Shitty City.....

For you non-Facebook folks.....

Part of the local debate...

Hey Guys-
can you please humor me with what is probably a stupid question...

ok- so i know the vote for incorporation is coming up, i know where you and most everyone i know stands on the issue, including me.

but i am slightly confused.
the head of the carmel residence association showed up at the Habitat the other day with a Weekly reporter and they were looking at the detrimental impacts that the Rancho development would have on the Habitat project, stating that IF the incorporation went through, the Rancho project would be dead in the water. which is good for the Habitat, as you can understand we DO NOT want this rancho project to happen, as it will SERIOUSLY impact our property and programs.... but runs contrary to the general opinion.... ?
can you guys clarify ?

thanks for answering my political dodo question.... .

I was going to refer you to a post on my blog....but it disappeared!

I am semi-neutral on this deal, or at least not as passionate as Lee and Scott. My long experience with corrupt politicians and officials leads me to have more faith in established functioning corrupt systems than one might expect.

The reality of politics in Monterey County is that there are indeed only five supervisors. Just like the US Senate, none of them will shit in another's well without huge provocation. The odds of a giant development happening on Potter's watch...whatever pull other supes have with Tony Lombardo, etc are the Chance Brothers: Slim and None.

The idea of swapping this system for one with five neophyte rich, over-educated, under-employed nouveau politicians who would yield the same kind of power turns me off.

These folk are the kind of people you see in Whole Foods. They miss the big picture of their favorite store being based out of Texas and run by an anti-labor, anti-public option oligarch scumbag. Our words for Whole Foods: White...Hypochondriacal...Over-educated.....Lame.....Egotistical.....Ferociously Obnoxious Overbearing Douche BagS.....

I celebrate the old Valley.....Japanese pear and strawberry farmers whose kids hid in Hatton Canyon during the war rather than go to the camps.....and who built baseball fields at Carmelo. Bill's egg ranch behind Chateau New Jersey. The Berta's.....not a bad development, even though the family got screwed. Jim Gregg's place at mid-Valley you probably don't even know about....

Someone point out to me the new dam in Cachagua. Where is that, exactly?

OK, we did get screwed on Rancho San Carlos.....but did we really? I think the dummies that paid huge dough for McMansions and will be paying ridiculous property tax for generations are the real screwee's.

OK, Carmel Valley Ranch kind of sucks........

All this was done on with the present system.

Years ago, Papa Nick Lombardo had an option on the Odello Ranch and supposedly one on the Palo Corona. I was a member of the Restaurant Association and actually used to go to meetings.

Papa Nick showed up one day with Tony and a few other joyous folk like architect Paul "Complete Fucking Scumbag" Davis (who has a street in an industrial complex in Marina named for him).....

They had done a study. The plan was to close Carmel to vehicular traffic and bus people in and out from a hub at the Odello Ranch. There would also be a cheap and cheery old folks home there, with a strip mall, lots of parking for the busses and tourists, and a nine hole pitch and putt for the alte-kochers.

Everyone oooed and aahhhed at the beautiful architect's rendition of the project.......

Question and answer period followed.

They actually called upon my raised hand.....Dummies.

"Mr. Lombardo....I have just one question.

"The project is awesome.....but really. What kind of drugs are you on.....and where can I buy some?"

Dead silence.....except for the scratching of the various minions writing my name down for future punishment.

What happened to Odello/Corona in the end?

Clint stepped up (Alan Williams as his front, as always) and bought the property. He worked a deal to transfer the water credits to Tehama and gave Odello to BSLT. Palo Corona followed suit.

To my addled crypto-Republican sensibilities.....Tehama is perhaps the best possible use of that land, and that water. Beats hell out of parking lots, strip malls, altekcochers and shitty golf. We have actual clients at Tehama.....and so do all my friends. And you wouldn't even know it was there if you weren't driving in on someone else's nickel.

And of course the Odello piece is now back being dry-farmed organically......with rent flowing in to BSLT. I was there Saturday, cooking the produce and giving speeches to the Board.

Can you picture this kind of complicated resolution happening in a city scenario?

And.....why fuck with the political scenario that allowed this to happen?

My dad always told me that carburetor is a French word meaning: "Don't fuck with it....."

Exactly.