City Council Member Paula Hazdovac: A Dearth of Intellectual Capacity

City Council Agenda
Regular Meeting
June 5, 2007

XI. Orders of Council

D. Receive report from the Carmel Chamber of Commerce regarding a proposal to operate the Monterey Salinas Transit (MST) trolleys in Carmel-by-the-Sea and provide policy direction.

After Carmel Chamber of Commerce CEO Monta Potter made her presentation and after the public hearing was closed (all of the public speakers, Horizon Inn Manager John Haveles, The Crossroads Shopping Village General Manager Cynthia Buhl, The Barnyard Shopping Village General Manager Randi Haller, Hofsas House owner and resident Carrie Theis and residents Nancy Jones, Barbara Livingstone, Monte Miller, Carl Iverson and Melanie Billig, supported and spoke enthusiastically about the trolley experiment for the summer months of July and August 2007), City Council Member Paula Hazdovac stated, as follows:

“Since I’m the only one on council that actually runs a business in Carmel-by-the-Sea, I can clearly tell you that business is flat at best and has been down for about ten months. To take the two highest, peak months of the year, and have a test is ridiculous. It absolutely makes no sense whatsoever."

"We have 48 hotels in Carmel-by-the-Sea and one at the mouth of the valley. The balance there I’m not quite grasping as far as a parking issue. So we’ll entice people to come here and stay here and park here, but get on a bus that takes them out of Carmel-by-the-Sea. So my main problem with all of this is as an elected official of Carmel-by-the-Sea, all five of us have a fiduciary responsibility to the citizens and taxpayers who elected us. And I can’t fathom approving something that would direct funds and sales tax revenue away from our city that would take away from the services that are required to run this city. To my mind, it makes no sense whatsoever. I don’t understand it."

"When I went to the Crossroads and the Barnyard areas today, all I saw everywhere were parking signs saying parking for various businesses only, customers parking for this only, vehicles will be towed away at owner’s expense. All of those things would have to be changed. I hope that all the merchants down there who are backing this understand that, that they will have to make parking available and we will as well, but those are private parking lots, ours are public, public streets that people park on, we have no control over, other than the time limit."

"I find it very interesting there are no merchants from Carmel-by-the-Sea here tonight supporting this. None, not a one. Where are they if it’s such a great idea? And, I’m not asking, I’m just making a simple statement. Nobody showed up. Two hotels, but not retail merchants and all of the retail merchants that I’ve spoken to are not for this. They are completely opposed to it."

"We haven’t been talking about this plan for years; the plan that came to us last year was between Carmel and Pebble Beach. It had nothing to do with the Crossroads and the Barnyard and I find it very interesting once again that the Crossroads and the Barnyard are the two, the Crossroads at least, are paying for half of this project. The City of Carmel isn’t, for good reason. I think we would be out of our minds. So if the trolley, if it only stayed in Carmel-by-the-Sea, it would be fine, as far as taking people back and forth to the beach and the Mission and to me that would make a lot of sense. There are hotels up on the north end of town that I see people walking down into town all the time, that to me would make a lot of sense. So, I just don’t understand how we could possibly adopt or promote something that would send tax money away from our business community, especially at a time when business is really, really, hurting."

"And I think one of the other very interesting aspects of this as well is that the Carmel Plaza and the rest of the city has gone to great lengths to improve what our business district looks like and to go a little upscale. Where is the planning process in all of this to have a trolley or? Is that really in keeping with the upscale trend that we’ve been trying to go toward? And those comments again are in these 100 and so comments from the survey that. Is this the direction that we want to go, a trolley? So, I like the trolleys. I think they look nice, but as far as a Carmel brand and as far as the image that we want to promote, is that really the direction that we would want to go? I don’t think it is."

"I would also like, while I’m on a roll, the Carmel Chamber of Commerce newsletter came out today and the big headline is “8 in 10 want to try trolleys.” Well, if the Chamber has approximately 550 members, 332 in the 93921 area, 154 respondents, by my calculations, I came up with about 1 in 10 were for this project of Carmel-by-the-Sea business people, not 8 out of 10. I have problems with the way all of this was done, quite frankly."

"...Sue, I just cannot impress upon you enough how bad business has been, honestly. This is just not the time to be doing this.”

COMMENTS:
• Like Mayor McCloud’s comments, City Council Member Paula Hazdovac demonstrated a dearth of scientific appreciation, education and training, particularly with regard to the scientific method; she fails to understand and appreciate the formulation and testing of hypotheses, collection of data through observation and experimentation, conclusions based on observable, empirical and measurable evidence, reasoning, correcting and integrating previous knowledge bases, et cetera. As an illustration, she stated, “And I can’t fathom approving something that would direct funds and sales tax revenue away from our city that would take away from the services that are required to run this city. To my mind, it makes no sense whatsoever. I don’t understand it.” Since the trolley experiment has not yet been conducted, this opinion is not supported by empirical evidence or data. Moreover, after the trolley experiment, it is conceivable that the data would support the opposite conclusion; and that is, sales in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and thus sales tax revenue to the city, would increase, not decrease, as she opines.

• To City Council Member Hazdovac’s inference that the merchants of Carmel-by-the-Sea did not show up, therefore it couldn’t possibly be a good idea, is rebutted by the fact that merchants assumed the City Council Members would act as honest, objective arbiters for consideration of a summer trolley experiment, not as subjective, economic isolationists. Moreover, they assumed a majority of City Council Members would honor the will of the people expressed at the meeting, not ignore the will of the people in favor of their own predetermined, biased, non-scientific, irrational, unsupported view for denial of the trolley experiment.

• If City Council Member Paula Hazdovac’s “main problem with all of this” is that as an elected official of Carmel-by-the-Sea she feels she has “a fiduciary responsibility to the citizens and taxpayers,” then perhaps she should explain why the City Council has a policy of accruing more and more money in reserve funds, while the deferred maintenance costs become higher and higher with each passing year. Moreover, she should explain why the city has a $13 million annual budget and nearly $10 million in reserve funds. And she should explain the city’s policy of funding the Sunset Center, yet starving the Forest Theater, the Scout House and the Flanders Mansion of basic maintenance funds.