Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutJANUARY 19,1971_2 I I 19:7768-H FOLLOWING IS A TRANSCRIPT Of THE TAPE RECORDED STATEMENT OF COUNCILMAN DON W. HAGE FASHION PARK JANUARY 19, 1971 "I respect the decisions of the other Councilmen and those who have not spoken as yet. We have a great rapport on this Council in that we act very independently, however, we have one thing in common in that we do respect the other man's opinion completely. '~hi. question of Fashion Park is a real tough one and I have been approached and I have received written letters and I have been phoned by many friends and many people who have supported me in the past on this issue - on'bbth'sides of this issue. Some of their conversation has gone like this: "If you vote for Fashion Park this will go against your election promises of saying that you are for a City of Homes --- It will also show that you are against Arcadia businesses as constituted today --- that you are pro Santa Anita --- that you are against all the Council decisions in the past." Some of my friends on the other side have said, "If you vote against Fashion Park it will show that you are going against your election promises of wanting to keep ta~es down in Arcadia. It will show you are against better schools --- you are not for progress." So the questions on both sides are real stickers. I wish that the decision were as clear as either one of these arguments are pointed out as being. The decision has to be based on all of these items as well as a little crystalballing on our part. "The City Council represents all of the segments of the community. We represent the business men, the home owner, the schools, the children, all the community, and all these segments are inter-related. None of them are independent. Now Arcadia's resource that makes it a really great city is not the home, businesses or schools but our resource is the people --- the people just like we have here tonight. This is the reason we have a great city because of a turnout like this and -the interest that you show. But the town revolves around all the rest of these items also with the citizen interest being the first item in a great town; then to have adequate taxes - this makes good schools and good government, this ,attracts vital people to the city - this builds up property values - it makes business prosper but if you pullout any of these segments you are going to affect one of the others and you are going to destroy the City as such -- as being a truly prosperous great city. You can look very close to ~s to see the Cities that have problems of this type today, such as Pasadena and Monrovia which have great troubles with 'their school system. This has affected their property values, their businesses. All of these segments are related to each other. "In Arcadia we are going to have great changes in the next ten years. The economists that we have heard have come up with a lot of different figures and some of them we can believe and some of them we canlt. A lot of them are projections and economists have been wrong before. But I think we can be our own economist on one item and be almost a hundred percent correct and that is the impact that the freeway is going to have on our town. They have said that the Foothill Freeway is going to be loaded just like the San Bernardino Freeway and I have no reason to doubt this. Arcadia has three things that no other town in the Valley has, i.e., they have three main thoroughfares - Santa Anita, Baldwin and Michillinda with little jogs going right straight down through our town right down to the southern part into the San Bernardino Freeway. There is going to be/~gifh-south traffic in Arcadia than any of the other San Gabriel Valley cities and this I think we can say is an absolute fact that we are going to have an impact of thousands of automobiles which is going to change the character of our city in some way. So the decision, as far as Fashion Park is concerned, is not whether Fashion Park is going to change our City. Our City is going to change. It is a question ~f is Fashion Park going to change it even more in the wrong direction. The questions that we are approaching today are --- how to maintain the best of the segments of Arcadia - the best qualities of Arcadia under conditions that couldn't have been foreseen by the Councils of 45 years ago. This would be beyond their fondest preductions. "As I see it the Fashion Park decision becomes -- what will be the changes in Arcadia DON W. RAGE 1-19-71 - 9 - 19:7768-1 with Fashion Park or without. With Fashion Park we have heard economists say that the West Arcadia businesses, for instance, will drop about 25 percent for a period of two or three years. Now, maybe this is right, maybe it isn't. Without Fashion Park we may have b u s'ine'ss e s remain the same. It may go up or it may go down depending on what other cities do around us. If a regional center is built elsewhere and we have reason to believe this - in fact some department stores have said they are looking to Arcadia's population as a viable market- that they wanted to have some place in this area. If the regional center goes in elsewhere will this 25 percent that West Arcadia would drop, would this go on indefinitely rather than two or three years? Some have also said that the reason for the demise of the downtown Arcadia area was the building of West Arcadia, so I would assume from that that therefore we should have not built WesL'Arcadia. But the demise of downtown as it once was was not totally because of West Arcadia. It was because of Monrovia, Sears, Lake Avenue,. West Arcadia, all of them put together accounted for their decline in business. I tlAs far as Fashion Park bringing in more increased traffic, this is true. I am sure it would. We are going to have increased traffic with the Freeway. This we are sure of. The economists have said that we are going to get more taxes if we have Fashion Park. It will be an income to Arcadia. I assume this is right. I am not sure but it will be definitely an increase. Without Fashion Park we may have an increase or a decrease or again depending upon what the other towns in our Valley do. So the slogan "Retain Arcadia as is" depends on what the other cities in San Gabriel Valley are going to do and they are not sitting still as you can see by the evidence of Pasadena going into their plan as far as their mall and their redevelopment area is concerned. Other cities are doing the same. IIIn conclusion, I am voting in fai/or. of Fashion Park for these reasons and none of these are single reasons. They are all interrelated. It will provide increased revenue to Arcadia, I believe. I believe it will affect Arcadia business less than with a development some place else in the Valley. I think it will provide a convenience for Arcadia residents and an asset to the City. I believe that it will not inconvenience or change the way of life of the Village and Rancho area if we, in the City government, do the job of proper protection that we should do for this area, II I DON W. RAGE 1-19-71 - 10 -