Chris Crawford, local conservative politico, sent out a call-to-arms yesterday afternoon, rallying people to organize in support of Measure N, the Eureka city initiative on the November ballot that would change the zoning of the long-vacant Balloon Track property adjacent to Old Town. The zoning change would be a key step forward for the big box-anchored Marina Center development that Eureka kazillionaire Rob Arkley’s Security National Corp. would like to build on the site.
The first organizing meeting for the pro-N campaign, according to Crawford, is set to take place at the Arkley Center for the Performing arts on Saturday, Aug. 7.
As reported last week, Humboldt Baykeeper and the Environmental Protection Information Center have filed a lawsuit against the city of Eureka for placing the measure on the ballot. The two groups charge that the Marina Center’s environmental impact report is flawed — or at least under judicial contention — and that therefore the city violated state law in putting the matter before voters.
Crawford’s e-mail to supporters — originally cc’d to Security National’s Kyla Tripodi, among others — is pasted below.
From: CrawfordCA@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 2:21 PM
To: CrawfordCA@aol.com
Cc: ktripodi@snsc.comTo all (by blind copy) … if this is not of interest to you, please delete and forgive the intrusion.
I am chairing the YES on Measure N campaign, which is a necessary first step to bring the Marina Center to the blighted, contaminated Balloon Track property in Eureka. We are in need of volunteers to walk precincts, phone bank and perform other campaign tasks.
Our first event is SATURDAY, Aug 7 from 10am-noon at the Arkley Performing Arts Center at 4th and G in Eureka. Refreshments will be served at 9:30am and the rest of the time is devoted to volunteer orientation to provide background about the campaign and Marina Center project.
Please help us by volunteering or passing this along to family, neighbors and friends who you think will help. This is a major turning point in our community … this is your chance to have your voice heard and join a winning campaign. Please pass along your name, contact info and email to me and Kyla Tripodi ASAP (her email is above, so reply all).
Listed below are the many reasons I support Measure N and the Marina Center. Thanks for your consideration !!
Chris Crawford, Chair
The People for Marina Center, YES on Measure N Committee
My home phone is [REDACTED]—————————-
WHY I SUPPORT MEASURE N AND THE MARINA CENTER PROJECT:The Marina Center is a mixed-use retail, residential, office and light industrial development that will be located on the abandoned Union Pacific Railroad property called the Balloon Track. Located near Eureka’s historic downtown, the Marina Center would provide a variety of amenities including 11 acres of restored wetlands, safe hiking & biking trails, numerous dining choices, a new location for the Children’s Discovery Museum, an array of local retail stores and a revitalized waterfront.
Passing Measure N is a necessary first step in transforming this blighted property into the Marina Center. Measure N will change the land use designation – it is now zoned public which would allow a cemetery, jail or sewage plant to be placed there. If passed, the zoning would be changed to one which would allow the Marina Center development while excluding a “supercenter discount store.” There are plenty of tasks ahead before this project becomes a reality, but it’s a huge and necessary first step.
This is an opportunity for the silent majority who support this worthwhile project to have their voices heard !!
BENEFITS
New Jobs –
· Over 1,200 jobs will be created
· 1,000 of these jobs will be new, not just shifted from one business to another.
· Most of these are high paying, living wage jobsNo need for future tax increases –
· Creates $2 Million in NEW tax revenues
· $1 Million of these new taxes will be added to Eureka’s general fund to maintain vital public services such as police and fire protection
· Nearly $900,000 of these new taxes would boost property taxes to fund redevelopment and schools within the CityA cleaner environment –
· The Balloon Track property has been abandoned for over 30 years
· It’s a contaminated urban brownfield plagued by crime and blight, which drives down property values and consumes public resources
· This property will be cleaned up, wetlands will be restored and new trails will be created for walking and biking
· It is smart growth mixed use of residential, commercial and light industrial
· It is smart growth infill of urban land to avoid suburban “sprawl”More choices –
· For shopping, dining and entertainment
· The new, permanent home for the Discovery Museum will provide kid-friendly entertainment
· This unique new Marina Center will promote tourism and serve as a draw to nearby county residents to spend money in Eureka rather than other areas
· Residential development on the site will include affordable housing
This article appears in A Room Without A View.
Where can I get my ‘No on Measure N’ sticker?
Take a good look at how the “pro” list includes everything in a nutshell that all the nay-saying bloggers have been arguing against. Excluding, of course, all the exemplified examples (yes, excluding exemplified examples) that contradict anything in the authors’ own “pro” list. This is a primary example of bullshitting the people.
Looking at what is on the track now, what its been for the last 15 years that I have seen, and what they are talking about here… sounds good to me.
What are the drawback exactly?
What is it suppose to be if not cleaned up and utilized?
Jonathan: properly cleaned up and utilized properly. Any idiot with a million dollars can make a real estate investment, but not every idiot with a million dollars can skip due process. You ate their bait…”it’s not about the marina center”…remember?
Notice how there’s nothing at all in the letter that mentions the 800-lb. gorilla in the room: “Home Depot”? Hey, what are you trying to hide, Chris? If this thing is ever built, most of it, you can bet, will be a giant Big Box store and acres and acres of blacktop parking lot surrounding it. Chris: why do we need another giant out-of-county hardware store when the City of Eureka itself paid for a study in 1999 that showed that home improvement was the most over-retailed sector in the county?
This measure is nothing but a Trojan-Horse escape mechanism for the Arkleys, who bought the place in 2004 promising “No Big Box. I repeat, no Big Box.” (- Cherie Arkley, NCJ, November, 2004). They are unwilling to commit the funds (probably roughly $10 million) to do a real (legal) cleanup of the parcel. Instead, they’d rather bulldoze the dirt and mobilize the toxins accumlated from decades and decades of locomotive maintenance, then do a bit of testing, after the fact. That is really unfortunate.
Union Pacific, which has multi-million dollar environmental insurance companies in place that pay for such cleanups, should be sued by the City of Eureka to clean up the site. Union Pacific Railroad is a $54 billion corporation. They can afford it. When it is cleaned up, the City of Eureka should return to an open, inclusive Master Plan process to determine what should go there, in the last remaining largest undeveloped waterfront-adjacent parcel in Eureka. Just like the City of Truckee did (see Hank Sims’s excellent cover story “On Different Tracks”, March 2005, NCJ).
Chris Crawford, you are shilling for a corrupt, false dichotomy! There is another way!
Thanks for posting the whole solicitation, Hank. Volunteers can contact me to find out how to help.
And to Neal … methinks you doth protest too much. It’s just a difference of opinion, dude. That doesn’t make either of us bad people.
It is not just a difference of opinion, Chris. Clean up the property. Someone has been attending too many Tea Parties. Where can I sign-up to volunteer for the “NO on M”?
Cleaning up the property will be done according to law, SN is not trying to avoid that. Now, the difference opinion is to do it only to the level required by law, or a “full” cleanup. A “full” cleanup will not get 100% of the contamination. Witness the Humboldt Baykeeper approved cleanup at he former flee market by the bay.
SN is not trying to avoid a legal cleanup? Uh, Cap, have you been hiding in a hole for the last eight months? SN has been stonewalling the Coastal Commission precisely for that reason. The cleanup they proposed was illegal, in at least four or five different ways. Go to the November, 2009 CCC staff report for the meeting that Jeff Leonard et. al. attended down in SF. It identifies all the ways that SN’s proposed “cleanup” was bogus.
Then get back to us, when you have your facts straight.
P.S. Chris, I never said you were a “bad person.” However, your letter to rally the troops above contains numerous unsupported contentions and ellisions of the truth that suggest you are disingenuously presenting this issue in a very false light (to say the least). Calling you out on that doesn’t mean either of us is bad, just that we have a profound difference of opinion.
To call someone “dude”, even if on this blog, is quite unprofessional as well. Not that it’s important, just that it shows the caliber of person working on this campaign to pass Measure N. N not M. N means NO!
Why no mention of Home Depot? Have they backed out? What is it about this particular strip mall that is going to generate more money to pay for all these taxes and high wage jobs? How many of these “1,000 new jobs” are going to be living wage and what are they, specifically? How does spreading the same amount of money around more businesses create more money? Why would tourists come to Eureka to shop at a strip mall? Chris Crawford’s hollow campaign promises need some fleshing out with hard facts.
“It is not just a difference of opinion, Chris. Clean up the property.”
Carol, they ARE going to clean up the property.
“Someone has been attending too many Tea Parties.”
Carol has no answers, so she tries to get some kind supposed insult in, showing her mean-spirited, nasty side. No biggie, but boy, she and Greg sure like to point out out and whine when they are subjected to the same kind of insults.
” Where can I sign-up to volunteer for the “NO on M”?”
Wait a minute…where do you live? That’s right, Loleta. Where do you work? mmmmm Fortuna….whadda bout “Vote Local Control”????
Farking hypocrite.