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After watching Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger unsuccessfully try to maneuver a clear-cut vote on a development project at last night’s City Council meeting into an unnecessary mediation session, former Councilman Steve Rose disgustedly shook his head.
“Talk like this can badly hurt building prospects in Culver City,” said the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce.
“This will turn the dynamics of the traditional development process upside down.
“No developer will want to come here. If he knows that mediation with neighbors is the likely outcome of a likely deadlock, why should he do business in Culver City?”
At Least It Was Entertaining
The Vice Mayor’s attempt to hold up his hand and stop a speeding train with a little legislative sleight-of-hand was fascinating to watch, and not entirely unexpected.
Background: It is fast becoming an ugly tradition in Culver City for a builder to enter a neighborhood, make a proposal and then get smacked down by a crowd of hopelessly unsatisfiable neighbors. Without variation, the neighbors say they do not philosophically oppose development, just this one in their neighborhood because it is too large and it will bring a great uptick in traffic on already oversubscribed streets. Invariably, they turn to Mr. Silbiger for relief, and he gallantly represents their cause every time.
Back to the present: Mr. Silbiger and his closest Council ally, Chris Armenta, carrying the water for complaining residents on the Hayden Tract building once again last night, reasoned that if they were going to lose, they did not have to lose last night.
With Mr. Silbiger leading and Mr. Armenta by his side, the Vice Mayor characterized the looming 3 to 2 Council vote of approval as a defeat for “the community.”
Hardly.
It was debatable whether more than a few people agreed with that generous description. In truth, a mere fraction of the community was about to lose, which has been the norm on the planet since the Garden of Eden days. Somebody will always lose.
Besides, as Councilman Andy Weissman reminded the Vice Mayor, it is the Council’s responsibility to render decisions, not dump toughies into the laps of other boobs.
What Is There to Mediate?
The Vice Mayor kept saying that if he could just get the two sides into a “mediation” session, it would be a win-win situation.
Hardly.
Mr. Silbiger’s objective was to gain at least a few crumbs for his clients.
He was emboldened by what had happened on another development project at last week’s Council meeting. With the builders and residents unable to agree, after months of talking, the parties asked the Council to give them another six weeks to navigate a truce.
To Mr. Silbiger’s consternation, City Manager Jerry Fulwood and staff are “facilitating” these sessions, which Mr. Silbiger casually referred to as “mediation.” Mr. Silbiger wanted a professional mediator installed but was rejected.
Nonetheless, “mediation” was the tune Mr. Silbiger was humming last night when there was a split on the Council over whether to approve the project at 8665 Hayden Pl.
Just as every decision has a winner and a loser, so the Council is often divided on controversial matters? So what? I say.
Mr. Silbiger provided an answer.
Instead of accepting the irrefutable logic that somebody is bound to go away unhappy, he practically begged his colleagues to xerox last week’s outcome and send this decision, too, to what he called “mediation,” which actually is two or three parties casually sitting around a table, unbound by any strictures.
If that method is followed, he said, we will satisfy the greatest number of people.
Unless you are a peace freak— that is, “peace” at any price — this is not a mature, rational path toward a reasoned decision.
The City Council’s goal is not to send the largest number of people home happy but to build the best project for the city and the neighborhood.
I may be wrong, but Mr. Silbiger did not seem to understand that point.
He said repeatedly that there was no hurry to finalize and then build the project.
This, of course, is because Mr. Silbiger’s money is not invested in the project.
The normal pace of every development on earth has been hastened by the global financial downturn.
Even if word has not quite reached the City Council, developers are in emergency mode.
Obviously, there is a hurry to move projects along so that investors can get their investments back and then, heaven forbid, turn an ever so slight profit.
The Buildup to Last Night
Last autumn, in the beginning of the long and winding approval process, some — emphasis on some — Rancho Higuera neighbors and the developer disagreed on the design and dimensions. Subsequently, the builder substantially re-shaped the complex that seeks to attract creative enterprises.
The builder’s adjustments were so impressive that not only did many former rivals jump to his side, by last night he had more people rooting for him than against him.
Sounds like a story with an unavoidably sunny ending, doesn’t it?
It nearly did not happen.
Loss Happens to All of Us
In the final minutes of the needlessly long Council meeting, Mr. Silbiger, inexplicably, picked up a monkey wrench and flung it at a purring engine. He almost but not quite messed up a night of proud accomplishment.
After each Council member presented his take on the business condo complex, across the street from long-established residents, it was plain that the vote was going to be 3 to 2 to approve.
Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta were holding out to having complaining residents’ two main objections satisfied.
They were going to lose because their three colleagues already had agreed that the project was virtually acceptable as it stood.
This called for an extreme strategy. Throughout the meeting, Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Armenta had been in periodic private consultation with each other. It sounded as if they were saying, Here is what we will do in the event…
For Mr. Silbiger, I am sorry that he lost this time. But he was one of very few people on the downside after the Council’s vote.
