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Dear James,
I empathize with your frustration, but I believe it is
misplaced. The roots of the current fiscal crisis hark back to
Proposition 13. Development that is out of scale with the
community brings a whole raft of new problems while only potentially
solving some of the old. As far as Marina Shores, I suspect we
will never be in agreement on "what might have been," but on
matters of verifiable fact, I feel the need to correct your inaccurate
prior post.
You wrote:
"This group used
exaggerated arguments of increased traffic, water use and above all, a
sullied landscape to convince a majority that the project was not in
the best interest of our community."
If our arguments seemed exaggerated, it
could only have been because of the outrageous scale of the
development. "People for Housing Not High Rises" did
not invent the traffic figures, nor did they create the drawings of
the skyscrapers. All of the campaign's claims were taken
directly from the projects official documents (produced by the
developer and city staff). Those documents are still available
for you to verify this (http://no-on-q.org/archive/resources.html)
If the community deemed it was a project "not in their best
interests," we should be grateful, or at least
respectful.
As far as solving current and future
financial needs, I believe we need to look at all possibilities
(including development) and choose the right ones. If you are
suggesting the adoption of a skyscraper development with its impact on
traffic, water, and the environment would be preferable to a nominal
temporary parcel tax, I for one am glad you do not represent the
majority of city residents.
Robert Gelman
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