Cartoon Producer Draws Line After Turning Developer
Hal Geer used a cartoon image, naturally, to explain his first venture as a real estate developer.
“I think I’m Sylvester. Sylvester is the born loser,” Geer said, referring to the cartoon cat who finds it’s not easy to snare Tweety Bird. “He tries so hard, but in spite of everything, he misses out.”
Geer is vice president and executive producer of Warner Bros. Cartoons Inc. in Burbank, where he has worked for 30 years bringing to life such characters as Sylvester and Tweety, as well as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales.
With retirement approaching, however, Geer, 69, went looking for a new way to occupy his time and decided to dabble in development in Simi Valley, where he lives. The problem was, he did not anticipate the reaction he would get to his proposal to build 22 condominiums on a 1.6-acre lot he bought in the city’s Kadota Fig neighborhood.
Hundreds Protest
The man behind such cartoon films as “The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie” and Saturday morning television shows like “The Bugs Bunny-Road Runner Hour” found himself the central figure in a drama he describes as “the Shoot-Out at Simi Corral.”
Geer’s proposal drew several hundred of his neighbors to two City Council meetings recently--and they were not laughing. One of the meetings dragged on for six hours as speaker after speaker denounced the proposal, saying it would spoil the rural flavor of Kadota Fig, where many residents keep horses and other animals.
One evening last month, Geer, who was appealing the rejection of his development by the city’s Planning Commission, faced the angry crowd at City Hall. Standing behind the speaker’s lectern, he suddenly turned around, flung his arms wide and shouted tauntingly to the audience: “Here I am folks. I’m the one you’re mad at.”
The mayor pounded his gavel for order as the booing threatened to bring the meeting to a standstill.
Ed Sloman, a resident who led the opposition, said later that, were it not for the condominium project, he “could even like the guy.” He said he understood that Geer “is doing what just about anyone with a piece of land would do. He’s trying to build with the highest profit in mind.”
‘Maintain the Integrity’
But Sloman said residents fear that approval of Geer’s project will pave the way for similar high-density development nearby. “The people here are trying to maintain the integrity of the neighborhood,” he said.
Said Councilwoman Vicky Howard: “People like to lock up the doors and keep things the way they are.”
Despite the extraordinary opposition--the length of the hearings prompted Simi Valley to begin enforcing time limits for speakers at council meetings--Geer, in the end, fared better than Sylvester the Cat.
The City Council on Dec. 16 voted in favor of the condominium proposal, pending the outcome of a citywide traffic study expected to be completed next month. Council members said that, although Kadota Fig has traditionally been an animal-keeping area of low-density housing, zoning allows the project proposed by Geer.
Geer is to appear before the Planning Commission Feb. 5 to find out what he might have to do to ease the flow of traffic from his project.
But, despite the outcome, Geer said last week, he has abandoned his plan to spend his retirement developing similar condominium projects in other cities.
“I came home from the war with battle fatigue,” the World War II veteran said, “and now I’m suffering from the same thing.”
Ensconced in his office off the Warner Bros. lot, surrounded by movie posters of Bugs, Daffy Duck and the whole cartoon gang, Geer said he regrets not having handled matters more diplomatically.
He returned to a cartoon image to explain who should have been his role model in the Simi Valley shoot-out.
“Bugs Bunny is the person we’d all like to be,” he said. “He’s so flip, cool and in command of every situation.”
