and finally No  36 under the latest and existing system, is to be found in the various directories and the Westminster rate-books [33]
The “evidence” mentioned above consisted of The London Directory’s listing of Brown & Whiteford at No  9: “The rate-books for 1781 and 1786 show the house next but one to the north of Mrs  Stevenson’s house as in the occupation of Brown and ‘Whiteford,’ while the old directories mention the business of the firm as wine merchants, and give their address as 9, Craven Street – then a little later, down to 1791, as 29, Craven Street  Curiously enough, in the years 1778 to 1780, or 1781, Lowndes gives it as No  9, and Kent as 29 ”[34] Ignoring Kent’s Directory having Brown and Whiteford as 29 and The London Directory (Lowndes) having Brown and Whiteford “a little later” as 29, and knowing that Mrs  Stevenson lived two doors south of them, Sir George concluded that her house must have been numbered 7, even though there is no listing in any of the directories of her residence ever being No  7  He surmised that the No  7 on the west side of Craven Street with the memorial tablet thought to have been Franklin’s residence had simply been confused with number 7 (27) on the east side  Again from The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts:
Taking all the evidence together, there cannot be any doubt whatever that Mrs  Stevenson’s house, in which Franklin lodged, was the house two doors north from Craven Court, first numbered 7, afterwards 27, and finally 36, and consequently that the house in which Franklin lived was that now numbered 36, not the one now numbered 7, on which the tablet is placed [35]
A response to The Royal Society of Arts was issued: “… the London County Council … informed the Society that it had made a mistake and that No  36 Craven street was the building that deserved commemoration ”[36] The Society accepted the Council’s conclusion, and despite assurances of preservation by the restaurant builder, No  7 was torn down the following year 
Sir George’s assertion “that Mrs  Stevenson’s house, in which Franklin lodged, was the house two doors north from Craven Court” was correct, however, his assertion that it was “first numbered 7, afterwards 27”, was not  It was only by association with the errant entry of Brown & Whiteford at No  9 from 1776-1782 in The London Directory that Mrs  Stevenson’s address was conjured to be No  7  The problem with associating her address exclusively with that of Brown & Whiteford at No  9 during those years is that, as previously demonstrated, The London Directory also listed four other Craven Street residents, Bond, Rowles, Sneyd, and Michie, who’s addresses did conform to the numbering system in The Westminster Rate Books  If Brown & Whiteford at No  9 was indicative of a numbering system different from The Westminster Rate Books, Bond, Rowles, Sneyd, and Michie would have been listed as Nos  10, 11, 12, and 15, respectively  So on one hand Sir George was relying on the Westminster Rate Books to establish Mrs  Stevenson at No  27 and on the other hand he was dismissing the Westminster Rate Books to establish her at No  7  Instead of using the anomalous listing of Brown & Whiteford at No  9, he could have just as easily, and more logically, used the Bond et al  listings, or the post-1782 Brown & Whiteford listing in the London Directory at No  29 to establish Mrs  Stevenson at No  27  Even if there had been two numbering systems, his assertion that No  27 was first numbered 7 would still be false  The earliest numbering system was the Westminster Rate Books dating from the early 1730s when the houses were constructed  Brown & Whiteford at No  9 didn’t appear until 46 years later and then only for a brief period 
There is ample evidence in Franklin’s correspondence and in a memoir by Polly Hewson (Mrs  Stevenson’s daughter) that Benjamin and Mrs  Stevenson lived in not one, but two houses on Craven Street  On July 6, 1772, Polly wrote to Benjamin from her house at Broad Street North in London: “My Mother I must tell you went off last friday week, took our little Boy with her and left Mr  Hewson [Polly’s husband, William] the care of her House [27 Craven Street]  The first thing he did was pulling down a part of it in order to turn it to his own purpose, and advantage we hope  This Demolition cannot affect you, who at present are not even a Lodger [Benjamin was traveling at the time], your litterary apartment remains untouch’d, the Door is lock’d …”[37] In a memoir about her husband written after his death Polly writes: “He [William Hewson] began his Lectures Sept  30, 1772, in Craven-street, where he had built a Theatre adjoining a house which he intended for the future residence of his family ”[38] On October 7, 1772, Benjamin wrote to his son William: “I am very well  But we [Mrs  Stevenson and I] are moving to another House in the same street; and I go down tomorrow to Lord LeDespencer’s to [stay a] Week till things are settled ”[39] To his son-in-law, Richard Bache, on the same day he wrote: “We are moving to another House in the [street] leaving this to Mr  Hewson ”[40] Writing to a friend on October 30, 1772 he explained: “I should sooner have answered your Questions but that in the Confusion of my Papers, occasioned by removing to another House, I could not readily find the Memorandums …”[41] On November 4, 1772 Benjamin informed his wife Deborah of the move  “We are removed to a more convenient House in the same street, Mrs  Stevenson having accommodated her Son-in-Law with that we lived in  The Removing has been a troublesome Affair, but is now over ”[42]
An agreement had been struck between the parties  Margaret and Benjamin would move to another house on Craven Street and allow Polly and William to move into No  27, the large yard behind the house being spacious enough to accommodate the anatomy school William wished to build [43] Perhaps the idea was inspired by Margaret’s next-door neighbor at No  26, Dr  John Leake, a man-midwife and founder of the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, who had built a theater adjoining his residence in which he practiced anatomy and taught midwifery [44]
After Margaret and Benjamin vacated No  27, Polly, William, their son William Jr , and William’s younger sister, Dorothy Hewson, took up residence there [45] In the 1773 Westminster Rate Books for Craven Street, Mrs  Stevenson’s (Stephenson in the Rate Books) name has been crossed out and replaced with “William Hewson ”[46] Further proof that the Hewsons had indeed moved into 27 Craven Street has been confirmed by the discovery of human and animal remains buried in the basement of No  36 (formerly No  27 and now the Benjamin Franklin House), a by-product of the dissections that took place at William’s anatomy school [47]
So what house on Craven Street did Mrs  Stevenson and Benjamin move into after vacating No  27? An examination of the Westminster Rate Books for the years 1774 and 1775 reveal them living not at No  7 on the west side of Craven Street as one might expect from the overwhelming consensus of nineteenth century guidebooks and biographies, but surprisingly at No  1 [48] The controversy of No  7 being torn down was all for naught as it had never been Franklin’s residence  Sir George was correct on that point  Unfortunately, No  1 was torn down as well in the early part of the twentieth century  The first time No  1 is mentioned as Franklin’s second residence is in the Survey of London: Volume 18, St Martin-in-The-Fields II: the Strand published by the London County Council in 1937, ironically the same County Council that had declared No  36 as Franklin’s only residence twenty-four years earlier 
From 1748 until 1772 Margaret ‘Stephenson’ occupied this house [No  27 (36)], and it was there that Benjamin Franklin settled after his arrival in London in 1757 as Agent to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania … In October, 1772, Mrs  Stevenson and Franklin removed to No  1, Craven Street (now demolished), and No  36 was for the next two years occupied by William Hewson, surgeon, who had married Mary Stevenson [49]
In the spring of 1774, William Hewson died unexpectedly of septicemia two weeks after cutting himself while dissecting a cadaver  Polly was left to care for their two young sons and was pregnant with a daughter she would give birth to in August of the same year  Is it possible that Margaret and Benjamin moved back into No  27 to assist Polly after the death of her husband as suggested in The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin?[50]
If the Westminster Rate Books are to be believed, the answer is no  For the year 1774, the Rate Books list Margaret Stevenson at No  1 and William Hewson at No  27  For the year 1775, they list Margaret Stevenson at No  1 and Magnus Falkner (Falconer/Falconar) at No  27  Magnus was William’s assistant at the anatomy school and fiancé to William’s sister, Dorothy  On his death bed, William instructed Polly, “let Mr  Falconar be my successor ”[51] Magnus would immediately take over the running of the anatomy school and continue William’s unfinished research  Four months later, he and Dorothy would marry [52] Essentially only two things changed at 27 Craven Street after William’s death: Polly gave birth to her daughter, and Magnus replaced William as the lease holder, so even if Margaret and Benjamin had wished to move back into No  27, there would have been no room for them  It is also interesting to note that considering the multiple times Benjamin wrote of his move out of No  27 (and complained of it), he never once mentioned moving back into No  27 in any of his correspondence after Mr  Hewson’s death 
Figure 6  No  36 Craven Street  (Photo courtesy of David Ross, britainexpress com)
In sum, based on the Westminster Rate Books[53] and Franklin’s correspondence, Mrs  Stevenson is known to have resided at No  27 (36) Craven Street from 1748 to 1772  It follows that, aside from the two years Franklin spent in Philadelphia from 1762 to 1764, he resided there from 1757 to 1772  Franklin’s correspondence also reveals that in the autumn of 1772, he and Mrs  Stevenson moved to another house on Craven Street  The 1773 Westminster Rate Books show her name crossed off at No  27 and William Hewson’s inserted  The following year the Rate Books list her at No  1 Craven Street  Evidence for Mrs  Stevenson and Benjamin remaining at No  1 after William’s death appears in the Westminster Rate Books for 1775 which have Mrs  Stevenson still residing at No  1 and Magnus Falkner residing at No  27  Further evidence can be construed from the lack of any mention of a move back into No  27 in Franklin’s correspondence  Despite the many theories one could devise as to why Franklin was thought to have lived at No  7 Craven Street by so many guide books and Franklin biographers of the nineteenth century, one thing is certain; at some point after Franklin’s departure to America in March of 1775, and no later than 1807, someone mistakenly associated him with No  7 on the west side of Craven Street, and it soon became his de facto residence  Credit must go to D  H  Montgomery in 1896 and Sir George in 1913 for setting the record partially straight by placing Franklin at No  27(36)  In 1937, the London County Council gave us the first accurate account of Franklin’s residences on Craven Street in the Survey of London at No  27(36) and No  1  It has been shown conclusively that No  27 was never previously numbered 7  It was, however, renumbered 36 in 1792 after ten additional houses were built at the southern end of the street and remains No  36 to this day 
[1] “Craven Street and Hungerford Lane”, in Survey of London: Volume 18, St Martin-in-the-Fields II: the Strand, ed  G H Gater and E P Wheeler (London, 1937), 27-39, Early History of the Site 
http://www british-history ac uk/survey-london/vol18/pt2/pp27-39
[2] “England, Westminster Rate Books, 1634-1900,” from database with images, Craven Street – 1735, FamilySearch from database by FindMyPast and images digitized by FamilySearch; citing Westminster City Archives, London 
[3] Ibid , Craven Street – 1748 
[4] The Statutes at Large, From Magna Charta to the End of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain  Anno 1761 Continued, Vol  XXVII, ed  Danby Pickering, (Cambridge, John Archdeacon, 1767), 96 
[6] James Raven, Publishing Business in Eighteenth-Century England, (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014), 201 
[7] The London Directory For the Year 1776, Ninth Edition, (London: T  Lowndes, 1776), title page 
[8] Kent’s Directory For the Year 1778, Forty-Sixth Edition, (London: Richard and Henry Causton, 1778), title page 
[9] A listing in Kent’s Directory for the Year 1882 on p  28 reveals, “Brown Sarah, Leather-seller, 1, Westmoreland-buildings, Aldersgate-street”, and in Kent’s Directory for the Year 1883 on p  175, “Whiteland Mary, Wine & Brandy Mercht  Jermyn-str  St  James ”
[10] “The Papers of Benjamin Franklin,” Sponsored by The American Philosophical Society and Yale University, Digital Edition by The Packard Humanities Institute, 22:263a 
http://franklinpapers org/franklin
Mrs  Stevenson wrote to Benjamin Franklin a letter from her new home at 75 Northumberland Court on November 16, 1775: “In this Court I have a kind friend, Mr  Lechmoen he comes and seats with me and talks of you with a hiy regard and friendship ”
[11] Survey of London, Early History of the Site 
[12] Survey of London, Footnotes/n 10 
[13] Survey of London, Historical Notes/No  31 
[14] David Hughson, LL D , London; Being An Accurate History And Description Of The British Metropolis And Its Neighbourhood, To Thirty Miles Extent, From An Actual Perambulation, Vol  IV, (London: W  Stratford, 1807), 227 
[15] The Reverend Joseph Nightingale, The Beauties of England and Wales: Or, Original Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive, of Each County, Vol  X, Part III, Vol  II (London: J  Harris; Longman and Co ; J  Walker; R  Baldwin; Sherwood and Co ; J  and J  Cundee; B  and R  Crosby and Co ; J Cuthell; J  and J  Richardson; Cadell and Davies; C  and J  Rivington; and G  Cowie and Co , 1815), 245 
[16] John Britton, F S A  & Co , ed , The Original Picture of London, Enlarged and Improved: Being A Correct Guide For The Stranger, As Well As For the Inhabitant, To The Metropolis Of The British Empire Together With A Description Of The Environs, The Twenty-Fourth Edition (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1826), 479 
[17] Jared Sparks, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol  VII, (Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, 1840), 151 
[18] George Gulliver, F R S , The Works of William Hewson, F  R  S , (London: Printed for the Sydenham Society, MDCCCXLVI), xx 
[19] Peter Cunningham, Handbook for London; Past and Present, Vol  I, (London: John Murray, 1849), 245 
[20] F  Saunders, Memories of the Great Metropolis: or, London, from the Tower to the Crystal Palace, (New York: G P  Putnam, MDCCCLII), 138 
[21] Leigh Hunt, The Town; Its Memorable Characters and Events, (London: Smith, Elder and Co , 1859), 185 
[22] K  Baedeker, London and Its Environs, Including Excursions To Brighton, The Isle of Wight, Etc : Handbook For Travelers, Second Edition, (London: Dulau and Co , 1879), 133 
[23] Herbert Fry, London In 1880 Illustrated With Bird’s-Eye Views of the Principal Streets, Sixth Edition, (New York: Scribner, Welford, & Co , 1880), 50 
[24] Herbert Fry, London  Illustrated By Eighteen Bird’s-Eye Views of the Principal Streets, (London: W  H  Allen and Co , 1886), 40 
[25] Henry B  Wheatley, F S A , London Past and Present; Its History, Associations, and Traditions, Vol  1, (London: John Murray, New York: Scribner & Welford, 1891), 473 
[26] The Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol  XV, No  778, (October 18, 1867): 717 
[27] D  G  C  Allen, “Dear and Serviceable to Each Other: Benjamin Franklin and the Royal Society of Arts,” American Philosophical Society, Vol  144, No  3, (September 2000): 248-249 
Franklin was a corresponding member in 1756 because he was still residing in Philadelphia  He became an active member the following year when he moved to London 
[28] The Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol  XVIII, No  894, (Jan  7, 1870): 137 
“Since the last announcement, the following tablets have been affixed on houses formerly occupied by – Benjamin Franklin, 7 Craven-street, Strand, W C ”
[29] Franklin in His Own Time, eds  Kevin J  Haytes and Isabelle Bour, (Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 2011), xxxvii 
“Takes lodgings with Margaret Stevenson at No  7 Craven Street ” It is unknown if the editors are referring to No  7 on the west side of Craven Street or No  36 on the east side using Sir George’s explanation of No  36 being previously numbered 7 
[30] Henry C  Shelly, “American Shrines on English Soil, III  In the Footprints of Benjamin Franklin,” in The Book News Monthly, September, 1913 to August, 1914, (Philadelphia: John Wanamaker, 1914), 325 
[31] The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol  LVI, No  2,880, (Jan  31, 1908): 245 
http://babel hathitrust org/cgi/pt?id=mdp 39015058423073;view=1up;seq=251
“His Majesty the King, who is Patron of the Society, has granted permission to the Society to prefix to its title the term ‘Royal,’ and the Society will consequently be known in future as the ‘Royal Society of Arts ’”
[32] Nineteenth Annual Report, 1914, of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, (Albany: J  B  Lyon Company, 1914), 293 
http://babel hathitrust org/cgi/pt?id=wu 89072985302;view=1up;seq=4;size=150
[33] The Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol  LXII, No  3,183, (Nov  21, 1913): 18 
http://babel hathitrust org/cgi/pt?id=mdp 39015058422968;view=1up;seq=26
[36] Allen, “Dear and Serviceable,” 263-264 
[37] Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 19:20 
[38] Thomas Joseph Pettigrew, F  L  S , Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Late John Coakley Lettsom With a Selection From His Correspondence, Vol  I, (London: Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1817), 144 of Correspondence 
[39] Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 19:321b 
[40] Ibid , 19:314 
[41] Ibid , 19:353a 
[43] Simon David John Chaplin, John Hunter and the ‘museum oeconomy’, 1750-1800, Department of History, King’s College London  Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London , 202 
“Following Falconar’s death [1778] the lease [27 Craven Street] was advertised, and the buildings were described as:
A genteel and commodious house, in good Repair, with Coach-house and Stabling for two Horses…consisting of two rooms and light closets on each floor, with outbuildings in the Yard, a Museum, a Compleat Theatre, and other conveniences  (Daily Advertiser, 27 August 1778)”
[44] Simon Chaplin, “Dissection and Display in Eighteenth-Century London,” in Anatomical Dissection in Enlightenment England and Beyond: Autopsy, Pathology and Display, ed  Dr  Piers Mitchell, (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012), 108 
“Given that a nearby building at 35 [ No  26 in Franklin’s time] was occupied by the man-midwife John Leake, who advertised lectures – including lessons in the art of making preparations – at his ‘theatre’ between 1764 and 1788, it is possible that some facilities were shared  In both cases, however, the buildings [Leake’s residence at No  26 and Hewson’s residence next door at 27] served a dual function as domestic accommodation and as sites for lecturing and dissection ”
[45] George Gulliver, F R S , The Works of William Hewson, F  R  S , (London: Printed for the Sydenham Society, MDCCCXLVI), xviii 
[46] Westminster Rate Books, Craven Street – 1773, courtesy of the City of Westminster Archives 
[47] S W  Hillson et al , “Benjamin Franklin, William Hewson, and the Craven Street Bones,” Archaeology International, Vol  2, (Nov  22, 1998): 14-16 
http://dx doi org/10 5334/ai 0206
[48] Westminster Rate Books, Craven Street – 1774, 1775, courtesy of the City of Westminster Archives 
[49] Survey of London, Historical Notes/No  36, Craven Street (not sourced) 
[50] Gordon S  Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004), 261 
[51] Pettigrew, Memoirs, 146 of Correspondence 
[52] http://founders archives gov/documents/Franklin/01-22-02-0178, note 7  “Falconar married Hewson’s sister five months after the Doctor’s death; most of the Craven Street circle attended the wedding, and BF gave away the bride: Polly to Barbara Hewson, Oct  4, 1774, APS” (American Philosophical Society); “England Marriages, 1538–1973 ,” database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch org/ark:/61903/1:1:V52W-TGS : accessed September 15, 2015), Magnus Falconar and Dorothy Hewson, September 12, 1774; citing Saint Martin In The Fields, Westminster, London, England, reference ; FHL microfilm 561156, 561157, 561158, 942 B4HA V  25, 942 B4HA V  66 
[53] I chose to rely on the Westminster Rate Books for the numbering system on Craven Street  The books were consistent throughout the eighteenth century in the ordering of residents on the street and were used as the basis for the 1792 re-numbering  For the most part, commercial directories aligned with them as well  If by chance a directory didn’t initially align, it would inevitably produce future editions that did 
Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin House, London
More from David Turnquist
If one looked into Benjamin Franklin’s time on Craven Street, they might   
I think it’s very ironic that on the street maps included in your excellent article, Craven Street is so close to Scotland Yard  Because following the back and forth juxtapositions of numbers 7, 27 and 36 Craven Street (throw in 75 Northumberland Court and 1 Craven Street, too) was a case that could confound Sherlock Holmes 
Excellent job of deciphering street renumbering material spanning sixty years, including that of a wrong house number (# 7) being erroneously identified and then perpetuated in subsequent street map printings  It’s gratifying at least to know that the present day #36 Craven Street is the correct house for Ben Franklin tourists to visit  Except for #1 Craven Street for the last three years Franklin was in London, but we won’t get into that 
Again, excellent article, David!
Context 2: How Oxycontin, Florida and the Sackler Family Created the Opioid Crisis In America
Why are the Sacklers worth $13 billion today? Answer: “The Oxy Express Explained”
(MASS TORT NEXUS MEDIA)
A COMPARISON OF OXYCODONE PRESCRIBING
In the first six months of 2010, Ohio doctors and health care practitioners bought the second-largest number of oxycodone doses in the country at just under 1 million pills 
Florida doctors bought 40 8 million in the same period, the comparison is astounding, yet it flew under the DEA, Opioid Big Pharma and everyone elses radar for years and years 
Of the country’s top 50 oxycodone-dispensing clinics, 49 were in Florida  From August 2008 to November 2009, a new pain clinic opened in Broward and Palm Beach counties on average of every three days 
Pharmacies and distributors are at fault as well, pharmacies ordered jaw-dropping numbers of pills from opioid drug distributors, the middlemen between manufacturers and pharmacies 
90 of 100 of the nation’s top 100 oxy-buying doctors in 2010, were in Florida  49 of 50 of the country’s top oxy-dispensing clinics were in Florida  For some reason this didn’t raise an alarm or cause anyone to look further at the time 
Purdue Pharma New What Was Happening In Florida
Purdue and the Sacklers chose to ignore Florida, because apparently nobody there sued them or complained  In 2007, in other states, the infamous drug maker and three of its executives pled guilty in federal court and paid out $634 5 million in fines for purposefully misleading regulators, doctors, and patients about the addictiveness of their opioid painkiller  Around the same time, Purdue was also sued by several states, including Washington, over similar allegations  Purdue agreed to a $19 5 million multi-state settlement  And in 2015, Purdue settled a case with Kentucky, agreeing to pay $24 million 
As part of the state settlements, Purdue was supposed to set up monitoring programs to make sure that its opioid drug didn’t wind up in the wrong hands  It was supposed to watch out for shady pharmacies, unusually large orders, or suspiciously frequent orders  But on this front, Everett alleges that Purdue once again put profits over people 
Obviously, this was ignored as the Florida based “Oxy Expres”; rolled on for years and years with np input, comment or oversight by Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family other than “show me the money” and enjoying a life of luxury on the misery created and managed in the Purdue Pharma boardroom  But, the Purdue boardroom isn’t the only guilty “Opioid Big Pharma” industry player who designed and supported the opioid prescribing crisis 
For the current status of efforts to make Opioid Big Pharma accept responsibility in litigation filed in federal and state courts across the country, see: https://www masstortnexus com/Briefcases/254/OPIOID-CRISIS-BRIEFCASE-INCLUDING-MDL-2804-OPIATE-PRESCRIPTION-LITIGATION
Why Distributors Are Liable
Cardinal Health, one of the nation’s biggest distributors, sold two CVS pharmacies in Sanford a combined 3 million doses of oxycodone, flooding the town of 54,000 with an average of 250,000 oxycodone pills every month 
West of Jupiter, a Walgreens drug distribution center sold 2 2 million tablets to a single Walgreens’ pharmacy in tiny Hudson, a roughly six-month supply for each of its 12,000 residents  It shipped more than 1 1 million pills to each of two Fort Pierce Walgreens pharmacies 
For 40 days starting in late 2010, the distribution center shipped 3,271 bottles of oxycodone — 327,100 doses of the drug — to a Port Richey Walgreens pharmacy, prompting a distribution manager to ask: “How can they even house this many bottles?”
There were 53 million oxycodone prescriptions filled in 2013 by US pharmacies, according to NIDA  This translates to approximately one bottle of this addictive drug for every 6 people in the country  How was this not noticed by those responsible for monitoring narcotics prescribing in the United States?
Charts and Data On Florida’s Oxycontin Gold Mine
https://www documentcloud org/documents/3936665-Purdue-Pharma-1-in-48-Study html
https://www documentcloud org/documents/3534759-uS-Atty-on-Purdue-Settle html#document/p2/a384323
A Boardroom Contrived Opioid Epidemic
This is the pain chart created by the “Opioid Big Pharma Industry” to support massive over-prescribing of opioids across the country to everyone who walked in to a medical treatment facility, this was an effort to increase narcotic prescribing practices in mainstream medical care–and it worked very very well! This chart became a standard treatment assessment protocol tool across the country 
https://www documentcloud org/documents/3936646-DEA-NATL-DRUG-ASSESSMENT-2010 html#document/p51/a383739
HOW WEST VIRGINIA WAS TARGETED
It-Was-Raining-Opiates-How-drug-companies-submerged-West-Virginia-in-opioids-for-years
Reliably red on the political map, Huntington is a West Virginia town with a 182-year-old university, a storied football team and more than 100 churches 
It’s where Will Lockwood graduated from high school  It’s where he enrolled at Marshall University  It’s where he first tried OxyContin  By the time Lockwood entered Marshall, Detroit dealers were trickling into Huntington, selling OxyContin and pills with OxyContin’s active ingredient, oxycodone 
Even though Lockwood could step out his front door and get the drug, Detroit street dealers weren’t the preferred supplier, they were in Florida 
It may have been 1,000 miles away, but to Lockwood, getting OxyContin and oxycodone from Florida’s loosely regulated pain clinics “was legal, in a sense ”
Twice a month, different “crews” from Huntington crowded into vans and headed south to Palm Beach and Broward counties, home to more than 200 pill mills, the pain clinics where anyone with a fake ache and hard cash could walk out with pills and prescriptions 
After hitting a string of clinics, the Huntington crews drove back with “around 500 to 600 pills per person,” said Lockwood 
But it wasn’t just a few hundred pills  It was tens of thousands 
And it wasn’t just Huntington, The West Virginia vans were part of a nationwide caravan heading to South Florida  Cars bearing tags from Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Virginia and Ohio crowded into one clinic parking lot after another, loading up on pills and prescriptions 
News stories and law enforcement focused on those “parking lot” states in Appalachia, where dealers and addicts with a tank of gas or a cheap plane ticket traveled the “Oxy Express” to Palm Beach and Broward 
But Florida’s pill pipeline reached far beyond those roadways 
By 2010, Florida was the oxycodone drug dealer of choice for drug users and dealers in the Great Lakes, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions as well as the Southeast, DEA records show, an area spanning virtually every state east of the Mississippi  It wasn’t just that Florida guaranteed a flow of cheap oxycodone  For 10 years, key lawmakers and agency heads repeatedly looked the other way as crooked doctors and bogus clinics flooded almost half the nation with the highly addictive drug 
In failing to crack down, Florida extended by years the amount of time highly addictive oxycodone would be available to both first-time experimenters and addicts  It gave criminals the raw materials for trafficking  It gave Will Lockwood the OxyContin needed to feed his growing habit, It paved the way for his eventual jump to heroin 
Jumping state lines
Teenage high-school wrestling buddies in New Port Richey ran oxycodone into Tennessee; they were paid with cash hidden in teddy bears  A Hillsborough County man mailed 17,000 pills to Glen Fork, W Va , a month’s supply for every man woman and child in the tiny town 
A Boston Chinatown crime boss trafficked pills from Sunrise into Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and South Carolina  Wellington twins and pill mill kingpins Paul and Phil George, brothers who oversaw one of the largest operations in the country from their five Palm Beach and Broward clinics, pushing oxycodone into Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and South Carolina 
A husband and wife team operating out of a Forest Hill Boulevard clinic funneled pills to Delaware  At Palm Beach International Airport, two federal security agents accepted $500 a pop each time they waved through thousands of pillsbound for Connecticut and New York 
A Palm Bay man’s Puerto Rican family bought local pills destined for the working class town of Holyoke, Mass  In Rhode Island, police pulled over a Lauderhill man caught speeding through Providence  They found 903 oxycodone tablets and 56 morphine pills in the car 
Senior citizen and Tulane business graduate Joel Shumrak funneled more than 1 million pills into eastern Kentucky from his South Florida and Georgia clinics, much of it headed for street sales — an estimated 20 percent of the illicit oxycodone in the entire state 
Van loads of pill-seekers organized by “VIP buyers” traveled from Columbus, Ohio, to three Jacksonville clinics, where armed guards handled crowd control (federal indictment) and doctors generated prescriptions totaling 3 2 million pills in six months  In Miami, Vinny Colangelo created 1,500 internet website names to entice drug users throughout the nation to one of his six South Florida pain clinics or pharmacies 
Even the Mafia got in on the Florida oxy express action: A Bonanno crime family associate oversaw a local crew stocking up on Palm Beach and Broward pain clinic oxycodone, upstreaming profits to the New York family 
At times, it seemed almost no section of the country was free of Florida-supplied pills: When Olubenga Badamosi was arrested driving his Bentley Continental in Miami in 2011, the Oregon man was one of two traffickers overseeing a crew smuggling South Florida oxycodone to sell in Salt Lake City, Seattle and Denver as well as Oregon, Nevada, Texas and even Alaska 
Pharmacy delivers oxy ‘pot of gold’
It would be hard to overstate Florida’s role in feeding the country’s voracious appetite for oxycodone  Oxycodone 30-milligram tablets were favored by addicts  And in 2009 and 2010, roughly four of every 10 of those pills were sold in Florida  Small wonder: Of the nation’s top 100 oxycodone-buying doctors, 90 were in Florida 
Pharmacies, too, ordered jaw-dropping numbers of pills from drug distributors, the middlemen between manufacturers and pharmacies 
West of Jupiter, a Walgreens drug distribution center sold 2 2 million tablets to a single Walgreens’ pharmacy in tiny Hudson, a roughly six-month supply for each of its 12,000 residents  It shipped more than 1 1 million pills to each of two Fort Pierce Walgreens pharmacies  By contrast, a single Walgreens pharmacy in the Central Florida townOviedo bought 169,700 doses of oxycodone in 30 days 
People on both sides of the counter knew what was going on: In a letter to the chief executive of Walgreens, Oviedo’s police chief warned that people were walking out of the town’s two Walgreens stores and selling their drugs on the spot, crushing and snorting them, or — still in the pharmacy’s parking lot — injecting them 
Why Pharmacies are LIABLE
In Fort Pierce, a Walgreens pharmacist accidentally provided an extra 120 oxycodone pills to a customer  When the druggist called to ask that the man return the pills, the customer’s girlfriend bluntly responded that he was an addict, that he sold oxycodone and the 120 pills were “a pot of gold,” DEA records show 
That was in September  The same man came back to the same Walgreens in December and January with a prescription in hand, and the pharmacy filled his prescriptions every time 
‘Wild West of Oxycodone Prescribing’
Cincinnati-based Masters Pharmaceuticals Inc  was a middling-sized drug distributor selling oxycodone to Florida pharmacies 
It sold to other customers in other states  But mostly, it sold to Florida: Oxycodone made up more than 60 percent of its drug sales in 2009 and 2010, according to federal records  Of its top 55 oxycodone customers, 44 were in Florida 
Company CEO Dennis Smith worried that the Florida-bound oxycodone was getting in the wrong hands  A trip to Broward did nothing to ease his mind  “It was,” he later testified, “the Wild West of oxycodone prescribing ”
Bus and park benches touted pain clinics  When Smith picked up and thumbed through City Beat, a free magazine, he found pages of ads for pain clinics  “It would show young people sitting around a pool and it named the pain clinic and say (sic) ‘we dispense on site,’ and that really hit home hard ”
Smith stopped selling to pain clinics  But the company continued to shovel millions of oxycodone pills to Florida pharmacies  Masters executives figured the pharmacies would keep an eye out for excessive prescriptions written by pill mill doctors  But not all pharmacies were worrying about doctors at pain clinics, many pharmacies were courting the pill mills prescribers 
A Lake Worth Family Pharmacy
In 2009, the small pharmacy off Lucerne Avenue in Lake Worth had a history  It had been in business for 43 years  The owner and head pharmacist had been there for 32  It had shaded parking and a downtown location, a stone’s throw from the City Hall Annex 
When a Masters inspector visited, he was alarmed to find Tru-Valu Drugs bustling with a long line of young, thin, tattooed customers arriving in groups of 10 to pick up pills  There were signs in the pharmacy warning of limits on the number of oxycodone pills handed out  Even Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, an oxycodone manufacturer, was worried about the volume of its pill sales there 
Of the 300,000 doses of all drugs the small pharmacy dispensed in December 2008, 192,000 were for oxycodone 30 mg, the dosage preferred by traffickers and users alike 
The huge oxycodone volume was no accident  The owner and head pharmacist, unidentified in DEA records, told a Masters inspector that the pharmacy “has pushed for this (narcotic) business with many of the area pain doctors ”
And, despite the torrent of oxycodone going out the door, the pharmacy owner expressed frustration that drug distributors were limiting the amount of narcotics they would sell to his now-closed pharmacy 
Ohio to Florida and Back
Pharmacy after pharmacy benefited from the combination of Masters’ Ohio oxycodone business and Florida’s unregulated pill mills 
In Englewood, north of Fort Myers, the pharmacy owner filled prescriptions for six pain clinics — including clinics an hour’s drive away  A Masters inspector found cars from Tennessee and Kentucky in the parking lot and young men leaving the pharmacy carrying large trash bags 
Superior Pharmacy not only filled oxycodone prescriptions for pain clinics, it shared waiting room space with a pain clinic in a Temple Terrace strip mall outside Tampa  Neither Masters nor Superior had so much as Googled the background of pain clinic doctors writing those prescriptions, the DEA later said 
Had they done so, the DEA dryly noted, they “would likely have come across a press release” announcing one of the doctors had been arrested and charged with trafficking in prescription drugs 
Hundreds of thousands of oxycodone pills were sent from Ohio distributors to Florida pharmacies  Unknown thousands of pills headed right back up to Ohio 
When Ohio police burst into Christopher Thompson’s home outside Columbus, they found an assault rifle, $80,000 in cash and oxycodone from his Florida deals  A construction worker whose own pill habit started at age 14, Thompson oversaw a ring of 15 Ohio buyers who traveled to Florida to pick up oxycodone to resell in Central Ohio 
Two hours to the west in Martin’s Ferry, David L  Kidd orchestrated a ring of buyers traveling to West Palm Beach and Central Florida to pick up oxycodone for resale on the streets of eastern Ohio and West Virginia 
Doctors and pharmacies from Florida were complicit with Kidd’s ring in fueling Ohio’s opioid epidemic, wrote the U S  attorney for West Virginia after Kidd’s 2011 arrest: “The steady flow of pain pills into the Ohio Valley from Florida must stop ”
Driving To Pick Up Death By Rx
With more drugs came more deaths, in January 2010, say police, Fort Lauderdale pathologist Dr  Lynn Averill started a seven-month oxycodone shopping spree, buying 437,880 oxycodone pills from drug distributors 
The same month, Matthew Koutouzis drove from Toms River, N J , to see Averill in her Broward County pain clinic  The 26-year-old collected prescriptions for 390 pills and overdosed two days later  Brian Moore traveled 13 hours from his Laurel County, Ky , home to see Averill  He left with prescriptions for 600 pills and also overdosed within 48 hours 
Kenneth Hammond didn’t make it back to his Knoxville, Tenn , home  He had a seizure after picking up prescriptions for 540 pills and died in an Ocala gas station parking lot 
Keith Konkol didn’t make it back to Tennessee, either  His body was dumped on the side of a remote South Carolina road after he overdosed in the back seat of a car the same day of his clinic visit  He had collected eight prescriptions totaling 720 doses of oxycodone, methadone, Soma and Xanax  Konkol had every reason to believe he would get those prescriptions: In three previous visits to the Plantation clinic, he had picked up prescriptions for 1,890 pills 
An estimated 60 percent of her patients were from out of state, a former medical assistant told the DEA  In 2015, Averill pleaded not guilty to eight manslaughter charges  She is awaiting trial in Broward County  Averill was just one doctor at just one clinic  In 2010, the year Averill’s patients overdosed, Florida received applications to open 1,026 more pain clinics 
An online message board advising drug users summed it up: “Just go anywhere in South Florida and look for a ‘pain management clinic ’ It shouldn’t be too hard; you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one ” Complain about anything from a back injury to a hangnail, it advised, “and they’ll set you right up ”
By this time, Kentucky had reined in its pill mills  It didn’t matter, Ohio, Delaware, North Carolina, Connecticut acted as well, but other state’s efforts didn’t matter either, Florida continued ignoring the pill mills and rogue doctors feeding the nation’s oxycodone habit, the pills flowed 
“There were folks down there, where if I had an opportunity to, get my hands around their throat, I would have wrung their neck,” said Huntington Mayor Steve Williams  On Florida’s inaction he stated, “There was total evidence as to what was happening  It lays at the foot, in my opinion, of the public officials there that allowed it to continue on ”
Governor Jeb Bush Backed A Solution
One of the first dinners Florida Gov  Jeb Bush hosted after moving into the governor’s mansion in 1999 was a small one  Among those sitting at the table with Bush were Lt  Gov  Toni Jennings, state Sen  Locke Burt and James McDonough, who would become the state’s hard-nosed drug czar  There was an urgent topic on the agenda that night: the explosion of prescription painkillers  For the state’s first family, it may have been personal  Bush had talked publicly about one of his children’s struggle with addiction 
By the time the meal ended, all had agreed on the need for establishing a prescription drug monitoring program that would collect information and track prescriptions written for controlled substances, such as oxycodone 
Absent a prescription drug monitoring database, there was no way to know whether someone was “doctor shopping,” going from doctor to doctor, getting more and more prescriptions to feed their habit 
And there was no way to know whether a doctor was overprescribing, key to pinpointing whether a pill mill was operating, and where  Similar databases had been adopted by more than a dozen states  It was being described as a “silver bullet” to curb overprescribing  Soon enough, $2 million to get the database up and running would be on the table — but it came with a catch 
Florida Attorney General Misfires Against Purdue
In 2001, OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma was fending off early criticism of its blockbuster painkiller  At issue was whether Purdue’s aggressive marketing campaign had misled doctors and patients alike  Purdue and three top executives later pleaded guilty to federal charges of illegally marketing the drug



ground_truth: 1766.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What was the reason given by Governor Rick Scott for not implementing a prescription drug monitoring database in Florida?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 2:  Far from being safe and non-addictive, OxyContin carried the same addiction risk as morphine, and was every bit as potent 
But that was six years away  In 2001, towns in Maine reported an alarming uptick in crime tied to OxyContin  The first of several congressional hearings was ramping up  Critics and parents who lost children were piling on  Reporters were starting to write stories 
In November, Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth appeared poised to take on the company  Calling OxyContin street sales “a major threat to public health,” Butterworth told a state Board of Medicine committee that Purdue should consider temporarily taking the drug off the market  It wasn’t only traffickers concerning Butterworth  It was the sales pitch 
In late 2001, Butterworth called a young assistant attorney general into his office and gave him a magazine article on OxyContin and an assignment: Look into Purdue marketing  Former Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth and Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg  The young lawyer, now-Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, said he knew nothing about OxyContin  But he didn’t like what he read 
During the yearlong inquiry, 589 Floridians died after taking oxycodone  Nothing criminal was found, Aronberg later said  Instead, Butterworth and Purdue struck a settlement  As part of a $2 million deal, Purdue would pay to establish a prescription monitoring database, the same silver bullet sought by Bush  After Florida’s computerized system was up and running, the same system would be free to any other state  The entire country, not just Florida, would benefit 
It could have been a groundbreaking deal  There was one catch  State lawmakers had to vote to create the prescription monitoring program by 2004, or Purdue would keep its money 
Marco Rubio Kills The Anti-Oxy Rx Bill
A political gight killed the program  “And there was one person who was responsible,” said former state Sen  Burt, now an Ormond Beach insurance executive  “And it was Marco Rubio ”
A rising state lawmaker in 2002, now-U S  Sen  Marco Rubio had the clout to make or break the legislation  He had been one of two state House majority whips and was on the fast track to becoming House speaker 
Rubio didn’t kill the 2002 bill out of opposition to prescription monitoring—it was politics “as usual” yet nobody blamed Rubio for the resulting opioid crisis that seems to have started in his political backyard and flourished beyond belief  
U S  Sen  Marco Rubio, R-Fla , was a leader in the Florida House in 2002 when he blocked a vote on prescription monitoring  That year, Rubio favored a bill changing the Miami-Dade County charter, which failed to pass because of a single “no” vote in the Senate  Burt cast the vote 
Angered by what he saw as Burt’s betrayal, Rubio killed the prescription drug monitoring bill  “When I found out he broke his word, it made the choice easy,” Rubio told The Miami Herald 
It’s not certain that the full Legislature would have passed the bill had it made it to a floor vote  Rubio was the first, not the last, in a line of state legislative leaders over years who would refuse to seriously consider the bill  Most cited privacy concerns 
But prescription monitoring databases in Florida and other states free to use Florida’s model would have pinpointed rogue doctors, would-be pill mills and doctor-shoppers across the country, just as all three were beginning to converge  In doing so, it could have curbed a national opioid epidemic when it was just an emerging problem, not the monster it would become 
Only weeks after the 2002 bill was killed, Bush suppressed a sob as he discussed his daughter’s arrest for forging a prescription  Court-ordered to drug treatment and then briefly to jail, Noelle Bush survived her pill addiction  The 2004 deadline for greenlighting a monitoring system passed  So did Purdue’s million-dollar obligation to pay for it 
Between 2002, the year Rubio killed the database that could have identified doctor-shoppers, and late 2011, when the database finally came online, more than 20,800 Floridians died after taking prescription opioids, including OxyContin, annual Florida Medical Examiners’ reports show  “Not getting that bill through the Legislature resulted in Florida becoming the pill mill capital of the United States,” said Burt 
“There was heartache for thousands of families beyond measure and it didn’t have to happen ”
Florida Officials Were Told Of The Oxy Express
The East Kentucky hills and valleys of Greenup County suit Keith Cooper, a long-haired undercover cop-turned-sheriff: “It’s a backwater  I tell people all the time I am a hick sheriff from a hick location, and by 2011, the rural county and its sheriff had big city problems 
Greenup is near the stretch of interstate highways that provided drug traffickers and users with a straight shot to Palm Beach and Broward pill mills  It’s less than an hour’s ride to Huntington Tri-State Airport, where a $27 flight to Fort Lauderdale was a popular draw for dealers hoping to stock up 
Arrests for Florida pills soon eclipsed local arrests for pot 
“When we locked ’em up, we take all their pill bottles and all their paperwork, and we found maps to the doctors offices and everything,” recalled Cooper 
“I called the (Florida) medical board and gave them a big list of doctors,” Cooper said  He called the state pharmacy board, too  He got no response 
“So then I called the Attorney General’s Office and the Governor’s Office  I was calling them all, the whole state  Of course, I was talking to the state police the entire time  “I told them, all of the profits were down there  And all of the pain’s up here ” Nothing happened  Florida’s oxycodone pipeline continued to flow 
On the other side of the law in Greenup, Mikey Frazier was banking on it 
The Oxy Express
Frazier was on a scholarship to play baseball at his junior college in Chicago when he suffered a torn rotator cuff  Doctors prescribed Percocet, a pill containing oxycodone, in 2002  When doctors cut him off, he bought it on the street  In 2006, he moved to OxyContin, nearly pure oxycodone  In 2007, he gave his friends money to go to Florida and bring him back pills 
“My buddy had a minivan and he would actually go down one week and take two to three people with him, and then the following week I’d go,” said Frazier  He still remembers the route: “I’d take 64 East to 77 South to 95 South  And it’s just a straight shot ”
Others followed suit  “What got everyone started was because the doctors around here won’t write a strong enough prescription,” he recalled  OxyContin and generic oxycodone still could be had — just not in Kentucky, which had a prescription drug monitoring database 
In Florida, “there was none of that … stuff that they check and find out what doctor you’ve been to,” said Frazier 
“And one person does it, and then they tell a friend, and then they go do it, and that’s how it all really got started here ”
MEDICAID-MEDICAIRE PAID MILLIONS FOR OXY
Tallahassee wasn’t just ignoring the epidemic, It was financing it 
Before her office was raided by law enforcement in December 2001, Asuncion M  Luyao’s patients would wait in a line in the rain to get prescriptions from the Port St  Lucie internist and acupuncturist  She was one of the most prolific prescribers of OxyContin in the state 
And hundreds of thousands of those pills were being paid for by Medicaid, Florida’s taxpayer-financed health program for the state’s poorest and sickest citizens  Between 1999 and 2001, Medicaid shelled out $935,634 for OxyContin prescriptions written by Luyao  That was just OxyContin  Luyao was prescribing an array of addictive drugs  In the 12 months leading up to the clinic raid, Medicaid paid roughly $1 million for 7,000 prescriptions, only about 17 percent of them for OxyContin 
Nor did the raid slow her down  Between the raid and her arrest on trafficking charges four months later, Luyao wrote another 282 OxyContin prescriptions billed to Medicaid  She was not an outlier  In 24 months, taxpayers footed the bill for more than 49 million doses of pills containing oxycodone, even though there were only 1 36 million Medicaid patients  Half were children 
The sheer volume of pills might have been a tipoff that the drugs were not all intended for legitimate use  So were arrest reports dating to 2001  One man had used his 7-year-old son’s Medicaid number to doctor-shop for OxyContin  A Miramar pharmacist who billed Medicaid $3 7 million for OxyContin pills was charged with paying Medicaid patients $150 each to use their IDs 
Medicaid paid for more than $300,000 to fill Dr  James Graves’ OxyContin prescriptions  The Florida Panhandle physician was the first doctor in the nation convicted of killing patients by overprescribing OxyContin 
Addiction risk for people taking high doses of oxycodone begins climbing after just three days, a recent study concluded  And most people on Florida Medicaid getting oxycodone prescriptions in 2011 were getting much more than a few days worth  They were getting an average of nine months worth of pills, state officials said 
Pill mill doctors prescribed 1 million of those pills:
Doctors working for the George twins’ trafficking empire prescribed at least 102,081 oxycodone pills billed to Medicaid before the ring collapsed in 2010 
Working out of a Delray Beach pain clinic founded by a convicted drug smuggler, Zvi Harry Perper, son of the Broward County medical examiner, was arrested on trafficking charges, but not before he wrote prescriptions to Medicaid patients for 115,977 doses of oxycodone in 90 days 
In Lake Worth, Cesar Deleon was arrestedas part of a DEA pill mill sweep and charged with 55 counts of illegally distributing drugs  Deleon wrote orders for 20,302 oxycodone pills for Medicaid patients 
Miami internist Dr  Selwyn Carrington authorized 32,411 doses of oxycodone for Medicaid patients in just two years  He was busted for signing his name to hundreds of prescriptions 
Further, Florida wasn’t in any hurry to stop doctors linked to pill mills 
Carrington was arrested for overprescribing in March 2011  The state’s emergency order to suspend his license was signed months after he had pleaded guilty in 2012 
Perper was busted at a Delray Beach pill mill operated by a former felon in 2011  The state did not act against his license until 2014 
Joseph M  Hernandez was writing prescriptions from his car, a veritable pill mill on wheels, when he was busted in February 2010 on one count of trafficking in oxycodone 
 Florida’s Department of Health didn’t file paperwork to restrict his license for almost 18 months 
During that time, Hernandez wrote oxycodone prescriptions for Medicaid patients totaling 258,940 doses representing a taxpayer-footed bill of $130,165 
Purdue Pharma’s Profits Before Patients Creed
Kelly Skidmore is exactly the type of person Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin marketing was intended to reach: Diagnosed with juvenile arthritis, the former state legislator’s struggle with chronic pain began at age 4 
Skidmore was wary of opioid painkillers, though, one reason her willingness in 2009 to work with Purdue was surprising  But she did it to get Florida’s dormant drug monitoring database up and running 
Then a state representative in a district straddling Palm Beach and Broward counties, Skidmore recalled that, “They came to me and said, ‘Could you help get it across the finish line?’ ”
OxyContin and prescription opioids, a serious problem in 2002, had evolved into a full-blown crisis in the ensuing seven years  Broward alone had more pain clinics than it had McDonald’s  Deaths tied to oxycodone had exploded, up by 263 percent since the prescription monitoring database had first been proposed and killed  Overdoses from prescription opioids were claiming more than seven lives a day 
“By God, if we had had seven dolphins a day dying and washing up on Florida beaches, we would have been appropriating money and solving it,” Skidmore said 
Skidmore believed a database wasn’t going to resolve the underlying addiction crisis  Still, it was a start  Not a silver bullet, but “maybe silver buckshot,” she said  The database law passed with gaping loopholes  No health care professional would have to report opioid prescriptions or check the database before prescribing more, and the state refused to pay for it 
“Just to get that one little piece … took nine years of filing bills and then it had no teeth,” Skidmore said  “And it should have been the easiest piece ”
Where Was The DEA and Everyone Else?
The DEA all but wrung its hands over Florida’s lethal inaction  The agency ticked off a devil’s brew of regulatory loopholes: Florida’s Health Department regulated health care professionals but not pain clinics  The state’s Agency for Health Care Administration regulated pain clinics that accepted insurance, but pill mills were most often on a cash-only basis  And the prescription monitoring database, mired in a vendor dispute, remained stalled 
In early 2011, when Gov  Rick Scott took office, just one drug — oxycodone — was tied to six fatal overdoses a day  Deaths tied to all drugs claimed 25 a day  In the handful of Appalachian states where traffickers were bringing back South Florida pills, it was worse 
Ohio’s death rate for oxycodone and similar opioids had doubled in 24 months, federal records show  Kentucky’s was up by more than 50 percent  And in West Virginia, home to hard-hit Huntington, death rates tied to pill mill drugs such as oxycodone and Opana had climbed by 341 percent 
The DEA formally pinpointed Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties as the nation’s single biggest hub for trafficking pills across state lines  Within weeks of being sworn in, Scott abolished Florida’s Office of Drug Control, eliminating the state drug czar position, announced plans to drive a final stake in the heart of the database and rebuffed Purdue Pharma’s renewed offer to help pay for it 
Scott, a tea party conservative, cited privacy concerns, expressed skepticism the monitoring program would work and raised the possibility taxpayers would be left with a $500,000-a-year bill to operate it 
Attorney General Pam Bondi had also ridden the tea party wave to her position  She shared many of Scott’s conservative convictions  Unlike Scott, the former prosecutor relentlessly lobbied to keep the database alive  Florida’s failure to adopt the drug monitoring database was so out of step with the rest of the country that it began spawning conspiracy theories on both sides of the law 
Everyone knew prescription monitoring was going to kill the pill smuggling business, said a corrupt Florida Highway Patrol trooper as he drove a load of pills out of Florida, according to a federal lawsuit  Talking to the confidential informant in the seat next to him, the trooper speculated someone in Tallahassee must have a piece of the action, “because (Scott) was so adamant about not putting that system in place  Right?”
In Greenup, an infuriated Cooper told a reporter, “In my opinion, (Scott’s) getting money from somewhere  He has to be ” A few days later, recalled Cooper, “A lieutenant with the state police I’d been talking to down there called me, said, ‘Man, just a head’s up: I wouldn’t come to Florida ’” In states on the receiving end of the Florida pill pipeline and among federal officials, Scott’s resistance triggered outrage 
In Kentucky, where as much as 60 percent of the illicit oxycodone in that state flowed from Florida, Lt  Gov  Daniel Mongiardo proposed erecting billboards at the Florida line: “Welcome to the Oxy Tourism Capital of the World ”
U S  House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, also from Kentucky, twice wrote Scott  “Canceling Florida’s prescription drug monitoring program is equal to firing firefighters while your house is ablaze,” he wrote 
Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, asked to meet with Scott  So did DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart 
Three U S  senators — New York’s Chuck Schumer, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse — joined Florida’s Bill Nelson in pointing out that the pills weren’t just a Florida problem: There were “serious ramifications for the rest of the country,” wrote Nelson of Scott’s reluctance to crack down  This is a perfect example of how political rhetoric, in-fighting and contrived agendas prevented an early stop to the emerging opioid crisis many years ago 
WHY DIDN’T THE DEA, DRUG DISTRIBUTORS AND PHARMACIES TAKE NOTICE BEFORE THE OPIOID CRISIS SPREAD ACROSS THE COUNTRY LIKE WILDFIRE? WAS IT BECAUSE OF THE BILLIONS IN PROFITS, QUARTERLY BONUSES AND DIVIDENDS? STOCK OPTIONS CASHED IN BY BOARDROOMS AT EVERY OPIOID BIG PHARMA COMPANY? STAY TUNED FOR HOW “PROFITS BEFORE PATIENTS” BECAME THE NORM
(article excerpts and quotes have been taken from publicly available media sources and court records)
Context 3: Time to clean house in Paso Robles Home
Front Page » Time to clean house in Paso Robles
September 5, 2010 Opinion By JIM REED
I’d like to give you an update on the issue of our civil servants cramming hundreds of millions of dollars in spending down our throats after the people of Paso Robles voted down the water rate increase last November  The rate increase is being hung up in the courts by the City Attorney  What was supposed to be a quick issue to get in front of a judge, has been drug out as long as possible by the City Attorney 
Even if the courts throw out the current rate increase, I expect that our civil servants will just change a couple of words in the rate increase notice and force the same old plan on us again 
There is a real problem with the people we have hired to work for us in Paso Robles  It seems that decisions are made based on some agenda, even if it is contrary to citizens’ wishes 
City Councilmen Ed Steinbeck, Nick Gilman and Mayor Duane Picanco, on August 19th, voted unanimously to hire the same law firm employed by the City of Bell  You may have heard the recent news story about the City of Bell’s corrupt city representatives 
This law firm allowed the elected officials and City employees to pillage the General Fund for their own benefit, contrary to the rights and interests of the citizens  We are already paying several City employees $12,000 per month with equally ridiculous benefits and pensions  What does this say about our elected representatives?
I believe most residents are like me  We elect people we believe have our best interest in mind  Over the last few years I have seen that nothing is farther from the truth  The people we have elected have lost track of the fact that “the City” exists to protect and deliver services to the citizens  To them it is some all-important ideal they strive to cultivate and improve according to their agenda  They have forgotten that they are elected to represent the citizens 
We have an election coming up in November  We have the opportunity to elect some responsible, principled people to represent us  If we elect more people from within this system, we will get more of the same type of government  We need to look at where the new candidates stand  Will they lawfully represent the citizens of the city? Or, are they happy with the way things are being run?
We have stood together in the past and have made real significant changes in important matters that are going to affect our lives for years to come  There are several thousand citizens that made their voice heard on the water issue, more than enough votes to make a change in our city government 
Please come out and vote for a democratic representative governing body for Paso Robles instead of the tyrannical leadership that exists now 
Jim Reed is a longtime resident of Paso Robles 
Subjects: Opinion Paso Robles Paso Robles City Council Vote	Related:
<- Previous Next ->	Endless Summer Nights at Edna Valley, event photos Trial postponed for Paso Robles woman accused of forgery The comments below represent the opinion of the writer and do not represent the views or policies of CalCoastNews com  (moderator@calcoastnews com Comment Guidelines )
2 whatisup says:	09/13/2010 at 9:27 pm
pasoobserver – Here is something to observe and get you going in the right direction:
California Government Code Section 65584
(a) (1) For the fourth and subsequent revisions of the
housing element pursuant to Section 65588, the department shall
determine the existing and projected need for housing for each region
pursuant to this article  For purposes of subdivision (a) of Section
65583, the share of a city or county of the regional housing need
shall include that share of the housing need of persons at all income
levels within the area significantly affected by the general plan of
(2) While it is the intent of the Legislature that cities,
counties, and cities and counties should undertake all necessary
actions to encourage, promote, and facilitate the development of
housing to accommodate the entire regional housing need, it is
recognized, however, that future housing production may not equal the
regional housing need established for planning purposes 
(b) The department, in consultation with each council of
governments, shall determine each region’s existing and projected
housing need pursuant to Section 65584 01 at least two years prior to
the scheduled revision required pursuant to Section 65588  The
appropriate council of governments, or for cities and counties
without a council of governments, the department, shall adopt a final
regional housing need plan that allocates a share of the regional
housing need to each city, county, or city and county at least one
year prior to the scheduled revision for the region required by
Section 65588  The allocation plan prepared by a council of
governments shall be prepared pursuant to Sections 65584 04 and
65584 05 with the advice of the department 
(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the due dates for
the determinations of the department or for the council of
governments, respectively, regarding the regional housing need may be
extended by the department by not more than 60 days if the extension
will enable access to more recent critical population or housing
data from a pending or recent release of the United States Census
Bureau or the Department of Finance  If the due date for the
determination of the department or the council of governments is
extended for this reason, the department shall extend the
corresponding housing element revision deadline pursuant to Section
65588 by not more than 60 days 
(d) The regional housing needs allocation plan shall be consistent
with all of the following objectives:
(1) Increasing the housing supply and the mix of housing types,
tenure, and affordability in all cities and counties within the
region in an equitable manner, which shall result in each
jurisdiction receiving an allocation of units for low- and very low
(2) Promoting infill development and socioeconomic equity, the
protection of environmental and agricultural resources, and the
encouragement of efficient development patterns 
(3) Promoting an improved intraregional relationship between jobs
(4) Allocating a lower proportion of housing need to an income
category when a jurisdiction already has a disproportionately high
share of households in that income category, as compared to the
countywide distribution of households in that category from the most
recent decennial United States census 
(e) For purposes of this section, “household income levels” are as
determined by the department as of the most recent decennial census
pursuant to the following code sections:
(1) Very low incomes as defined by Section 50105 of the Health and
(2) Lower incomes, as defined by Section 50079 5 of the Health and
(3) Moderate incomes, as defined by Section 50093 of the Health
and Safety Code 
(4) Above moderate incomes are those exceeding the moderate-income
level of Section 50093 of the Health and Safety Code 
(f) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, determinations
made by the department, a council of governments, or a city or county
pursuant to this section or Section 65584 01, 65584 02, 65584 03,
65584 04, 65584 05, 65584 06, 65584 07, or 65584 08 are exempt from
the California Environmental Quality Act (Division 13 (commencing
with Section 21000) of the Public Resources Code) 
pasoobserver says:	09/13/2010 at 6:52 pm
To whatisup —- First of all, I reviewed AB 602 Assembly Bill  Thanks  I am sorry to inform you but AB 602 is not the LAW as you so stated in your blog  I contacted the Deputy Chief Council’s office in Sacramento handling AB 602 to confirm your misstatement of facts  You know,in the English language, It shouldn’t be so difficult to answer some simple questions with a “YES” or “NO” answer  Yet, you are reluctant to do so, but you go on and on with a thesis along with some rhetoric  I never talked about a court suit over the “water issue”, I asked YOU, not about waiting for a court decision  Maybe, you did with some other people  Also, I was not ranting about the wineries usage of water  My response to you on your vague question about “there are people not paying their fair share for their use of water”  I related, are you talking about the wineries? I am well aware that most of the wineries are outside the city limits using the same aquifer  You took my question out of context , nice try! You are just being a popinjay and rhetorical  Also, you didn’t answer another question about “what is the unit cost of water” in Templeton? as compared to Paso Robles 
whatisup says:	09/13/2010 at 8:54 pm
I am on a well  I am sure you are capable of doing your own homework  I also am quite sure if you really contacted the Deputy Chief Counsel’s Office you have been set straight  What I gave you is a proposed small adjustment in the wide range of laws that make up the California Housing element  I assumed you could stumble onto the facts based on what I gave you  By the way, I believe you can review the Paso Robles Housing element plan on the City’s website or at the Library  The California Housing Element Laws that all cities and counties have to follow have been in place for almost 25 years  I realize you don’t actually have a clue how to look the laws up  Either educate yourself or keep making a fool of yourself, your choice  A simple Google search of California Housing Element Laws will get you going  Good Luck!
TO WHATISUP — I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT LAW YOU ARE REFERRING TO THAT SAYS “WE” THE PEOPLE HAVE TO SUBSIDIZE NEW DEVELOPMENT? AGAIN, FOR THE THIRD TIME, YOU FAILED TO ANSWER MY QUESTIONS POSED TO YOU IN MY PRIOR RESPONSES TO YOU ON SEPT 10TH &11TH  IS THERE A REASON WHY YOU DON’T WANT TO ANSWER THEM? YOU DO WHAT OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS DO SO WELL, AND THAT IS “IN ONE EAR AND OUT OF THE OTHER EAR” IT SEEMS TO ME THAT YOU ARE EITHER EMPLOYED BY THE CITY OR YOU HAVE OTHER DEALING WITH THE CITY, SO BE IT  IT APPEARS TO ME THAT YOU THINK THE CITY DOES EVERYTHING RIGHT  APPARENTLY, YOU PRESENT YOURSELF AS BEING VERY BIAS ON CITY DECISIONS  IT LIKE THEY CAN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG ACCORDING TO YOUR LOGIC  THEY KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR THE CITIZENS OF PASO,THAT IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF ARROGANCE ALONG WITH NARCISSISM 
WHAT PEOPLE ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THAT DOESN’T PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF WATER? ARE YOU REFERRING TO THE WINERIES USING THE SAME AQUIFER?
I BELIEVE YOU RELATED THAT YOU RESIDE IN TEMPLETON, BUT YOU OWN PROPERTY IN PASO  BY THE WAY, WHAT IS THE COST PER UNIT OF WATER USAGE IN TEMPLETON COMPARED TO PASO? OF COURSE, TEMPLETON IS IN AN UNINCORPORATED AREA (COUNTY JURISDICTION) 
WELL, I GAVE YOU SOME SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO PAY FOR THE NACIMIENTO WATER PIPELINE AND SEWER TREATMENT PLANT  ALSO, REMEMBER IT’S THE CITIZENS’ MONEY THAT IS BEING SPENT  WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, IS LET THE CITIZENS OF PASO DECIDE WITH THEIR VOTE ON HOW TO FINANCE THIS HUGE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROJECT EXPENDITURE  JUST BE IN COMPLIANCE WITH STATE PROPOSITION 218 AND STOP CIRCUMVENTING THE LAW 
WOULD YOU OBJECT TO HAVING TO FINANCE SOME NEW BONDS ON YOUR PROPERTY TAX BILL AS A ” SPECIAL TAX” OR AN ASSESSMENT TAX” TO PAY FOR THE NACIMIENTO WATER PIPELINE AND SEWER TREATMENT PLANT? A PERCENTAGE OF PASO CITIZENS FINANCE LOCAL SCHOOL BONDS ON THEIR PROPERTY TAX BILL AND DON’T HAVE ANY KIDS GOING TO SCHOOL  HOW ABOUT THAT COMPARISON FOR YOU TO THINK ABOUT? WHAT SAY YOU?
I say less CapsLock, please 
whatisup says:	09/12/2010 at 11:41 pm
I have answered your questions  I have been quite detailed in my answers and I am sorry if you can’t deal with the detail  I guess it is your inconvenient truth  You do seem to like to deflect and go around in circles  Another example, now you are ranting about the wineries using the same aquaifier as the City  Let me be clear for you, I don’t like the amount of water the wineries are using  However, the wineries are in the County, not in the City and the City can’t do anything about it  They wineries are allowed to take the water they are taking even if it drops the City’s water levels in their wells  You need to complain to Sacramento  It sounds like you just don’t want to pay anything for the infrastructure because you really just don’t want it built 
Several of your observations of my opinions are bizarre considering I have stated several times I believe the Courts need to decide if Paso Robles has, or has not followed the rules as to funding the infrastucture  Obviously, as I have stated before, if the City loses the lawsuit the infrastructure will have to be paid out of the City’s General Fund until a new method of payment is voted on by the Citizens of Paso Robles  Pretty clear 
Your idea of charging based on a special assesment rather than the amount of water a property uses means that people who use little water, but live on a more expensive property will pay more than their share, based on their water usage  In addition, how do you deal with a rental unit where the renter is supposed to pay the water bill? Your idea is inherantly unfair, but my guess is it will favor you, so you don’t care if it is unfair and other people would pay part of your share  You also have decided that since I have alternative ideas to yours I must work for, or have business with the City of Paso Robles, another attempt to deflect from the issue  However, once again, I have never worked for the City or have ever done business with the City and don’t expect to ever do business with the City  I do own property in the City which is why I pay attention  Finally, it turns out there needs to be a fix to the housing element laws, the existance of which you are questioning  As I understand it the fix to the housing elemnt laws is because of some lawsuit  This should give you all the information you need to educate yourself on the California Housing Element laws that every city and county in California has to follow:
BILL ANALYSIS ————————————————————
|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 602|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|1020 N Street, Suite 524 | |
|(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | |
|327-4478 | |
———————————————————— THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 602
Author: Feuer (D), et al
Amended: 8/20/10 in Senate
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMM : 6-3, 6/29/10
AYES: Lowenthal, DeSaulnier, Kehoe, Pavley, Simitian, Wolk
NOES: Huff, Ashburn, Harman
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : Not relevant
SUBJECT : Statute of limitations on housing element
SOURCE : California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
Housing California DIGEST : This bill states the intent of the Legislature
in enacting this bill to modify the courts opinion in Urban
Habitat Program v  City of Pleasanton (2008) 164
Cal App 4th 1561, with respect to the interpretation of
Section 65009 of the Government Code, and revises and
clarifies statute of limitations and remedies for specified
housing related challenges



ground_truth: Privacy concerns and skepticism about its effectiveness.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What did the decision to base the water rates on usage reflect?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 3: 
Senate Floor Amendments of 8/20/10 revise the statute of
limitations and remedies for specified housing-related
ANALYSIS : The Planning and Zoning Law requires cities
and counties to prepare and adopt a general plan, including
a housing element, to guide the future growth of a
community  Following a staggered statutory schedule,
cities and counties located within the territory of a
metropolitan planning organization (MPO) must revise their
housing elements every eight years, and cities and counties
in rural non-MPO regions must revise their housing elements
every five years  These five- and eight-year periods are
known as the housing element planning period 
Before each revision, each community is assigned its fair
share of housing for each income category through the
regional housing needs assessment (RHNA) process  A
housing element must identify and analyze existing and
projected housing needs, identify adequate sites with
appropriate zoning to meet its share of the RHNA, and
ensure that regulatory systems provide opportunities for,
and do not unduly constrain, housing development  The
reviews both draft and adopted housing elements to
determine whether or not they are in substantial compliance
with the law  The Planning and Zoning Law and the Subdivision Map Act
also includes a number of sections governing zoning and
entitlements specifically related to housing, including:
? The Housing Accountability Act, which requires a city or
county to make one or more specified findings in order to
disapprove a particular housing development 
? A provision requiring cities and counties, when adopting
an ordinance which limits the number of housing units
which may be constructed on an annual basis, to make
findings as to the public health, safety, and welfare
benefits that justify reducing the housing opportunities
of the region  ? Density bonus law, which requires cities and counties to
grant a developer a density bonus, incentives, and
concessions when the developer proposes to include
specified percentages of affordable housing within a
development  ? The Least Cost Zoning Law, which requires cities and AB 602
counties to designate and zone sufficient vacant land for
residential use with appropriate standards to meet
housing needs for all income categories and to contribute
to producing housing at the lowest possible cost 
? A requirement that, when determining whether to approve a
tentative subdivision map, a city or county shall apply
only those ordinances, policies, and standards in effect
as of the date the developer’s application is deemed
Prior to a recent court decision, it was understood that
current law allowed a party to challenge the adequacy of a
city’s or county’s housing element at any time during a
planning period, provided that the challenger brought the
action “in support of or to encourage or facilitate the
development of housing that would increase the community’s
supply of [affordable] housing ” The challenging party was
required first to serve the city or county with a notice
identifying the deficiencies in the housing element  After
60 days or the date on which the city or county took final
action in response to the notice, whichever occurred first,
the challenging party had one year to file the action in
court  This process and statute of limitations also
applied to actions brought pursuant to the housing-related
statutes listed above  In 2006 Urban Habitat Program brought suit to challenge the
City of Pleasanton’s housing policies, including the city’s
annual cap on housing permits and the city’s cap on the
aggregate number of permissible housing units, both of
which Urban Habitat claimed were insufficient to allow the
city to meet its RHNA obligation  In 2008, the First
District California Court of Appeals issued an unpublished
decision in the case of Urban Habitat Program v  City of
Pleasanton allowing the case to proceed with respect to
some causes of action, but ruling that the challenge to the
housing element itself was time-barred  The court stated:
Although the statute does not specify the time within
which [a deficiency] notice must be given, it is our
conclusion that the statute must be interpreted as
containing a time limit within which this requirement
must be met? In sum, a party bringing a challenge AB 602
governed by section 65009, subdivision (d), has 90
days from the date a legislative action is taken or
approval is given to notify the local land use
authority of any claimed deficiencies in such an
action or approval  Its claim then accrues 60 days
after it gives this notice 
In other words, instead of being able to initiate a
challenge to a deficient housing element at any time during
the planning period, housing advocates and other interested
parties may now only initiate such a challenge by
submitting a deficiency notice within 90 days of the
housing element’s adoption 
1 Removes from the current list of city or county actions
which may be challenged pursuant to Government Code 65009
notice and accrual provisions those actions related to
the Housing Accountability Act, the Subdivision Map Act,
and the application of a Density Bonus ordinance to a
particular project, all of which are project-specific
actions  The bill maintains the ability to use these
notice and accrual provisions to challenge the adequacy
of a city’s or county’s density bonus ordinance
2 Extends lengthening the time in which a deficiency notice
may be served to cover all remaining city or county
actions described in this section of law, as opposed to
just housing element challenges  In other words, the
amendments apply the longer timeframe to serve the
deficiency notice to actions relating to the Least Cost
Zoning Law, annual limits on housing permits, and the
adequacy of a density bonus ordinance, in addition to
housing element law  3 Provides that an entity challenging such an action in
support of affordable housing may serve the deficiency
notice up to five years after the city’s or county’s
action  After 60 days or the date on which the city or
county takes final action in response to the notice,
whichever occurs first, the challenging party has one
year to file an action in court, except that the lawsuit AB 602
may not be filed more than five years after the city’s or
county’s action  In other words, the entity must file
the lawsuit within one year of the expiration of the
deficiency notice or within five years of the city’s or
county’s action, whichever occurs first 
4 Provides that a housing element from a prior planning
period may not be challenged if the city or county has
adopted a revised housing element for the new planning
Government Code 65755   Current law requires a court, if it
finds any portion of a general plan, including a housing
element, out of compliance with the law, to include within
its order or judgment one or more of the following remedies
for any or all types of developments or any or all
geographic segments of the city or county until the city or
county has complied with the law:
? Suspend the authority of the city or county to
issue building permits 
grant zoning changes and/or variances 
grant subdivision map approvals 
? Mandate the approval of building permits for
residential housing that meet specified criteria 
? Mandate the approval of final subdivision maps for
housing projects that meet specified criteria 
? Mandate the approval of tentative subdivision maps
for residential housing projects that meet specified
This bill clarifies that in any action or proceeding
brought pursuant to the notice and accrual provisions of
Government Code Section 65009 described above, neither the
court remedies described above nor any injunction against
the development of a housing project shall abrogate,
impair, or otherwise interfere with the full exercise of
the rights and protections granted to an applicant for a
tentative map or a vesting tentative map under specified
provisions of the Subdivision Map Act or to a developer
under a specified provision relating to development AB 602
Under current law, HCD operates a number of grant programs
to which cities and counties may apply  In many cases, the
law requires a city or county to have an HCD-approved
housing element in order to be eligible for funding  This bill provides that if a third-party challenges the
adequacy of a housing element in court and the court finds
that the housing element substantially complies with all of
the requirements of housing element law, the element shall
be deemed to be in compliance for purposes of state housing
The statutory language interpreted by the court and at
issue in this bill was added to statute by AB 998 (Waters),
Chapter 1138, Statutes of 1983, a bill sponsored by the
League of California Cities and the California Building
Industry Association  AB 998 created a short statute of
limitations period for land use decisions generally but
provided a specific exception to protect the ability to
challenge deficient housing elements  The Senate Housing
and Land Use Committee and the Senate Third Reading
analysis of the bill stated that the bill:
Specifies that for challenges in support of low- and
moderate-income housing requirements, the petitioner
shall notice local government 60 days prior to filing
action  The [one-year] statute of limitations then
begins on the first day the legislative body fails to
In the intervening 25 years prior to the Urban Habitat
ruling, housing advocates filed and successfully settled at
least ten cases in which the 60-day deficiency notice was
sent more than 90 days after adoption of the city’s or
county’s housing element  In none of these cases was the
timeliness on the advocates’ suit contested  Likewise, six
bills amended other portions of this statute during those
intervening years, and there was never any controversy
surrounding the lack of a deadline for housing advocates to
serve a deficiency notice nor any attempt to change the AB 602
statute in this regard  Current level of housing element compliance   According to
HCD’s website as of June 7, 2010, only 46 percent of cities
and counties have adopted an HCD-approved housing element
for the current planning period that began in 2005 for the
San Diego region, 2008 for the Southern California, Fresno,
Kern, and Sacramento regions, and the summer of 2009 for
the remaining areas of the state  Unlocking the private market   The purpose of housing
element law is to create opportunities for the private
housing market to function  Builders cannot build without
access to appropriately zoned land, and current land use
plans in many cities and counties in California fail to
provide sufficient opportunities to accommodate projected
population growth  The San Diego Association of
Governments’ Regional Comprehensive Plan describes this
typical California paradox in the following way:
Under current plans and policies, more than 90 percent
of [the San Diego region’s] remaining vacant land
designated for housing is planned for densities of
less than one home per acre, and most is in the rural
back country areas dependent upon scarce groundwater
supplies  And of the remaining vacant land planned for
housing in the 18 incorporated cities, only about
seven percent is planned for multifamily housing  When
taken together, the current land use plans of the 19
local jurisdictions do not accommodate the amount of
growth anticipated in our region  SANDAG’s population
forecast, which reflects the current adopted local
land use plans in the region, projects that while
population will increase by 37 percent by 2030,
housing will grow by just 30 percent  The forecast
shows that if local plans are not changed, demand for
housing will continue to outpace the supply, just as
Housing element law addresses this problem directly by
requiring cities and counties to zone land at appropriate
densities to accommodate the projected housing needs of all
income groups and to remove constraints that prevent such
sites from being developed at the allowed densities  AB 602
Cities and counties, however, are not required to build
housing because that is the role of private developers 
The law holds cities and counties accountable only for that
which they control: zoning and land use entitlements 
Without the ability to enforce housing element law, the
market’s ability to meet housing demand may well remain
locked up 
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com : No
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/23/10)
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (co-source)
Housing California (co-source)
Advocates for Affordable Homes in Fremont
California Coalition for Rural Housing
Community Housing Improvement Program
Community Housing Works
Eden Housing
Fair Housing of Marin
Grassroots Leadership Network of Marin
Kennedy Commission
Public Advocates, Inc
San Diego Housing Federation
Self-Help Enterprises
Sierra Club of California
American Planning Association, California Chapter
JA:nl 8/23/10 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
pasoobserver says:	09/11/2010 at 11:17 pm
To whatisup — Thank you for your response to my comments  However, you failed to answer some of my questions that I mentioned to you  It’s almost like dealing with some City officials  They just let the public vent at their bimonthly council meetings  In my opinion, it’s difficult to deal with narcissism and arrogance  Over the years, there has been some very good input to our elected officials on how to proceed on the Nacimiento water pipeline,but it fell on deaf ears  You wanted me to answer some of your questions,but you did not answer some of my questions  Again, are you willing to subsidize new development?,Yes?or No?, are you willing to pay for a commodity that you are not receiving? Yes?or No? and another question for you  Are you willing to pay over 300% on your water bills within the five (5) year plan that the City has proposed? Also, the water rates will be subject to later increases too  By the way, I do concur with the city’s plan of “you pay for the amount of water units you use”  (748 gal=one unit)  However, the higher water rates are not good for our senior citizens on fixed incomes and other struggling families in our community  My first suggestion years ago was desalination  The response was it was too expensive  Of course, now it is more expensive  I would suggest that our elected officials recall the existing bonds (The bonds can be recalled early)  The City council can explain to the citizens in detail with financing of new bonds at a lower interest rate as of now for the sewer plant and Nacimiento water pipeline and present their new proposal in compliance with Proposition 218  Let the citizens of Paso VOTE on the financing bonds for their approval  Most of the citizens,that I had spoken to were not happy with the way our City Council handled the Nacimiento water pipeline project  The citizens of Paso didn’t give our City Council a “BLANK CHECK” for $176 million to spend without voter approval  I would suggest that it be a “special tax” or “an assessment” be levied on our property taxes  A percentage of those bonds can be deducted on Federal Income taxes  As it is now, a” fee” on a capital funding project is not deductible  Of course, there are homeowners would not go for this suggestion due to our poor economy  My analogy mentioned above would be, you would get something back on a “special tax” or an “assessment” verses nothing on a “fee”  What say you?
whatisup says:	09/12/2010 at 9:02 am
Unfortunately the law says we have to subsidize new development in California  I don’t like it, but it is the law  I know paying using the property taxes was bandied about  The argument against it was it would mean some would be paying for water they aren’t using and others could be big water users, but pay a small special assessment on their property taxes  I think the decision that was made to base it on usage was out of fairness  It seems to me if people are using water and not paying their share of the costs it is not fair  The Senior issue is very difficult  If someone is retired for twenty years is it realistic to think prices don’t go up during the 20 years of retirement  Think what prices were in 1990 compared to today  Should Seniors never have to pay for capital improvements? Paso Robles also had very low water rates  Rates that are no longer possible given the circumstances  Desalination will happen eventually  California is out of water  If you want to pay $1,000,000 a gallon there is no more allotable water of any consequence in California  The expense will be tremendous — still have to build a desalination plant, still have to build a pipeline  I don’t know if the plant has to be built along the ocean or if the salt water could be piped over to Paso Robles  If it has to be built along the ocean, Paso Robles doesn’t own land on the ocean and, in any case, the environmentalists will keep it in courts for years as they have done so for other proposed desalination plants in Southern California  Eventually necessity will force desalination past the environmentalists, but not yet 
pasojim says:	09/13/2010 at 7:46 am
Whatisup – On one of your previous post you made the comment you haven’t heard any of the legal suggestions for the water issue, But you obviously have  That is a good thing  So we can move the discussion ahead 
Once, again this was handled incorrectly by our city custodians from the beginning  And now here we are  The public is not supporting this very expensive, very limited benefit project  As you said, until a plan is developed that the public can support, things don’t look good 
All this discussion about the water issue has only reinforced my opinion the issue hasn’t been about water, only how the plan should be paid for  Or more specifically, to what extent do we allow our elected custodians and our un-elected GOD tzar decide which laws they will follow and which laws they will ignore  When the City GOD tzar tell citizens at a council meeting if we don’t agree with the City’s plan, then we should just sue him, and when the City Attorney explains to a citizen at a City Council meeting that she does have to respond to their questions because she does NOT work for them  When the project is voted down by the citizens and the council brings it right back up, it is clear that our elected representatives are not doing their job providing direction to their employees and listening to and representing the CITIZENS 
The subject of the original post was the need to elect different representation  I think with all the conversation made on this post, as well as the post on Cal Coast about the hiring of the new legal firm you were involved in, Supports my original opinion 



ground_truth: Fairness.