De La Guerra Plaza

[ SBN-P Editorial, 2/8/2005 ]:

City Hall's million-dollar baby

OUR OPINION - 2/8/05

It's hard for many residents to take City Hall seriously about finding mass transit alternatives to highway and street congestion when the City Council approves spending tens of millions of dollars on a downtown parking structure.

The new Granada Garage, after the city adds up all the bills from the first aborted attempt at building, may end up costing between $25 million and $30 million. And this is a structure that isn't as environmentally friendly in its design and construction as it could be in light of the city's stated concern for green building practices.

It's a matter of skewed priorities as the city decides how to spend the remaining millions of dollars in redevelopment tax bond money. A percentage of redevelopment funds by law must go to housing projects. Other projects can range from paying for long-neglected sidewalks and other infrastructure improvements, to supporting renovation projects, to providing grants for worthy proposals from nonprofit groups.

All this brings us to De la Guerra Plaza and the questionable use of public dollars for a pet project of a few people. The City Council decided last month to set aside $1 million for so-called improvements. As one former city leader once told us: If it's not broke, don't fix it.

And De la Guerra Plaza certainly isn't broke.

Yet here's Mayor Marty Blum and Council members Brian Barnwell, Roger Horton and Das Williams voting to spend a possible $1 million on the park. There are wiser and more humane choices for $1 million in taxpayer funds.

Imagine, for example, what this money could do for low-income housing. Every dollar of City Hall money could be leveraged up to eight times by other housing funds, resulting in at least $8 million that the city could spend on new housing for our poorest residents. (It could have been worse because the staff proposal had $2 million set aside for the park.)

And what exactly is the vision of those who want to ignore the plaza's history and begin reconstructing?

At meetings last year, the proceedings exposed that an earlier process set up by the city was dominated by City Hall insiders at the expense of real public participation. The aim was to amend the city's General Plan, and language put forth suggested a preconceived outcome, even as other wording talked about community input and deliberation. The council, to its credit, unanimously rejected the General Plan amendment.

Now the city is setting up another committee dominated by representatives from city panels -- City Council, Planning Commission, Parks and Recreation Commission, Historic Landmarks Commission and Transportation and Circulation Committee.

The Downtown Organization and adjacent businesses will have a total of just two seats on the new committee.

The vote by the mayor and Council members Barnwell, Horton and Williams to set aside a possible $1 million for undetermined "improvements" is indeed troubling. Will this large amount guide what's ultimately done to De la Guerra, when the plaza only needs small enhancements, such as a safer electrical system?


[ SBN-P online edition:
City Hall's million-dollar baby ]