Test drive rally creates more traffic, benefits rich schools and pees on Mother Earth
Written by Jeff on May 7th, 2008So the City and its wealthy benefactor, the SCV Auto Dealers Association, have been tripping over themselves the last few days to point out a “cool” campaign that might help the local economy and inject some money into cash-strapped SCV schools. The idea is to get school parents to test-drive and/or buy new vehicles at one of a number of auto dealers in the SCV during the month of May; the school that has the most parents test drive cars will win a $1,000 cash prize.
To be “cool to your school”, all you have to do is sign up and test drive at a dealer, and you’ll even get a $10 gift certificate to a restaurant and a free one year subscription to The Signal, which by the way, is busy running fancy web-based and paper ads promoting the program.
“The City is pleased to support the ‘Be Cool to my School” campaign because we know it benefits the community as a whole,” Mayor Bob Kellar says in the press release.
Oh yeah Mayor? I beg to differ.
I suppose this is one of those situations where many readers of this site have their antenna go up and instantly think of the “Good ol’ boy network” where this valley’s business, government, media and school interests all work out a plan to scratch each other’s back and reach for each other’s wallets.
I’ll admit that’s the case here (and offer a shrug because business is business). But there’s more reasons to be skeptical of this program than the obvious quid-pro-quo benefits it entails.
I’m more interested in the hypocrisy of the city supporting it. You see, we just came out of an election where -once again- traffic, streets, and road building were major issues.
Not only that, but we’ve been treated to not one, not two, but several stories on the price of gas here in Santa Clarita and how $4 a gallon is having a “ripple” effect throughout the local economy.
Now the city -under the guise of getting more tax money from auto sales- is actually encouraging people to take superfluous car trips on the SCV’s most crowded streets. What’s more, they’re actually making it into a contest over how many superfluous car trips can be made!
But it’s for the schools! Oh please. The only schools that will benefit from this are the wealthier ones that have the parental support, organization and wealth to take advantage of it. I doubt there will be many poor parents in Newhall or Canyon Country lining up to test drive a Ford or Lexus on Creekside. This contest is stacked against those schools from the start.
No, instead, we’ll soon be treated to how the Auto Dealers gave a $1,000 check to some elementary school in Laurie Ender’s precinct or on the west side. That would break down to about $0.25 to $2 per student at most of the SCV’s schools, hardly enough to make a dent in the $25 million our schools are being asked to cut.
Finally, there’s the insulting timing of this whole program. May is Bike Month in the United States, and the City -to its credit- is also busy encouraging us to Bike to Work one day next week (Thursday, May 15). They’re even going so far as to sponsor a friendly challenge between SCV businesses to see which one can “be part of the solution” to traffic, obesity, high gas prices and environmental challenges.
Why couldn’t the City, Mayor Kellar and The Signal have worked on an incentive program for local schools with one or two of the many locally-owned bike stores in this valley? It would have been easy to whip up a sexy ad campaign encouraging high school students to ride newly purchased bikes to school on Santa Clarita’s bike paths and paseos. Sales tax from all those stores would also benefit city coffers (and with enough volume might have made it really worthwhile) and would have dovetailed nicely with Bike Month and high gas prices.
Instead, the groups behind this campaign are acting like its 1999 and the price of gas is still $1.25. And their “gift” to local schools will be a grand total of $3,000. I don’t want to sound like a scrooge, but what is $3,000 in comparison to the $600 million the SCV auto dealers say they make each year?
I have a better idea if you want to be cool to your school. Do like other communities have done and volunteer there. And if that’s not enough, see if other parents are interested in donating to your local school. Many communities in California are under the same pressures we are but have even less resources, and some are responding to the fiscal crisis by digging into their own pockets to support their local schools.
No need to engage in a silly contest that only adds to traffic, pollution and congestion problems and will only benefit three schools with a very small donation.
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Jeff, very well done. I had a similar gut reaction. I have a little experience in the area, and production costs and airtime (if this is going on the cable system) will exceed the net donation to the schools several times over. More money to G.O.B. Gary Choppé, I’d presume than would go to any school.
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taking on a sponsor, no less
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When I first read about this ‘campaign’, my first thought was that this is definitely a PTA drive! The $1000.00 will no doubt go to an ‘ice cream day’ for the WINNING school and you’re right, it will be a school who’s income is not a factor. Too bad those ‘car dealerships’ can’t just donate a few thousand to all of our schools. This is simply a way for the car dealers to rope in some prospective buyers!! I find it unfortunate that our childrens education is being used as a way to do it! Our valley has turned into a place where how much plastic surgery you’ve had and what kind of car you drive is the standard. Just open up any Magazine of Santa Clarita for the proof. (Oh, I forgot about a person’s beautiful white teeth.) Our children have been getting a pretty warped message as to what’s really important in this valley. So glad you wrote this opinion Jeff, ’cause this is something that really gets my goat! Hypocrisy is putting it mildly. The priorities of this valley are totally screwed up! Now the TCU will be closed so that more out-patient surgery can be performed by…….perhaps all those ’specialists’ that will be moving into those massive medical buildings, that our VALLEY also doesn’t need! Yup, pockets are deep all over.
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SCV Urbanization Alert!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xmvIwJBChY4
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Jeff:
As the resident numbers guy, how many bikes does one sale to equal the sales tax on one car?
(I drive a hybrid, by the way, and boy am I glad.)
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That freeloading Acura Man is most likely behind this. Why did he not just donate the 10 grand that he received from the enterprise zone (aka the taxpayers). He is the King of the freebie’s. The Acura queen sings the company advertising theme to save a buck or two! Why not pony up big boy, and make a real donation to the schools! Kellar is only paying the GOB’s back for the support they gave him during the election. This City and its management have gone to far with this business friendly crap! Where are the roads, etc. that the taxpayers are demanding.
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That’s an interesting piece Jeff. However, I must point out that your advocacy of the Avenue at Santa Clarita, with 4000 jobs contained on the property, 800 residencies who will NOT work there, 7 restaurants, 155,000 sq ft store, 300 room Hotel, 30-40 stores and businesses, business offices, and 5300 parking spaces in the middle of a quiet bedroom community will terrorize Newhall with Hoards and hoards of unwelcome cars. The Aavenue’s attraction to businesses isn’t local residents because locals could never sustain the financial needs to pay the bills. They are relying on 250,000 cars a day driving by on the 5 who will be lured into our town dumping all those useless car trips into a development with things they can do or buy in any number of shopping locations around.
When we talk about to many cars in town lets remember that it isn’t the auto buying incentive promotions that will add very few minuscule trips at best. It’s the high density, lack of infrastructure, and urbanization of areas that where never designed to be like NoHo or Century city. We don’t live in Whoville here and we never will. To socially design a place where everyone works in the same place they live is impossible. We will never have a society where local business, services, education levels, income levels, and local population to support it all, living in walking or biking distance. If we were a small village in Europe or central America, maybe.
Unwanted car trips and more pollution will come by building these unwanted dense developments that are being sold as little Whoville’s under the illusion that it will be a live, walk, bike to work utopia. Meanwhile, back at the ranch in the world of reality, it will require barrels of petroleum to role all those hunks of metal into parking spaces to feed the bloated centers of excellence. I don’t think Monteverde is planning a bike lane into their Land of make-believe, nor is G&L going to fit a pedestrian bike lane leading to their offices.
I think to get what your looking for Jeff is not unworthy, it’s just not going to happen with the social and economic dynamics we live under in southern California. It we leveled southern cal and started over things would be different. For us, it’s an matter of shrinking the dense mentality in city development that will keep traffic down, while improving alternative forms of transportation that makes sense. The live/work excuse for building stuff isn’t it.
Hay, don’t get me wrong, your awesome and I love your take on things. I just feel the slice of traffic brought on by this will pale in comparison to other things we have going on. Your 100% right that the Money is a joke and it will not even scratch the surface of our over all shortfall. I can’t agree more with you about that. Thanks for the opinion. It’s a valid discussion
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lvogal,
Awesome remarks. Your right on the money.
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Rock on, WethepeopleSCV! Hopefully, you’ll drag Jeff kickin’ & screamin’ into the real World.
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Tim:
As the resident numbers guy, how many bikes does one sale to equal the sales tax on one car?
Obviously it would take a metric ton of bike sales to equal one car sale (depending on the cost of the bike, there are $15,000 bikes after all)
But I disagree with the unstated premise of your question. The role of city government is not to make a profit off a given enterprise. It’s chief role is to enforce contracts and balance the distribution of resources.
Believe me I get that we want to support local businesses. I support the city and the Auto Dealers and spending money in town to fill city coffers.
But this just strikes me as crass and ineffective. And there will be a lot of superfluous car trips as various parents compete to win the cash.
Back to the bikes: Can you imagine the publicity generated if the city were to spend some marketing muscle on local bike stores as gas prices hit $4 a gallon? What better way for California’s “#1 City” to get headlines in this day and age?
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WeThe People SCV:
We don’t live in Whoville here and we never will.
To socially design a place where everyone works in the same place they live is impossible. We will never have a society where local business, services, education levels, income levels, and local population to support it all, living in walking or biking distance. If we were a small village in Europe or central America, maybe.
Okay, maybe my idea of higher-density, walking/biking to work, and reducing car trips is a fantasy in Santa Clarita.
But it’s also fanciful to think you or your group can reverse the growth trend, a trend that might double the SCV’s population within 30-40 years.
And that’s an equation that just doesn’t work out. You can’t square a circle and you can’t endlessly build low density homes over the SCV.
And you can’t stop them from coming.
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“And you can’t stop them from coming”.
But you can! Don’t build and they have no place to come!
This is not pie in the sky! My tract is full, and unless someone moves out, there is no room for more to move in. It is no more complicated than that. Relaxing the zoning to allow more density is a developers dream! The City got its open space on the west end of the valley by controlling growth, to the benefit of the Sand Canyon residents; the rest of us deserve nothing less.
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<<>>
Should have said east end.
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I agree, Cash. As it’s been previously stated many, many times on this site, SCV simply does not have the traffic grid pattern that exists in the San Fernando Valley and elswhere. Nor do we have free flowing adjacent freeways. We’ve already been bombarded with too many high density housing projects on our main thoroughfares resulting in our current traffic mess. This is exactly why we must rise up as the Canyon Country citizens did in their fight against the MRF; it’s high time for our City leaders to acknowledge these problems. What does it take, a Rocket Scientist!?
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Speaking of development… anyone notice that there’s 40,000 sq.ft. of brand new medical/office space available at the corner of McBean & Newhall Ranch Road. Plus, there’s over 120,000 sq.ft. of available space on Tourney Road - less than 2.5 miles from Henry Mayo. If Henry Mayo was actually concerned about operating a TCU on their campus they would simply relocate a lower priority function from their West Campus to make way for the TCU and other needed on-site functions. What does it take, a Rocket Scientist!?
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Jeff,
I understand what your saying. Jim and I (sterling) don’t feel we can stop a 20 year growth projection. That would be unrealistic to some degree. What can happen is a paradigm shift in our cities management and master plan to reflect a more protectionist attitude toward our existing residents and neighborhoods from being converted to dense urban areas. Zoning was put in place at one time for a litany of reasons for the benefit and safety of our homes and families. Not to mention our home values are based on just that, neighborhoods that home, familie values, and experience can flourish at it highest and best success.
Now, the excessive greed and mathematical/financial formulas that squeeze the speculative highest and best return on every sqr inch of land is forcing out the neighborhood environment for a whole new San Fernando valley/NoHo frame of mind. This brings a whole deferent level of problems that no person out here wants. I beg the question of who is crying for more people to inhabit this area? Where are they? The only one I know inviting it is Ken P. and Jay Rogers on the west side anyway.
Projects are way over bloated and beyond zoning and developers know it. They also know how to schmooze cities and councils and city staff to get what they want and your not for that. Who are we to lobby for over building? Monteverde isn’t paying me or you to advocate for them. The city needs to know how citizens feel about this mentality and help them understand or change our council to those who do respect the citizens first and developers second. Thats a general statement of course but it is a valuable principle to remember.
We formed our cityhood to be a self governing people over the destiny of our valley. Not the destiny of developers who want this to be there playground to expand there pocket books at the expense of our quality of life.
You know, I would love to have more bike lanes out here. Along Orchard from Lyons to Mcbean, on McBean, and along Wiley canyon to name a few. For running and biking. I know the bike paths are good but not everyone wants to drive to the path all the time to use it. You have excellent points about bikes. That’s something we could work on actually. I’ll give it some thought.
I don’t believe your living in any sort of fantasy at all. I’m only pointing out that attitudes change the direction of a city and we may be on the edge of that need now. Your one the cutting edge of that ability with scvtalk and that’s cool.
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Speakin’ of scvtalk, we need some new articles, a new poll and a relevant youtube video on the home page. Update, Baby!
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‘And you can’t stop them from coming.’
Time to take a que from Santa Barbara!