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| ----------------------- That fire line is right about where the McMansions will go. ------------------------ |
And when exactly will that completion happen you ask? Nobody quite knows for sure, though two years has been cited by some. More or less.
This whole "General Plan Update" effort began in late 2009, with the first version of the committee to accomplish this effort being seated in 2010. It was supposed to take a total of 18 months to complete. Yet due to the endless cancelation of meetings, odd and at time inexplicable delays by city staff, plus the open hostility to this update by certain of our more awful City Councils (Nancy Walsh's"We'll take you out" tirade * link * being an eye opening peek into their at times bizarre behavior), turned this 18 month updating process into nearly 6 long and frustrating years.
With two more yet to go. Perhaps. They're not sure.
And yes, there are consequences. Severe ones. The difficulties at One Carter would have to be among the foremost of them. Because had the updated Land Use Section for this latest iteration of the General Plan been in place back in 2011 (instead of two years into the future ... maybe) the difficulties we are having with CETT today wouldn't have even come up. The necessary land use guidelines would have been clearly drawn and in place, and what they are attempting to legally force us into accepting now could have been brushed aside so easily that CETT probably wouldn't have even come here in the first place.
Should the 610 Baldwin Court matter end up going to trial, which in my opinion it will, and should we lose, the legal costs to the taxpayers of this town could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And should we lose that lawsuit we would not only have to pick up CETT's legal costs as well, but could also be forced into relinquishing planning control over the remaining open foothill areas on the north side of town. Resulting in an out of control McMansionizing of the most visible (and vulnerable) portions of our community. We would become indistinguishable from Arcadia.
All of which would never have happened had the General Plan Update been allowed to go through in 18 months as originally planned. Instead it was deliberately delayed by a venal City Hall far more concerned with the revenues it would receive through massive development impact fees than the wishes of the citizenry whose taxes pay their salaries.
In my opinion each city employee complicit in selling out the taxpayers of Sierra Madre by deliberately delaying the completion of the General Plan Update needs to be relieved of their jobs and sent packing. An outside investigation into why this happened should be conducted as well to make certain nothing criminal occurred.
As I said, should Richie McDonald and his mysterious client prevail in Court, the consequences could be devastating for this community. And it isn't just the money. We would also lose the ability to control the planning and development of our own community, and in the process end up with a Sierra Madre you wouldn't even recognize.
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| --- 4 Mayors who delayed the General Plan update. Note name error. --- |
All three had recognized what our vulnerabilities are, and what the consequences to this community could be. They set out to fix them, but then ran out of time. Today we're paying the price.
Those who did all they could to delay the completion of that effort, and with considerable success I might add, did so in order to open up this town up to the kinds of overdevelopment problems we are currently facing. And will continue to face when the Mater Dolorosa and Stone House McMansion projects come on line.
And yes, it has always been about the money. We wanted to preserve Sierra Madre. City Hall wanted to sell us out in order to line the pockets of their development, corporate, union and utility cronies. Not to mention funding their own personal pensions and benefits. All something we have yet to get past.
In my mind that is a practice called corruption.
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