By Don Gray Santa Monica
It is shocking and more than a little dismaying that not once, in your recent headline article on Santa Monica College’s proposal to develop the airport park in exchange for an underground parking structure, was it ever mentioned that Santa Monica residents’ money will be used to finance the project.
While the Daily Press and writer Ryan Hyatt have the college “wanting to save local taxpayers more than $8 million,” by “offering to pay for the park” to the tune of “between $6 and $26 million,” the direct sources of the funding for this SMC development proposal, the recent local Prop. “U” and “S” bond measures, went completely unmentioned.
It is one thing to mislead voters at election time as to the true nature of a tax levy, especially when “higher education” is involved — which in this case includes increasing parking capacity to accommodate SMC’s unfettered growth. But it is quite another thing to turn reality on its head by omitting such crucial information in what purports to be a news story.
Spare me the “win-win” scenarios and illusions of largesse on SMC’s part: If Councilman Genser is amazed at the college wanting to develop land “that is not their own,” consider that, at the same time, they will be doing it with someone else’s money — ours.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 30, 2005. Read the original PDF.