They are all just nice "guys"

June 21, 10:41 AMBay Area Moderate Conservative ExaminerDwight L. Schwab Jr.

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A week ago I devoted my column to the utter fiasco; the Bay Meadows Development in San Mateo.  Overnight it seems, the race track was torn down to make way for a massive redevelopment that was to include shops, offices and housing..

SO as this Shakespearean tragedy plays itself out to some sort of final act, one has to wonder if this incident has prompted the general public to take a harder look at what is being proposed as building plans and redevelopment within their communities at present.

The first test of any new thought process will be coming to the forefront shortly in once thriving wetlands off of the Redwood City shoreline.

Approximately 1,433 acres of diked off ponds now owned by Cargill, Inc., a massive agribusiness industry giant is being proposed as a site for 12,000 homes and 25.000 new residents.  If approved, this would be the largest Bay development to be built since Foster City in the 1960’s.

Zoning has made it impossible until now to build on these ponds which are considered a floodplain.  Both state and federal laws have prohibited any development. But that has not stopped millions of dollars being spent on public relations with the voting public to convince them that building on some wetlands will save others.

That plus the ever familiar reasoning that growth brings new tax revenue that enables for better funding of all public services including schools, police & fire.

Sound familiar?  Was this not the exact message conveyed to the City of San Mateo by the Bay Meadows Development Company?  Didn’t they also promise more tax revenue, new and fresh development, higher property values and a generally better life for all citizens?

Now it’s the Redwood City voters who must make a decision concerning their future, their community’s future and what is best for their quality of life.

Higher taxes are as inevitable as death, Benjamin Franklin once wrote.  Whether or not new development will put more money in the tax coffers is indisputable.  It will.  But the question is, is the sacrifice of more open land, more traffic, more pollution, and more people worth the temporary quieting of those who cry for more revenue.  How long will that cry be really silenced?

The public need not dig any deeper into their own opinions than taking a quick drive over to the demolished Bay Meadows Track.  One look at the once pristine location surrounded by tall and swaying palms is enough.

 What once was open land and entertainment for the general public is now a scene right out of Berlin in 1945.

When will enough be enough?  Do we as citizens of this great area required to construct residential and business development over every square inch of earth before it’s enough?  Will those who profit from such adventures ever be satisfied with the end result and move to other less developed and crowded areas.

I think a good test of their sincerity as “good citizens” which they enjoy being called would be to request that all roads and highways be widened or built prior to  the first shovel of dirt being removed from any proposed building site.

After the initial vanilla statements by the PR people, once you combed through the rhetoric, the answer would be no, unless the county paid for it.

Santa Claus is the mythical character that brings you gifts.  The tooth fairy does a good job also. 

Construction and redevelopment corporations are NOT in the business of providing anything free.  They are the epitome of what capitalists are.  That is not a bad thing many times.  But when the idea looks more like an idea simply to make more money and leave behind less of a quality of life for the remaining, it time to wonder when enough is enough.

The Bay and the salt ponds belong to all of us.  This isn’t a matter of simply buying unused land and building on it.  In the world today, that sort of arrangement for developing does not exist in high density regions such as the Peninsula.

Development now generally means sacrificing one of life’s pleasures at the expense of progress.

The question becomes, is the progress necessary?  And in this case, as in the Bay Meadows debacle, the answer is clearly no.  That will not stop the developers from utilizing the time tested method of attrition which is successful more than not.  Simply wait out the public, they’ll grow tired of the issue and then slip it through in a nebulous proposition nobody truly understands.

It certainly worked well in San Mateo, and now with their victory, the developer can simply sit back and wait for the economy to improve.

Now that the deed is done, there’s no one to object that has authority to do so.

So the voters of Redwood City should be aware of the back slaps; the smiles and the promise of a lucrative future. It reminds me of the story my late father used to tell about his induction into the Marine Corp shortly after Pearl Harbor.

Knowing it was just a matter of time before he would be drafted, my dad entered a recruiting station for the Marines in Chicago.  And as he tells the story, “The recruiters were the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet”.  “Unfortunately, after I signed-on, I never saw those guys again”.

It’s time to think about “those guys” before you sign on for the duration!