By the way: I have about 40 people on my list to send a note to when I have a new column. If you want me to send a note to you, send me an email and you'll be in.
Anyway, it�s amazing what you can find out when you read all this email that gets forwarded...
Here�s what some toad named Fred Geiger wrote to a big email list about the Dream Inn proposal: �Big money interests can and have been stopped from exploiting Santa Cruz's natural beauty for their individual profit.� I think what he meant to say is that well-off Westside homeowners can and are exploiting people�s fears when it comes to protecting their nice houses from a little more traffic. (I have a feeling Geiger�s one of those retired Westside homeowners with too much time and money on his hands. I�m sure when he sells his house, he�ll be donating all of the money he makes to charity�that�s money he�s making because he�s exploiting the natural beauty of Santa Cruz that made his house so particularly valuable.)
I even have real evidence for my charges about how wealthy these folks are. Read this: �We have made arrangements with a professional signature gathering organization�. We need to raise a minimum of $25,000.� This came not from the new hotel supporters but from S-CRAP, the top hotel opposition group. I guess the big money interests this time seem to be a small band of Westside homeowners trying to save the old Dream Inn. (Thank you to CD for that info.) We can all see Santa Cruz has really changed when wealthy homeowners hire �mercenaries� to get their signatures on petitions while they pose as environmentalists.
Another thing that is so wrong-headed about Geiger�s words is that this new hotel thing is gonna be built where there is now the butt-ugly Dream Inn and a parking lot. A couple of emails have pointed me to the City of Santa Cruz web site where I read the �Environmental Impact Report� for the �Coast Hotel Project�. Well okay, I didn�t read every page�it is way boring! But I did read enough to see that there will be many good effects on Cowell Beach with the new hotel. That�s right-- the beach will be better off once the old Dream Inn is hauled away and the new one is built. Here is some of what the environmental report said: The new hotel will be built further back from the water and sand than the old one. It will cover less ground than the old one. There will be less paved ground with the new hotel so there�ll be less rain runoff. There will be less shadow on the beach. Also, the new hotel will be a �green� building�which means it will be a lot tighter when it comes to using water and energy and toxic building supplies.
I heard somewhere that the Sierra Club is against the new hotel. But the only true thing I heard from them about why it is bad for the environment is that it is bigger than would be ideal for a hotel at a prime coastal spot. The problem with that thinking is that the old hotel is even taller than the new one. Since we only have two choices- the Dream Inn now or the new �green� hotel building, the environmentally better choice is easily the new one. All the rest of their arguments seemed to focus on harming the beach and beach access. But they never say how the new hotel will harm the beach. They kind of ignored the Environmental Impact Report. (Spanking for that!! You�d think that these enviros would read that thing!) And they totally ignored the cool new stairway with sort of an outdoor lift for old people and wheel chair people and other people that can�t do stairs. There is more and better access to the beach with the new hotel and I can�t find anyplace where access gets less.
Moving right along�did you see the opinion article in the Sentinel Sunday by some joker named Ralph Meyberg. (Joker is mild compared to what I�ve heard others call him� things like �spoiled brat� and �big baby�.) Anyway, I found out that the Sentinel made a mistake�his name is really Lie-berg. You have to give Lie-berg credit, he really, really is good at confusing the issue. He likes the shotgun approach. Fire with bunches of lies and hope a few hit their target. I�ll get to the lies in a second. But first, how stupid is this: he is trying to write about economic development and then immediately suggests that Santa Cruz raise taxes again. It gets more stupid: then he says we can simply raise a tax that has already been trashed by the voters twice in the last five years. Really stupid. But Lie-berg goes on to say it will be successful this time because he will build �consensus� support for it-- even though he has announced his plan without getting anyone else involved to get to the consensus. Boundless stupidity. And finally he imagines that the �hotel-visitor sector� will join in his effort now that he has become the enemy of that sector for leading the fight against the new hotel. The guy has this pseudo-smart way of writing but he�s really a fool.
And as I said before, he doesn�t mind inventing his facts. Even though now almost everyone realizes that the local Santa Cruz project is a fairly small conference center, Lie-berg still keeps saying it�s the same as a big city convention center. One of my buddies also pointed out that he regularly repeats a lie about the conference center project not being allowed by the city �general plan�. Lie-berg also keeps lying about the possibility of two other locations for the �hotel-conference center� As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the city already killed a plan a few years ago to put the conference center at the La Bahia �and then the city approved a new smaller hotel in that spot�so it can�t be built there. So I guess it would be sort of like bullshit to suggest that is an alternative. The other equally pretend Lie-berg alternative is the lot where the old Casa del Rey used to be before the earthquake. This is make-believe because (thank you, John X, for this info) the owners of that land (the Boardwalk!) have said repeatedly they don�t want to build a hotel there. Somebody did a study and realized the obvious�a fancy hotel in that spot wouldn�t work too well because there is not much of an ocean view--the whole Boardwalk mess of buildings and structures are in the way.
Final word: once in while that cartoon guy in the Metro �I think they call him DiSicko � really nails an issue right. But he kind of missed on this week�s hotel cartoon. His big theme was that the hotel proposal is like some outside invading force�I think he forgot that the �evil-doers� that will own the new hotel are already here and doing business in the Dream Inn we already have. In fact, I bet the Dream Inn has been here in Santa Cruz longer than DiSicko. I have to admire him, though. He�s even meaner than me.