March 14, 2007

Delay is de-long....

Once again the Gang in the Ivory Tower has shown, as city manager Mr Rick Cole explained at a recent meeting of movers and shakers, that the Gang in the Ivory Tower is prone to making mistakes in fostering private investment in the City of Ventura.

This time they delayed a vote on a 50 home project on the east end of Ventura that has been in the cities permit boon-doggle for over 5 years. The developer has worked diligently with neighbors, city planners, planning commission, and the design review committee and had what everybody thought was a sound consensus for the project. That was until at a city council meeting that everybody expected to grant final approval for the project, one of the Gang in the Ivory Tower, Ms Christy Weir, who is obviously the final word on all developments within the City of Ventura decided that the lots for the homes should be an additional 5 feet wider. The rest of the Gang, like lemmings, Ed Summers, Jim Monahan, and Carl Morehouse decided to jump off the cliff with Ms Weir, the only one that used common sense was Neal Andrews who wanted to approve the development as is. No clue where Brian Brennan and Bill Fulton were...

One can only wonder what the heck Ms Weir, et al, figure exactly what an additional 5 feet on a housing lot could accomplish. By increasing the width of the lots the developer is required to reduce the project by 4 homes, which of course will result in the rest of the homes having their sales price increased to reflect the loss of the 4 missing homes.

So once again the Gang in the Ivory Tower has proven to one and all, no matter how hard you try to please the powers to be in the City of Ventura nothing is a sure thing until the "Fat Lady Sings". Of course I'm not intimating that Ms Weir is "Fat", far from it. However I am intimating that she doesn't seem to have a clue when it comes to doing what is in the best interest of the City of Ventura.

Rellis Smith

res@venturastuff.com