The Trinket Bearers

Every community has a resource which is noticeable but whose value is still unrecognized. Solvang has its Danish architecture. Arrowhead has its trees and mountains to give it its Alpine appeal.

There is value in this kind of resource. That value is often expressed as the ZONING. (Imagine changing the zoning of Solvang to allow for the building of a Walmart in its midst?)

Since ZONING has value, it can be bought and sold, or more often, stolen. Recall the classic 17th story of the aboriginal natives who "sold" an island in the Hudson for a handful of trinkets. The European settlers recognized the value. The Indians did not.

Developers and builders seem to know intuitively that zoning is a value to be acquired. Often they engage in making token donations to a community so that that community will allow the developer to take their unique resource away to be added to the developer's wealth. You have seen the headlines like these: "Developer donates baseball equipment to local league" "Builder donates Rec Center to local police" "Developer donates mobile classroom to local school". Considering how much money the developer stands to make once these communities surrender their zoning resource to the developer, these token gifts begin to look a lot like trinkets and the poor ignorant residents begin to look like fools.

The elected city and county officials who are often the visible and headline grabbing recipients of the gifted school room or road begin to look like knowing accomplices in the theft. By their acceptances of these token gifts they become more the agents of the developers and less and less the representatives of the people who elected them to protect their interests.

In the Santa Susana Knolls in Eastern Ventura County, Gorian-Sinay aka Colton-Lee, want to "acquire the zoning resource" of the Knolls for their own wealth building. Gary Gorian, the principle in the development company, lives in a gated community in Thousand Oaks. The elected officials preside in Ventura City --over 30 miles away. How is it that these two have the only voice in how the zoning resource in the Knolls is spent.

In this profit driven world we live in, perhaps it would make more sense for developers "to buy" the zoning resources from the homeowners who live there rather than have the county government assist them in taking it from the residents. If Gorian had to "buy" the Santa Susana Knolls' priceless zoning resource, his high density project proposal there would suddenly cease to make economic sense.

A word of advice to all you residents out there. Remember: "follow the money". It will show you who are good guys and who are the trinket bearers.