BLACK HOLES R US: Somebody get Rick Caruso a doctor; he’s come down with Bill Levy’s disease. Caruso is the slick and smart L.A. developer who nearly charmed all of Montecito into looking the other way with his over-the-top plans to rebuild the now decrepit remains of the once dowdy Miramar Hotel. Levy is the local developer who 10 years ago successfully charmed nearly all of Santa Barbara into endorsing his plans to build a luxury village of timeshare condos down by the intersection of State Street and Cabrillo Boulevard, now a yawning pseudo-construction site where contractors park cranes and, on occasion, pretend to look busy.

Caruso and Levy share certain striking similarities. Caruso is now the not-so-proud possessor of a big black hole where a functional hotel once operated. Until his recent bankruptcy, Levy owned the sprawling black hole that’s consumed three whole blocks of downtown Santa Barbara — presumably among the most valuable real estate on the planet — and his former hotel, the Californian, remains an earthquake disaster waiting to happen. What got these two dudes so behind the eight-ball was the same stupid strategic miscalculation. Both decided early-on that they would not subject their projects — both sizable signature developments — to the rough indignity of an Environmental Impact Review (EIR). Both figured they would “pre-mitigate” any negative impacts where they could, and make up the difference with 500-megawatt schmooze power. Bad move.

Look where it got Levy. Shortly after the Santa Barbara City Council gave Levy the green light back in August 1999, the Citizens Planning Association filed the lawsuit that would derail Big Bad Bill for good. They argued that a project as big as Bill’s needed an EIR, if only for its effects on the views. When it went to court, a judge ruled that Levy had to do a mini-EIR, and it took Levy until July 2002 to get the go-ahead from the judge. While there were many demons dogging Levy’s tracks — angry investors, pissed-off partners, and a project so burdened with debt that it could barely stand — it was the three-year delay that ultimately proved fatal. Between 1999 and 2002, the world changed. Al Qaeda operatives slammed two hijacked jets into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. Investors freaked, and few institutional lenders were inclined to issue loans big enough to get Levy’s project built. At the same time, China and India launched their one-new-coal-plant-per-week construction frenzy, sucking up all the concrete and rebar the world could provide and sending the price of construction materials, worldwide, through the roof. Had Levy not been so pathologically gun-shy at the prospect of an EIR, he’d now be putting on the Ritz in the penthouse suite of his timeshare village. It’s true, the report would have found a few extra flies in Levy’s ointment; he’d have to spend a little more on mitigations. But he’d have gotten his thing built. Now he’s declared bankruptcy, and the permits for which Levy fought with uncommon ingenuity to secure are about to expire. The only thing keeping his project technically “alive” are the transparently token gestures at “work” being undertaken at his bankers’ expense.

Likewise, the 9/11 attack deep-sixed efforts by Caruso’s predecessor at the Miramar — one-time disco impresario Ian Schrager of Studio 54 fame — to secure funding. Like Levy, Schrager had secured permits for a project that straddled the razorblade of financial viability. With the terrorist attacks, he was blown out of the water and quickly stopped returning any phone calls originating with the area code of 805. Then Beanie Baby billionaire Ty Warner took over the Miramar, but I always figured that was a goodwill dodge designed to get his proposed renovations of the Biltmore and Coral Casino approved. When Warner split — blaming the intransigence of Montecito naysayers — Caruso showed up and blinded the community with his blazing smile. But even in that glare, anyone could see that he was proposing some big changes to the project Schrager had initially gotten approved. As any fool could have predicted, the natives got restless — as Montecitans are wont to do — and demanded an EIR. Caruso has now wasted far more energy and time trying to avoid environmental review than he would have lost had he simply done one from the start. Nor have county executives done Caruso — or themselves — any favors by pressuring subordinates to go easy on Slick Rick. That sort of preferential kid-glove treatment, after all, is reserved for fifth-generation locals, not some out-of-towner wearing French cuffs and silk ties. Again, had Caruso simply prepared an EIR from the start, he’d probably be a few months from breaking ground. Sure, there would be a few warts and wrinkles to deal with, but the county supervisors could simply pretend they don’t exist by making “the finding of overriding considerations.”

Black holes come in threes, and the last one we can’t blame on 9/11, EIRs, or bad real estate markets. The News-Press imploded two years ago, and there’s still no evidence that any light has escaped the clutches of that sad and unhappy place. The latest addition to the menagerie, a guy who calls himself “The Investigator,” should probably file a missing persons report on his heart. People can differ on immigration and to what extent reefer may or may not be needed, but to refer to the poor souls barely holding on by their cuticles as “bottom feeders” seemed beyond the pale, even by News-Press standards. Sure, there are criminals at the Labor Line, selling drugs and women. But where aren’t there? But I should also ask, “What News-Press standards?” Travis Armstrong should probably be declared an in-kind campaign contribution to the mayoral aspiration of Councilmember Iya Falcone. In the long run, Travis’s good graces will hurt Falcone far more than they’ll help, but in the meantime, the News-Press scribe can be counted on to carpet bomb Helene Schneider, Falcone’s chief rival in the impending mayoral showdown, at every opportunity. Most recently, Armstrong blasted Schneider as an out-of-control junketeer taking extravagant trips to far-away places at taxpayer expense to pursue her narrow ideological agenda. Travel expenses are always fair game, but Travis was not playing remotely fair. If he was, he’d have noted that Schneider is a two-bit piker when it comes to squeezing the perks of the public purse. The big spender on the council is Travis’s favorite, Falcone, who easily outspent Schneider by a margin of 3-1. That Travis never saw fit to mention this, however, should come as a surprise to no one. For the record, it should be noted that the spending habits of either should be regarded as a big, fat non-issue. In the meantime, bow-wow, woof-woof.

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