John Lennon said it best in his song, “Imagine.” The song has a lot of different interpretations and meanings to many different people. It could be about hate, love, uncertainty, peace, coming together, consequences of actions, etc.
How does the song apply to Scotts Valley? Imagine our community changing in the name of commercialism and lowering our quality of life.
Many of us chose to live in peaceful Scotts Valley, to get away from the Silicon Valley impacts of congestion, pollution and the headaches of traffic. Does Target make our lives better or worse?
Next, imagine Santa Cruz Costco, with its huge parking lot and oversized building, moving next to the Scotts Valley Hilton. The difference is that Costco is in a commercial zone, whereas Scotts Valley wants to place Target on a two-lane country road. Does Target make our streets safer or worse?
The song “Imagine” is thought-provoking. I assume the song was written to make us all stop, wonder and place some forethought on life.
By placing a big Target sign at the mouth of Scotts Valley, the company hopes to draw more cars to its store. Expect longer delays not only at the Mt. Hermon on- and off-ramps, but all along the Mt. Hermon corridor as you try to get through town.
And what about the proposed new fire station across from Target?
Does a 143,000-square-foot store and 512 parking places improve your life? Just imagine.
You have until Nov. 4, 2009, to let your voice be heard by the City Council about this issue. After that, no more imagining. The City Council will decide on this project.
So they get rewarded for making decisions favoring lobbyists who reward them for selling out the city, then the city pays lawyers to protect them from prosecution for their crimes.
Now thats a racket!
Silly me, I thought schools and teachers securing the future were more important.
Click on this link to donate money for this fight
http://www.rldpac.org/donate.html
Now, just keep imagining, like that the Costco store and its parking lot is sitting on a concrete pad 26 feet above the La Madrona drive, and that the building roof adjacent to the road would be higher than the base of the red dome of the Santa Cruz Clock Tower, quite intimidating.
The proposed project would give a whole new meaning of "responsible hillside development" (one of Randy Johnson's campain promises) by levelling the hillside by constructing a 26 feet high earthen fill at the La Madrona side of the store and buldozing and blasting into the hillside (see the Geotechnical Report) for the up to 32 feet high retaining walls at the other side of the store.
There are many more concerns in the DEIR and Geotech reports, and many more not considered, so please read these documents before making up your mind to accept the proposed arrangement for this site.
PS. The building perspectives in the DEIR are distorted and incorrectly scaled to the correpondig photographs shown.
So this may be you last stand. Push back or accept that Scotts Valley is almost out of open space and the two plots that are still open are both currently for sale. Say good bye to the Scotts Valley we all have known. We may soon be a mini San Jose. Think of all the sales tax leakage from not having a car dealership in Scotts Valley. Yikes!
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Doesn't matter. They've already decided. We all know they want it. I was wondering if 1 or 2 of them might vote against it just to save their own political careers knowing full well that the majority will pass it when in actuallity that's what they really want too. You see how the SV city council has got me thinking? They should be fighting to defend our town from developers but instead they're fighting to plow it over. Sad. SV was an oasis between Santa Cruz and the SF to SJ mess. Now I guess we'll be like every other crowded city except with a ring of trees around it. I was at the dog park the other day and I looked around and saw a 360 degree vista view of pretty tree lined horizon. The I thought how that will all be blocked out by the 3 story Town Center buildings of stores with condos on top. Yuck. How stupid. There was also a remote control plane flying that reminded me of when the little planes use to land in SV. Someday a bulldozer will plow that old runway away. Maybe I should grab a piece of it as a momento and put in my backyard.
It's too bad 90% of our town are idiots like this. Founding fathers? Of SV or America? I think either ones would be rolling in their graves if they saw what you plan to do to the beautiful world they lived in.