Rancho P.V. Needs Income Producers

Three areas of this hill were incorporated years ago. Others took the choice commercial parcels, as anyone can see if you look at a map; the rest was county controlled. Residents of the leftover land wanted better control over their destiny, so Rancho Palos Verdes was formed.

R.P.V. has little revenue-producing commercial land but has a great asset of about five miles of mostly privately owned vacant coastline. The dilemma was what to do with this jewel?

There are those who would like to leave it vacant, but who will pay these landowners their return on their investment? If it is developed only with parks, trails, homes and open spaces, it will not produce the necessary income to support such a plan. Our much revered General Plan was predicated on an active and healthy Marineland. Where is the money going to come from now to pay the bills?

It’s easy to take only three R.P.V. council members to task and use them as scapegoats to justify the “pie in the sky” idea of spacious homes, trails, open spaces and parks. These three people are taking a lot of heat trying to save R.P.V. from being forever locked in the position of being short of funds. Daydreams are nice but we live in a real world where bills come due.

When we drive into R.P.V. from San Pedro, I can close my eyes and tell exactly where the border of R.P.V. is because the road needs repair. We have old Army barracks for a City Hall and no good facility for city business. I don’t see our neighboring cities putting up with such unsightly conditions. It’s true that an inconvenience will be caused by heavy equipment, but that will last only as long as it takes to complete the beautifying of our wonderful city.

When the revenue comes in from our hotels, golf courses and other commercial development, we’ll have the funds to fix roads, put in additional trails, get extra police and fire protection and keep up the parks and public golf courses we now have. I pray that our “out-of-control-council” will remain strong in the face of the vicious attacks leveled at them from a small group of people who do not look at the facts the way they really are.

AL BILLINGS

Rancho Palos Verdes