Residents Score Win in Development Battle

The residents of El Segundo recently scored a significant partial victory in a long-running war between those who want to preserve the residential “quality of life” and those who want more real estate development. When it appeared that the major corporate employers and developers, which I call the “business clan” collectively, had succeeded in imposing a new high-growth general plan on the city, the residents struck back. Willard Krick delivered an alternative low-growth general plan outline to a Planning Commission meeting organized for general plan public input on Jan. 15.

The significance of the low-growth general plan is that it seeks to overturn a high-growth general plan proposal known as the Lightfoot draft. Krick was chairman of a nine-member General Plan Advisory Committee through most of 1991 when the Lightfoot draft was created. On most important issues, Krick and three other residents were consistently outvoted 5 to 4. The new Krick proposal is a “minority report” from the committee’s residential members.

In a vain effort to suppress the presentation of a minority report, the “business clan” City Council voted to disband the committee in November, 1991. The council has taken over the mandatory functions of the committee and is marching toward a March, 1992, adoption of the Lightfoot general plan draft. Krick and other residents are demanding abandonment of the Lightfoot draft and the creation of a new, more representative general plan advisory committee to start the process over again.

JIM McGOLDRICK

El Segundo