SLICK RICK: I got no bone to pick with Rick Caruso, the latest in a long line of hot-shot developers promising to rebuild Montecito’s once-fabled Miramar Hotel. If I ever met the guy, I’m sure I’d like him. Just looking at his picture makes me feel like I’ve moved up an income bracket or three. For anyone in the development racket, that’s better than a year’s supply of good cologne. If you can induce delusions of wealth just by hanging around, chances are you’ll have no problem attracting investors. Even so, I feel a little bit sorry for Caruso. For such an undeniably smooth and charming dude, he’s at risk of becoming his own worst enemy.

Caruso wasn’t into the game even a full year when he started threatening to take his ball and go home earlier this summer. That’s always a bad move. In the first place, only sex kittens look good pouting and last I heard, Rick does not purr. In the second, one year is next to nothing by Santa Barbara standards, so take a chill pill, dude. And finally, he’s not taking his ball anywhere, so he shouldn’t make threats he can’t back. Caruso borrowed $50 million to buy the Miramar. Presumably, he put some serious collateral down to secure that loan. Translated into English, that means he can’t afford to walk away from the deal without pissing off his lenders and risking his collateral. Caruso can threaten to go back to Los Angeles all he wants, but who’d buy the Miramar now? If Caruso and the hotel’s two prior owners—Beanie Baby billionaire Ty Warner and disco club developer Ian Schrager—each failed in their own ways to resurrect the Miramar, who in their right mind would think they could?

Caruso has his underwear in a bundle over the prospect of having to subject his plans to either a full—or even a limited—Environmental Impact Report (EIR), a fate all developers seek to avoid. Caruso argues his project is similar enough to the plan Schrager got approved by the county about 10 years ago, and Schrager didn’t have to do an EIR. So why should he? Good question.

Times change. Projects change. In this case, both have.

What Caruso is proposing is no doubt dazzling, invigorating, and intoxicating. No doubt it would generate funds for the County of Santa Barbara while creating a bitchin’ spot for the elite to meet to eat. But it’s also substantially taller, bigger, and closer to the road than Schrager’s plan was. Caruso is also asking to build nearly 500 percent more commercial square footage than Schrager ever did. And when it comes to reshaping the contours of the Earth—cutting and filling in the lexicon of engineers—the two plans are simply night and day. What Schrager proposed was the equivalent of sand castles at the beach while Caruso is preparing to erect the pyramids of Egypt. We’re talking 300 percent more cut and 800 percent more fill. By reshaping the very ground upon which the new hotel will be built, Caruso could substantially alter how water flows down the two creeks that run through the property and into the ocean. And if those changes increase the risk of flooding, it’s easy to understand why the neighbors now living in that floodplain—actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld fame being the best known—are nervous.

Frankly, we should all be nervous. Extremely so. It’s to be expected that Caruso, like any developer, would like to sprint through the EIR process unencumbered by too many time-consuming questions. What’s alarming, however, is the extent to which our county planners and administrators—who are paid big bucks to look out for our interests—seem intent on greasing the skids on Caruso’s behalf. As Independent reporter Chris Meagher noted in his news article last week, “Miramar Rush Job” (independent.com/miramar-emails), two planners who insisted on taking the time required to give Caruso’s proposal a thorough review found themselves in hot water. One—Julie Harris—was abruptly reassigned and reportedly punished with an impromptu and unscheduled job evaluation. Two months ago, her successor, Michelle Gibbs, asked to be taken off the case and then resigned, citing political pressure from on high. Neither Gibbs nor Harris were crusaders, Joan of Arcs, or looking for developer windmills to tilt at. They were professionals trying to do their job.

Meagher spent about 30 hours sifting through a blizzard of emails and interoffice communications on how the county was processing Caruso’s application. In his excavation, Meagher discovered that Jon Frye of County Flood Control had expressed serious reservations about the flooding report Caruso paid to have done by the firm Penfield & Smith. In one memo, Frye questioned the adequacy of Caruso’s floodplain analysis, terming it “light.” Another County Flood Control employee, Candice Constantine, pointed out what she considered a “fatal flaw” in the assumptions behind the modeling deployed in the Penfield & Smith report. Later, however, Tom Fayram—Frye and Constantine’s boss at Flood Control—would conclude that the floodplain “impacts are indeed minimal, if at all.” This opinion was based upon a subsequent study by Penfield & Smith. When Gibbs sought Frye’s opinion on his boss’s conclusion, Frye got in a dither and emphatically declined to offer any opinion at all. “No matter who gets a hold of me,” he explained, “I have nothing to say, good, bad, or indifferent.”

Caruso’s agents have explained that if their project gets sued over lack of environmental review, they’re willing to endure the delays that accompany that litigation. But they’re not willing to accept any requirement that they perform even a limited or narrowly focused environmental review, even if that analysis would prevent them from getting sued in the first place. I don’t get it. I can only conclude from this that they have something to hide. It’s our job, however, to find out. If the County of Santa Barbara is more interested in the bed taxes and property taxes the new and improved Miramar would no doubt generate, then it’s up to the Montecito Planning Commission—which will next review the matter in August—to do some digging. Don’t be afraid to call Caruso’s bluff; get some answers. In the unlikely chance he does take his ball and go home, you can always call me. I love playing catch and I always have a ball in the back of my car.

Related Links

• More Angry Poodle columns

Comments

Discussion Guidelines

Local Weather

Currently:
Scattered Clouds
Temperature:
70.0°
Wind:
8 WSW

Surf Report