Blog Fights!

Remember Dave Bossert’s post last week in which he trashed Old Town Newhall Redevelopment?

Now, as I turned onto San Fernando Road and started heading south a few blocks to the Bike Shop there was a strangeness to the area. A lot of businesses had signage that was in Spanish; there was a store front church occupying an old bank building and there was a hodge-podge feeling to the place. It felt neither inviting nor relevant to the overall makeup of the Santa Clarita Valley.

Any business that has signage in any language other than English is basically saying that unless you speak our language we don’t want your business. I won’t go to a business like that because they have already let me know that I’m not welcome.

Well it didn’t take long for none other than Leon Worden to deliver a smack down to the Beacon blogger:

If you don’t like what’s happening in the City of Santa Clarita, if you want to change things here, if you want a voice in how this city is run, you know what you need to do. You have an open invitation.

Boom!

Worden is right and Bossert is not just wrong, he’s being completely unreasonable. Every other segment of the economy is at a standstill or barely inching along right now, yet Bossert expects  Gap, Pottery Barn and Urban Outfitters to open shop along Main Street?

Hello!?! We have 29% office vacancy rates in this town. Businesses have shuttered valley-wide! Entire cities in this country are dying, yet Bossert expects Newhall to be some model of economy vitality? Gimme a break.

Another thing: if you want a disconcerting experience, try visiting West Side shopping centers where there are actually store fronts with like, Asian characters on them.

What’s that about? We’re in America jack, you don’t speak that smack here!

I stand by my praise for the City, the Redevelopment Agency and the Old Town Newhall Association. What they’ve done in Newhall is remarkable. The decision to re-route traffic onto Railroad was the right one; we’re finallybuilding a truly pedestrian-friendly area, and that’s huge. And it’s only going to get better when the library is built. This is an exciting time for Newhall. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next five years.

Dave stop trashing my neighborhood and the hard-working people who have remade it. Many of us enjoy the stores and restaurants with Spanish signage. I’ll take my mismatched, funky and scrappy Newhall over the beige bore that is Stevenson Ranch and the awful, hazardousValencia Marketplace any day of the week.

Moving on….

I like Fred Butler. He represents a constituency in the SCV we hardly ever hear from: Master’s College students and alum. Like their CalArts colleagues, TMC students live in the SCV for a few years, get trained and “equipped” or what have you, then depart to start new lives.

Apparently that’s not the case with Fred. Unlike the TMC guy I interviewed a few years ago, Fred seems to be hanging around, and he’s getting more and more involved in the SCV commentariat by posting comments here and full SCV-centric blog posts at his own site.

Well he recently took issue with our treatment of the Mayors Prayer Breakfast:

My neighborhood progressives have been getting riled up the past few weeks.

A mayor’s prayer breakfast is going to be held in our community and this is a breach of 1st amendment protocol. Hysterical accusations of theocratic thuggery have been leveled against those evangelical TEA party supporters who are attempting to meddle with the fabric of our free society.

Fred, you’re new to the scene, so let me clue you in.

The problem is this: if this Breakfast is about praying for the good of the city, state, and nation as well as the wisdom and justness of our leaders, then why does the Dunamis Group invite, year after year, the most controversial and political religious person they can find?

In 2008 it was Ralph Drollinger, a man who lead a ministry in Sacramento and was noted for his anti-Catholic views and his comments that women belong in the home. This year is barely better: Rick Green’s entire online portfolio is focused on conservative political activism first, faith second.

Is there no difference to you Fred between private faith and public policy? Aren’t you uncomfortable with these cats who say they’re Christians, but make their living agitating for political change? Is there a difference between a Ralph Reed or Pat Robertson and a John MacArthur? Why can’t we have more of the latter and less of the former? Why can’t a Prayer Breakfast for our City be, *gasp*, more inclusive?