Second in a series
Re “Next Downtown Attraction: Mystery Transportation Project”
[img]2021|right|Mr. Horowitz||no_popup[/img]For the strongly involved general manager of the venerable Culver Hotel, the most encouraging kernel of news to emerge from last Monday’s deadlocked City Council on the proposed Downtown shuttle is that the unexpected vote was not a Dead end.
Seth Horowitz is one of few to observe the concept gained momentum at the meeting and the puzzling-to-some 2-2-1 vote.
“There was obvious consensus on the dais from all five of our city leaders that the subject needs to continue to happen,” he said.
“The only thing that was killed was the pilot program.
“The beauty of this situation is that the formation of the Transportation subcommittee of the Downtown Business Assn. and the kind of conversations that have taken place with city leaders, I believe (the shape of a non-finalized transportation concept based in Downtown) will become clear in the near future.”
Mr. Horowitz, a member of the DBA board, predicted, “there will be some clarity about the direction the business community wants to go in six months.”
Why It Happened
Despite his present optimism, the Council meeting scenario was not pleasant for Mr. Horowitz to watch.
“The outcome was very disappointing to the Downtown Business Assn.,” he said, accenting the adverb.
Did you see it coming?
“Yes,” he quickly responded.
What was he concerned about going into the meeting?
“The whole idea of having a pilot program was a very good idea to deal with the subject of transportation in the whole of Culver City. To have a pilot program that only was funded for nine months, and that only benefited the Downtown effectively, that was positively going to impact the lunchtime business (delivering workers from the nearby Hayden Tract) and the traffic situation in Downtown during lunch during the week, it was too centric upon the Downtown. It did not deal enough with the whole city.
“The most important concern to us,” said Mr. Horowitz, “was once it was finished, how would it continue? Who would do the funding?”
(To be continued)
