On Silver Bullets and Werewolves

It used to be that the Gazette printed a disclaimer that stated the views and opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of..., I guess I should purchase a tee shirt for my family with that same sentiment. Tell you what if people promise to leave my mother out of it, you can tell me just how much you disagree with me on the 4th of July; I’ll be taking a turn in the dunk tank and for a buck or two you can prove I’m all wet.

I agree we need new businesses; frankly I’m as vain as all get out, when I visit the Lancôme or perfume counters at Macy’s or Nordstrom’s I can easily drop a hundred dollars without batting a Definicils eyelash. I would like to be able to spend those dollars here and not Sun Valley or Walnut Creek, but what guarantee do our existing merchants have that theirs will be the business that survives a redevelopment agency’s gimlet glare? The law of unintended consequences would say that what we currently recognize as our downtown landscape would be dramatically different.

Jackie, a Martinez resident, shared with me that her father was optimistic about the benefit Pleasant Hill’s redevelopment agency would bring to his plumbing business. That optimism soured when he was bought out (albeit at a fair price is what Jackie said) and another plumbing store was put in its place.

There’s just something about seeing a successful business, one which brings in a comfortable living for its owner, so easily swept aside by eminent domain that elicits a primal response in me. It is exactly because I felt one business owner’s loss when the City purchased the Zocchi property that I continue to express my opinion on this subject. People who work hard to build, what they feel is, a going concern shouldn’t be vulnerable to the whims of an agency freed from the fetters of a ballot box. Call me idealistic or capitalistic, but there you have it.

Common sense dictates that when a topic, like the formation of a redevelopment agency, draws such visceral responses from throughout our community, our leaders are honor bound to approach it with care and not the giddy, hand clasping, anticipation on display at our recent retreat.

At the end of the day, and if I had my druthers, I’d rather this question be settled at the ballot box and not as some patrician edict issued from a dais. I understand that representative government doesn’t always translate into decisions that represent me individually. But in my opinion, and that’s all this has ever been, whether the citizens and businesses of Martinez wish to abdicate their property rights to an agency that may or may not represent their best interests, that assumption shouldn’t be based on last November’s election results alone. Personally I’m as prone to believe that voter apathy played as much a role in the outcome as whether a particular candidate supported this one specific issue, I may be wrong.

If the belief here is that the formation of a redevelopment agency is the only thing that stands between you and a bustling business, I would say the only silver bullet I believe in is used to kill werewolves. I don’t believe in werewolves.