Land Sale Proposal May Be Unsound

* I’ll be long gone from this earth before it much matters, but it disturbs me that the Thousand Oaks City Council can even momentarily consider selling the “private” side of our Arts Plaza property.

To sell in a down market an appreciable piece of real estate, especially one which will likely remain one of the choicest and therefore most valuable in the city, seems to me prima facie unwise. To do so in the absence of some pressing need seems even more so.

Further, no matter what restrictions may be imposed in the deed, I suggest the city will never have as much control over the property as with retained ownership. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of future dollars may be at stake. However wise our City Council may be, none of us has the foresight to know how great a potential may be sacrificed by selling that land. Once gone, forever gone.

The report that the council hopes to select a developer by summer’s end implies a lease-or-sale decision also by then. With the council absent in August, that offers precious little--too little--time for public discussion, of which I hope there will be ample before the stone is engraved.

BOB BOND

Thousand Oaks