Love him or hate him, Frank Ferry has got people talking and thinking with the comments he made above.
For starters, it’s reprehensible for a City Council member to call constituents in this community -our neighbors- “terrorists.” That loaded word isn’t something to be abused, it’s not a term that should ever enter our lexicon unless someone is using violence for political ends. It’s way off base and he should apologize for that.
That said, it’s about time we had this conversation.
There is a tendency among the anti-density folks in this community to extrapolate their hyper-local issues to the rest of this valley, as if a single medical building on McBean is proof that the City is rotten, that the sky is falling, and that the SCV’s best days are behind it, even as things are relatively good elsewhere (and indeed, getting much better in my neighborhood).
They tend to look at a given project and see tall buildings, torn down trees, lots of people, and traffic while others see new job opportunities, fewer trips over the hill, shorter commutes to services and businesses and more local commerce.
They, good Republicans & free marketers (and even Tea Partiers in the case of Bob Kellar) when it comes to state & national issues, want an activist and interventionist local government when it comes to determining what a property owner does with his commercial property.
They act as if they represent a majority of the SCV, when in reality they are but one constituency of many, as proven by the last two City Council elections.
And some of them, not all, but some viciously attack the professional staff at City Hall (they justify this by saying that it is the staff that is in charge of the City Council, not vice-versa).
Lest I be accused of just picking on the anti-density folks, there’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around. Frank Ferry mocks the press even as he implores them to expose Boydston and Gauny and the neighborhood groups, but it was Frank Ferry just a few years ago who wanted the Signal to stop reporting crime statistics. It didn’t reflect well on the SCV to report such things in the paper, he said. Hey Mr. Ferry, either we have solid, responsible and exhaustive journalism or we don’t. You don’t get to tell The Signal they’re asleep on the job in one breath, then say they’re reporting too extensively in another.
To Ferry’s specific point: that development projects are being filibustered & slandered out of existence by these groups before they’ve had a fair shot before the Planning Commission or the City Council, I think he’s right.
He seems to think it’s unfair. I don’t.
Raise your hand if you think developers in Santa Clarita are unfairly put-upon by citizens? Anyone? Didn’t think so.
It’s called democracy Mr. Ferry, and it’s often times messy. And yes, interested participants in democracy may have agendas. I recall you did too before you were elected to the Council, you said no one on the council was representing people like you, you said there weren’t enough parks and things for kids to do (don’t make me dig out the quotes from that food article I posted about last year!)
If the developers are finding it hard to compete with Facebook groups that -overnight- have hundreds of members, they need to step up their game. Like, I don’t know, maybe meet with neighbors earlier in the process. Maybe address their concerns before it makes the front page of the Signal. Maybe the developers need to bribe the neighborhoods they want to develop in, like the oil company bribed the Placerita homeowners decades ago.
Whatever the case, the developers and Ferry shouldn’t feign shock and surprise when neighbors get aroused and angered by a 60 foot tall building they just learned about in the Planning Commission agenda.
Speaking of The Signal, they share some blame too. Occasionally they are brilliant (as they were in today’s piece on Ferry’s comments). But much of the time they’re mediocre. I’d happily trade the occasional brilliant articles away for more consistent, solid journalism that answers who, what, when, where, why and how and talks to as many stakeholders as possible.
It may not be fair to make The Signal arbiter of this old development & growth debate, but they’re all we got since the Daily News and the Times left town. On that point, I agree with Ferry.
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