June 7, 2007 CAC meeting

First I need to apologize to everyone in the room for some of the R1 supporters who didn't practice the best citizenship during the meeting. There was clapping that I did not participate in, some hoots that I also remained silent at, and a whole lot of laughing out loud that some of us, including me did throughout the whole meeting.

It was impossible to keep from laughing, on my part, because I thought the evening's meeting was about the funniest I have attended.

The CAC, Councilwoman Janice Hahn's Community Advisory Committee for the Ponte Vista at San Pedro, created a circus atmosphere that I completely enjoyed.

The members first tried to do some more tackling of traffic issues. After what seemed like about an hour they tabled whatever they were dealing with, without getting anything accomplished except possibly bring more confusion into the mix.

Mr. Jerry Gaines, Mr. Rick Schuyler, and Mr. Dan Dixon, did a mitigation study and Jerry presented it. I actually read it before the meeting and found that they worked with Bob Bisno and others to craft a fairly decent study. Unfortunately, after about the first hour of discussion, Mr. Dixon proposed tabling any further review or possible recommendations, based on the Study.

During the process however, one of the CAC members asked Ms. Betsy Weissman, a supervisor in the Planning Department, if any recommendations made by the CAC or even a City Councilperson, like Ms. Hahn, would have to be considered in any further review the Planning Department. Betsy replied that the Planning Department is under no obligation to be required to accept any recommendation from any committee or any Council member, when they do their studies and make their (the Planning Department's) recommendations.

That cause me to laugh quite a bit. All these studies the CAC has been looking at can be summarily ignored by the Planning Department, if they want.

The next thing the CAC tried to deal with was a proposal for density. This brought me to almost tears with all the laughing I was doing. Folks were suggesting percentages of single-family, Senior Housing units and non-age restricted development and rushing to find tables of densities and calculators to figure out numbers.

One CAC member thought it would be good to look at a development of 60% R1 lots at Ponte Vista and 25% Senior Housing acreage and 15% non-age restricted acreage. I had to point out to this person, after the meeting ended that they left out all of the Open Space areas. Bob Bisno has about 40% Open Space of many different types in his current Plans.

As folks were trying to figure out numbers of R1 dwellings per acre on 40% of Ponte Vista, I hardly could not stop what looked like a silent movie from the Keystone Kops. 40% of the acreage of Ponte Vista would allow for approximately 185.5 single-family houses on R-1 sized lots. (minimum 5,000 square feet) I had this figured out months ago when I proposed a 40% Senior Housing section, 20% open space, and 40% SFRs on R1 lots.

One big, and I mean big comment was made by Mr. Bisno when asked about traffic generation numbers in his "new" plan. Mr. Bisno stated he would be using data supplied to him by Mr. Jerry Gaines and Mr. Pat Nave. Commenting that he would use numbers produced and supplied by Pat Nave was a big concession on the part of Bob and some rejection of his own traffic engineers.

The oral comments were fairly few. There were 6 speakers who are seeking R1 and there were two individuals speaking on behalf of the supporting side of Mr. Bisno's plans.

One speaker was Mr. Joe Gatlin, the President of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council. In Mr. Gatlin's remarks he stated that the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council endorses Mr. Bisno's Ponte Vista at San Pedro Development.

I had to ask Mr. Gatlin if what he said was an actual endorsement of the development and he repeated to me that it was. I asked him about the Email sent to Elise Swanson concerning the recent resolution passed by Central that did not specifically endorse the development, but Mr. Gatlin stated that the writer of that Email was not a member of the board.

Mr. Gatlin stated that the resolution he signed was, in fact, and endorsement of the Ponte Vista project and reject the Email sent to Ms. Swanson.

I asked unnamed sources within the Bisno organization if they thought the resolution Elise Swanson read out at the last CAC meeting was an endorsement of their project and they said they believed the resolution was NOT an endorsement of the project.

I have posted the resolution and the body of the Email sent to Ms. Swanson on this blog in another post. You may judge for yourself who is correct.

And then there is Ray. Ray Patricio is a gem of a human being and a real crack up at every meeting he attends. Tonight he seemed to have done some preparation for his speaking time.
Again, I was laughing so hard I had a tough time remembering it all. Everyone in the room, except Ray were laughing so hard it probably needs to be printed out for everyone to read at the next CAC meeting.

It seems Ray wasn't feeling too good one day and he had to visit the pharmacy. As he was looking for some type of medication he happened to pass the section containing remedies for tummy ailments and thing like that. After some first words, he said "Pepto Bisno". He noted that right next to that was Ex-lax and just a bit further down was Preparation H! After that, we all were laughing too hard to hear what else Ray had to say.

Tonight's meeting was free and could have rivaled the Comedy and Magic Club for the number of laughs some of us got.

There was something also interesting and it has become a regular event as far as CAC meetings go. At the beginning of each recent meeting, more that half the seats are filled by Bisno supporters, many of whom don't seem to have ever been at a CAC meeting and almost look like they were bussed in. I don't think they were, but it looked like it.

The usual band of rudderless steering committee members show up, along with some R1 supporters. We all stay until the end of every meeting.

The supporters who don't normally come to most meetings, usually are all gone by just over half of the meeting. The number of "regulars" in support of Bob's plans seem to be staying the same or very slightly decreasing each meeting. Bob usually get about 10-12 regular supporters and I can probably name them all by now. The R1 band usually has about 10 regulars and all the "regulars" on both sides tend to stay until the bitter end.

Tonight the CAC members seemed so fed up that nothing was accomplished, they didn't seem to even take a vote to adjourn. They all got up at once and collectively said "enough is enough" for tonight at least.

Two more meetings in this current round have been planned. June 28 and July 24 were agreed upon for the next two meetings. Some of us thought that after Bob presents his "new" proposal on June 18, we would all take a hiatus from having this much fun. Perhaps August will be a month off from dealing with the dealings.