Letter to the Editor: A Hole in the Ground
It is clear the Montecito Planning Commission never intended to approve Rick Caruso’s Miramar plan.
After months of meetings, the commission claimed it didn’t have time to absorb all the information. Members offered excuse after excuse, blaming everyone except themselves for this debacle. I watched them spend hours trying to figure out what a basement is, what a mean high-tide line is, struggle to read blueprints and on and on. What qualifications do these folks have?
After all this time, Commissioner Michael Phillips says “redesign it,” and Commissioner Claire Gottsdanker comes up with a silly requirement to trap all the rain that bounces off the Miramar roofs. I bet this is the type of nonsense that killed Caruso’s enthusiasm. The amount of rain we get in Santa Barbara, dropping off the Miramar roof is not going to matter one iota or improve the ocean water quality even a tiny bit. I’m sure Gottsdanker was starstruck by Louis-Dreyfus and Heal the Ocean and wanted to impress them.
Being given volumes of information, the Montecito Planning Commission kept asking for more. It couldn’t do the one thing its board was set up to do: Make a decision. Either deny or approve it.
After hours of this bumbling silliness, Caruso asked the board to deny the project so he could revisit his options. He said he could not redesign it to satisfy the five individuals who sit on the commission and could not afford going through never-ending reviews.
Who can blame him? The Montecito Planning Commission was unprofessional, rude to the applicant, incompetent and a complete embarrassment to Montecito. Supervisor Salud Carbajal: You need to clean house.
Brian Ehler
Carpinteria
» wrote on 08/19/08 @ 11:36 AM
Why must everyone always assume that there is always a financial connection behind every statement of opinion? And even if there is, does no one any longer accept the premise that one can hold an opinion independent from one’s financial interests? Or that the financial interest, if it exists, pales in shadow of the greater issue? Why does no one ever question the financial connections of the Miramar obstructionista? Or wonder if just maybe one or more of the MPC members has it in for Caruso because that member couldn’t get a piece of Caruso’s deal? The planning and approval system is broken. The various boards and commissions should be required to render a straight yes or not decision at the request of the applicant.
» wrote on 08/19/08 @ 11:03 AM
Oh puleeze, Full Disclosure...I wrote the letter to the editor to shed some light on the darkness on the edge of town that is the MPC, I live in Carp, I don’t know Caruso and have never been wined and/or dined by his company, I’m a musician and I’ve never been to Signal Hills..altho it sounds very poetic..
Brian Ehler
» wrote on 08/18/08 @ 07:09 PM
Brian Ehler is in the 3D Reprographic business (Office in Signal Hills) which apparently exists to help get projects presented. What has been and what is the financial connection, if an, to the Miramar applicant and any and all of his prior projects and team members?