Yay! More traffic on the way

You have to wonder which strategy is more clueless - the Bush plan for Iraq or the Villaraigosa plan for L.A. It's a pretty close call, but I'm actually on the ground in L.A. so my vote goes to Antonio. And here's the latest brainstorm from City Hall: We need more big box stores! The Business Journal reports that Villaraigosa will be releasing a plan in the next few weeks to lure the Home Depots and Costcos of the world (he's supposedly met with executives of the two chains). But why? Well, money - or sales taxes, to be exact. Los Angeles brought in $111 in sales tax revenue per capita for the year ended in June, well below that of other L.A. County cities. It's really an old story: The city of L.A. has done everything it can to keep the big boys out, so the big boys have gone to neighboring communities like Burbank and Glendale. To be fair, there was an over-the-top NIMBY element to this exclusion in years past, but it's a little late to make amends. Or haven't you tried driving on Ventura Boulevard between Sepulveda and Van Nuys boulevards lately?

The Sherman Oaks Home Owners Association brought the city to court because the Planning Commission changed the plans to increase a Best Buy store’s scale, thereby increasing the traffic, said Richard Close, the president of the association. “Ventura Boulevard is gridlocked now and we believe the Best Buy will make problems worse,” Close said. After four years of struggle against the store, the Best Buy will open this week. “We recognize that the city makes a lot of sales tax on the stores,” he said. “The question is not should we have them, but where. We see big box stores attempting to go into neighborhoods though they are really regional facilities.” Villaraigosa’s office is turning the argument around, in a way. It is saying that residents won’t have to drive a long distance to shop if there’s a big box in their neighborhood.