Calling Santa Monica residents NIMBYs on his resume was foolish and insensitive, a planning consultant, who until recently worked with the city, said this weekend.
"My comment was neither thoughtful nor respectful," Jeffrey Tumlin wrote in an email to Patch. The consultant also said the term was not accurate. The acronym took hold in the 1980s to describe activists who don't want new development built near their homes.
Tumlin was pulled off of Santa Monica projects after a local political organization, Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City, found his resume and distributed it Feb. 27 to other neighborhood groups. The consultant's resume said "Santa Monica politics had been dominated by NIMBYS who used traffic fear as their primary tool for stopping development."
SMCLC's founders said the NIMBY reference proved Tumlin was "incapable of providing an objective analysis of our traffic and parking problems."
A principal at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, Tumlin said he was traveling overseas when city officials confirmed March 13 he had been pulled off Santa Monica projects. The NIMBY reference made him a "lightning rod" and rendered him ineffective, the City Manager's office said.
Tumlin said this weekend:
My greatest pleasure working in Santa Monica was listening to the thoughtful and respectful debate its citizens have had about the future of the city. My comment was neither thoughtful nor respectful, and I have failed to live up to the standards set by the city. For that, I deeply apologize.
The city started working with the Nelson\Nygaard in October of 2007, and Tumlin was in the midst of updating the city's zoning ordinances. City Manager Rod Gould has said the city would continue working with the firm.
Tumlin and Nelson\Nygaard have proposed some "radical" changes to the city's zoning codes that include loosening parking requirements for new markets, restaurants and apartments built along the city's major boulevards, such as Wilshire and Montana Avenue.
"This fight was always about more than residents having their feelings hurt by an arrogant consultant," SMCLC leadership wrote in an email to its members. "The fact is, the development, traffic and parking policies Mr. Tumlin advocated would cripple the ability of Santa Monicans to move around our city."
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Are these the same people who complain about traffic and refused to have a subway to the sea 20 years ago? Sounds like NIMBY’s to me...
NIMBY is NOT a term used to mean people who did not want projects built near them. It is a slur meant to point out hypocrisy. NIMBYs pretend to be concerned about legitimate things, often traffic, to hide their real objections, like they don't want minorities in their neighborhood so they say they don't want low-income housing because it will bring more traffic. THAT is why using the term NIMBY about anyone anytime who objected to development bringing more traffic in SM is such a problem. People were ACTUALLY concerned about traffic. People still are. If a firm member calls the ones in the past NIMBYS, the firm thinks traffic is a ruse, not a real concern, so it will not deal with it properly now. At least the entire firm must go, as a start to putting our back yard in order.
The one that would allow 10 rather than 40 parking places at Whole Foods on Montana and would somehow make private parties share their parking with shoppers to make up for it? Or the one that says 24-packs of TP and 10 cans of formula can be carried on bicycles while holding two children? How exactly would that work? If it would work, why not do it now and show us? Would the parking be free as it is now and is always close to filled? Would new developments pay for parking at the other spots, or would the public pay? How would the increased delay and inefficiency of having to find parking, only in SM, not in neighboring WLA, keep people shopping in SM? It wouldn't hurt for all of us to have far too much parking for awhile so we could see we don't need more when new developments go in. To not solve the problems first is to not do the job of a planner. Then to call people who say the problems are not solved names is compounding the failure to do the job and making it less likely consensus will be reached. This is all the fault of the planners, not the public. I for one refuse to take any of the blame for highly overpaid so-called experts making a mess and then wanting us to be intimidated by their alleged greater knowledge into letting them do it to us again.
Even now he is confusing the issue. It is not that he called anyone NIMBYs being insensitive or rude. It is that the fact he called people who were concerned about traffic names means he would not listen fairly when people were concerned about traffic now or in the future. His firm is pushing the same plan he was before he was fired, and he had that attitude and justified it, so we will get it from his firm. That is why his firm must go.