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# Council still just lumbering along
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/council-still-just-lumbering-along-editor/
- Published: 2007-08-18T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T02:36:19.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Mark Shepherd Santa Monica*

How many years and millions of dollars ago did the city take over the Fisher Lumber yard (14th Street and Colorado Avenue), promising a much-needed expansion of Memorial Park? Two years? Three? $10 million? $20 million?

Now, the property is used to store buses and a crap-py old “historic and culturally significant” clapboard shed... I mean “house.”

How many assistant city managers and expensive insider consultants does it take to build a soccer field? There should be a punch line here, but this is Santa Monica, so the government joke just drags on. Consider this, small but telling: There's a busted water fountain in Clover Park. For a couple of months, there was a sign taped to it that said a repair order has been submitted. Now, the sign's gone. The fountain, near the children's play area in the southeast corner, still doesn't work. Maybe they're waiting for a public hearing and an environmental impact report.

No doubt, Santa Monica has awesome parks — but clearly not enough park space. One suspects that if the old Fisher Lumber land were to be yet another city-funded poverty tenement, with its fast-track, no-public-comment approvals, the apartments would be finished by now, prison-block design, beer-can walls and all.

One also suspects, and fears, that if the city does fulfill its Memorial Park promise, it will probably take decades, given the experience with the new airport soccer fields or a simple broken water fountain. Even worse: Some of the multiple-term incumbent renters on the City Council will still be in office when that day finally arrives, and take the credit.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 18, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/081807.pdf?ref=smdp.com)