Three months ago, a minor Sacramento political appointee chided Culver City for — well, that is not totally clear:
Either for not building enough affordable housing since the late 1990s or for sending some of the specially reserved funds in other directions — or both.
Steve Rose, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, sat on the Redevelopment Agency, for eight of the years in question.
His reaction to the Sacramento announcement:
“I was aware we were below the expectations for Culver City in providing affordable housing,” Mr. Rose said.
Why?
“The cost of subsidized housing in this area is much greater than in most parts of California.
“It is a lot more difficult than elsewhere because of the high cost of land in Culver City.”
Would it be accurate to say that the reason is economics rather than philosophy?
Instead of directly responding, Mr. Rose recalled the most emotional housing debate in the community in this century, the City Hall war over the two aging mobile home parks on Grandview Boulevard on the west side of town.
Could senior citizens and low-income families who dominated the two lots be uprooted in favor of a wave of condos that would channel far more revenue into the needy coffers?
Between now and the end of time, this battle will be recalled as one of the top two or three boondoggles in the history of Culver City.
Elderly, long-entrenched residents teetered for months on a precipice many of them felt would momentarily collapse.
A bevy of promises was made to residents. Nearly all players involved, however, concurred that such a delicate mission could not have been handled more hamhandedly.
Not a single mobile home resident remembers the ostensibly generous offer being conveyed with clarity and conviction.
During the anguishing period between the announcement of the intention to build rows of condos that would attract new persons to the community and the impending razing of the mobile home parks, frightened residents frequently spoke out.
Through newspaper interviews and appearances in Council Chambers, some of them became as well known as more prominent denizens of Culver City.
One memorable October evening, a tensely awaited vote was taken in Council Chambers:
Revenue-generating condos or would the endangered mobile homes remain in place?
Members of the Redevelopment Agency responded dramatically and narrowly:
Alan Corlin and Mr. Rose stood for the new housing.
The late Albert Vera, Carol Gross and Gary Silbiger voted no, and the mobile homes survived.
The Sacramento report from the state Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes indicated — but did not precisely say — that instead of spending earmarked monies on affordable housing, it was invested in allied causes that, by the report, left the air clouded.
“The money we spent in those years was for good purposes,” said Mr. Rose. “We were helping to maintain people who had lived here for many years.”
To put a cherry on the bowl of political ice cream, the former Councilman said “absolutely, the Agency’s record during this time is defendable.”
