I had a front row seat at Sunday night’s debate to watch Rob Reiner yell and do a poor man’s version of Jack Nicholson’s accusations against Tom Cruise in one of my favorite movies.
Fortunately, Reiner did confirm one of the mysteries of how he put together the initiative.
On the one hand, Reiner denied there was a backroom deal; rationalizing this because no money changed hands. On the other hand Reiner, and previously Measure R’s manager, Felix Schein, admitted they had conversations with the existing Civic Center shopping center owner that resulted in a very major change in the initiative language.
Those added extraordinary exemptions were inserted into a second version at the last minute to allow a lot more chain stores. This resulted in a huge bone thrown to a hungry dog, Jamestown — the new owner. It worked. It took him out of the upcoming opposition fight against Measure R. Jamestown is silent as a lamb while madly chewing up low rent leases and dreaming of a high rent tenant for the movie theater space which, coincidentally, is just a few square feet under the backroom deal’s cap.
A backroom deal is one not done in the public, whether money changes hand or not. The fact that the entire initiative was written outside of the public arena explains why there are so many unintended consequences in Measure R.
The biggest behind-the-scenes mistake is the fact that Rob’s bone thrown to an existing shopping center to barter their silence is a fatal flaw. Neither citizens nor a City Council can legally agree to reward one class of commercial owner with economic certainty and in the same breath defend penalizing future commercial owners with severe restrictions and meet the standards of the California Constitution. That’s the basic fifth-grade civics lesson that Reiner and his advisors forgot in the rush to take out some opposition.
This Tuesday, vote “no” on Measure R.
Lloyd Ahern