The Old Village Mind Reader (TOVMR), aka SurfSantaMonica columnist Frank Gruber, is at it again.

He failed the last time out, when he assigned crass political motives to City Council members who were actually engaged in righting a wrong, but, undaunted, he’s now divined that certain residents are plotting to sandbag the General Plan revision.

He calls them “Santa Monicans Fearful of Change (SMFC),” and credits the prescience of Council member Pam O’Connor with sparking his divination when, at the October 26, 2004 joint meeting of the City Council and the Planning Commission “that kicked off what was supposed to be a two-year process, [when she said,} “‘We need more time’ is a code phrase for people to use to hijack the process."

Well, okay, but, more often than not, the people who say “We need more time,” are on the City payroll.

The roster of TOVMR’s Santa Monicans Fearful of Change “includes the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City (SMCLC) and other self-appointed neighborhood groups, [who] are now complaining that development is proceeding in Santa Monica before the LUCE process has been completed.

“The SMFCs want a citywide building moratorium until the update is finished — except that if the past is a guide, they will do their best to make sure the update remains in limbo forever.”

What “past?” We don’t recall SMCLC and/or “self-appointed neighborhood groups” ever going around town consigning things to “limbo.”

And what does he mean by “self-appointed neighborhood groups?” Is there any other kind?

Of course, they want a moratorium because existing development standards are obsolete, extensive development now could render the revision obsolete before it’s complete, and it diverts planners from their work on the revision, and that slows the process.

But, TOVMR presses on. “The update is unfinished…not because of the machinations of developers, as the SMFCs would have you believe, but because the same SMFC’s who are complaining now about lack of progress on LUCE persuaded the City Council to put the brakes on LUCE more than a year and a half ago.

“At the January 24, 2006 City Council meeting the City’s planning staff asked the council to give guidance for the next steps in the process. At that time the process was essentially on schedule…The meeting was well attended. According to the minutes, 39 residents appeared to speak.

“But a small cadre of SMFCs and other no-growthers of various levels of intensity, including Jacob Samuel, Geraldine Kennedy, Darrell Clarke, Ted Winterer, Arthur Harris, Ellen Brennan, Zina Josephs, Lorraine Sanchez, and Emmalie Hodgin — SMFCs you regularly see at public meetings — persuaded a majority of four council members (Ken Genser, Robert Holbrook, Herb Katz and Kevin McKeown) that they should not continue with the LUCE process until they had pre-judged how much growth the plan should plan for.

“The LUCE process ground to a halt — hijacked by habitual complainers. It was not to be resuscitated in any meaningful way until the City hired a new Planning Director, Eileen Fogarty, who has restarted the process using a new program of engaging residents.”

We saw the meeting in question and read the 64-page staff report then, reread it this week, and topped it off with the meeting minutes.

According to the minutes, Council member Genser made and Katz seconded a motion to “direct staff to return with a methodology on how to solicit community input to ultimately allow Council to make a decision on establishing working goals to guide the analytical process, including existing community process that has gone on already and has solicited considerable information,”

In other words, according to TOVMR, Genser, Katz, McKeown and Holbrook, who seldom vote as a bloc and generally ignore the SMFCs, suddenly all succumbed to their blandishments, and bushwhacked the staff.

In fact, if anything moved the Council that night it was the lack of substance in the staff report. As one of the SMFCs said at the time, borrowing Gertrude Stein’s memorable comment, “There is no there there.”

But TOVMR is nothing if not persistent. “Now, complaining that the City is responsible for the delays, or for hiding data about traffic or population, the SMFCs are trying to create a presumption that the ‘residents’ want a moratorium. They have no evidence for this other than their own hysteria.”

In fact, the City is responsible for the delays and there are “residents” who want a moratorium, and the SMFCs haven’t said staff is “hiding” traffic and population numbers, they’ve said they don’t have accurate numbers, and they don’t, as anyone knows who’s tried to get current numbers from City planners.

In conclusion, TOVMR divines that the SMFCs “are determined to thwart the general plan update.”

Sadly, he’s got it exactly backwards. His “Santa Monicans Fearful of Change” are actually Santa Monicans For Change. They are bright, articulate residents who are devoted to this glorious beach town we all inhabit. They want very much to replace the out-dated land use and circulation elements in the General Plan that triggered most of the problems we now suffer with a revision that will preserve and refine those things that are integral to it. add those things that are missing, eliminate the problems and their causes, and, restore the balance that was lost in the frenzy of the last two decades.

Like everyone who cherishes Santa Monica, they know that it can’t be everything, but it can and should be a peerless beach town, and that is
Sufficient.

In other words, they are the good guys in this movie.

Sorry, TOVMR.