Lloyd: “nobody is thinking about the park, we ought to be thinking about the park, we ought to be looking at this from the other end of the telescope"

ABSTRACT: At the Special City Council Meeting on Tuesday, August 5, 2008, at the end of a 3 hours 26 minutes meeting, pulled Consent Calendar items G and H, namely Consideration of a Resolution entering into an agreement with Denise Duffy & Associates to prepare an environmental impact report in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act for the Flanders property in an amount not to exceed $67,000 and Consideration of a Resolution entering into an agreement with CB Richard Ellis Consulting to prepare an economic analysis for the Flanders Property in an amount not to exceed $40,000, were addressed. During the public comment period, Carmel resident Ship Lloyd spoke to the two pulled Consent Calendar items. Lloyd’s remarks are transcribed and a link to the video/audio is provided. COMMENTS, inlcuding a comment regarding Flanders Mansion in the context of Mission Trail Nature Preserve and a link to "Flanders Past and Present," are presented.

Skip Lloyd, Carmel Resident:
“Madame Mayor, Members of the Council. My name is Skip Lloyd. I am speaking personally. I just heard about this item, these two items, G & H, being on the calendar tonight and I had not spoken really to anybody about ideas about it. I was very interested in what Melanie had to say. I hadn’t spoken to her about this before because it really said what I would like to say, which is this; that I think, as I remembered things ended up, at the last council meeting when the final decision was made to sell the property, I think it was Mr. Cunningham who said well, what are we going to do with the money and he said I make a motion that we don’t earmark the money for anything, we just put it in the General Fund and that passed. And so where we are it seems, to me, is this is just a matter of money, and nobody is thinking about the park, we ought to be thinking about the park, we ought to be looking at this from the other end of the telescope. Not just how much money can we dump into the General Fund, but what kind of a park are we going to have out of this.”

“And with all due respect to Barbara, and to the work that’s been done down there recently, which is good, I’m not knocking it, that park could be a really terrific asset, I think, for tourists as well of course, residents. But it’s in bad shape; it is getting terribly overgrown with invasive species. It could be, well it is great, but it could be really a draw. I could see, for example, hotels, motels advertising walking from town to the Mission and back, people like to run, get exercise, walk their dogs, I could see…Doris Day…take your walk with your dog, and have a really good time, but that may seem facetious, but I think rather than say let’s go out and have somebody analyze well if we lease it how much more money are we going to make or lose than if we just sell it and how much money would that mean to our General Fund, I would suggest that it’s worthwhile taking a look at this from the standpoint of the park and what’s best for the park, and even hiring a consultant. My visionary view, which is probably not worth very much, is before selling any part of that property would be to hire a qualified park consultant to look at what’s being done from the standpoint of the park and from that standpoint analyze well what parcel should be sold, how best could it be done, and so forth. In other words, rather than go out now, and just say well we’re going to sell this to get some money, rather than examine this right now and say what are we looking at, what are we trying to accomplish from the sale of this property, it would be a way better approach for a lot of reasons because when you get down the line and you try to sell this to the public at a public vote, if the idea is just to sell it to get money for the General Fund, I don’t think that’s going to have a great feel of appeal to the general public of the city.”

“So thanks so much.”

COMMENT:
• The idea that Flanders Mansion is an intrinsic and inherent component of Mission Trail Nature Preserve, rather than potentially a subdivided residential lot which could be sold to another party, has not been appreciated by the City Council during past deliberations on the sale of the Flanders Mansion property. Moreover, since the city purchased Flanders Mansion and 14.9 acres from the Flanders Estate in 1972 for $275,000, Flanders Mansion, Lester Rowntree Native Plant Garden and property have constituted Mission Trail Nature Preserve, along with 16.5 acres donated and purchased from William Doolittle. Ergo, subdividing Flanders Mansion out of the Preserve would destroy the integrity of Mission Trail Nature Preserve, the City’s largest park.

• For more information: Flanders Past and Present
by Connie Wright

REFERENCE:
Archived Videos
Special City Council Meeting
August 05, 2008
(Time Beginning 03:17:10-03:21:00 Time Ending)