CM PRESS # 153

VERY CLOSE TO CONFIRMING THAT THE HIGGS BOSON HAS BEEN FOUND
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OC REGISTER:  OFF-DUTY CMPD OFFICER KILLED IN AUTO CRASH LAST NIGHT

Name of the officer not given in the above linked news report.
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CITY COUNCIL DRIFTING AIMLESSLY WITH NO REAL VISION

It's looking more and more as though the Costa Mesa City Council is giving us a version of the blind men and the elephant.  Three members seem to have grabbed on to different small parts of the beast and can't seem to understand what the whole elephant really looks like.

One member pushes all things sports and wants to spend $4 million dollars on fixing a sports field at Costa Mesa High School.  This is promoted as a way to attract more [upwardly mobile], young families to the city. If only this were true.  But, it's not.  Most upwardly mobile young families don't look at the sports facilities as their hot button.  They look at the academic standing of the school and this is determined by the demographics of who lives in the city. If you have slum apartment buildings you will attract slum dwellers and you'll have a low academic record in your school. That's reality, folks, whether you like it or not.

Another member pushes all things public safety--and mostly, she means beefing up the police force and giving them everything they want.  What she fails to understand is that if we make Costa Mesa a nicer place--a city that attracts an upwardly mobile demographic, we won't have as much crime and we won't need to keep spending money on ever more costly personnel and pensions.  Her way is to give a man a fish instead of giving him a fish hook. The improvement way, by contrast, fixes the tangible things such as removing slums and other breeding grounds and safe havens for a criminal element.

Another member pushes all things economic as in we have big problems with our pension system.  And, of course, he is right.  But, while we're trying to solve this problem, we must still work to improve the city, and with an improved city and more upwardly mobile young families here, the city will prosper.  As a more prosperous city, we will be able to  hire fewer high paid public safety employees who get pensions, and the problem will start to fade.  Yes, what the CM PRESS says is that a rising tide will raise all boats, and it is completely tied into improving the city and especially the Westside--because that's the drag on the city right now.  The Westside is eating up police and other resources because it has more crime and more social problems.  Fix the Westside, and you fix Costa Mesa.

Two other members don't appear to be pushing anything at all, and it may be that they see the whole elephant (we can hope). However, it takes more than seeing the whole elephant to get us on the right track.  One has to take action.  Action, action, action.  One has to have a vision.

Here's what the CM PRESS says we need to do in Costa Mesa:

FIX THE WESTSIDE

Here's how...

Re-brand and re-tenant W. 19th Street. Turn it into a boutique street with cafes and small shops catering to upwardly mobile people. (Coffee shops, surf shops, sports bars, etc.)

Start thinning out the slum apartment buildings by buying them up on the open market, tearing some down and replacing them with parking or pocket parks. In time, the City will have assembled enough parcels to be able to sell those parcels to developers who will be encouraged to put in modern, desirable housing to attract upwardly mobile people. Or, it can continue to land bank them for public uses.

Discourage a concentration of charity services in the area. They are magnets for social dysfunction and crime.
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SHE LIKES THRIFT STORES [SO LONG AS THEY'RE ON THE WESTSIDE]

Folks, in retail real estate, it is axiomatic that you do not want a thrift store in your shopping center or on your shopping street.  Having them there puts your shopping center or your shopping street on a downward spiral. It brands them as downscale.

At last night's City Council meeting, the CM PRESS told the council at public comments how the city of Hawthorne City Council is right now trying to block two thrift stores from opening in that city.  Now, why is that the case?  It is because, as we just said in the previous paragraph, thrift stores do not help a city improve, but, instead, take it in the opposite direction.

Well, after we spoke, a woman who lives in Mesa Verde went to the podium and told the Council that she likes thrift stores just fine, by golly, and is apparently happy to see many of them [on the Westside and especially along the W. 19th Street corridor].  Had we been able to give a rebuttal, we would have suggested that we move some of the thrift stores from the Westside over to Mesa Verde, near where she lives, so she wouldn't have to drive so far to go slumming.

Now, a bit of a confession.  I also like thrift stores and I buy lots of books from them and I even bought a sports coat from one of them.  BUT, that's not the point.  The point is that when one takes a professional and arms length look at thrift stores, one realizes that they are not found in upwardly mobile, low crime neighborhoods where people take pride in where they live.  They are found near slums.  And, when you have thrift stores in your shopping center or on your shopping street, quality tenants will stay away.

In retail real estate, one of the hot terms is "tenant mix."  A successful shopping center or shopping street has a symbiotic tenant mix calculated to attract a demographic with money to spend.  A dysfunctional and under performing shopping center or shopping street will always have a a tenant mix that won't attract the demographic with money and it will have thrift stores and other downscale uses.

W. 19th Street is an underperforming shopping street for Costa Mesa and it needs to be improved. Period.
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THANKS FOR THE NOXIOUS WEEDS

At last night's City Council meeting, some nice and well intentioned folks gave each of the Councilmembers a potted plant to promote Arbor Day, and one of the nice and well intentioned folks even publicly identified the plants as Carrotwood trees (Cupaniopsis anacardioides).

The CM PRESS then told the Council the truth about Carrotwood trees.  The state of Florida has them on its noxious weeds list and people are supposed to pull them out of the ground and burn them whenever and whereever they are found.

You see, Carrotwood trees have roots that will invade your sewer lines and they'll break curbs and lift up sidewalks causing trip and fall hazards.  When they bear their tiny orange fruit (not edible by humans), the fruit is encased in hard shells that split open, leaving sharp hard edges that will cut your feet.  Also, when they split open, crows like to eat the fruit and they'll sit in the Carrotwood trees by the dozens and will then defecate all over nearby cars and anything else underneath or nearby.

And, of course, crows are on a protected bird list, so you don't want to, er, shoot at them with slingshots or in any way make them uncomfortable.

We're thinking that the nice and well intentioned folks might want to give the Council some poision ivy for next year's Arbor Day promotion.  The poision ivy might be less troublesome in the long run.
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