Five Syllable City

The City Council’s decision to spend up to $120,000 for an economic development study is unacceptable. The Council cannot delegate its responsibility to manage Atascadero’s economic affairs; so the members will not be bound by the study’s recommendations. Instead, the study will be used to help Council members dodge questions about Atascadero’s economic crisis by saying that a pending study will provide solutions. It is a time-worn political ploy: buy time in the hope that conditions will improve and no action will need to be taken. When the study finally comes in, it will probably just be filed and forgotten. If, however, the crisis still calls for response, the members will rely on the study to avoid proposing strategies that require going out on a limb. The study’s purpose, in other words, is not to benefit the citizens of Atascadero, but to insulate the politicians who commissioned it from the heat that comes with their positions.

One of the City Council’s responsibilities is to manage Atascadero’s economic affairs. If the members did not have considered positions on something as basic as how to advance Atascadero’s economic development, why did they seek election? As has been widely publicized, Atascadero’s retail sector is distressed. Our elected leaders should be taking action to meet that challenge; instead, they are running for cover. By assigning consultants to declare how to develop Atascadero economically, the City Council members are confessing that they do not have positions which they trust on this basic subject.

And then there is the matter of squandering limited resources. $120,000 should never be spent casually. But this is an especially inopportune time to throw $120,000 at an academic exercise. Atascadero’s sales tax revenues are down and the City is dipping deeply into reserves to finance ongoing operations. The $120,000 allotted for this study could be better spent in so many other ways. Road repairs, the Rotunda, downtown façade improvements, a performing arts center and Colony Square, are just a few of the possibilities. Yet the members of the City Council prefer to spend our bucks to help them pass the buck.

If the consulting contract leaves the City free to rescind or to truncate the study, the project should be curtailed to save as much money as possible. And if the City Council members are really so flummoxed about how to pursue Atascadero’s economic development that they need direction, they should solicit advice from their constituents. There are many capable individuals in Atascadero who could contribute valuably on the subject. They could sustain the Council until the next election, when the voters can elect councilpersons prepared to discharge the basic job responsibilities of the position.

There are major factors contributing to the problems in Atascadero’s retail sector, in addition to those discussed in the Tribune’s article of Sunday, January 20. Just take a detached look at the commercial area in Atascadero and it is obvious why upscale retailers like Trader Joe’s and the kind of high-rent commercial tenants sought by Colony Square choose not to locate there.

Despite its many square miles of appealing residential neighborhoods, Atascadero’s retail district consists of ten-miles-plus of linear sprawl along El Camino Real. The Strip is a disorderly hodgepodge of banal drive-thrus, strip malls, and free-standing structures dominated by enterprises offering fast food and gas for Freeway passers-by and daily staples for residents. The environment is not one designed to draw upscale, high-rent retail tenants. If that were not enough, the one enterprise along the Strip that is geared toward attracting upscale business–the Carlton Hotel–is visibly floundering. And the commercial district’s only aesthetically attractive place–the area around the City Administration Building and the Sunken Gardens–is moribund and devoid of retail attractions.

It would be nice if allowing Wal-Mart to build a super-sized store on the northern reaches of the Strip at Del Rio could save Atascadero’s commercial life. But the additional sales tax revenues from adding a giant Wal-Mart would come at the cost of underscoring Atascadero’s down-market identity and reinforcing the Strip-centric orientation to development that has produced the grim picture which now exists. There is a question, therefore, whether a huge Wal-Mart would do more long-term damage than good to Atascadero’s retail fortunes. In any event, whether or not a Wal-Mart superstore is built, the maladies afflicting Atascadero’s retail sector run deep and will not even start to be remedied until the city commits itself to planning that is aimed at developing an impressive gateway in the 101-41 crossroads area and creating an upscale commercial, cultural and recreational hub in Atascadero’s downtown.