Angry Poodle
Thursday, February 26, 2009
RIP: Many months ago, Tony Romasanta went in for some serious dental work on his molars. He needed good, strong teeth, he joked at the time, because he planned to live forever. Accordingly, he needed the dental hardware necessary to “bite somebody,” if necessary. In hindsight, Romasanta got it wrong. Even without a single tooth in his head, Tony would still be capable of delivering serious chompage. In recent weeks, Romasanta has been putting the bite on City Hall’s Redevelopment and Planning czar, Paul Casey. Certainly Casey has the teeth marks to prove it.
Angry Poodle
Romasanta owns the Harbor View Inn at State Street and Cabrillo Boulevard, a sprawling, gleaming affair on which little effort or expense was spared. But when Romasanta looks out onto State Street — where disgraced developer Bill Levy repeatedly promised Ritz-Carlton timeshare condos would soon spring up — he sees nothing but a string of empty shops, a shut-down hotel with boarded-up windows, and a construction site at State and Mason streets where very little work is taking place. That site, a vast hole in the ground lined with concrete, might one day become a new city parking garage. But now, it’s just a cyclone fence adorned with a ratty, green plastic tarp that flaps in the wind. It’s also home to an impressive mini-mountain of discarded soil now sprouting enough flora and fauna to qualify as a distinct eco system.
It’s this mess that has Romasanta agitated. And only Paul Casey has the necessary authority to order it cleaned up. That makes the seat Casey presently occupies a hot one. A lawyer by profession, Romasanta made a fortune many moons ago on Motel 6 franchises. Then he made an even bigger fortune with Islay Investments, one of Santa Barbara’s major rental property owners. When tenants’ rights activists accused Islay of strip-mining tenants’ security deposits in violation of state law, Romasanta responded by hiring some of the state’s top lobbyists to have that law rewritten.
Endowed with a photographic memory, Romasanta veers from the excruciating profane to the philosophically profound in one short breath. When Tony has something to say, people tend to listen. They don’t have much choice. By his own reckoning, Romasanta called five councilmembers to complain about the mess on lower State Street. But according to Paul Casey, all seven elected city officials contacted him in response.
What Tony really wants remains anybody’s guess. What he says he wants is lipstick on the proverbial pig. Or, more precisely put, a nose job for a corpse. He wants the construction trailer and the earthen pyramid moved and covered up. He wants a new attractive fence installed around the construction site. He wants the plywood “windows” on the Californian Hotel and nearby shops replaced with real glass ones, the graffiti removed, and nice plants installed throughout the three blocks where the timeshare condos were supposed to be built. And he wants a new paint job for the four-story Californian.
By an amazing coincidence, Casey had in mind almost exactly the same list of cosmetic demands, and delivered it, ultimatum-style, to the property’s owner, Mountain Funding. And, in fact, he has exacted a commitment from Mountain Funding’s Ray Wicken to do everything but paint the Californian. Mountain Funding specializes in making short-term loans to developers in distress, and to that end, four years ago, loaned Santa Barbara’s tarnished Golden Boy Bill Levy $25 million to help build his Entrada de Santa Barbara, for which he had secured final approvals from City Hall and the Coastal Commission in 2001. To its everlasting chagrin, Mountain Funding discovered what many of Levy’s investors already found out the hard way; where money was concerned, Bill Levy was a black hole. He paid himself $60,000 a month to “manage” the Entrada project, which, according to critics, amounted to larding $68 million in debt on a property worth no more than $13 million without turning one shovel of dirt. When investors demanded their money back, Levy used the courts to wear them out. But with Mountain Funding, he met his match. After repeatedly defaulting — which, with interest, penalties, and fees had climbed to $42 million — Levy was forced to file for bankruptcy and surrender his permits, plans, and leases to Mountain Funding.
Romasanta has long maintained that Levy saddled the project with so much debt that even in good times it could never be built. When a financial consultant hired by City Hall in 2004 concluded otherwise, Romasanta all but accused the consultant of telling City Hall what City Hall — which will get a new parking garage, wider sidewalks, new light signals, and untold tax revenues out of the deal — wanted to hear. Was Tony right? Or was Mountain Funding simply too greedy and unreasonable when soliciting partners to help them build the project? Who knows? But the market’s plunged since then and it’s unlikely any lender will be forking over the $140 million needed to transform the Dead Zone of Lower State — one of the city’s most visited intersections — into a Guccified tourist destination. In the meantime, Mountain Funding is proposing substantial changes to the plans Levy got approved eight years ago. It’s strictly up to Paul Casey if these changes “substantially conform” to the plans originally approved. In November, Casey said no. But Mountain Funding is coming back with new plans, ones it claims will improve mountain views by reducing the size of the parking garage by one story, while increasing the parking underground and adding more shops and boutiques on top. Casey clearly understands that Mountain Funding better play nice while these changes are under review. So, too, does Romasanta. If the bottom of State Street is doomed to remain a dead zone, he figures the least Mountain Funding can do is make it a good-looking corpse. No wonder councilmembers are calling Casey. In the meantime, Romasanta needn’t waste money on dentists. With a bark like his, who needs a bite?