The eyesore, history and the untold story
The Ventura County Star reported Oct. 30 that Ventura County Superior Court Judge Glen Reiser halted the demoliton of the Wagon Wheel hotel. The stay came after what seemed like the end of a long fight between developer Vince Daly and the San Buenaventura Conservancy.
Many comments posted to the Star's Web site featured the theme of the Wagon Wheel as an eyesore, a blemish to the entrance of Oxnard, Ventura County's largest city. The building and its surroundings, they argue, should have been torn down long ago. Some commenters argue the conservancy should repay Daly for the costs of the delay, costs he claims mount by the thousands each day the construction is delayed. For his own part, Daly argues in the Star article that blocking the demolition permit further delays construction of the affordable housing element of his development. On the other hand, neither Star reporter Scott Hadly, his sources on either side of the story, nor any of the commenters pouncing on the article address one crucial question: why is Daly building this project now? Why is it so urgent?
Drive across the 101 from the Wagon Wheel, located here and one finds the massive development known as RiverPark. On the north side of the freeway, just outside of that development, stands a billboard declaring homes starting from "the 200s." That simple advertisement, that homes in RiverPark are selling for only 200 grand, tells the entire story. Homes aren't selling in Ventura County. Even with reports Oct. 29 of an unofficial end ot the "worst recession since World War II," our economy is sputtering. Should Daly, or anyone, be building new homes right now?
Let's argue for a moment that he should, that he has a right to, or that, simply, as the owner of the property upon which the Wagon Wheel Motel stands he should be allowed to finish the project he's started. Does that mean A) It's right if he does so or B) It's wise if he does? Daly seems to be gambling that by the time the project is completed we will be out of this gut-wrenching time, that consumers are going to return to the table unaffected by the misery of the past two years, give or take a quarter, that every American is going to want a condo or a townhouse across a freeway offramp from a cookie cutter mini-mall and down the block from a thousand other condos and townhouses just like their very own (though the possibility of a "transit center" at The Village raises some intriguing possibilities).
Are we so sure of that? Are we so sure that our behaviors are not going to change after this recession, that we're not going to think strategically, that we're not going to act differently, that we're not going to operate differently? Even if we get ourselves into some other economic mess — which is quite likely — some lessons, even if they're not the right ones, have surely been learned during this period.
Besides the possibility Daly is hoping for a boom by the time The Village is done, another reason one might want to see it started immediately directly relates to the current economy. Perhaps, one might argue, every day we hesitate to build is a day we cost ourselves valuable construction jobs, jobs that could earn money to feed families, jobs that could pay residents money they can use to spend on clothes and food and cars and gadgets and all the other everythings sold in the county's stores. Aren't we, by blocking those jobs, which provide that income, which allows that spending also preventing the economic growth that comes from that spending, preventing the jobs created by that growth, and preventing the income those jobs allow?
Perhaps.
What are we really protecting? We have a great deal of unsold housing stock. Oxnard has buildings that already exist. Ventura County has miles upon miles of substandard homes and poorly utilized space. What if we spent the same time, the same money, the same energy and investment and subsidies we would put into new projects on instead reconstructing the cities and communities and neighborhoods that already exist? What if we brought our county, and our country, back to life? We might accomplish multiple goals. We would still put our contractors and construction crews and architects and plumbers and electricians and welders back to work, but we would do so without turning our backs on our neighbors and on our past. We could engage our community. What if we integrated our history into our past, instead of throwing it out? What if, instead, we learned to reuse the materials that already exist across Ventura County and beyond, to really recycle the world in which we live, rather than throw it out like the 4.5 pounds of trash we still throw away each and every day?
The Untold Story
Meanwhile where is the Ventura County Reporter? The county's alternative newsweekly — which I edited from 2007-2008 — has the luxury as a weekly publication to dig deeply behind this story. Why hasn't it looked at the subject in more depth since Matt Singer's 2006 examination of the project, in which Singer took the time to speak with Daly? The Reporter barely touched on the topic since then. (including during my time at the helm, though I did mention it in this Nov., 2007 piece about a proposed traffic control initiative in Oxnard). In March, Staff Writer Paul Sisolak wrote a piece about the Conservancy's lawsuit against the city for allegedly violating state environmental rules by approving the project, but that's the only significant reference. Sisolak's piece introduced the story, but it paired extensive discussion of the conservancy's position with only a brief quote from a city councilman supporting Oxnard's official position.
The quote is, in fact, a doozy. Oxnard Mayor Pro Tem Andres Herrera told Sisolak "But I vividly recall … that the original plans the owner had never included preservation. I just don’t see the historical significance to a dilapidated hotel.”
What original planner of any building includes historic preservation its plans? Who sits down and says "this will be a historic space?" (actually I imagine there are many ego-driven builders who proclaim the significance of a building, but I believe you understand my point)? Again, isn't there an argument to be made that perhaps the reason the complex is dilapidated, perhaps the reason it looks so uninviting is because it has hung in limbo for so long?
More importantly, why did the Reporter stop there with that story? Granted, the Oct. 30 stay occurred after the most recent Reporter went to press, and Reiser's decision two days earlier not to halt construction may have missed the print deadline as well; however, where was the paper for the runup to the decision or any of the past seven months since it last covered this subject? Why hasn't it investigated the nuances of land use in Oxnard, the ways in which the city is cast again and again as the toilet of Ventura County, as the dump that must be saved from its past by some glorious new future, the city that, in order to be saved, must be destroyed? Perhaps it might even discover, or present a feature that allows its readers to discover, that Daly's proposal is a needed project. Yet the story remains untold.
As it turns out, the Reporter's most recent cover story focuses on "the top 10 stories not brought to you by the mainstream media in 2008 and 2009," an annual list of under-reported news stories compiled by Project Censored. While it's important to draw readers' attention to buried subjects, countless other online outlets make available the content the Reporter repackages here. In doing so, it misses opportunities to inform its readers and strengthen civic engagement by digging into subjects it has the ability to sink its teeth into. Instead of opening eyes, it's missing the opportunity to start a real discussion within the community about how Ventura County will move on from the recession and whether Oxnard can ever grow in a different fashion. Those are the sort of stories that can't be duplicated, and thus the sort of stories that make a publication indispensable. Like any business in any industry, any news outlet that wants to survive must make itself indispensable.
