guest column:

Say it ain’t so! (“Strip mall still coming” — Crescenta Valley Sun, Jan. 11). Upon reading that the historic and charming May-Lane/La Crescenta Motel on the corner of Foothill and Briggs is going to be turned into yet another strip mall — another stucco scar on the boulevard — I threw down the newspaper in frustration and disgust.

Now, after stewing over this latest depressing development (pun intended) for a few days, I’m wondering: Why stop at simply cramming another unnecessary retail strip mall with too few parking spaces and too many non-English-language signs?

Why not complete the insult to our quality of life in the Crescenta Valley and build a few equally ugly stories of apartments right on top of the new strip mall? And hey, while you’re at it, Mr. I-Don’t-Give-A-Rip-Because-I-Don’t-Live-Here property owner/developer, go ahead and get a cellular company to install a big ol’ antennae tower right out front. Oh, and go ahead and contract for a few massive billboards to slap on the side of your unsightly new behemoth, too. You’ll make even more money, and isn’t that what it’s all about, anyway? After all, it’s not enough that the current Route 66-era hotel is already economically viable. According to the Valley Sun coverage, the hotel stays “mostly-to-fully occupied on a regular basis and is also a favorite with filmmakers who have given the familiar lodging a cameo role in a host of movies and TV shows.”

Can’t somebody do something? Is there no way to declare this place a historical landmark? Come on, Hollywood activists. Your industry has used this location for decades now. Can’t some high-powered, well-heeled celebrity or producer-type take up the cause of preserving at least some of what makes the Crescenta Valley unique — before we become just another generic American shopping district? CV Town Council and Design Review Committee, are you out there?

I don’t need to see any architect’s beautifully rendered (and unabashedly deceptive) marker drawings of the building that will be coming. As soon as the necessary permits are processed and the appropriate city authorities paid off, La Crescenta and the entire Foothills community at large will lose a charming, locally legendary landmark to be replaced by a quickly built, poorly designed strip mall to be occupied by still more donut-dry-cleaner-florist-copier-pizza-tutoring storefronts. I can hardly wait.

Memo to the Town Council: Why don’t we just change the name of our once-beloved community’s main street from Foothill to Van Nuys, Reseda or even Glendale Boulevard.? We might as well call it what it’s fast becoming. It sure isn’t home any more.