Anyway, let�s talk about somebody else�s bad behavior� many of the leading noisemakers in the campaign against the Dream Inn project are these well-off homeowners. Many of them were probably �sixties radical activists� back in the old days. And they probably still think of themselves as being on the side of the worker and the poor even as they have moved, in terms of their own wealth situation, further and further from regular younger working people. The �equity� in each of their houses in this sick real estate market has grown into the many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Still, they fool themselves into thinking they are not so different than the poor and from people who can�t afford a house. But when you look back over the last twenty or thirty years of Santa Cruz political history, it�s easy to see that they spent much of their activist lives protecting neighborhoods and keeping things beautiful (good stuff!!) in Santa Cruz while never delivering the goods when it comes to economic justice (equally important good stuff) in our community. Shouldn�t they deliver equally on both?
I remember a few years back that some of these folks participated in the big show of support for a �living wage� for government workers and people that work for charitable programs and places like child care centers. But then these people do practically nothing to help the city government and the community organizations have enough revenue to pay that �living wage.� The one thing they will do to help is vote to raise taxes� I guess they don�t mind this because, well, they can afford it. What a surprise that they forgot that there are many others (me, for one) that can�t afford all these extra taxes.
Then, to go one step further, they do all this stuff that causes us to have less jobs in Santa Cruz. It�s classic Santa Cruz pseudo-progressive thinking: We�ll set a �living wage� for these jobs we wish we could fill and then never hire anyone for those jobs because the city is broke. Is this the progress part of progressive?
By the way, that reminds me of one of the most idiotic political statements I�ve heard about in a long time. My partner�s dad is active with his union. He told me what Tim Fitzmaurice said at the Council meeting the other night, well after I had tuned out. Fitz was defending his pals who were there whining about the Dream Inn project. Referring back to the living wage law the city passed, Fitz shocked the dozens of union leaders there by claiming that the anti-hotel whiners were, at times, the only people standing up for a living wage. Apparently, Fitz was so out of touch with reality that he managed to forget that the leaders of organized labor were consistently at the forefront of the campaign for a living wage. Man, my partner�s dad was pissed.
A long time Santa Cruz politico told one of my informants an interesting story recently. As I understand it, he was chuckling about how some of the folks who fought the big development proposal for a hotel and conference center on Lighthouse Field thirty years ago were comparing the current Dream Inn proposal to that very different project. In fact, according to this source, many of the folks that spoke against the Lighthouse Field proposal thirty years ago at hearings specifically suggested that it would be much better if the city would build the project at the Dream Inn. It�s always great when someone who�s been around awhile can give us a good historical perspective and nail people on their hypocrisy.
I�m amazed that the whiners might think they are fooling anyone when they say they would support the �right� hotel conference center at the �right� place. Here�s what I�m talking about and I�m not making this up: it happened during the last few years with a proposal for a bigger hotel conference center thing at the old hotel on Beach Street called the La Bahia. The �NO� people shot down the La Bahia project. They said �do it somewhere else.� So the city and the Dream Inn people proposed to do it somewhere else. So we get this new proposal for the Dream Inn location. What do the �NO� people say? You guessed it� they say the city shouldn�t do it at the Dream Inn location, it should be at the La Bahia. I watched some of the city council public input comments on TV and heard several opponents now favoring the La Bahia site�now that La Bahia is no longer an option. Someone should be spanked!!
By the way, the organization leading the charge against the Dream Inn project is called SCRAP. I don�t thing they though it through very well. But from my point of view, it is a fitting choice based on what I�ve seen of their fact sheets and public statements. Like their name, about 80 percent of what they say is CRAP. Okay, stupid joke. But, really, so much of their stuff is crap.
Enough of this for now. I�m off to the beach!