OUR CRYSTAL BALL ISN’T AS CLEAR

I remember Tom Hayden as a legendary leader at the University of Michigan when I was there. This man knows more about grassroots organizing than most people ever will. And he’s right that Obama, fine as he is, will not be able to do everything the most progressive voters want [“Dreams of Obama,” Aug. 21-27]. But he will be enough better than McCain that it’s not merely voting for a “least evil.” I am predicting that President Obama will go down in history more for being one of our best presidents ever than for the relatively minor fact that he was our first African-American president.

STRIKING GOLD IN MARINA

The Marina Gazette was purchased by incumbent Marina Mayor Gary Wilmot, with his wife as the newly minted editor, with the financial contributions of the principals of Monterey Peninsula Engineering, a huge presence in Monterey County building and large Republican Party donor. Anyone mistaking articles such as their recent page 1 piece, “Good Economic Planning,” run without a byline, as anything other than political spin and self-congratulatory back-slapping is being deceived.

The insulting arrogance of the unnamed writer’s statement about The Dunes proposal, “This may be a difficult subject for many citizens to grasp,” is precisely why residents are organizing for big changes on the Marina City Council. The current council appeared befuddled by the depth and complexity of the questions presented by their citizens, and couldn’t answer questions without turning to the paid consultants and others with a vested interest. As one attendee at the hearing observed, “I kept expecting their whole side of the council chamber to tip over from the weight of all the suits and money.”

What the council can’t grasp is that the developers are in the betting business. Gambling on the market is what they have been doing for decades. Elected officials were not put in office to gamble with our future or present tax dollars. We have been asked not only to sympathize, but to subsidize the brave profiteers courageously putting up their own money on a project built on the most spectacular coastal real estate left in the state of California. Shea and Centex deal in real estate cycles, that’s their game, and their billions in annual sales allow them to hire the sharpest attorneys to write dense proposals that naive, gullible, arrogant city officials clearly can not grasp. Developers comb the country to find a city as easily fooled as Marina and they hit the jackpot with The Dunes.

CORRECTION:

In “Raising Your Bar: How to Find the Perfect College Bar for You” [Aug. 21-27], Hippodrome (at 321 Alvarado St. #D in Monterey) was identified by its former name– and correctly identified as a righteous place to get down on the dance floor with available singles.