Master Plan for Civic Center: Let Wisdom Prevail

Pasadena has been blessed frequently in the past when, after much labor and debate, the city Board of Directors did not adopt a proposed plan. This has enabled us to avoid serious mistakes and gross errors in direction planning.

The Livingston/Blaney study of Colorado Boulevard was such a case where we would have destroyed the center of town if we had carried out the plan. The study did provide valuable review and input for later planning consideration, however, and it was the trigger for revitalization of the central business area.

The present Civic Center Master Plan is a similar case where the study and review is of tremendous value for our future, provided we do not take its pontifical self-important edicts too much to heart and do not bind our future in a straitjacket of detailed requirements that can only stifle the creativity that needs to be available in our planning process.

The Pasadena Chamber of Commerce & Civic Assn. would like the city board to leave this “Plan” as an unadopted legacy of study, containing many useful ideas and thoughts but not an absolute mandate from anyone.

Unfortunately most of us do not have the gift of long foresight. Because we see backward much better, we prefer to plan from that vantage point while extolling the virtues of that time. There is nothing wrong with building on the past, but we should let our successors have the right to their visions, too.

This is particularly true when changes are all about us. Much of the future of the Civic Center area is in a state of flux even as the plan is proclaimed. What is in this plan is a one-person description, in detail, of what will be permitted in Pasadena’s future. And what of the major costs that will be required to bring it to pass?

We sincerely hope that wisdom and caution will prevail over impetuous self-service in concluding this study.

ANN T. HIGHT, President

LOUIS RICHARDS, Chairman,

City & County Affairs Committee

BRUCE D. ACKERMAN,

Executive Vice President

Pasadena Chamber of Commerce

& Civic Assn.