Odds and Ends 98

Happy New Year!
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I was pleased to finally read at www.yourpontevista.com that the Outreach Team has created a post that acknowledges that changes have occurred.

Sometimes that site goes down and during the time of the creation of this post, www.yourpontevista.com was down. It happens from time to time, this isn't the first and probably won't be the last.

Personally, I don't feel it is an us versus them type of stances we should now all take. I feel that we still need to all work together to find the best solutions for OUR community, whatever those solutions turn out to be.

In writing this post, we all must be reminded that there is a new development team on board and it is being run by a very large corporation backed financially by an international institution that hasn't been as affected (yet) by so many other banks and financial intuitions.
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Also personally, Terri and I are doing quite a bit of research in what we will do now that the checks that are forming my I.R.A. have been deposited.

This is certainly not the best time to retire, but ATT forced me out and now we are looking over information from what seems to be a ton of companies, and investment sources to try and make a really lousy retirement package into something that we will live on.

All of this makes us concentrate more on what has happened, what is happening right now and what MAY happen in the future.

Currently I am following an opinion by some analysts that suggest that the housing market still has about another 15% of value to lose before it hits rock bottom.

Some analysts suggest there may be a turnaround in the financial markets in the second half of 2009, while other believe there may be some sooner gains and then some further pull back in the second half of 2009.

I am also thinking along the lines that the housing market will lead the fall to the bottom and then the movement upwards about 6-8 months prior to the stock market coming back into some kind of reason.

We are doing some of the steps the folks at Credit Suisse and DLJ, their Real Estate arm are doing in trying our best to consider what should be done in our respective arenas.

The minds at Credit Suisse are much better off that we are at looking at everything and looking into their crystal ball. Our crystal ball is very cloudy right now but both crystal balls probably have the same inability to really predict what will happen.

What might any stimulus package from President Obama bring to our local area and might if have effects on what could happen at Ponte Vista?
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The Outreach Team has announced that the developers, planners, and others working on plans for Ponte Vista at San Pedro will ask, once again, for a continuance of the L.A. City Planning Commission and their dealings with the current application.

It is still regarded by many more knowledgeable people that the current application must be scrapped and everything begin anew, including all studies, plans, vesting tentative tract maps, and all other items. It should become a brand new process based as if there were never any other applications, studies, processes, or considerations before November, 2008.
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Not only has the Chevron Station on the corner of Crestwood and Western opened, but Think Prime has opened up.

Andrea Adelman has a good piece about Think Prime and another upscale restaurant opening soon on her blog, San Pedro News at: http://www.sanpedronewsonline.blogspot.com/

Having lived so close to the location where Think Prime is, I cannot help but start my own personal mind-clock and wonder how long that restaurant will last at the location of the former Tasman Sea.

I do admit that I am one who believes the location of Think Prime is a cursed location for finer, upscale restaurants, after watching so many begin and fail far too soon.

We all should wish them the best of luck though because R.P.V. needs another fine restaurant and when I scrape enough non-fifty state quarters together, I will trade them in for 20 Dollar bills and Terri and I will try out what we hope could become a regular feasting facility.

( Here, I need to put in a plug for Admiral Risty's. It is another great R.P.V. restaurant and I hope all of you find both Think Prime and Admiral Risty's wonderful places to have great meals.)
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If your read the January 1 edition of The Daily Breeze, and its editorial page, you may have glimpsed a portion of a comment I made about New Year's resolutions. I was surprised when Terri showed it to me.

I need to set something very trivial to rest. If you read that blurb, you might have thought I considered a Yugo similar to a leather-covered bulldozer. I do not, have not, and will not in the future.

The editor intentionally left out many of my other resolutions which can be found on the San Pedro Issues to Ponder Blog.
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Here is a reminder about an upcoming hearing you may wish to attend if you are concerned about traffic on Western Avenue and/or college students living at 24th and Cabrillo Avenue, in San Pedro.

Monday January 5, 7:00 PM, Hesse Community Park, the Rancho Palos Verdes Traffic Safety Commission will be holding a public hearing in support of that city's Planning Commissions deliberations concerning the expansion project for Marymount College.

If the expansion occurs about 65%-70% of that school's students, faculty, and staff would utilize at least part of Western Avenue.

Supporters of the expansion project want to have on-campus dormitories built for students and some faculty and staff members and that would allow the college to sell an apartment building it owns at 24th and Cabrillo, in San Pedro.

An alternative to the proposed expansion is to have the Palos Verdes Drive North-off campus housing facilities enlarged to allow more students, faculty, and staff to live there and have the college's Athletic Department, basically, be housed at that location.
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