LINK
The AP report says the 150-acre site can bring as much as $ 180 million. Although Costa Mesa has various zoning rights over the site, Costa Mesa won't be able to stop a sale.
As you no doubt know, use of this site for a swapmeet or a yearly fair or the other present uses is not the highest and best use of the land.
Get ready for the property to be carved up and built out in various ways. We expect to see whole Irvine type neighborhoods plopped down on parts of the land along with some shopping centers and office uses.
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BREAKING NEWS--THE CM PRESS HAS JUST FINISHED LOOKING AT ALL APPLICATIONS AND ALL RESUMES OF THOSE APPLYING FOR THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND THE PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION
Here are a few of our fast response thoughts on what we've seen.
Most of the applications and resumes were what we had expected. Most of the applicants had the usual level of education and the usual level of work experience. Yada yada.
We've seen hundreds of resumes and applications just like them over the years in a variety of venues. Nevertheless, we're pleased that most of these folks who applied actually live in Costa Mesa. A city is its people, and in our view most of the people who applied are good for the city simply by their presence here.
What troubled us about many (but not all) of the applicants, however, is that while almost all of them wrote the de riguer several lines about how much they love the city and how much they want to help the city, few of them have actually taken the initiative to get involved in real grass roots improvement of the city by putting themselves on the line by attending public meetings and speaking out about important matters in this city, and especially about the Westside which is the key to improving all of Costa Mesa.
Where the hell have they been?
Don't they know that they don't have to be appointed to a commission or committee to be active? Don't they know that activism starts by paying attention to local matters and speaking out about them?
Don't they know that the City Council and Planning Commission meet about every two weeks and decide important matters that affect all of us who live here? Why aren't many of them at those meetings? Too busy? Well, if they're too busy to do it on their own dime and time then they shouldn't expect to be appointed just because they think it would be nice to be appointed. Don't do us any favors.
Watch what happens after the selection is made. Most of the applicants will never be heard from again. So much for loving the city and for wanting to help it.
We happen to know that Mayor Mansoor, Councilmembers Monahan, Bever, Leece and even, yes even, Katrina Foley all started off in grass roots activism.
As far as we know, not one of them waited around for someone to appoint them to a committee or commission before they started doing what they thought was right for the city. They got in the trenches and worked for what they believed was good for the city. No fancy titles. No appointments. Just doing the nitty gritty thankless work that is necessary.
Their appointments and elections came later--after they were already doing for free what they felt had to be done--not after someone appointed them.
By the time each of them got an appointment or ran for the City Council, they were already putting hours and hours into grassroots level activism and they were already fairly well known in the city.
As far as we know, not one of them fell out of bed one day and said, "Gee wouldn't it be keen to sit on a committee or commission or on the City Council."
Improving Costa Mesa isn't a spectator sport. You have to get in the arena, and you have to take it on yourself to do so. Love Costa Mesa and want the City to be made nicer? Great. Just do it. Don't sit around waiting for someone to appoint you.
One of the applicants has said negative things about Improvers by calling them"self-annointed Improvers." Well, who the hell does he think annoints them? They annoint themselves. Who the hell does he think was behind the overlay and most of the other changes that have been in the works on the Westside? I'll tell you who: It's the self-annointed Improvers.
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HOW ABOUT PUBLISHING I.Q.'s?When people run for office or apply for commissions here in Costa Mesa we get to learn a little about them. Unfortunately, we don't learn one of the most important things of all. Are they smart or are they stupid?
Now, we don't need MENSA level I.Q.'s for our elected and appointed officials, but shouldn't they at least
be a little smart? Wouldn't that head off a lot of problems?The buzz on the street is that there may be at least one person who wants to be appointed by the Council to a City body, who is so stupid that some of the folks are embarrassed for those on the Council who may favor and vote for such a person.
Councilmembers really have to do better than to just appoint people who kiss up to them. The improvement of Costa Mesa, and especially the Westside, requires bright people in all positions, not know-nothings and do-nothings. We need people who can take the initiative and not just show up at meetings and sit on the dais like mushrooms and we need people who understand what improvement actually means and how to achieve it.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT INTELLIGENCE
Even the dumbest person can reach a conclusion if all the facts are laid out in front of him with no ambiguity. Thus, even the dumbest person can look at a red ball and conclude that it is a red ball. That's not the kind of person we need on City bodies.
We need people who can make logical inferences--connect up the dots even when some of the dots are missing--and we need people who can think their actions through to logical conclusions even if those conclusions are many steps and several years ahead.
Take Triangle Square, for example. Wouldn't a bright person have been able to tell the City that it was a mess aborning because its design was wrong even before it was built?
Even today, we have many people in this city who don't seem to understand why Triangle Square is such a mess. We've had several people on City bodies and in the private sector publish things in the local paper about how they knew what had to be done at Triangle Square and, by golly, they were going to do it. Then, one after another, they failed. Why? Because they didn't really understand why Triangle Square doesn't work.
So, we keep electing people based on their smiles or handshakes, and they appoint people based on the same things and we end up with a city that is trending more like Santa Ana than our sister city, Newport Beach, and we continue to have a Westside that is illegal alien central, and people on City bodies who don't know why this is the case and who thus have no idea about how to solve the problem.
In fact, we have some who want to be on the Planning Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission who don't even think we have a problem. How many facts, how many statistics do such numbnuts have to see to understand there is a problem? These people are like the OJ Simpson jury. Dumb.
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THOUSANDS LINE UP IN DETROIT FOR YOUR MONEY
People lined up to get so-called stimulus money to pay their rent. LINK
Think this just happens in Detroit? Think again. A variation of this happened at the Costa Mesa City Council meeting a couple of weeks ago when the Council--including the pretend fiscal conservatives on the Council--voted to give your money to non-profits that will supposedly give some of your money (after overhead, salaries, etc. are deducted for the non-profits) to people in Costa Mesa to pay their rent.
Folks, the only difference between what happened in Detroit and what happened here in Costa Mesa is the scale of the giveaway. It's your hard earned money that is being given away.
Rush Limbaugh played a sound clip of the mess in Detroit the other day. A woman waiting for her free money was asked where the money came from. She replied that it came from the city or the state. She was then asked where the city or state got the money and she replied from Obama. Next, she was asked where Obama got the money and there was a pause, and then she replied she didn't know. Well, we know. It's from the taxpayers.
Also as we previously reported, the City Council actually gave $ 20,000 of your money to a non-profit, whose leader sits on the very Committee that recommends how much money to give to each non-profit--including her own, and then this leader wrote a column on a local blog complaining that the CMPD had arrested some illegal aliens for illegally soliciting work from our street corners. Good grief!
What's wrong with the City Council? Are Mansoor, Bever, Leece and Monahan drinking water supplied by Katrina Foley? Did they take some dumb pills?
We're getting more than a little fed up by the stupid actions of the Costa Mesa City Council.
The so-called fiscal conservatives like to mouth off about how bad Washington is, and then they do the same stupid things right here where they can actually make a better decision.
Also at this week's City Council meeting, a couple of Councilmembers asked audience members to buy in Costa Mesa. That was just before the Council spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying goods and services outside of Costa Mesa.
And,when we bring up this double standard, Councilmembers tell us that they have to go with the lowest bidder. Right. We understand that. But, that's exactly what the rest of us do also. We buy outside of Costa Mesa if we can get a better deal. Geez! Stop the phony crap.
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OBAMA'S REGULATORY CZAR: WHITE AMERICANS TOO RACIST FOR SOCIALISM
Opined that racist Whites figure they'll be the ones paying for freebie social programs for Blacks and Latinos, so racist Whites resist such programs. Ho hum. LINK
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BREAKING NEWS: ALL SECTORS OF THE LHC ARE NOW COOLED DOWN TO THE OPERATIONAL ZONE TEMPERATURES AND THE MAGNETS ARE BEING TESTED
LINK
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A WAR OF ABSURDITY
Robert Scheer gets it right about Afghanistan. LINK
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ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO PROP UP A PLANNING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCIL MISTAKE
At its October 12, 2009 regularly scheduled meeting, the Planning Commission will decide whether or not to allow the South Coast Collection (formerly South Coast Home Furnishings Centre), at 3333 Hyland Avenue, erect a 60-foot tall freeway oriented LED sign as well as other additional signage. Residents on Michigan Avenue are expected to complain about the light that will come from such a sign as they have complained about the light from the present signs.
The owner of the center says the new sign(s) are needed to bring business to the center.
LINK
BACKGROUND:
Back when this project originally came forward, the CM PRESS told the Planning Commission and the City Council that the entire project needed a rethinking.
Why?
Our opinion was/is that assembling a number of high-end furniture stores in this location exclusively for a furniture center would not generate enough traffic and activity to make it a success. There has to be a proper mix of tenants to create "life" and make a center work. We didn't see that happening at this center.
However, we could see why the original developer decided to turn this into a furniture center--the project is underparked and a furniture center doesn't require as much parking as other uses.
By taking this route, the developer was able to maximize the rentable under-roof space instead of having to cut back on rentable space to put in a larger parking lot. The more rentable space, the more valuable the center is when you sell it since shopping centers are priced based on rental and pro-forma rental income.
We felt that the developer would build and flip the center (which he did) and that eventually new owners would come to the Planning Commission and the City Council and ask for a change in use of the center to either some sort of outlet or discount mall or maybe even office uses, and that the City would agree to this, even though the center is underparked, just to keep the center from failing and taking away sales tax revenue to the city. So far this hasn't happened. But, if the signs are approved and they fail to turn the center around, you can expect the owners to come and ask for a use change of some type.
Lastly, we felt that the way the site was configured was uninviting for customers. The parking lot is chopped up and too woodsy. A little too bucolic, as we say on the street.
Despite our comments, this project, like that other brilliant one--Triangle Square--was passed by some people who sit on the dais who have very little knowledge of how to put together a successful shopping center of any type.
Now, Costa Mesa has another center in its midst that is failing, as we believed it would just by looking at the plans before it was built. This makes it a Costa Mesa problem--just as Triangle Square has become a Costa Mesa problem because of poor planning decisions--not just an owner's problem.
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TROOP MORALE FALLING IN AFGHANISTAN
It's a meaningless mess pushed by warmongering neocons, and we have no reason to be there. LINK
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Those are our opinions. If you think we got something wrong, drop us a comment. But, if you do so, please do not use "anonymous," as your name. One cowardly eunuch--sterile both in mind and body--constantly uses that name and thinks he's not being seen as he peeps out from under his rock where he lives with the other loathsome creatures.
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