August 12, 2007

NIMBY'S, BANANA'S, NIMFY'S

For those of you who don't keep up with the times, NIMBY'S stands for NOT IN MY BACKYARD, BANANA'S, stands for BUILD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ANYWHERE NEAR ANYTHING, and NIMFY'S is something new coming out of the Midtown area and stands for NOT IN MY FRONT YARD.

Once again these groups are attempting to make sure the city of Ventura keeps it's well deserved moniker as Ventura County's "COW TOWN". They are holding another of their "Hillsides Fest" to try and raise 60 or 70 million dollars in order to buy all the hillside above the city of Ventura. The reason for their stalwart mission is to prevent anybody from building homes on the hillsides. This of course helps to keep Ventura in the dark ages when it comes to moving into the future with a developing economy. These same folks are the ones that prevented the California University System from building a beautiful campus on the Taylor Ranch property across the Ventura River from Ventura. This of course would have been a massive boost for the future of Ventura.

If the Open 80 Master Plan, which was the carefully engineered plan for building in the Hillsides would have been allowed to proceed the city of Ventura would have been the owner of over 3000 acres of parkland with a trust fund for maintenance that would have lasted indefinitely. Ventura would also have been rewarded with an enormous increase in property tax revenue, as well as increased sales tax from the folks that would have been buying the homes.

As it stands now the city of Ventura is in last place when it comes to building new homes and consequently also in last place when it comes to the economy. The main problem is as I see it most of the people that belong to these groups have nothing and want to make sure that nobody else can have anything also. If they spent as much energy on bettering their own existence as they do in subverting others, they would not be as regrettably unhappy as they appear to be.

I am glad they printed a list of the companies that are supporting their mindless cause, I will make a list of those companies and make sure I do not do any business with any of them. The one thing that really grates me is the fact that the city of Ventura is listed as a sponsor. I honestly believe that it is illegal for the city of Ventura to be a sponsor simply because I believe that this group contains only a small minority of the citizens of Ventura, so for the city of Ventura to use our limited tax money to support this cause is in fact a gift of tax money.

Rellis Smith

res@venturastuff.com