LENNAR BOMBS

Maybe the recently announced municipal budget deficit will spur radical action. Maybe San Franciscans are fed up with the duct-tape/crazy-glue approach to city finances.

I suggest we eliminate city government almost entirely, and outsource the whole thing to Lennar.

This could coincide with the renaming of San Francisco. Sooner or later we’ll realize that naming a city after a saint of a particular religion, especially a saint of the anti-gay, anti-choice Roman Catholic Church, is just too incorrect politically.

Name it Lennar City. Let Lennar run things directly, instead of through the charade of city government. There could be enormous economies.

Anyway these three stories came to me via Google Alerts the other day.

Past Tense – “Lennar bombed.”

The headline of this Orlando Sentinel story says it all

Crew detonates fragmentation bomb found on former bombing range site.

It’s about a Lennar development built on a Florida bombing range. Inspection for live bombs was sort of an afterthought. I’m sure that the middle school in the story, where bombs were found, prides itself in being drug-free and certainly gun-free, but they can’t be sure if the place is bomb-free.

Present Tense – “Lennar bombs.”

It’s not just any Palm Springs golf course Lennar is shutting down because of the slumping housing market, it’s a Jack Nicklaus designed golf courts. Oh, the sacrilege!

Lennar has shut down the Escena golf course in Palm Springs. They were supposed to build 1400 luxury homes starting at 400K and up. Jack Nicklaus designed the golf course. After building about 60 homes, they have stopped all building on the project, have not finished the club house, and now have closed the golf course. Those 60 people who bought golf course homes are screwed.

Quoted from implode-explode.com. "Re: Lennar shuts down Nicklaus designed golf course"



Future Tense – “Lennar will bomb”

It looks like we’re getting another Candlestick ballot measure on the June 2008 ballot. According to the SFGate story:

The new proposal - which would reach the June 2008 ballot following a signature drive - calls on the city to contribute public land and to subsidize portions of the project by tapping a city affordable-housing construction fund and by issuing bonds backed by future property tax revenue from the site.

The coalition sponsoring this ballot measure is led by Lennar Corporation.

I think the above quote means that taxpayers guarantee Lennar a profit.

The proposed ballot initiative, submitted by a group calling itself the African American Community Revitalization Coalition, would repeal measures passed by city voters in 1997 that approved $100 million in public financing and land-use rule changes to allow a new 49ers stadium and shopping mall at Candlestick.

Tentative name of the initiative: "Bayview Jobs, Parks and Housing Initiative."

Probably another dud.

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