A Flock of Birds Can Drop A Bunch Of *****!

From February 9-12, 2007, Mr. Robert H. (Bob) Bisno comissioned a telephone interview to be conducted to guage responses for the purposes of demonstrating support for building at least 2,300 condominium units at Ponte Vista at San Pedro.

One of the questions asked by pollsters included the following 'factual' statement.

"The project would have 2,300 new homes, with a mix of single-family housing, condominiums and town homes affordable for middle-income families and first-time homebuyers;"

Did you notice, "with a mix of single-family housing,"?

I bet that made you think that single-family detached homes would be built at Ponte Vista according to Bob's original plans.

Have you seen something like that in regards to statements made by supporters of The Marymount Plan.

Here, let me remind you:

From http://www.marymountplan.com/

"How long will the project take?

In total, it will take 36 months. The construction manager is R. Randall Fulton who managed the constructon of The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The Marymount Plan has been studied by the Ranch Palos Verdes' Planning Commission for ten years and the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) has been approved."

Now I am sure you all know by now that Dr. Michael Brophy, the President of Marymount College has stated before the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council, in public, in private, and in other ways that it will take approximately EIGHT YEARS in overall length of time to complete "The Plan" and when he was offered six years by the Council to have the project completed, he stated to them there was no way in his mind the building could be completed in that short of a period of time.

Can you see how the 'facts' are not really completely true facts at all.

Bob Bisno never once had any intention of building single-family detached housing at Ponte Vista and up to this very moment, there is really no good reason to believe ANY single-family detached housing will ever replace the approximately 245 duplexes in northwest San Pedro.

Conversely, how can anyone claim in one sentence that The Marymount Plan can be constructed in 36 months without admitting that the months necessary for the actually building must be drawn out over an eight year period?

We caught Bob Bisno in his misstatement of 'fact' in his telephone poll and he did not and could not deny that he was misleading because he admitted he was the author of the specific question and possible responses for the question.

We also caught Dr. Brophy with his claim that the project will take "36 months" when he did not deny and could not deny that it can be viewed as very misleading by reasonable people.

No, folks, The Marymount Plan cannot begin on January 1 of whatever year and be completed by December 31, three years later. Dr. Brophy knows that but he has not been willing to admit that in marketing The Plan.

"Why can’t the College maintain a split-campus with housing and recreation off-campus?

It just makes sense that housing students on campus will reduce daily car trips on our residential streets. It will make our neighborhoods safer. Marymount College aspires to be a top liberal arts college and a unified campus will enable students and faculty to maximize their time and interactions."

That question and answer is also found on the same Web site.

Look closely at it and please tell me what is missing, if you can.

First, there is absolutely, positively nothing in The Marymount Plan or its Initiative that tells anyone that there were no, are no, and probably never will be any plans to close the Palos Verdes North off-campus housing site, whether dorms are built on campus or not.

Furthermore, all statements made by representatives of Marymount College prior and during Dr. Brophy's tenure as President stating that the Pacific Heights off-campus housing site will be closed and sold off have never been met with compliance by Marymount's representatives.

Now for the really big whopper, in my thinking.

During the school year, students living in off-campus student housing at both Palos Verdes North and Pacific Heights are very strongly encouraged to use Marymount-provided shuttle service, driven by trained drivers to and from the Marymount campus and the off-campus housing sites.

Not only are the shuttles used by many of the students residing in off-campus housing, now that upper classpersons will be attending Marymount, how many of them will have vehicles and jobs that require them to have cars no matter where they are living?

The facts are that, according to traffic studies paid for by Marymount College, average daily trip generation will increase if on-campus housing is built at the college. These are not my statistics, they are statistics provided in the Marymount-paid studies.

So how can anyone factually state or respect the intelligence of voting residents of Rancho Palos Verdes when they offer statements as 'fact' that can not be proven to be truthful by the very same persons who sponsored and wrote what they purport to be a 'fact'.

Dr. Brophy has never denied to me directly that the average number of daily trips to and from Marymount, with on-campus housing would be lower than it is now.

Bob Bisno mucked up the plans for Ponte Vista so much, in the opinion of thousands of local residents that he ended up being kicked off the project by the financial backers of the project who watched his antics and the crumbling housing industry take away all the work they did since 2005 when Bob spent 252% of the opening bid for the property known as Ponte Vista at San Pedro.

I think we have seen some similar signs from Dr. Brophy and others supporting Marymount's plan to build dorm on its campus and have a specialized municipal code created especially on only for Marymount that could supersede many existing codes in the current books.

Whenever you read, see, or hear that The Marymount Plan will be completed at "no expense" to the taxpayers, you need to know that the statement is not based on total truth and it cannot be completely verified by facts that so many of us know are true.

If the statement were true, then we never would have heard from Dr. Brophy that Marymount intends now to pick up the tab for the Special Election, you know, the one taxpayers were going to have to foot the entire bill for.

You would also probably not have heard Dr. Brophy offer to help pay for the concrete center median that is slated to be constructed under the approved Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project.

You do know that there are at least traffic mitigation items that will have Marymount pay 'their fair share' but they still do not intend to pick up the remaining costs of the mitigation. The remaining portion will have to come from funds provided by..........taxpayers.

So why in the world would an entity such as Marymount College with all its learned persons in a religious environment not be willing to admit that The Marymount Plan can not truthfully be completed without expenses from funds paid by taxpayers?

Again, Dr. Brophy could not and did not deny, personally to me, that taxpayers would not be exempt from paying at least a portion of The Marymount Plan should it succeed with the ballot measure.

Now, when Bob Bisno and Dr. Brophy try and tell you that their respective plans had little to do with land use issues, that folks, is something they have to cross their fingers behind their backs to tell you.

They also have to cross their toes, eyes, forked tongue (if they have one), nose hairs, legs, and other parts because that is also something untrue.

Both Ponte Vista at San Pedro and The Marymount Plan are completely about land use issues. The issues of how an entity or person make lots and lots of dollars of profits by changing how their land is used compared to the current uses and zoning of the land, is at the hallmark of both projects.

Marymount's supporters want to build high-density 'rental' housing in a low-density single-family, detached area. Ponte Vista supporters want to build a medium-density project on land currently zoned for nothing greater than single-family, detached houses on lots of not less than five thousand square feet.

Marymount and Ponte Vista are not that far different in their supporters' quest to change the makeup of their general areas when potential profit is considered by many a primary reason both areas are being considered for what I term as 'over development'.

The one thing Marymount has the opportunity to do, right now, is begin The Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project.

The one thing the current backers of Ponte Vista have the opportunity to do, right now, is begin building up to 429-single family detached housing using the current zoning of R1 at that property.

There is one very well connected individual to the processes concerning Marymount College that has suggested that Marymount College could see their on-campus housing built and maintained at no cost to the college AND the college could receive up to or more than 20 Million Dollars in payments to do whatever it wishes to use that 'profit' for.

So when you think about Dr. Brophy, it is not that far from channeling Bob Bisno's activities and antics to try to get what he wanted.

Now I do not want to see Dr. Brophy or Marymount go bankrupt like Bob Bisno did, but I think Marymount's supporters have the opportunity to offer to new students, the new four-year academics, the community, and others that beginning The Marymount College Facilities Expansion Project contains no fibs to attempt to defend and it can demonstrate the respect for the community that Dr. Brophy claims he has, but doesn't seem willing to offer the community the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.