No Sale This Time
I remain unpersuaded by Mr. Rose’s arguments. Let us personalize this mess that City Hall has created. If you ever have had your business seized by an intimidating force, whether the IRS or City Hall, if you are a minority who ever has been erroneously dragged off to jail, or if you ever have been involved in a bitter divorce you undoubtedly will sympathize with Mr. Surfas. You know how our
mind starts spiraling when confronted with sudden and intimidating force. Awesome power tends to make the rational portion of your mind turn comatose. You cannot think straight. Why, Mr. Surfas asked last week, should he plough millions into a glamourous, presumably profitable enterprise only to shortly lose out to the overwhelming power of the city. Constitutionally, the government
is only supposed to be able to seize private property for the public good. Is that the case this time? The legs of this table are shaky. Mr. Surfas said he never has received an honest answer when he asks City Hall why his property is being seized. He believes City Hall is seizing his property because it can, not necessarily because it needs his land to clear the way for an amorphous light rail project that may/not be built in our lifetime. Even if it is built as early as ’10, as some suggest, why are Mr. Surfas’ properties needed. The city does not have an answer. Attorney Murray Kane and the rest of the cast, instead, talk about their legal entitlements. That is why Mr. Kane is a lawyer. If you believe City Hall sat down across the desk from Mr. Surfas and said let’s do a deal fair to you and fair to me, you are not old enough to read this essay. Mr. Surfas has said numerous times that once City Hall
knocked on his door three years ago to begin one-way negotiations for fat chunks of his property, he knew he was a dead man. Other entrepreneurs have told me identical stories. Possibly all of them are merely wrong or they are unadulterated liars. Possibly City Hall is a white-robed, golden-haired virgin. And this pure-hearted, tragically misunderstood virgin is eager to rain down millions of gold coins on the heads of the wretched owners. Possibly not. Possibly, Mr. Surfas is being horribly victimized.
No Regrets at City Hall
With City Hall in the process of seizing four portions of Mr. Surfas’ business to satisfy an abstract redevelopment project, Mr. Surfas said all last week he likely will be forced to abandon Culver City. He has less chance of staving off City Hall than a homeless hobo in Veterans Park. The last I looked, at the start of the weekend, no one inside City Hall was shedding one tear for Mr. Surfas’ predicament. Mr. Rose of the Redevelopment Agency says that Mr. Surfas’ commercial damage may be self-inflicted. Mr. Rose said Mr. Surfas may deliberately, cynically be responsible for putting his valuable company in this fragile, vulnerable position.
A Dagger in His Business Heart
Mr. Surfas tells thefrontpageonline.com that taking the properties, especially his warehouse, will cripple his profitable national and international operation. The city, by Mr. Surfas’ account, has shined him on, telling him to go pound sand. Well, not in those words. They said what they apparently have said to all other entrepreneurs they have driven out of business in the geographical triangle just east of the Downtown Trader Joe’s: Don’t worry. We will not only reimburse you a fair price for your property and/or business, we will find suitable replacement land for you inside Culver City. That is what the entrepreneurs tell me. That is what City Hall officials say very publicly. However, I have not yet met an entrepreneur for whom the promise was met. Zero-for-a-hundred, or however many businesses have been knocked out by City Hall.