Scope This Out
Just when you thought you have had all of the scoping you can handle... Ponte Vista, the newest kid in town in terms of development, is all lined up for some serious scoping. I don't have a solid opinion on this project yet, but I'm sure I'll develop one that will offend/not agree with both the development activists and the community activists soon. I won't be at this one, so if anyone goes, please comment on this post with your thoughts and observations.
PONTE VISTA SCOPING MEETING
At the request of Councilwoman Janice Hahn and the San Pedro Neighborhood Councils, the developers have agreed to an additional meeting on their plans to build 2,300 new housing units on N. Western Avenue
Ports O’Call Restaurant
Ports O'Call Village
San Pedro, CA 90731
5:30 pm - Wednesday, November 9, 2005
PONTE VISTA SCOPING MEETING
At the request of Councilwoman Janice Hahn and the San Pedro Neighborhood Councils, the developers have agreed to an additional meeting on their plans to build 2,300 new housing units on N. Western Avenue
Ports O’Call Restaurant
Ports O'Call Village
San Pedro, CA 90731
5:30 pm - Wednesday, November 9, 2005
10 Comments:
I honestly can't think of any non-hideous aspect to this project. Not transit-oriented, will add traffic to an already clogged arterial street and contribute to air pollution, will no doubt be ugly as sin--and worst of all, they're calling it fucking "Ponte Vista," for Chrissake. Is there some school that these asswipes attend to learn how to create moronic names for housing developments?
Um, I also understand that the LAUSD has chosen to build its newest high school in that exact same neck of the woods. With any luck, the pushback from the people in that area will be so immense that the District will change its mind and build it on the DiCarlo site after all, thus sparing us from having a Target store there. Or something like that.
You need to get one of them thingamajiggers where it has those wavy, distorted letters and numbers and commenters have to type then in before posting, thus locking out bot-generated comment spam.
Of course, if this spam is human-generated (picture some miserable boiler room full of ten-year-old Vietnamese indentured servants typing all that shit in by hand), even that won't help.
"type then in" ---> "type them in"
...so, the bot blocker would probably end up blocking my dumb typo-generating ass, too.
This meeting is at the same time as the Harbor Commission meeting. A pretty clever way to minimize the irritating public presence at both, don't you think?
I don't think the spam has become beyond any of our ability to manually deal with, but if it gets worse...
In any other town, I'd be very suspicious about competing meetings being scheduled so as to discourage attendence. There are too many meetings in Pedro, and if you schedule one, especially on short notice, the potential for being on the same night as someone else's meeting is high, almost unavoidable. I'd be much more likely to chalk the scheduling up to a screw up than a deliberate intent to divide the audience.
If I'm not mistaken, the primary communities affected by Ponte Vista (the traffic, most importantly) are up on Western and a lot of the people likely to be at the Ponte Vista meeting aren't necessarily they people who would be at the Harbor Commission meeting.
Well, I would have gone to the "Ponte Vista" meeting if it hadn't conflicted. I believe that several others would have attended both if the could have.
My wife drives to work on Western Ave., and it's almost impossible already.
I agree that it is almost impossible to keep up with the meetings, but the Harbor Commission meeting is pretty high profile, if anybody cares to check.
People keep telling met never to read a conspiracy theory into something that can be explained by simple incompetence, but conspiracy theories are a lot more fun.
I take it you attended the Harbor Comission meeting, Noel? Care to give us a report?
I'd be careful explaining the conflict as incompetence. Mistakes get made all the time by totally competent people, but genuine incompetence is rare and special.
The meeting started at 6:00 PM and they finished the agenda items and went into closed session at about 10:15, so a full report is more than I can do tonight.
The evening meetings have been successful in creating more public participation. The fact that they have moved the general public comment time to the beginning of the meeting is good, as people with only one issue can say their piece and leave, without sitting through the whole thing.
I am cautiously optimistic that this Commission will pay more attention to the public comments than the last. Mr. Freeman seems to be getting more tolerant of the public as time passes. He interrupted much less last night than he has done before, and was positively polite to me a the beginnig of the meeting, although he got over it as the meeting went on.
There is some really important stuff going on, as always I guess. they are working on the Port "Strategic Plan" at the moment. The Commission seems pretty intersted in involving itself in this, as well they might. There are multiple EIRs coming, which will profoundly impact our community.
I don't want to sound too optimistic, because the underlying culture of the Port is alive and well. they are highly change resistant. The attitude you have seen regarding the "Bridge to Breakwater" is typical of their approach to all of the issues in play. As Andy Mardesich always said, "We know best, and the end justifies the means."
I can give you some more on the specifics of the meeting in the morning, if you think you can stand it.
Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but that doesn't look like anything to get optimistic about. If the best that can be said about Freeman is that he "seems to be getting more tolerant of the public," then it looks more like meet-the-new-boss, same-as-the-old-boss to me.
Alas, too true in many ways. We grasp at any straw we can find.
Even if Freeman sincerely wants to improve the air quality problem, which I believe he does, the massive inertia and passive aggressive resistance of the multi-billion dollar shipping and railroad industries, and their handmaidens the Port staff, will make it extremely difficult.
As to issues of the developer mentality overbuilding of the waterfront and the totally unmitigated aesthetic blight of landfills and industrial facilties, I don't see a lot of concern yet.
These issues have had 30 or 40 years to develop with no significant public push back. It is going to be very tough to change the culture which facilitates them. However, it's fight or flee in my opinion, and I'm not ready to flee just yet.
Also, the NRDC, et al, are not done yet, so one more crappy EIR and it's back to court, which may focus their attention a bit.
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